"Every passenger that may use our system for a ride to the museum on the weekend, that's a passenger we intend to make a Metro customer for life," Timothy Lindholm, Metro's chief program management officer, told the Los Angeles Times on the day the Wilshire/La Cienega station opened. Five months later, his weekend museum rider looks like the clearest picture of who uses Beverly Hills' first subway stop.
The station opened on May 8, 2026. It is one of three new stops in the D Line's first extension segment, along with Wilshire/La Brea and Wilshire/Fairfax. Thirteen days from now, all three close for ten days. That makes this a good moment to look at what the stop actually connects Beverly Hills to.
The Weekend Number Ran Ahead of the Weekday One
Metro reported in May 2026 that D Line ridership was up 62% over the same month a year earlier. The three new stations added an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 rides a day. Weekend ridership grew faster, coming in nearly 80% above May 2025. In June, D Line ridership ran more than 45% above June 2024, and Saturday ridership ran 70% higher. Metro publishes these numbers for the whole line, not for individual stations. Still, the pattern held in both months: Saturdays and weekends grew faster than the line as a whole.
Closer to home, the foot-traffic story has been quieter. On May 29, 2026, three weeks after opening, the Beverly Hills Courier ran the headline "Businesses Near Metro Report Little Change in Foot Traffic." The station has been carrying people out of Beverly Hills more visibly than it has been bringing shoppers in. Most of those trips go one stop east.
One Stop East, a Full Season of Exhibitions
From the Wilshire/Fairfax stop, Metro lists the Academy Museum, LACMA, La Brea Tar Pits, Craft Contemporary and the Petersen Automotive Museum as steps from the platform. LACMA's David Geffen Galleries opened April 19, 2026, less than three weeks before the train arrived. For most of Beverly Hills, this is the first time the new building and the stop to reach it have arrived in the same season.
Here is what is on the calendar as of this week:
| Museum | Exhibition | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| LACMA | Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity | Through Oct. 12 |
| LACMA | The Brockman Gallery: Los Angeles, 1967–1990 | Member previews Oct. 15–17 |
| Academy Museum | The Horror Show and Zombies! | Sept. 26, 2026 – July 25, 2027 |
| Academy Museum | We Are There: The Power of Documentary | Oct. 8, 2026 – Jan. 17, 2027 |
| Petersen | Made in America | Through Dec. 27, 2026 |
| Petersen | A Fast & Furious Legacy | Through Apr. 4, 2027 |
| Petersen | World-Class: 100 Years of Mercedes-Benz | Through Apr. 25, 2027 |
| Petersen | World's Fastest | Through Aug. 22, 2027 |
LACMA is also showing Home of the Future, 1925–1985: Designing Domestic Utopias, Textile Alchemy: The Art of Reiko Sudo & NUNO and The Kitchen and Its Discontents. For a household that cares about architecture and interiors, Home of the Future is the one to plan the trip around. The Academy Museum's The Horror Show fills six chambers and comes with a screening program that includes a 50th-anniversary showing of Carrie with Sissy Spacek. Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon, Studio Ghibli's PONYO and Glow: A Cinematic Moodscape are also on view there.
The math is simple. A one-way fare is $1.75, and tap-to-ride fares stop charging at $5 a day, with free transfers within two hours. The Metro Art Culture Pass takes $2 off admission at LACMA, the Academy Museum and the Petersen. The Petersen version also gives 10% off at the Meyers Manx Café. The perks run through April 30, 2027, while supplies last. The museum run hardly needs the discount. The point is that nobody has to circle a museum parking structure on a Saturday afternoon.
Ten Days Without a Train
This is where the timing gets tight. According to Metro's closure notice, Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega close at 2 a.m. Friday, Oct. 23, and reopen at 4 a.m. Monday, Nov. 2. The stations opened in May running on temporary electrical equipment at Wilshire/La Brea. Crews now need to cut power to that entire station to install the permanent system. Metro is also using the shutdown to connect systems for the next segment, the extension to Beverly Hills and Century City.
The closure does not cancel the museum run. It changes the route:
- Trains run only between Union Station and Wilshire/Western.
- Shuttle buses, signed as Line 855, run every 10 minutes between Wilshire/Western and all three closed stations, including Wilshire/La Cienega.
- Metro Bus Lines 20 and 720 keep their normal service along Wilshire Boulevard.
- The Culture Pass stays valid, and Metro says the Miracle Mile museums can be reached by either the shuttles or Lines 20 and 720.
Events at the Wilshire/Fairfax station continue through the closure. That includes the Tuesday farmers market, Bake to the Future on Oct. 25, and LATINAfest at Metro: Día de los Muertos on Halloween. Activities at Wilshire/La Brea pause until it reopens.
The weeks on either side of the closure have their own catch. B and D Line trains run every 20 minutes on select weekends starting this one, Oct. 10–11, while crews install communications systems and maintain track. Holiday weekends are excluded. In normal service, Metro's guide puts weekend trains at every 10 minutes for much of the day and every 20 minutes early and late. Service runs from about 4:10 a.m. to about 12:30 a.m. Metro's alerts page is the place to check before heading down the escalator.
The Platform Is Part of the Outing
The station is worth a slower look than most riders give it. Three artists were commissioned for it, according to Metro Art. Todd Gray's Mining the Archive: S. Charles Lee, Architect covers the glass entrance plaza and the escalator landing walls. It pairs archival drawings by S. Charles Lee and historic photographs of the Saban Theatre, originally the Fox Wilshire Theatre, with patterns from textiles around the world. The theater in those photographs still stands nearby at 8440 Wilshire. Downstairs, Soo Kim's Night / Quartz on the platform collages her photographs of the Wilshire corridor with images she has taken around the world. On the concourse, Mariana Castillo Deball's Four Pleated Landscapes: Fossil Ground, Woven Cienega, Medicinal Flora, and Urban Desert Fauna runs as two collages along the north and south walls. The fossil and cienega references point to the same ground the train is about to cross on its way to the Tar Pits.
Dinner Is Already Upstairs
Getting home is easy. The city's station FAQ puts the entrance at the northeast corner of Wilshire and La Cienega, with access to restaurants, historic theaters, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Beverly Center. The Beverly Hills visitors bureau defines Restaurant Row as the stretch of La Cienega between Clifton Way and Wilshire. Its guide lists Kazan, Matsuhisa, Lawry's, Mama Lu's, Fogo de Chão, Genwa, Spice Affair and Gyu-Kaku. The original Lawry's The Prime Rib sits at 100 N. La Cienega and currently serves dinner and Sunday brunch. A Sunday at the Academy Museum followed by brunch, or a Petersen afternoon followed by prime rib, works with only the train and a short walk.
Driving to the station is another matter. Metro proposed no new parking structures at either Beverly Hills station and expects riders to use existing public parking within a half-mile walk. The city lists bike lockers at the station plazas and says passenger-loading zones near the entrances are still being explored. On Aug. 4, the City Council rejected a two-year Via microtransit pilot that would have offered shared rides to D Line stops. Council members questioned its long-term cost and whether it should come before the Beverly Drive and Century City stations open. The council instead directed $2.2 million in Proposition A transit funds toward a Public Safety Center at Wilshire/La Cienega. For now, the station serves the area around it.
Spring 2027 Puts the Train Downtown
That walk shrinks soon. Beverly Press reported on Oct. 8, 2026 that the Beverly Drive and Century City stations are expected to open next spring. The Westwood/UCLA and Westwood/VA Hospital stations are scheduled for fall 2027. Until then, crews work behind K-rail on both sides of Wilshire. Two lanes stay open in each direction between Beverly and Crescent drives, the north sidewalk may close, and Beverly Drive may narrow to one lane each way.
When that station opens, the train reaches the Beverly Hills business triangle itself. That includes newer openings like Malka, Israeli chef Eyal Shani's kosher Mediterranean restaurant at SIXTY Beverly Hills, 9360 Wilshire. Beverly Press reported it open in late August, serving Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m. The Courier's headline about little change in foot traffic described a station at the city's eastern edge. The spring opening will show whether a stop in the middle of town tells a different story.
The new subway has changed which parts of Wilshire count as nearby. If you'd like to talk through what the Beverly Drive opening could mean for a home in the business triangle or the flats, Aaron Kirman is glad to share what he's seeing. Let's Connect.
