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About the Story

What happens when a project would benefit many, but greatly inconvenience a few? Example: finishing the 710 freeway through Pasadena. Now, planners are proposing a dramatic solution. Will it appease local residents? Hena Cuevas reports on the latest chapter in the saga of the 710 freeway. (TRT: 8:12)

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California’s Department of Transportation

Curbed Los Angeles’ “The 110, 710 and 210: Freeways of Our Lives” Blog

Kurumi.com’s I-710 California’s Website

L.A. Cowboy’s “L.A. Times Editorial Page Gets Transportation Infrastructure Bond Right!” Blog

Los Angeles Transportation Headlines’ “Transportation Headlines for Saturday, June 24, 2006” Blog

Metro

Reason Foundation’s Commentary

SouthPasadenaOnline.com’s “MTA’s 710 Tunnel Technical Feasibility” Blog

Road to Ruin’s State Route 710 Freeway Extension Website

Sierra Club’s 710 Freeway Updates Website

Insider Viewpoints

Building new freeways and widening more freeways are a 1950s solution to a 21st-century problem. Freeways are a failing system. They degrade our environment and quality of life.

And when and where does the widening stop? Caltrans admits that it can’t build their way out of congestion, but with this mega-project, it is building congestion itself.

One of the solutions is to direct $5 to $10 billion from the 710 tunnel to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s vision of “Subway to the Sea” and many other transit corridors to build a seamless network of train and bus connections. Create a great marketing campaign, like the MTA Flyaway ad to increase passenger patronage.

Extend the Green Line to LAX. Connect the Gold Lines with the Blue Line and the Exposition Line.

Utilize the Alameda Corridor to a greater capacity to remove freight from clogging freeways. Build Alameda Corridor East.

Utilize environmentally clean technology, such as the Freight Shuttle Train. Feasibility isn’t just about whether or not a tunnel could be built; rather, is it the best use of transportation dollars?

South Pasadena Freeway Fighter

…We knew that it would only be a matter of time before the natives started getting restless once they heard about the proposed tunnels being built to connect the 210 and 710…Citizens of La Canada Flintridge…have hired a Sacramento lobbyist to watch the money as it flows in and out.

The 4 ½-mile tunnels would cost $3 billion to build — not counting the cost of a new interchange needed at Huntington drive, which would cost another billion. Parsons Brinkerhoff…conducted the study, which determined that the twin tunnels were quite feasible to build.

Everyone loves a tunnel!…The highly trafficked…freeway is due for some much-needed improvements to clean up all that pollution it generates…

One possible crazy idea that was mentioned was the installation of a maglev system to transport cargo from the ports to inland warehouses. That’s good. Let’s get the crazy and really expensive ideas out of the way early in the process…

Josh Williams
Editor
Curbed Los Angeles

Building the proposed SR 710 would cost $1.4 billion or more. The cities of El Sereno, South Pasadena and Pasadena would lose property tax revenue because Caltrans would destroy 1,000 homes and businesses, reducing annual revenue for the area’s school districts by (a projected) $1.6 million.

California currently owns only half of the properties that it would need to build the highway and would have to spend $225 million to purchase additional properties. If the project is cancelled, the state could sell the 500 properties that it has acquired and reap $200 million or more, and apply these funds to the region’s more pressing transportation needs.

A non-highway alternative supported by national, state and local groups would cost at least $1.2 billion less than SR 710 (at a cost of $135 million) and could be implemented within five years. This alternative integrates signal coordination, parking management, intersection upgrades, roadway efficiency improvements, improvements to existing highways and better public-transit coordination.

Erich Zimmermann
Road to Ruin

Tunneling under residential neighborhoods along the preferred 710 Freeway Extension corridor would lessen the adverse environmental impacts on portions of these neighborhoods, but significant impacts would still occur. The primary impact would result from the necessity to construct portals and exhaust towers, which would contain massive blowers to move vehicular exhaust fumes from the tunnel and disperse these fumes in the neighborhoods surrounding the portals and exhaust towers.

Although particulate matter might be removed from these exhaust fumes by costly electrostatic precipitators, other pollutants cannot be removed, and nearby residential neighborhoods and public areas will be subjected to concentrated air pollutants. The air pollution will be especially bad during rush hour, when idling traffic backs up from the 134-210 interchange at the tunnel's northern end. The Sierra Club believes that improved mass transit will better meet the needs of residents and businesses in this area and will also contribute to a reduction in air pollutants and greenhouse gases.

David Czamanske
The Sierra Club