Streetsblog Los Angeles

Last week, a mini-furor was passed around by opponents of the 710 Big Dig project. The Pasadena Independent reported that the City of Rosemead is using a portion of the over $500,000 it receives annually in Measure R Local Return funds to pay its membership dues in the 710 Coalition. From the Independent:

Paid for with Measure R dollars?

According to the staff report, the Coalition is requesting membership dues in the amount of $6,000 a year to be paid through Measure R monies…

…The 710 Coalition’s proposal, submitted for the Rosemead City Council’s consideration, states that funding for participation in the 710 Coalition would be paid through Measure R monies – revenue generated by the sales tax initiative approved by Los Angeles County voters in 2008.

Measure R established a one-half cent sales tax to be used for public transportation purposes, ending in 2039.
Among the benefits from joining the Coalition, the City of Rosemead will be able to work closely with other members to determine and develop public messaging in support of the I-710 Extension project, according to the staff report.

The idea that Measure R funds are being used to advocate for one of the most controversial and expensive projects in the state doesn’t sit well with many. However, according to Metro spokesperson Dave Sotero, this use of funds is well within Metro funding guidelines.

“The Measure R Local Return Fund Guidelines allow for the planning, coordination, engineering and design costs incurred toward implementing projects for traffic congestion relief,” Sotero writes. “The City of Rosemead made the request to use their Measure R Local Return apportionment for the 710 Coalition and it was approved.”

Sotero also stated that no community other than Rosemead has requested to use their Measure R Local Return dollars for membership dues to the 710 Coalition. Read more…

Environmental groups developed their own alternatives to the massive proposed widening of the I-710 between Long Beach and East Los Angeles. "Community Alternative 7" is clearly the preferred alternative of community advocates, but if Metro/Caltrans feel they just have to build something really big, there's an alternative for that. Read all about them at in this report prepared by the Coalition for Environmental Health and Justice

Long Beach City Council I-710 Oversight Committee,  Gateway Council of Governments and The Project Committee all reject current environmental documents for 710 widening between Long Beach and East Los Angeles.

Following thousands of comments from leaders within community health and environmental coalitions, the State-led project to expand the 710 Freeway from eight lanes to 14 lanes for 17 miles from Long Beach to the 60 Freeway in East Los Angeles was delayed. The Project Committee, am advisory committee to Metro, Caltrans and the Southern California Association of Governments, halted the project with an astounding “no” on the proposed routes.  Meanwhile, the Long Beach City Council I-710 Oversight Committee recommended that Caltrans and Metro recirculate the draft EIR, allowing for more public comment.

The proposal presented last week had problems beyond just concerns over induced traffic demand and air quality. It required moving power lines to line the banks of the Los Angeles River, interfering with service provider facilities including Shelter Partnerships, Bell Shelters, the Long Beach Multi-Service Center, and Seasons at Compton senior housing. The Gateway Cities Council of Governments (GCOG) understood this, and called for the EIR to go back out for public comment, another 90 days for the public to read, criticize and weigh-in, at a January 29th meeting.

At that meeting, two of the most exceptionally flawed alternatives–known as 5A and 6A–were recommended to be removed from the table by GCOG consultant Jerry Wood, stating that “south of the 405, we don’t need 10 general purpose lanes.”

While community and environmental advocates are desperately fighting against the proposed widening plan, they aren’t just naysayers. Aided by a group of environmental groups, they’ve developed their own alternative.

How did your favorite alternative score? Click on the image to see a legible version.

You have to hand it to the public outreach folks for the I-710 Big Dig Project. Nothing says “community involvement” quite like dropping an Alternatives Analysis that was completed in December of last year to the public at Friday, at 3:50 p.m. before a holiday weekend.

Still an abject refusal on Caltrans part to accept that connecting two highways might somehow result in increased air pollution.

The analysis narrows down the alternatives that will be studied in the Environmental Impact Report to five potential projects. Yes, one of them includes digging a really big tunnel. However, the document recommends ”refining” each of the alternatives to better fulfill the projects overall goals. For example, the tunnel option also should include a look at Bus Rapid Transit. The Bus Rapid Transit option should include other Transportation Demand Management evaluation and so forth.

We wanted to create a place for interested parties to discuss the Alternatives Analysis over the weekend, especially since Monday is a holiday. After the jump is the five project descriptions that live to be studied another day, a description and the recommended refinements. All information is directly from the executive summary.

Read more…

In the odd drama over whether or not Glendale City Councilman Ara Najarian will be reappointed to the Metro Board of Directors, there are a lot of conspiracy theories.

Congressman Adam Schiff. Photo: Tim Berger/La Canada Online

Some, including the Councilman, believe that Supervisor Mike Antonovich is using Alhambra Mayor Barbara Messina and Duarte City Council Member John Fasana to wage a proxy war against Najarian. Antonovich, a political heavyweight who used his current position as Chair of the Metro Board of Directors to replace Najarian with Mark Ridley-Thomas on the Metrolink Board of Directors, is believed to be stung by Najarian’s vote to place Measure J on the fall ballot and incensed over his effective opposition to the I-710 Big Dig project.

If this theory is true, then Najarian’s chances for renomination have brightened as an even bigger fish is now backing his bid to return to the Metro Board. Congressman Adam Schiff , in a widely copied letter, wrote to the League of California Cities to forcefully back Najarian and reject any notion that his position against The Dig should disqualify him from serving on the Board. His letter is  available exclusively online here at Streetsblog.

After defending both his record as a Board Member and his position on the Big Dig, Schiff argues that a vote against Najarian is a vote for parochial interests over that of the whole county.

The Metro Board is well served by members with a diverse set of views, so that the County has the benefit of a cross-fertilization of ideas and from the scrutiny from a Board that is not a rubber stamp from any particular point of view. Although Ara has served our region extremely well, he has not served in a parochial way; nor should individual voting members of the League of California Cities act parochially in attempting to reject his nomination. Read more…

(The original version of the story stated that the League of Cities selects the Metro Board Members. Dana Gabbard points out it is actually The City Selection Committee. The CSC is not a subsidiary of the League of California Cities, Los Angeles Division. Its authority is Sections 50270 through 50281 of the Government Code, and it is administered by Los Angeles County.)

Metro Board Member Ara Najarian’s seat at the table of the Metro Board of Directors is in danger because of his staunch opposition to the I-710 Big Dig project that would tunnel under San Gabriel Valley cities to connect the I-710 and I-210.

Najarian is no hater of freeway projects. Just ones that his constituents despise. Photo: Caltrans

Najarian, a Glendale City Council Member, serves on the Board as a representative of 12 “North County” cities including Glendale, Burbank, La Canada, San Fernando, Malibu, Calabasas, Agoura Hills, Hidden Hills, Santa Clarita, Lancaster, and Palmdale. While these cities still support Najarian’s re-nomination as a Board Member, the Board Members are officially selected by The City Selection Committee (CSC). A CSC committee rejected his nomination, last week, with members specifically citing his opposition to a project that is nationally ridiculed by environmentalists and abhorred by the communities it would negatively impact.

“As a resident of one of the North County Cities, La Canada, that unanimously supported Ara as its representative on the Metro Board, I and many others are outraged that our cities’ selection for this position is being undermined,” writes Jan SooHoo, a leading member of the No 710 Coalition.

Spearheading the effort to oust Najarian is Alhambra Mayor Barbara Messina and Duarte City Council Member, and Metro Board Member John Fasana. Alhambra is not one of the cities that Najarian represents. Neither is Duarte.  For their parts, Fasana and Messina make no bones that it is Najarian’s spirited opposition to the tunnel that brings out their opposition. From the Pasadena Star-News: Read more…

Dr. Roberta Kato, MD, is a Pediatric Pulmonologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and an Environmental Health Ambassador with Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA.

Roberta Kato Photo:Children's Hospital of Los Angeles

As a Pediatric Pulmonologist, I’m concerned that Caltrans proposed expansion of the I-710 Corridor— from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the Pomona Freeway—will negatively impact air quality in adjacent communities.  Our children will be healthier when fewer vehicles travel through the neighborhoods where they live, learn and play.

Caltrans claims that expanding the 18-mile freeway is a path towards cleaner air.  The over 10,000 page Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) analyzes six different design proposals—called alternatives—for improving the I-710Corridor, including a no-build alternative.  Five of these alternatives propose expanding the I-710 to up to ten general purpose lanes, and several include an additional four lane freight corridor.

A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) of the I-710 Corridor Project recommended a complete modeling and mitigation plan to address future air quality impacts attributable to the project.  This is essential; the community deserves protection in case Caltrans’ modeling—which suggests air quality will improve—turns out to be inaccurate.  Unfortunately, Caltrans excluded the HIA in the DEIR. Read more…

A packed house at a June public meeting on I-710 alternatives in Pasadena. Photo:Dan McGuire/Metro

Last week, Metro finished its most recent public meetings outlining twelve proposals to fill the so-called 4.5 mile “gap” on the I-710 between Alhambra and Pasadena at the I-210. The public response to the twelve alternatives presented was near-uniformly negative. Anger was particularly high at new proposals to connect the I-710 to the I-210 including, a tunnel connecting the 10 Freeway to the 134 Freeway, a surface route that would widen Avenue 64 and a highway route along Huntington Drive, Fair Oaks Avenue and Pasadena Avenue.

The newer proposals were viewed by many communities, including Alhambra, East Los Angeles, La Canada Flintridge and Pasadena as so ludicrous that it pushed the proposal to build a tunnel underneath several San Gabriel Valley Communities off the front pages.

Maybe that was the point. No media coverage of the Big Dig option. No media coverage of the flood of trucks that would dominate San Gabriel Valley Streets. Little mention of that any expansion of the I-710 or surrounding freeways is a giant subsidy to the port and shipping industries.

On August 29, a Metro Technical Advisory Committee will meet to pair down the list of twelve alternatives to just a “handful.” The smaller list could be presented to the full Metro Board of Directors next month or the month after. Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-Pasadena) firmly believes that the fix is already in for a certain route, despite protests from Metro that it’s totally not. He tells the Daily News, “I think the folks in downtown L.A. are going to try to put on a show to justify a predetermined conclusion…Fundamentally, this is a flawed process.”

If the agency wishes people to believe that the short list of projects that will be studied in a full environmental impact report hasn’t been pre-determined, it would do well to not present the alternatives next month. Read more…

The I-710 is a marvel of 20th century transportation planning.  The freeway, which is sometimes as large as ten lanes, connects both the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to Route 60, passing the I-405, SR-91, I-105, I-605, I-10, and SR-60 before heading North.  Traffic is so congested north of SR-60, that some local officials, Caltrans staffers and truck companies actually want to dig a tunnel underneath several small cities to extend SR-710 to another highway.

Click on the image to see a larger map.

But today, we’re not going to talk about the San Gabriel Valley’s Big Dig, we’re going to talk about the “other” 710 Project.  Earlier this week, Caltrans released its Draft Environmental Impact Report for the I-710 Corridor Project.  The project recommends adding another four lanes of traffic to the existing ten lanes creating one of the largest freeways in North America.  The justification for this $5 billion project that would add seventy two miles of highway lanes is that it will improve air quality by creating more lanes for cars to drive in, safety by increasing lane width and travel speeds, and reduce congestion by encouraging more cars to use the already congested corridor.

The final result of the proposed project: ten mixed use travel lanes and four truck only lanes connecting Long Beach to SR-60, over eighteen miles away.  $590 million of the project budget comes from Measure R.

The real reason for the project is a glut of trucks that enter and leave the duel ports everyday.  The trucks make life for the other users of the 710 miserable while spewing pollution into the air.  While the “clean trucks” program of the ports is helping slow the continued degradation of the air, it’s not as though the trucks are now releasing rainbows and water vapor into the air.

While the trucks are a nuisance to travelers and a public health disaster to those living near the freeway; they are perceived as lifeblood to America’s consumer economy.  Thus, a ten lane highway that is congested with trucks is perceived as bad for the economy.  A fourteen lane road congested with trucks would be similarly bad, but there would be more trucks, so it would be less bad.

The project will cut through Long Beach, Compton, Paramount, Lynwood, South Gate, Cudany, Bell, Bell Gardens, Vernon, Commerce and East Los Angeles, hardly the most affluent and powerful communities in Los Angeles County.   The power of these communities pales in comparison to the trucking industry, powerful American and international companies that profit from cheap transportation, the ports themselves and a consumer culture that demands cheap projects that are delivered quickly. Read more…

I’m sad to report that a generic timeline has replaced the board game of transportation history I admired during the first series of 710 conversations outreach meetings. With the stakes raised by CalTran’s release of a notice of scoping/initiation of studies for the SR-710 Gap Closure Project (which we’ll be calling the SR-710 California’s Big Dig from now on,) perhaps it is appropriate that the game is over.

I attended a March 3^rd meeting in Alhambra to hear about the environmental impact review process. The mood there seemed more serious as well. After the briefing, which provided basic information about scoping for the CEQA/NEPA process for ‘the project,’ a series of attendees asked a variation on the same question: What is the project?

CalTrans and Metro presumably want to and (plan to) drill tunnels between the northern end of the 710 freeway and the 210 freeway. But they haven’t told participants in their 710 conversation process that they want to and (plan to) do this, and would we please provide input on what environmental impacts to study and what alternatives to consider?

Click on the image to read the full scoping announcement.

What they have now officially announced, halfway through the Conversation meeting series, is that:

“The proposed project, depending on the results of a thorough environmental analysis of all possible transportation improvements, may include, but not be limited to: surface and subsurface highway/freeway construction, heavy rail and bus/ light rail systems, local street upgrades, traffic management systems and a no build alternative. There currently is a gap in the I-710 corridor, for a distance of approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km) which extends between Valley Boulevard to the south and Del Mar to the north. As originally identified in the April 13, 1998 Record of Decision for the Meridian Variation alignment, this gap contributes to congestion on local streets and regional freeway system. The objective of this project is to relieve congestion and improve mobility within the project area.”

It still doesn’t define the project. The recent notice of intent for environmental review of another Measure R project, the Gold Line Foothill Extension, wasn’t coy in stating that “[t]he proposed project is an extension of the existing Metro Gold Line light rail transit line, from Azusa to Montclair.” Read more…