Metro Clearing Mature Trees to Widen 91 Freeway through North Long Beach

This month, Metro contractors are cutting down more than one hundred mature trees along the 91 Freeway in order to clear space to add one more westbound lane through North Long Beach. This Long Beach neighborhood is roughly two-thirds Latino and thirty percent Black; it is already plagued by unhealthy air, as part of the 710 Freeway corridor termed a “diesel death zone.”

The ~$300 million project currently under construction is one of three different 91 Freeway widening projects that Metro and Caltrans are working on. This highway expansion adds one more eastbound lane for about 1.2 miles from the 710 Freeway to Cherry Avenue, meaning widened freeway bridges at Atlantic Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, Orange Avenue, and Walnut Avenue.

Streetsblog has covered this project in the past:

• Caltrans and Metro approved the environmental review (a 2021 FONSI or “finding of no significant impact”) claiming a less-than-one-mile “auxiliary lane” loophole, though the project is neither under a mile, nor an auxiliary lane.
• When Metro began construction in 2024, neighbors protested at outreach meetings, leading to Long Beach City Councilmember Dr. Joni Ricks-Oddie and County Supervisor Janice Hahn urging Metro to pull the plug on the project.
• Last month, the Metro board approved $79 million for this project. This is on top of the $174 million project budget approved back in November 2023. Earlier that year, Metro approved another $65 million for construction management services for this and another Metro/Caltrans 91 Freeway widening project.

The widening does not demolish any homes. Instead, it expands the highway footprint within existing landscaped Caltrans right-of-way. This entails taking out the landscape: 174 trees. Metro and Caltrans were not even planning to “replace” all of these trees, until a 2022 Hahn motion insisted that Metro follow the city of Long Beach’s two-for-one tree replacement policy.

This week, the trees are being cleared away from the site. Below are before and after pictures taken in 2024 and yesterday.

Lest you think removing scores of mature trees is perhaps a bad thing, Metro and Caltrans have several explanatory banners posted. These urge passersby to “Imagine Your Drive.” (So much for the Metro Highway Program’s focus purportedly shifting from solely driving to multimodal projects. Just Imagine Your Drive.)