highway expansion
Streetsblog LA
Metro Board to Vote on $6 Billion Lower 710 Freeway Widening
This week Metro board committees are considering approving a distinctly backward-looking $6 billion project to widen the 710 Freeway through southeast L.A. County. It is difficult to believe that, in the 21st Century, Caltrans and Metro are still seeking to spend billions widening a highway in order "to improve air quality, mobility, and quality of life" per the Metro project website. East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice Executive Director mark! Lopez criticizes the 710 Freeway project because it "does little to advance zero emissions, does little to ensure local labor is hired to build this enormous project, and will displace hundreds of longstanding families from their homes."
February 13, 2018
Caltrans Still Claims 5 Freeway Widening Reduces Congestion, Improves Air
Caltrans is lying when a new video still asserts that widening the 5 freeway improves air quality and reduces congestion.
October 20, 2017
710 Project Releases REIR; Proposal Creates Further Ped/Bike Danger for West & North Long Beach
Widening the southern 710 Freeway is not going to help Long Beach pedestrians and cyclists.
August 1, 2017
Fasana Metro Motion Could Kill 710 North Freeway Tunnel
If passed by the full Metro board next week, John Fasana's motion should spell the end of the zombie highway expansion project to spend $6B tunneling the 710 Freeway North
May 17, 2017
Damien Will Be on KPCC’s Air Talk at 10:44 A.M. Talking Tolling and Congestion Pricing
Tune in to KPCC's Air Talk this morning to hear Damien Newton talk about express lanes, tolls, and congestion
March 29, 2017
NELA’s Outsized New Riverside-Figueroa Bridge Speeds Car Traffic
The city of L.A. opened its new Riverside Drive Bridge, featuring a protected bikeway and roundabout. The project was praised for safety improvements, but the oversized project is really about moving more cars even faster.
February 3, 2017
New Caltrans Video Claims Widening 5 Freeway Is Good for Air, Congestion
In this new promotional video, Caltrans District 7 inexplicably proclaims that widening a stretch of the 5 freeway in southeast L.A. County will "reduce congestion" and "improve air quality." The video, shown at Metro's board and committee meetings recently, further boasts about "better safety" and how outsized new bridges over the freeway will each "dwarf the original bridge." It goes on to herald Caltrans' $1.9 billion project (funded by Metro's Measure R) as a "21st-century transformation."
September 26, 2016
110 Freeway Off-Ramp Project Threatens Historic Church, MyFigueroa
Tonight, Caltrans is hosting a meeting to gather input on a new freeway off-ramp that would funnel 110 Freeway traffic onto Figueroa Street just south of downtown Los Angeles. The meeting takes place from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Orthopedic Institute for Children, 403 West Adams Boulevard in South Los Angeles.
February 23, 2016
For Goodness’ Sake, Stop Widening the 405
Albert Einstein says that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
May 5, 2015
Metro’s North 710 Freeway Tunnel Study Meetings in High Gear, Pasadena Working Group Offers Brainy Alternatives
Smart people live in Pasadena. Some of them work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and send probes to Mars. Others spend their days figuring out quantum mechanics at Caltech. And still others dabble in transportation. A study group formed by Pasadena's Mayor Bill Bogaard and its City Manager has a smart idea in response to L.A. Metro's study to link the stub end of the 210 with the end of the 710: instead of closing this “gap” in our freeways, rip out the 210's stub along Pasadena Avenue.
April 14, 2015