710 - Long Beach Freeway Gap

[LM117]

If the gap actually does get closed, does Caltrans plan to sign this as I-710 or will they do like they did with 15/210/905 and sign it as CA-710?

[silverback1065]

If the gap actually does get closed, does Caltrans plan to sign this as I-710 or will they do like they did with 15/210/905 and sign it as CA-710?

i'd say i-710, assuming it's built to interstate standards

[Henry]

If the whole thing gets cancelled for good, sign the northern extension as CA 710 and get done with it!

[sparker]

If the whole thing gets cancelled for good, sign the northern extension as CA 710 and get done with it!

The "northern extension", which is more aptly described as a southern extension of I-210's main lanes north of the 134 interchange, is essentially an offramp to California Blvd. (and basically a way to get to Cal Tech without slogging through downtown Pasadena).  As such, it really doesn't warrant any signed designation as such; maintaining the local reference for navigation purposes is quite adequate.  The property is actually very valuable -- so if the tunnel concept fails and it looks like 710 won't be extended north, I wouldn't be surprised if the physical configuration of that 710 "stub" is cut back drastically to as small/short a facility feasible, and what's left of the property sold off to private interests.  That certainly has been done before; it tends to put the final "nail in the coffin" to a cancelled project.

[hm insulators]

I also noticed Glendale is against this tunnel which is odd given how far away they are from this. One could say they are worried about a reduction in traffic on CA 2 if this is built, not that traffic would actually see a substantial drop. I don't know why else they'd be sticking their nose in this.

Since CA 2 barely serves Glendale, instead skirting its east side with only a couple of exits besides the CA 134 interchange, that's probably not the reason.  As a person born & raised in that town -- and having seen more than one area freeway controversy over the years -- it's probably connected to the probability that I-210 in the Montrose/La Crescenta area (part of which lies within Glendale) would see considerably more traffic -- commercial and otherwise -- if I-710 is completed as originally planned, tunnel or not.  Area residents are accustomed to having a relatively uncrowded facility available to them much of the time; the prospects of that changing and 210 becoming the site of regularized congestion (and adding more pollution to the area in the process) are likely off-putting to those residents.  Glendale folks can become a bit insular when their idiom is threatened!   

I was raised in La Canada Flintridge.

[sparker]

I also noticed Glendale is against this tunnel which is odd given how far away they are from this. One could say they are worried about a reduction in traffic on CA 2 if this is built, not that traffic would actually see a substantial drop. I don't know why else they'd be sticking their nose in this.

Since CA 2 barely serves Glendale, instead skirting its east side with only a couple of exits besides the CA 134 interchange, that's probably not the reason.  As a person born & raised in that town -- and having seen more than one area freeway controversy over the years -- it's probably connected to the probability that I-210 in the Montrose/La Crescenta area (part of which lies within Glendale) would see considerably more traffic -- commercial and otherwise -- if I-710 is completed as originally planned, tunnel or not.  Area residents are accustomed to having a relatively uncrowded facility available to them much of the time; the prospects of that changing and 210 becoming the site of regularized congestion (and adding more pollution to the area in the process) are likely off-putting to those residents.  Glendale folks can become a bit insular when their idiom is threatened!   

I was raised in La Canada Flintridge.

I can remember back in my high school days (mid-'60's) the controversy regarding the I-210 segment through La Canada/Flintridge; it almost took on the proportions of a genuine "freeway revolt".  Activists from that region (generally high-income then as now) were even suggesting that 210 be rerouted south along the CA 2 alignment to CA 134 and use that routing to access Pasadena -- eliminating the whole segment east of Montrose and north of central Pasadena.  That almost happened -- but 210 was instead reconfigured to the format existing today, including the massive cut & cover "tunnel" under Foothill Blvd. just east of the CA 2 interchange -- with the portion east of there sunk below ground level until it reached the original Foothill Freeway (ex-CA 118) alignment across Arroyo Seco.  That seemed to placate the local naysayers enough to get the freeway pushed through by the mid-70's. 

[andy3175]

With Metro's decision on May 25, the 710 gap enters indefinite dormancy.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-710-freeway-20170524-story.html

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted unanimously to withdraw its support and funding for a five-mile, $3.2-billion tunnel through El Sereno, South Pasadena and Pasadena connecting the 710 and 210 freeways.

Instead, the board voted to spend $700 million on a range of transportation fixes to ease congestion and other problems arising from traffic spilling onto the streets of Alhambra at the 710's abrupt northern terminus. ...

"To have a unanimous vote is a reflection of the mood in the boardroom,"  said Jan Soohoo of La Cañada Flintridge, a member of the No 710 Action Committee. "We've been fighting and fighting for years just to get seven votes"  – the minimum that tunnel foes needed to kill the idea. ...

"As a city and county, we've moved away from freeways,"  said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Metro board member. "Voters don't see freeways as meeting their transportation needs anymore."  ...

The 710 corridor project obtained about $780 million through Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase voters approved in 2008. Some of the money has already been spent on planning, studies and environmental work.

The motion approved Thursday would allocate $105 million of the remaining funds toward synchronized traffic signals, new meters on freeway ramps, capacity enhancements at three dozen intersections and local streets as well as incentives to encourage carpooling, transit use and staggered work schedules.

The board voted to defer decisions on other transportation options that will use the remaining funding until cities along the north 710 corridor and other interested parties can agree. Metro staff will report back in 90 days on a process to identify potential projects.

[silverback1065]

shouldn't this thread be called the Pasadena gap?

[sparker]

With Metro's decision on May 25, the 710 gap enters indefinite dormancy.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-710-freeway-20170524-story.html

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted unanimously to withdraw its support and funding for a five-mile, $3.2-billion tunnel through El Sereno, South Pasadena and Pasadena connecting the 710 and 210 freeways.

Instead, the board voted to spend $700 million on a range of transportation fixes to ease congestion and other problems arising from traffic spilling onto the streets of Alhambra at the 710's abrupt northern terminus. ...

"To have a unanimous vote is a reflection of the mood in the boardroom,"  said Jan Soohoo of La Cañada Flintridge, a member of the No 710 Action Committee. "We've been fighting and fighting for years just to get seven votes"  – the minimum that tunnel foes needed to kill the idea. ...

"As a city and county, we've moved away from freeways,"  said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Metro board member. "Voters don't see freeways as meeting their transportation needs anymore."  ...

The 710 corridor project obtained about $780 million through Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase voters approved in 2008. Some of the money has already been spent on planning, studies and environmental work.

The motion approved Thursday would allocate $105 million of the remaining funds toward synchronized traffic signals, new meters on freeway ramps, capacity enhancements at three dozen intersections and local streets as well as incentives to encourage carpooling, transit use and staggered work schedules.

The board voted to defer decisions on other transportation options that will use the remaining funding until cities along the north 710 corridor and other interested parties can agree. Metro staff will report back in 90 days on a process to identify potential projects.

There will be dancing over this particular grave in South Pasadena.  In retrospect, the shift within the Metro board was all but inevitable -- urban activists and transit supporters now dominate pretty much all of the policymaking entities in greater L.A.  Except for finishing CA 71 in Pomona, don't expect a single foot of new freeway to be even considered within L.A. County south of the San Gabriel mountains.  The 710 extension was the last formally adopted corridor remaining in the basin that has not been deleted or relinquished; now that it's effectively dead, the folks at Metro will almost certainly be pressing Caltrans for more funding shifts to local streets and transit facilities -- the STIP has, for the past few iterations, been itself dominated by joint state/local projects -- some for congestion relief, but some for "traffic calming" (which has zero relationship to driver calming!) efforts.  Looks like the spiritual home of the freeway will have to make do with what's on the ground right now!

[MaxConcrete]

With Metro's decision on May 25, the 710 gap enters indefinite dormancy.

I was optimistic that the project would move forward, especially since it recently survived the effort to kill it in the California legislature.

But I agree with Sparker and Andy 3175: this is probably the end.

It seems like the Metro board's intent is to use up the $700 million on the planned traffic control measures to ensure none of it is available for the freeway/tollway tunnel.

So that seems to leave only Caltrans funds and maybe some kind of mostly or fully private funding with tolls. I don't expect anything to come out of Trump infrastructure initiative, but that seems like the only (very long) longshot: some kind of federal-level legislation promoting private investment and/or PPPs which would make this kind of project attractive to investors.

[nexus73]

Speaking of 71, is there any news on that Sparker?  Amazing to think we're in 2017 and that this freeway still is not finished!

Rick

[kkt]

$700 million is a lot of traffic circles.

[sparker]

Speaking of 71, is there any news on that Sparker?  Amazing to think we're in 2017 and that this freeway still is not finished!

Rick

I wish I knew a bit more; won't be down that way until July or August at the earliest.  AFAIK, the facility between the Mission Blvd. interchange and CA 60 largely remains an expressway -- although I do understand that the intersecting streets no longer cross the median and are dealt with as RIRO's.  If any CA poster has a downloaded STIP (I should have done so myself, but business issues have kept me otherwise occupied), it might be useful to see if any CA 71 projects for District 7 (in which the unimproved segment lies) are active.  BTW, it looks as if Google Earth hasn't scanned this region in some time, so no recent facility changes can be seen there. 

[fungus]

I drive down the 71 regular and all of the signals have been turned off and all intersections are right in right out, K-rail has been placed in between to prevent turns. Overall it's as good as it will be, until it becomes a freeway. Note that the residents of Phillips Ranch did not want an interchange at North Ranch or Old Pomona, thus they will be consigned to using the Rio Rancho off ramp. It actually is fairly long ramp spacing for an urban/suburban freeway.

[Anthony_JK]

With Metro's decision on May 25, the 710 gap enters indefinite dormancy.

Or, as some would rather say, "death".

Given the nature of Los Angeles Metro politics, I guess this was inevitable.

I suppose the next agenda for the New Urbanists will be to downgrade most of 710 to a surface-level boulevard and build a transit rail line over it to "liberate" the neighborhoods.

Or, start gunning for tearing down other LA freeways to make room for their paradise of "carless" communities.

Lots of luck for that, I figure.

[sparker]

With Metro's decision on May 25, the 710 gap enters indefinite dormancy.

Or, as some would rather say, "death".

Given the nature of Los Angeles Metro politics, I guess this was inevitable.

I suppose the next agenda for the New Urbanists will be to downgrade most of 710 to a surface-level boulevard and build a transit rail line over it to "liberate" the neighborhoods.

Or, start gunning for tearing down other LA freeways to make room for their paradise of "carless" communities.

Lots of luck for that, I figure.

I'm a native of greater L.A. (about 10 miles north of downtown) -- they'll have to pry my steering wheel out of my cold dead hands!   

[silverback1065]

they can't make any city in the us carless even if they tried. especially la

[cahwyguy]

Folks, let's turn down the volume on the political aspects, the calls blaming "new urbanism" or "progressives". Ultimately, Metro's action in killing the tunnel was none of those, it was realism.

I commute the 405 every workday, driving a vanpool between Northridge and El Segundo. I lived through a freeway that was under construction from when I started with my employer in 1988 until about two years ago when the HOV lanes were finished. Guess what? We record our travel times. Things got slightly better for a bit, but now we're back to where we work. The construction yielded little benefit for the cost.

Building the 710 tunnel would have been years and years of more lawsuits. Wasted money. Ultimately, you would have an impractical tunnel: no trucks, high toll, and the first car fire or major accident and *boom*, it's done. It just wasn't worth what it would cost. Much better to spend the money on other smaller improvements in the same corridor that might be effective.

Other new freeways in the area? Where, prey tell me, where? With the costs of right of way acquisition, there are precious few places where it would be appropriate. Better to use the funds to build more transit lines to get people off the roadways, funds to encourage more ride sharing, funds to better increase the capacity of the roads we have as opposed to a pipe dream that will be dead due to induced demand.

Will you see more construction? Quite possibly. There are roads that are dying for the addition of a lane or safety improvements -- US 101 and Route 110 being prime examples. You may see something there. You may see attempts to get a full HOV lane down I-5. The big issue is right of way, and often there isn't any space to do more.

But this isn't an issue you can blame on progressives and urbanist. It is an issue you can blame on a city where land has become far too valuable for concrete, and issue you can blame on realizations that there are better and smarter ways to do things.

Daniel

[Plutonic Panda]

The 405 needed more lanes than it got and it also reduced surface congestion on local streets by over 30%. I disagree with you that the benefits weren't worth the cost.

I don't understand the logic of induced demand because it doesn't take into account the growth of the area from the time a lane has been added, whether or not the add a lane(s) project added enough lanes by simple math or just politics to show people they're investing something, and how many commuters switched from their usual route to the recently expanded one taking stress off of other freeways. They also don't show how much congestion was reduced on local surface streets(the case with the 405 Sepulveda Pass project) and sometimes whether someone decided to switch modes of transit because their prime choice would be a personal automobile and the fact they have a more direct commute now represents better government.

Sure, some of those things in their own right could be examples of localized induced demand, but I just don't but the entire theory because there are so many variables as I pointed out above that it doesn't take into account. The biggest one for me the stress it takes off of freeway on a regional level.

Another one is personal choice by citizens to use a car or transit. Why is that transit advocates get excited when frequencies are increased on rail lines yet scream induced demand when a freeway widening project is announced? Seems like a double standard. Sure, I get that it's more efficient to lure more people on a rail line, and I support increased frequencies and more transit in LA so those who want to use it can do so, but I also support widening freeways. It's a win win for everyone.

If a freeway gets clogged shortly after it was widened, then it needs more lanes. It needed more to begin with. They should run scenarios for how many people might switch their commutes with newly added lanes and if they find that it might be just as congested due to that, than they should add even more lanes. You can't sit there and tell me that if you widened the 405 to a 100 lanes they would fill up. The Kilpatrick turnpike in OKC had a lane added over 5 years ago to make it 3 lanes each way and it is nowhere close to becoming congested.

Of course the 405 example was an extreme one and it isn't reasonable to assume a freeway have 100 lanes, but have about 4-5 more lanes added each way and if needed do what TxDOT did to 635. Widen other freeways such as the 105, I-5, 110, 210, I-10 etc. to 12-16 lanes. Double stack or add a tunnel along the 101 in the inner city. Complete the I-40 extension to Bakersfield. Complete the HDC. Add more rail lines. Finish the HSR. Complete gaps like the 710.

I don't know how many billions of dollars it would take to complete all of that and I don't think it's realistic to do all of that at once or even in the near future. But simply yelling induced demand or building more freeways won't solve congestion issues(aka not doing anything except building more transit) is not the way to go. Mass transit will actually increase congestion faster since it usually increases density and since LA is so spread out, it isn't transit that is needed, it is a change in the way people live. That is what I'm against is telling people how to live even if it's for their good. Though I am a bit biased because I just think freeways are cool, I think most people prefer to drive and live in the suburbs. I don't have much to back that up other than more people live in the outlying suburbs than urban jungles and suburban housing growth accounted for 80% of all of home sales last year.

We'll see how this plays out but it speaks to me that is was a bunch of things that went wrong. Even if the money was there, I suspect the same outcome would have happened. It's evident by the fact that they didn't even want to wait to see if Caltrans would add anything to the 700 million which now it will be up to them to fully fund this if they want to. Hopefully they do.

I also think the enemy of my enemy is my friend played out here because the new urbanist stood by the nimbys for two extremely different reasons. What I'm even more perplexed by is the fact they are claiming that surface improvements will be better for these people yet drivers already drive like a bat out of hell in the area exceed 3x the limit on occasions and their solution to move them even quicker through these communities?

[Plutonic Panda]

To add to my post above, I think that a bunch of bullshit just happened here. You had new urbanists attacking it, nimbys attacking it, other communities that wanted to keep traffic lower on freeways that were obviously built to handle more traffic than they do, and beyond that I'm guessing there just wasn't enough vocal support to get metros motion to move forward here.

So now it's up to Caltrans. Hopefully they see the value in this project and take matters into their own hands like they should do and not rely on an MTA to assist in every major freeway project in regards to funding.

I will admit here, that aspect is something I don't know too much about. TxDOT seems to push through with a lot of major freeway projects without local funding from MTAs and I'm fairly certain OkDOT does as well unless they never talk about it.

[cahwyguy]

In an ideal unconstrained world, we might widen, widen, widen. However, we live in a world with limited funding. More, we don't have the right of way to widen widen widen. What is the cost in houses and businesses of widening US 101 (which really needs it). What is the costs in businesses and housing of widening the 405 even further? Not all of these freeways have room for continued expansion, much as it might be an ideal solution for today's technology.

However, if we increase the density on the road, we don't have to widen. Ridesharing and HOVs are part of the story. Uber and Lyft and the sharing economy are another, for they increase rider density in cars. Autonomous vehicles are another, for they can reduce spacing required between cars at speed due to faster reaction times.

Bringing this back to the topic, the 710 tunnel in particular would not have been a great solution for the $$$. Toll, limited to passenger vehicles, limited emergency access, and limited widening capabilities. Not worth the money. A surface freeway would have been better, but that boat sailed long ago and isn't coming back.

[Plutonic Panda]

Yes I agree a surface option would have been nice, but the plans called for 8 lanes which would have been better than nothing and in this particular case, I think this would have sufficed for many hours out of the day for tens of thousands of commuters if not more. The cost of building it is worth it to me than doing nothing which is basically what is proposed at this point.

[The Ghostbuster]

I expected this would ultimately happen. I have a feeling the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Tunnel will likely be the last road tunnel ever built in the United States.

[kkt]

I expected this would ultimately happen. I have a feeling the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Tunnel will likely be the last road tunnel ever built in the United States.

Just because L.A. doesn't want to build 710 as a tunnel, no one will ever build a tunnel again?  That seems, um, a little arrogant.  I'm sure there are cities which would like to move their viaducts through the city underground, or rivers or lakes that need a way to cross and a tunnel works out the best.

[brad2971]

With Metro's decision on May 25, the 710 gap enters indefinite dormancy.

I was optimistic that the project would move forward, especially since it recently survived the effort to kill it in the California legislature.

But I agree with Sparker and Andy 3175: this is probably the end.

It seems like the Metro board's intent is to use up the $700 million on the planned traffic control measures to ensure none of it is available for the freeway/tollway tunnel.

So that seems to leave only Caltrans funds and maybe some kind of mostly or fully private funding with tolls. I don't expect anything to come out of Trump infrastructure initiative, but that seems like the only (very long) longshot: some kind of federal-level legislation promoting private investment and/or PPPs which would make this kind of project attractive to investors.

Even though SANDAG got a very nice piece of infrastructure for 40 cents on the dollar, the experience with the South Bay Expressway has probably soured Caltrans on P3s of that nature for at least the next 10 years. And while there are investors who have no problems investing in things like the Dakota Access Pipeline, despite the...aggressive protests, the ROI for the investment community on a 710 tunnel wouldn't be seen for many decades.