710 Improvements (Ports of LA/LB to SR 60)

[Plutonic Panda]

I hope the people of South Pasadena are happy. Their NIMBYism has contributed to a nationwide crisis.

That "contributed to" is doing some heavy lifting in that claim.

I think it's pretty obvious that the ports of LA/LB would operate more efficiently with the 710 gap closed.

It would if the 710 connected with CA-2 and had a tunnel going under the mountain to Palmdale. Then that should connect with a High Desert Freeway going from I-10 to I-15 to I-5. That'd probably cost in the area of 30-50 billion dollars to do all of that plus the 10 billion for the 710 tunnel. So I wonder how quickly that money could be recouped with tolls, truck fees, not to mention the increased GPD and productivity from all of the new connections.

Build it all as one project, roads have 7 lanes each way, and call it the Connecting SoCal Freight Initiative. It'd be comparable to the gateway program in the NE for passenger rail. Something like that would do wonders to help with the current congestion issues but of course it's too ambitious and likely won't happen in our lifetimes if ever.

[Plutonic Panda]

This project is officially canceled:

Los Angeles County officials scrapped plans to widen an 18-mile stretch of highway that connects the busiest port complex in the country to east Los Angeles and several other freeways in the area. It's a major victory for local activists, who argued that the increased traffic would add air pollution and other problems to nearby residents, who are predominantly Black and Hispanic. Federal environmental regulators were already scrutinizing the expansion plans for potential violations of the Clean Air Act.

https://www.route-fifty.com/infrastructure/2022/06/two-states-cancel-highway-expansions-after-years-planning/367771/

LA Times article: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-26/710-freeway-expansion-los-angeles-plan-killed

[Occidental Tourist]

*sigh. If they're worried about the health of residents along the corridor, at the least they should modernize some of the off-ramps and widen the freeway from Harbor Scenic Drive to the 405 to eliminate the bottleneck caused by all of the trucks dumping from the port onto 3 lanes of traffic. There's room to add a fourth lane and it can't be great for the ambient particulate levels in West Long Beach for trucks to be dead-stopped from the Gerald Desmond to Willow Street from 2 to 6pm everyday.

[kernals12]

*sigh. If they're worried about the health of residents along the corridor, at the least they should modernize some of the off-ramps and widen the freeway from Harbor Scenic Drive to the 405 to eliminate the bottleneck caused by all of the trucks dumping from the port onto 3 lanes of traffic. There's room to add a fourth lane and it can't be great for the ambient particulate levels in West Long Beach for trucks to be dead-stopped from the Gerald Desmond to Willow Street from 2 to 6pm everyday.

The other issue is noise, which would get worse with a 4th lane and if traffic could move faster.

[Occidental Tourist]

*sigh. If they're worried about the health of residents along the corridor, at the least they should modernize some of the off-ramps and widen the freeway from Harbor Scenic Drive to the 405 to eliminate the bottleneck caused by all of the trucks dumping from the port onto 3 lanes of traffic. There's room to add a fourth lane and it can't be great for the ambient particulate levels in West Long Beach for trucks to be dead-stopped from the Gerald Desmond to Willow Street from 2 to 6pm everyday.

The other issue is noise, which would get worse with a 4th lane and if traffic could move faster.

Which is worse, though? Some hours of fast moving traffic and louder noise intermixed with more hours of trucks idling and producing more particulate matter, or more hours of faster traffic and more noise interspersed with fewer hours of more particulate matter?

I don't purport to have the expertise to answer that question.  I'm just trafficking in the language used to justify killing highway projects.