The curious history of plans to turn the LA River into a freeway

[kernals12]

In February 1938, a biblical rainstorm hit Southern California. The LA and Santa Ana rivers overflowed their banks causing tremendous damage in LA, Riverside, and Orange Counties. 5,600 buildings were destroyed and 113 people died. This was the last straw for the LA River, it had misbehaved too many times so now it had to be put in a straitjacket. 2 years later, the Army Corps of Engineers encased most of the river in concrete. This was meant to speed up water flow and prevent the river's course from changing. It has worked well.

But almost immediately after the cement had hardened, people looked at this long strip of concrete and thought to themselves "why not make it into a highway?". In 1941, LA County supervisor Gordon L McDonough suggested that the river would be ideal for transporting material to and from the aircraft factories making vital war materials. The Military didn't take up the idea. In 1947, another supervisor, Raymond Darby, brought up the idea, as LA's traffic became internationally infamous. And ordinary citizens didn't wait around. In 1954, some commuters discovered an unlocked gate on San Fernando road and helped themselves. A roadblock was quickly installed. Hot rodders began using it for drag races a la Grease.

In 1960, after another politician brought it up, the California Department of Highways finally decided to explain why this idea was a bad one. The reasons were as follows:
-The river was too narrow
-The river made too many sharp turns
-Vehicles using the river would pollute the water
-Ramps would need to somehow be designed to not block water flow
-Rainfall would force the road to be closed
-The debris left behind by such storms would take days to clear before the road could be reopened

But the idea stuck. In 1979, the Los Angeles Rapid Transit District and the Army Corps of Engineers tested the idea of using the river as a busway. They found that bumps along the riverbed would cause the buses to bottom out.

The last serious River Freeway proposal came from State Assemblyman Richard Katz in 1988. He recommended allowing carpools on the part of the river north of DTLA to relieve the Ventura and Golden State Freeways and trucks on the parts south to relieve congestion between the Port of Long Beach and the factories near downtown. The idea was mocked, The LA Times wrote an editorial titled "It No Longer Flows Only When It's Raining Katz and Dogs". But Katz persevered, claiming his project would cost one tenth that of the planned Red Line subway and he even drove his own car on the river to prove it would work.

But by this point, people were more interested in returning the river to a more natural state and after heavy rainfall in 1992, support for the idea was washed away. And with the signing of SB 20, which created the LA River Conservancy, the door was permanently slammed shut on the River Freeway dream.

[Max Rockatansky]

Having been to the bottom of the Los Angeles River many times I can attest that isn't even close to being smooth or engineered well enough to be a high speed roadway.  If I recall correctly I believe that there has been numerous groups seeking to modify the Los Angeles River to a more natural state?

[kernals12]

Having been to the bottom of the Los Angeles River many times I can attest that isn't even close to being smooth or engineered well enough to be a high speed roadway.  If I recall correctly I believe that there has been numerous groups seeking to modify the Los Angeles River to a more natural state?

All those movies and video games lied to us. For shame.

[Max Rockatansky]

Having been to the bottom of the Los Angeles River many times I can attest that isn't even close to being smooth or engineered well enough to be a high speed roadway.  If I recall correctly I believe that there has been numerous groups seeking to modify the Los Angeles River to a more natural state?

All those movies and video games lied to us. For shame.

Usually those forms of popular media are set near downtown where the river widens considerably.  Northward it doesn't really resemble much more than a dirt bottom ditch lined with concrete (specially the Glendale Narrows).

[kernals12]

Having been to the bottom of the Los Angeles River many times I can attest that isn't even close to being smooth or engineered well enough to be a high speed roadway.  If I recall correctly I believe that there has been numerous groups seeking to modify the Los Angeles River to a more natural state?

All those movies and video games lied to us. For shame.

Usually those forms of popular media are set near downtown where the river widens considerably.  Northward it doesn't really resemble much more than a dirt bottom ditch lined with concrete (specially the Glendale Narrows).

What is Mother Nature good for if she can't carve out a smooth straight riverbed that's consistently wide enough for 6 lanes of traffic, shoulders, a median, and ramps?

[kernals12]

Some articles incorrectly state that turning the LA River into a freeway was seriously considered. It wasn't, only a few ill-informed politicians proposed it. The people tasked with actually building highways always thought it was a bad idea.

[The Ghostbuster]

I can't imagine anyone turning a river into a roadway, let alone a freeway. That is, unless someone can build a car that can be driven on water, and can keep the water from getting into the vehicle and wreaking the internal components.

[kernals12]

I can't imagine anyone turning a river into a roadway, let alone a freeway. That is, unless someone can build a car that can be driven on water, and can keep the water from getting into the vehicle and wreaking the internal components.

You've probably seen it in photos or in movies. It's empty most of the year. Only in winter does it resemble a river.

[heynow415]

Some articles incorrectly state that turning the LA River into a freeway was seriously considered. It wasn't, only a few ill-informed politicians proposed it. The people tasked with actually building highways always thought it was a bad idea.

An "engineered" river has all sorts of structures and features within it to, big surprise, manage and direct water flows, turbulence and scouring effects, so it's sure not consistently smooth or level.  The notion of trucks and buses barrelling through it at 70+ is quite the visual.  Ok, maybe if you're the Terminator on a motorcycle it would possibly work . . . ah, Hollywood.   

[triplemultiplex]

I'm picturing a hilarious scene involving city buses desperately trying to outrun a flash flood like they are being chased by the T-1000.  Same music and everything.


Did these same politicians also propose to use sewer pipes as subway lines?  If the Ninja Turtles can set up shop down there, then surely it can work!

[kernals12]

I'm picturing a hilarious scene involving city buses desperately trying to outrun a flash flood like they are being chased by the T-1000. Same music and everything.


Did these same politicians also propose to use sewer pipes as subway lines?  If the Ninja Turtles can set up shop down there, then surely it can work!

And also the water is bearing down on them at 50 mph so if they go slower, they're dead.

[kphoger]

[1995hoo]

I can't imagine anyone turning a river into a roadway, let alone a freeway. That is, unless someone can build a car that can be driven on water, and can keep the water from getting into the vehicle and wreaking the internal components.

Like a Dutton?

[DTComposer]

Some years ago in the Long Beach Library I dug up a 1941 report by the Regional Planning Commission of L.A. County. I sent the following along to Dan Faigin for cahighways.org:

An August 1941 report issued by the Regional Planning Commission of Los Angeles County entitled "A Report on the Feasibility of a Freeway Along the Channel of the Los Angeles River"  proposed a four-lane roadway on each levee from Anaheim Street in Long Beach north to Sepulveda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley; excepting between Soto Street and Dayton Street in downtown Los Angeles, where, due to a lack of right-of-way along the river, the alignment matches the future alignment of the US 101 portion of the Santa Ana Freeway. There is no mention in the report of a master plan of freeways like that issued in 1947, although the maps showed connections to the already-completed Arroyo Seco Parkway and the proposed Ramona and Rio Hondo Parkways.

As stated above, the report talked at length about building on the levees, but not in the riverbed itself. Not sure if this ties directly into Supervisor McDonough's idea or not, or if this is mentioned in the book from the OP.

[kernals12]

I can't imagine anyone turning a river into a roadway, let alone a freeway. That is, unless someone can build a car that can be driven on water, and can keep the water from getting into the vehicle and wreaking the internal components.

Like a Dutton?

I was thinking of the Amphicar


LBJ had one, and this photo actually shows him puttering along his lake with Eunice Kennedy and Paul Glynn. He would enjoy terrifying his guests by driving into his lake, screaming that his brakes had failed.

[kernals12]

I love that movie. Also, it seems like that super impermeable concrete we were talking about earlier would be ideal for the river's channels.

[kphoger]

I was thinking of the Amphicar


LBJ had one, and this photo actually shows him puttering along his lake with Eunice Kennedy and Paul Glynn. He would enjoy terrifying his guests by driving into his lake, screaming that his brakes had failed.

Good golly, if a US President did something like that today, half the nation would be in an uproar.  They'd call him unfit to hold public office, claiming he was abandoning his sacred duties as commander-in-chief.

[1995hoo]

I was thinking of the Amphicar
....

LBJ had one, and this photo actually shows him puttering along his lake with Eunice Kennedy and Paul Glynn. He would enjoy terrifying his guests by driving into his lake, screaming that his brakes had failed.

Good golly, if a US President did something like that today, half the nation would be in an uproar.  They'd call him unfit to hold public office, claiming he was abandoning his sacred duties as commander-in-chief.

The Secret Service likely wouldn't allow him to operate a convertible while in office. There was this matter of a convertible presidential limo one day in Dallas in 1963....

[kphoger]

The Secret Service likely wouldn't allow him to operate a convertible while in office.

On his own property?  That's where the picture is from.

Lyndon Johnson, who was born on August 27 1908, was remembered by close advisors and friends long after his 1973 death for a horrifying prank he played on unsuspecting guests at his Stonewall, Texas ranch.

[...]

Joseph A. Califano, Jr., the president's special assistant for domestic affairs at the time, recalled his experience as a victim of his boss's prank:

The President, with [White House secretary] Vicky McCammon in the seat alongside him and me in the back, was now driving around in a small blue car with the top down. We reached a steep incline at the edge of the lake and the car started rolling rapidly toward the water. The President shouted, "The brakes don't work! The brakes won't hold! We're going in! We're going under!" The car splashed into the water. I started to get out. Just then the car leveled and I realized we were in a Amphicar. The President laughed. As we putted along the lake then (and throughout the evening), he teased me. "Vicky, did you see what Joe did? He didn't give a damn about his President. He just wanted to save his own skin and get out of the car." Then he'd roar.

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, John W. Gardner, one of the only Republican cabinet members during Johnson's presidency, was also reportedly a victim of this prank.

[kphoger]

By the way, I'm sure the Secret Service at the time was plenty aware of that "incident" in 1963, considering we're talking about LBJ here...

[1995hoo]

^^^

I didn't realize it was on his own property. In that case, it makes a lot more sense.

[Max Rockatansky]

Hey, the Los Angeles River worked funneling all that magma from Mount Wilshire to the ocean:

[sparker]

Back in the late '50's/early '60's, when the alignment of the CA 134/Ventura Freeway across Glendale (my home town) was being hashed out, some local property owners posed the question as to why the Verdugo Wash, which was and is a huge flood control channel coming down from La Crescenta and emptying into the L.A. river right where the riverbed changes from its E-W alignment in the San Fernando Valley to the essentially N-S one through central L.A. -- and which occupied a cross-section over a half-block wide -- wasn't considered for much of the freeway's route, obviating the need to take a lot of property.  Their proposed plan, cobbled up by one of their number who was a retired engineer, was to cap the channel and build a double-deck freeway on top of the cap (supported by cross-beams).  I was about 10 at the time, and had the opportunity to sit in on one of DOH's presentations in the City Hall annex/auditorium.  The Army Corps, which had constructed the channel in the wake of the '38 floods, was there, as well as D7's chief engineer and a few colleagues.  They all were quite patient while the local contingent presented their proposal -- but rebutted on a point-by-point basis, starting with the fact that there were several fault lines through the area, and a double-deck freeway lacking underpinnings down to bedrock wouldn't likely withstand a locally-centered quake over 6.0.  The Corps of Engineers added to that, stating that despite its size, the Verdugo Channel's capacity was intended to handle a 100-year flood situation (1938 was considered just that!), since it drained 90% of the Verdugo Mountains, a sizeable chunk of the San Gabriels, and the San Rafael Hills between Glendale and Pasadena.   Of course, there was a counter-argument positing that that meant Glendale should be "good" until at least 2038!  But between the agencies, they were able to make the case for an alignment away from the channel.  Interestingly, the route selected in 1960 paralleled the wash about 2 blocks away for much of its run through downtown Glendale.  But the point was driven home in the "50-year" flood of 1964; the lower reaches of the wash under the San Fernando Road bridge, which were somewhat wider and much shallower, featured water levels only a couple of feet below the bridge deck -- the city had deployed sandbags along the top of the sloping walls upstream from that bridge.  Between Verdugo Mountain springtime fires and the flooding, 1964 wasn't a terribly good year in Glendale! 

[kernals12]

Back in the late '50's/early '60's, when the alignment of the CA 134/Ventura Freeway across Glendale (my home town) was being hashed out, some local property owners posed the question as to why the Verdugo Wash, which was and is a huge flood control channel coming down from La Crescenta and emptying into the L.A. river right where the riverbed changes from its E-W alignment in the San Fernando Valley to the essentially N-S one through central L.A. -- and which occupied a cross-section over a half-block wide -- wasn't considered for much of the freeway's route, obviating the need to take a lot of property.  Their proposed plan, cobbled up by one of their number who was a retired engineer, was to cap the channel and build a double-deck freeway on top of the cap (supported by cross-beams).  I was about 10 at the time, and had the opportunity to sit in on one of DOH's presentations in the City Hall annex/auditorium.  The Army Corps, which had constructed the channel in the wake of the '38 floods, was there, as well as D7's chief engineer and a few colleagues.  They all were quite patient while the local contingent presented their proposal -- but rebutted on a point-by-point basis, starting with the fact that there were several fault lines through the area, and a double-deck freeway lacking underpinnings down to bedrock wouldn't likely withstand a locally-centered quake over 6.0.  The Corps of Engineers added to that, stating that despite its size, the Verdugo Channel's capacity was intended to handle a 100-year flood situation (1938 was considered just that!), since it drained 90% of the Verdugo Mountains, a sizeable chunk of the San Gabriels, and the San Rafael Hills between Glendale and Pasadena.   Of course, there was a counter-argument positing that that meant Glendale should be "good" until at least 2038!  But between the agencies, they were able to make the case for an alignment away from the channel.  Interestingly, the route selected in 1960 paralleled the wash about 2 blocks away for much of its run through downtown Glendale.  But the point was driven home in the "50-year" flood of 1964; the lower reaches of the wash under the San Fernando Road bridge, which were somewhat wider and much shallower, featured water levels only a couple of feet below the bridge deck -- the city had deployed sandbags along the top of the sloping walls upstream from that bridge.  Between Verdugo Mountain springtime fires and the flooding, 1964 wasn't a terribly good year in Glendale!

The Army Corps of Engineers spent a lot of time in those days shooting down stupid ideas in California. They built a scale model of the San Francisco bay to test what would happen if it were diked off to create two freshwater lakes. They concluded it was "infeasible by any frame of reference". But they also produced their own bad ideas, like building an artificial island for the proposed Pacific Coast Freeway (which totally should've been built, just on an inland route) off the coast of Santa Monica, which would've required constant dredging to prevent silting and would've acted as a wavebreak, leaving Santa Monica's surfing community totally bummed out.

[sparker]

The Army Corps of Engineers spent a lot of time in those days shooting down stupid ideas in California. They built a scale model of the San Francisco bay to test what would happen if it were diked off to create two freshwater lakes. They concluded it was "infeasible by any frame of reference". But they also produced their own bad ideas, like building an artificial island for the proposed Pacific Coast Freeway (which totally should've been built, just on an inland route) off the coast of Santa Monica, which would've required constant dredging to prevent silting and would've acted as a wavebreak, leaving Santa Monica's surfing community totally bummed out.

Re the PCH freeway concept NW of Santa Monica:  The one thing consistent about that area (Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Point Dume) has been the fact that even before the land value increases starting in the '70's, that coastal stretch -- all the way to the top of the first ridgeline -- featured the highest per-acre property values in both L.A. and Ventura Counties.  On top of that, a sizeable chunk of the residents therein were both rich and influential enough to stymie any proposal that would have affected their properties, even well up the hill.  And the hillside was quite unstable; mostly sandstone that would regularly erode into mudslides down the canyons (a nasty little fact of life on the coastline above L.A. all the way to Point Concepcion -- evidenced by the deadly Montecito mudslides a few years back).  Between the terrain and not wanting to piss off the generally well-connected and litigious residents, a land-bound freeway was DOA -- the reason the Corps, acting as DOH consultants, formulated the idea for a string of "keys" offshore -- even though unlike the extensive Atlantic offshore "shelf", the Pacific starts dropping off precipitously once about a quarter-mile from the mean shoreline, which would have rendered the concept foolhardy, prohibitively expensive, or both.