(from Metro website)
Metro and Caltrans will release and circulate the Study’s draft environmental document in February 2015. Caltrans review and comment period is 90-days, and will hold two public hearings. The public is encouraged to provide comments during this period, and will have several options to submit comments:
Alhambra City Council voted Monday 11/24/14 to approve a consulting agreement with Englander Knabe & Allen (EKA), a communication and campaign development company, to improve city outreach regarding the 710 Freeway. If approved, the city will contract EKA between Dec. 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015, for $70,000, according to the City Council agendaSee link below:
Posted: 10/24/14, 11:53 AM PDT |
Who funds studies supporting the 710?
Regarding the news release headlined “Public support for 710 north freeway tunnel remains strong”: The public, surely, cannot believe the publication of a survey that is presented as objective research when the source is the October 2014 Around Alhambra, the business newspaper of Alhambra.
The newspaper has never printed facts that support opposition to the 710.
Therefore, we cannot possibly believe that this article is objective journalism.
The first “key finding” in this article is that traffic congestion on local streets is an important issue. I could have told you that without an expensive survey paid for with public dollars.
What if the first question had been, “Does the Alhambra City Council play a role in having increased traffic to current levels by overdevelopment?”
The key finding would have been, “The Alhambra City Council is at fault for creating more of the unbearable traffic congestion in Alhambra.” What if another question was, “Do you think the thousands of new tenants of the overdevelopment on Main Street are going to walk to the 710 extension in El Sereno or Pasadena so that they do not cause traffic on local streets?”
Perhaps another “key finding” would be that Alhambra residents would support a no position on the 710 because, clearly, council-created traffic would not be ameliorated. Yet another question in my survey would ask if residents want the geotechnical risk of a tunnel in Alhambra that will likely bore through our water aquifer or natural gas pools.
My survey’s key findings would show residents of Alhambra say no to the 710.
— Gloria Valladolid, Alhambra
the view of angry commuters – thanks for closing down the street: Close the Gap – Gridlock Day 2014
Alhambra 710 Day, 2014 was public relations failure as was expected. The excessive heat worked against the event to our favor. The numbers of attendees was approximately down by half, although Alhambra City Council will claim a cast of thousands. The pictures & video will disprove any claim to the contrary. [You think you’ve seen traffic on Valley? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!]
It was notable that the speeches were angry in tone, hysterical & paranoid.
Steve Placido Alhambra Councilman, in his paranoid rant made it sound like the rest of the world was out to get Alhambra & no knows their suffering. Teresa Real Sebastian in an angry & hysterical rant whined she would accept about ‘no more excuses’ for not building a tunnel. Excuses are their code word for following the laws that govern the environmental process. Excuses to Teresa Real Sebastian, are environmental laws that protect minorities from massive public works project that disproportionately & adversely affect their health & quality of life. These things are a nuisance to Alhambra & Monterey Park city officials. Steve Placido & Teresa Real Sebastian proclaimed, ‘we are ready to build the 710 tunnel. Go right ahead I say, just come up with $15 billion dollars. They will have to face the same rigorous ‘environmental impact process Metro must follow.
It is no surprise this group of people find following the law a nuisance. Alhambra has a history of questionable conflict of interest. Barbara Messina & her husband got caught up in election campaign violations a few years back. There was also a recent violation of the ‘Brown Act’ recorded against councilwoman Messina. They can complain about traffic all they want, but the reality is Alhambra is guilty of rampant overdevelopment bringing in high density condo projects with more parking spaces & more cars since the 1980’s. In 1989 Alhambra was attempting to build a massive Business park/convention center at Fremont & Mission where Kohl’s is currently located. A development firm known as Santa Fe International proposed a plan with multi-level office building. Approximately 6 multi-level parking structures would accommodate 6,500 vehicles. In order to do they would have to declare the Emery Tract substandard housing, in essence a ‘slum’. The project never came into existence because Santa Fe International was found guilty of illegal practices including ‘insider trading & fraud. Follow the money & it will more than likely lead to Alhambra & Monterey Park business interests that have a financial interest in pushing a tunnel. They sound desperate because Metro appears to have hung them out to dry. Metro did not participate this year & Caltrans had a booth at this year’s event. We are looking into the legality or ethical aspects of the appearance at this event. – Joe C.
Think about it, people! HOW exactly is the tunnel going to ‘alleviate traffic’? The answer is, it wont. 60,000 cars per day, says Caltrans/Metro, will divert from the freeway to AVOID the TOLL. Our side streets will be jammed regardless of the tunnel. Would YOU want to pay $6-15 one way (says Caltrans/Metro) to drive in a tunnel almost 5 miles – and if there’s a traffic jam (c’mon, this is LA – there’s traffic everywhere), you’ll be sitting in a tunnel deep underground with no exits, inhaling diesel fumes. No thanks! Why would there be a toll? Good question! Read about ‘public-private partnerships” on Metro’s news release. “Private sector partners” who have an interest in it have to recoup the cost somehow, hence the toll. Who would these private sector partners be, you ask? Even better question! Metro admits that the 710 tunnel extension is the way to complete the “natural goods corridor” of trucks driving from the port of L.A. in Long Beach to go north. Well, at least that would get the trucks off our streets, right? WRONG! When was the last time you saw semi- trucks on Alhambra’s city streets? We don’t have a problem with truck traffic from Long Beach on our streets. The bottom line: Improving public transportation options will get people out of their cars and alleviate the traffic in our town, not a truck tunnel. (Extra credit points for those of you who can answer why would Alhambra’s council members be FOR this in our town! Stay tuned for the answer…) – Mel M.
the view of angry commuters – thanks for closing down the street during rush hour for Close the Gap – Gridlock Day 2014
Nee “710 Freeway Day” (see more about Gridlock Day here.)
“The black-ones are the letters,” folks, and surely there must be people in city hall who can read…some may even like to read…
But it has long seemed that nobody there has taken a look at the 1986 General Plan…
The (draft) copy I saw was riddled with contradictions from start to finish, but one well focused section that rang true was a report from CalTrans that predicted that extension of the N-S freeway would create congestion that began 2 miles on either side of the freeway, during commuter hours, on those E-W streets accessing the 710 Freeway extension….
In 1986 and earlier, it was estimated that 30,000 vehicles per day make use of surface streets that would be replaced by an extended freeway, but that traffic volume would increase to some 90,000 vehicles – again, based on 1986 traffic volumes, actual and projected…
Now the “commuter hours” last all day, and population overgrowth has resulted in vastly increased traffic volumes, so someone should contact CalTrans for the new numbers, then do the math.
But if the prediction of daylong gridlock isn’t bad enough
There is the current focus on a tunnel as solution — a tunnel to be excavated through some of the most complex geological formations in all of California.
And if any extension is undertaken, the first work will take place atop the Highland Park Fault, where it crossed Valley Boulevard.
(I’m remembering the Sylmar quake of 1971, which toppled brand new freeway bridges, not yet opened to traffic…)
And If an extended 710 Freeway, even if built without tunnel collapse during excavation or thereafter functioned as smoothly in moving traffic as its supporters now imagine, it would be a totally unique freeway in all of overpopulated Southern California…
James S.
When I think of transportation solutions I think of the 1960’s cartoon show “The Jetsons” and their zippy little space cars and “Star Trek’s” transporter. These ideas owe just as much to reality as the current views on extending the Long Beach freeway. I often read comments from outraged commuters painting a 1950’s fantasy of a wide open 12 lane ribbon of asphalt gliding the commuter northward or southward to their cozy homes.Please understand that this is not the project being considered by MTA/Caltrans. That project is long gone and maybe it really never even existed.What is under consideration is a foreign owned tax payer funded toll tunnel. With a projected toll of $5-$15 per trip it is assumed that it would mainly utilized by commercial trucks moving goods to and from the port. The tunnel, with fewer lanes than the connecting freeways will create bottlenecks and gridlock in both directions which will increase the traffic on surface streets in the area as drivers search for alternate routes.The freeway will be constructed over at least a 10 year period with construction ongoing 24 hours a day 7 days a week as semi truckloads of the removed earth travel the local roads.There has never been an accurate estimate of the cost. The differences between estimates are in the tens of billions of dollars before over-runs. This kind of expenditure sucks the funds from more practical local transportation projects.The boring machine proposed to dig the tunnel has never been used before and does not even exist. The closest comparison is Big Bertha which has currently broken down beneath Seattle with no repair in sight.The concentrated exhaust emissions from the tunnel are far more dangerous that from an open freeway (and even those are a killer.) The proposed system to scrub the tunnel emissions does not exist and if it were designed and built it may be too expensive and difficult to maintain to be included.And this is only the beginning of a list of the problems.If we are going to dream, please let’s make it a happy dream and not a nightmare.– Joe P.
Responsible Alhambrans Against the 710 is a community organization formed to collect, develop, provide and disseminate accurate information about the 710 extension to the citizens of Alhambra at community meetings, in newspapers, and other public forums.
We are “responsible” in that we are not only against the 710 freeway extension, but are intent on having our council members consider all alternatives, especially environmentally friendly alternatives that reflect 21st century solutions.
We say yes! to light rail for commuters and yes! to heavy rail for freight.
Responsible Alhambrans Against the 710 