The 710 won't just die

[Tony Fernandez]

latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck/2007/07/more-on-710-tun.html#more

I thought it faded into obscurity, but now it's back . . . I just hope that it doesn't get too far.

[whitmanlam]

The 710 is the jugular artery of our Sea Port System, of course it won't die.

[nickv]

The one thing I see if the I-710 is expanded without any other transit improvements: a worse I-10 bottleneck chokepoint at the I-170 interchange... If they expand the freeway, transit corridors in the area must also be expanded too, or the traffic will return and we'll be back to drawing board.

Hopefully the Downtown Connector will help address this problem. The other transit line that serves this corridor is Metro Express Line 485, which runs every 20 minutes during rush hour and 30 minutes at all other times. It runs from Downtown via the El Monte Busway; then it diverts to the end of the 710 North through Pasadena and through the Lake Gold Line Station. Perhaps a little beauty treatment to this line will help lure more commuters to it.

Another idea is to redesign and renovate the El Monte Busway stop at Union Station, make it more pedestrian and transit friendly, and have a more pedestrian friendly connection to Union Station. I think that will help boost performance on Line 485 and other lines which serve the El Monte Busway. I know space is tight in that area, but I think something nice can be made.

I can see, per the blog, why some people would prefer not to wait for the bus at these stops and take their cars.

[joequality]

Have there been any updates on the tunnel?

[jejozwik]

South Pasadena and Alhambra are at odds again as the state begins testing several underground routes.
By Jean Merl
January 19, 2009
It's the freeway controversy that just won't quit.

The fight over whether to finish the 710 Freeway -- which stops just short of South Pasadena -- has been going on for more than half a century, with the records in a 1998 federal court case so voluminous that they filled some 500 cardboard file boxes.



Now transit officials are opening another chapter in the controversy: They have begun exploratory drilling to determine the feasibility of building a tunnel to link the unfinished 710 to the 210 or possibly another freeway.

The California Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are conducting boring and seismic reflection activities at 33 sites throughout the study area, which includes Alhambra, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, northeast Los Angeles, Monterey Park, Pasadena, San Marino and South Pasadena.

Douglas Failing, Caltrans director for Los Angeles and Ventura counties, called the study "a key piece" in determining whether the freeway project can move forward.

Already, combatants in the freeway fight have drawn battle lines.

Alhambra Mayor Barbara Messina, who has spent 27 years fighting to complete the freeway, said building a tunnel "is the only way it's ever going to happen." Putting the freeway 250 or more feet underground is supporters' best chance at overcoming the opposition to building it through residential neighborhoods.

"It's not taking homes. It's not taking trees," Messina said. "There is no real reason anymore for people to be opposed to it."

But longtime South Pasadena resident and 710 extension opponent Joanne Nuckols called the tunnel proposal "a really bad idea" and the exploratory study "a waste of taxpayers' money."

The 710 extension has been in limbo for years: In 2003, the Federal Highway Administration rescinded its 1998 approval of a court-stalled surface route linking the northern terminus of the 710, at the boundary of Los Angeles and Alhambra, to the 210 Freeway.

South Pasadena and other opponents had kept the project tied up in courts for years, while Alhambra and its allies have long battled for the freeway extension as a solution to traffic and air pollution problems where the freeway ends at Valley Boulevard and dumps about 100,000 vehicles a day onto surface streets.

Officials hope to finish the 710 tunnel technical study by May and to have some answers regarding a tunnel's feasibility by the end of the year.

If officials decide to pursue a tunnel, they would need to conduct public hearings, pick a route, conduct extensive environmental studies, secure funding, pass muster with federal and state authorities and, as a practical matter at least, build community support before construction could begin.

Officials in South Pasadena, which has led the long fight against a freeway extension that would slice through some of its quiet, leafy neighborhoods of historic homes, are going along with the study but say their cooperation should not be construed as support for a tunnel, which has yet to undergo environmental review.

Some activists are opposed even to a feasibility study. And the cities of South Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge have filed suit objecting to the inclusion of $780 million in freeway tunnel-building funds in Measure R, the half-cent sales tax hike for transit that Los Angeles County voters approved in November.

Nonetheless, supporters of efforts to complete the 710 see tunneling as a possible solution to a standoff that has left a 6.2-mile gap between the two freeways and set neighboring cities against one another.

Caltrans is scheduled to make a presentation on the tunnel study to the South Pasadena City Council at its regular meeting Wednesday.

Since the 2003 withdrawal of federal approval for the surface extension, interest in a tunnel -- once rejected as unrealistic -- has resurfaced. The MTA did a limited survey of a proposal to build a 4.5-mile multilane road under South Pasadena and Pasadena to provide most of the link between the 710 and the 210. Officials estimated then that it would cost at least $3 billion and take 11 years to build.

But the current technical survey, begun earlier this month as part of an $11.5-million, two-year feasibility study, has been expanded to five zones for several alternatives. Any of those could also be problematic, including tunneling to link the 710 to the 2 Freeway on the west or to the 605 on the east. The latter, about an 11-mile route, would roughly parallel the 10 Freeway.

Caltrans' Failing said the other possibilities were added to help ensure that the study is conducted in a "route-neutral manner," meaning that officials will explore "any feasible alternative."

Anti-freeway activists contend that the tunnel would create a new set of problems for their communities and said traffic problems could be better addressed by measures other than extending the freeway.

"It really doesn't solve the transportation problems," said South Pasadena City Councilman Richard Schneider. "It's really not for commuters; it's for trucks coming out of the harbor and Long Beach."

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), who is skeptical of Caltrans' claims of an objective feasibility study, recently introduced legislation that would require the agency to sell the roughly 500 properties it acquired years ago along the surface route in the Los Angeles neighborhood of El Sereno and in South Pasadena and Pasadena and use the proceeds for the state's cash-strapped university systems.

South Pasadena has also called for the release of the Caltrans-owned properties.

Abdi Saghafi, the Caltrans project manager for the 710 corridor, responding to South Pasadena's call to sell the properties and return them to the tax rolls, said the agency would not favor releasing the properties until the extension question is settled.

It's against this backdrop that the tunnel technical study is going on. The study is designed to provide analyses of soil and sub-surface conditions at depths of 250 feet or deeper.

Failing said advances in tunnel technology in the last 30 years have made it possible to build safely and even relatively economically in areas once considered impossible.

story

[spokker]

Let's see if we can hold the 710 hostage in order to get some mass transit money out of it.

[tonyw79sfv]

Then let's use that economical tunneling technology to complete the Purple Line and put rail in the Sepulveda Pass corridor rather than unresolvable road projects.

[losangeles2319]

So I've been thinking about freeway replacement in Los Angeles County. If we see freeways as a form of interstate travel, then the fact that they go straight through cities is preposterous. If someone wants to get to a city, they are going to go directly there. This is where I came up with a rerouting option for the 5 and 710. Let's tunnel the 710 through to Pasadena but in that process turn the 710 north of the 5 into the 5. This new 5 would then run along what is now the 210 and meet up with I-5 up in Sylmar. With the old route of I-5 from Sylmar to East LA would then become a boulevard, light rail line, or we could stitch up old neighborhoods. This might belong in the dream network post.

[numble]

A Light Rail project (with 2 proposed routes) are amongst the 12 proposed alternatives in the SR-710 study: thesource.metro.net/2012/06/06/sr-710-study-wraps-up-latest-round-of-community-meetings-to-review-alternatives-under-consideration/

Why aren't more people talking about this?

[erict]

First I've heard of this LRT

[TransportationZ]

We need to advocate for these LRT alternatives instead. This is our chance to get rail to the Central San Gabriel Valley, or the "hole" between the Gold Line and El Monte Busway.

[Gokhan]

Aug 10, 2012 7:23:28 GMT -8 TransportationZ said:

We need to advocate for these LRT alternatives instead. This is our chance to get rail to the Central San Gabriel Valley, or the "hole" between the Gold Line and El Monte Busway.

LRT alternative 4 is the way to go.

[jdrcrasher]

Look, as a San Gabriel Valley resident, i sure as hell want more light-rail coming my way.

But I really am starting to dislike the Silver Line's old ACE-adjacent route. That ROW is Union Pacific's baby, and if they're stubborn at cooperating with measly HSR in a sparsely populated Central Valley, I have serious doubts they're willing to compromise with Metro on such an important freight route for the country running through a pretty dense, urban area.

Instead, it makes more sense to travel on Mission, Main, and Las Tunas through El Sereno, into the heart of old-town Alhambra, and on to old-town Temple City. This is a pretty dense route. Maybe it's not as dense as Valley Blvd, but at least this way it's relatively far enough away from it to where there could be enough political movement to build it later in the future and not have to worry about people crowing of favoring one section of the SGV (El Monte) over the other. But that is not the case with the ACE route.

[numble]

They are recommending paring the 12 alternatives down to 5, the light rail option is still amongst the 5. Why isn't there a subforum for this?
thesource.metro.net/2012/08/23/metro-staff-recommends-list-of-sr-710-environmental-study-alternatives-be-narrowed-as-process-goes-forward/

Metro staff, working in conjunction with Caltrans, is recommending that the list of alternatives being studied for the SR 710 north-south connection from Alhambra to Pasadena be pared from 12 to five for further environmental study based on operational, engineering, financial and environmental considerations as well as public input. Among alternatives that would not continue are surface route options for Avenue 64 and San Rafael, or underground in the Mount Washington area or any surface highway options in those corridors.

The multi-modal options Metro is recommending go forward for further review include expanded bus rapid transit, light rail, a freeway tunnel, an alternative focused on expanded bus service, intersection and hot spot improvements, ridesharing and telecommuting and intelligent technology system improvements, and a no build option.

[bzcat]

It's premature to create a sub-forum for the 710 light rail because it is equally likely (or rather more likely) this will end up as a freeway tunnel.

[rubbertoe]

I rarely use the word never, but i will state with utmost confidence that there will absolutely never be a traffic tunnel built under South Pasadena.

RT

Sent from my DROID RAZR using proboards

[rubbertoe]

Appendix X of the just released AA for the 710 corridor estimates that it will cost $5.425 billion for 2 bored tunnels. Each tunnel will carry 4 traffic lanes, in a stacked configuration of 2 lanes on top of the other 2 lanes. One tunnel will have all the Northbound lanes, and the other tunnel will have all the Southbound lanes. If I recall correctly, this number seems much lower than previous estimates.

RT

[roadtrainer]

Aug 10, 2012 5:25:32 GMT -8 erict said:

First I've heard of this LRT

I heard about the light rail project 20 years ago.

[TransportationZ]

More detail on the the LRT alternative:

lametthesource.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/lightrail1.jpg
lametthesource.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/lightrail2.jpg

I like it allot more now with more detail. The only thing I don't like is that I don't think South or regular Pasadena need another LRT, especially not an expensive deep bore subway. There are so many other places in the county that need 2 light rail and Pasadena and South Pasadena aren't it. The Pasadena Gold Line is already cited as an example of expensive LRT with low ridership. Putting an expensive deep bore subway would only give the BRU and rail obstructionists more ammo.

Another thing is why it's not tied into the existing Gold Line?

On the plus side, it would make for a nice southern crosstown extension under the East LA Gold Line.

[bzcat]

The LRT option is a complete waste of resources as it is currently imagined.

SGV can use a North-South line but not in low density South Pasadena. Atlantic, Garfield, Rosemead are all better choices.

[JerardWright]

Jan 23, 2013 12:05:41 GMT -8 bzcat said:

The LRT option is a complete waste of resources as it is currently imagined.

SGV can use a North-South line but not in low density South Pasadena. Atlantic, Garfield, Rosemead are all better choices.

In my mind- from East LA to Alhambra- this corridor looks pretty good even though it misses Whittier Blvd Shopping district and the potential (in current form) to tie into the West Santa Ana Corridor which in the core transit dependent area is parallel to the 710 corridor.

However its lack of cost-effectiveness to tie into the existing Gold Line infrastructure and utilize at-grade right-of-way via originally a rail corridor now utility corridor between South Pasadena and Alhambra using the existing infrastructure improves the ridership by a wide margin.

[TransportationZ]

Jan 23, 2013 14:57:02 GMT -8 JerardWright said:

Jan 23, 2013 12:05:41 GMT -8 bzcat said:

The LRT option is a complete waste of resources as it is currently imagined.

SGV can use a North-South line but not in low density South Pasadena. Atlantic, Garfield, Rosemead are all better choices.

In my mind- from East LA to Alhambra- this corridor looks pretty good even though it misses Whittier Blvd Shopping district and the potential (in current form) to tie into the West Santa Ana Corridor which in the core transit dependent area is parallel to the 710 corridor.

However its lack of cost-effectiveness to tie into the existing Gold Line infrastructure and utilize at-grade right-of-way via originally a rail corridor now utility corridor between South Pasadena and Alhambra using the existing infrastructure improves the ridership by a wide margin.

I tend to agree, somewhat. It will be nice have the Cal State LA LRT station and hitting the major shopping area in Alhambra. However, I think where most of the anguish comes from is the painfully expensive deep bore subway through the Pasadena's. I mean, South Pasadena can't even fill Gold Line trains, and we want to give them ANOTHER line when West LA is barely getting a single subway?

[bobdavis]

I think this is another "I should live so long" project. In South Pasadena, opposition to the 710 extension (note: "extension", not "completion") is in its third generation. One can imagine the dying words of a South Pasadena native: "Promise me, son, that you will fight to the death. Make sure the 710 never enters our beloved city." That may be overstating the case, and a tunnel that does not disturb anyone on the surface in South Pasadena might overcome opposition, but we've already seen the reaction of Beverly Hills to just a subway tunnel, not a gigantic hole that would accommodate an eight-lane freeway. Of course, living further east than S. Pas., my dream project is light rail from Pasadena to Long Beach via Rosemead/Lakewood Blvd. median.

[johanragle]

Metro & Caltrans just released the Draft EIR.

No word yet on the Locally Preferred Alternative, but apparently LRT and BRT are still on the table. Evidently they have $785m in Measure R funding set aside for this, which won't be enough for a freeway tunnel or LRT, but it might be possible to build a full-blown BRT route.

Actually, what would be really interesting is if they opted for a BRT along, say, Atlantic Blvd...

[bzcat]

Jan 23, 2013 14:57:02 GMT -8 JerardWright said:

Jan 23, 2013 12:05:41 GMT -8 bzcat said:

The LRT option is a complete waste of resources as it is currently imagined.

SGV can use a North-South line but not in low density South Pasadena. Atlantic, Garfield, Rosemead are all better choices.

In my mind- from East LA to Alhambra- this corridor looks pretty good even though it misses Whittier Blvd Shopping district and the potential (in current form) to tie into the West Santa Ana Corridor which in the core transit dependent area is parallel to the 710 corridor.

However its lack of cost-effectiveness to tie into the existing Gold Line infrastructure and utilize at-grade right-of-way via originally a rail corridor now utility corridor between South Pasadena and Alhambra using the existing infrastructure improves the ridership by a wide margin.

I'm still a little skeptical about this corridor but one can envision either the BRT and LRT alignment being part of the future SFV-SGV crosstown line.

Basically from North Hollywood to Old Town Pasadena then turn south to East LA following either the BRT or LRT alternative in the DEIR.

See this: transittalk.proboards.com/thread/1372/metro-noho-pasadena-express Now extend it to East LA and it could be a pretty productive line. Facilitates SGV N-S movements plus link SGV and SFV without going via downtown LA.

[culvercitylocke]

I'd say the tunnels are worth it if trucks are allowed, and worthless if not.

[johanragle]

I would rather see port logistics beefed up. A fully automated super-terminal (which there have been a number of concepts for, but so far no takers) tied to an electrified train corridor (there's a proposal to bore a tunnel under the DWP right of way next to the river) would greatly speed up container movement out of the port, and allow the inland container terminals to function better.

Another slightly less outlandish option would be to let BNSF build that new intermodal facility in Carson and pursue electrification of the Alameda Corridor and the other major freight trunks all the way to the major inland container ports. The only missing part of the picture would be convincing the port to deploy a fleet of electric trucks so that the constant shuttling of containers back and forth between the new ITF and the docks doesn't outweigh the benefits of electrification.

[rubbertoe]

Caltrans is going to pick a final option sometime in 2016. Measure R has the first $780 million. The LRT cost would be $2.4 billion or an additional $1.6 billion. A single auto tunnel would be $3.1 billion, and a dual bore auto tunnel would be $5.6 billion. Those are an additional $2.3 billion and $4.8 billion respectively. The DEIR says that a twin bore auto tunnel will not be tolled, but a single bore auto tunnel will be tolled. So maybe tolling could help pay for some of the $2.3 billion for the single bore auto tunnel. This has me wondering if this project will make it onto the list of projects being proposed for the possible 2016 L.A. County Measure R+. If they penciled in $2.3 billion, it would cover the single bore auto tunnel, and leave $700 million for other projects if they went with LRT.

Kind of interesting that both ends of the new LRT line would have stations adjacent to current Gold Line stations. The Fillmore station would be underground, while the Mednik station would be aerial. I wonder if this will connect to the current system at Mednik, since it obviously wouldn't at Fillmore. Would they be able to get LRT's into the line that way, or would they need a separate yard? I'll bet you they would tie in somehow.

RT

[rubbertoe]

I stand corrected. Page 173 of 1294 states there will be a maintenance yard at the South end of the line at Valley Blvd.

[culvercitylocke]

I figure the state would pony up 1 billion and the feds would match it, combine with the measure r money and you're there.