Are LA Metro’s 710 Freeway Plans More Of The Same?
A New Plan Promises No Displacement And Neighborhood Benefits. Residents And Activists Are Understandably Wary
The 710 freeway stretches 28 miles from the Port of Long Beach through East Los Angeles stopping just short of South Pasadena in Alhambra. It’s a vital regional transportation hub facilitating commerce for the global economy. Often clogged with traffic, this freeway pulsates with activity and is filled with an endless stream of diesel trucks that spew clouds of particulate matter pollution that hang heavily in the air of local communities.
Up to 260,000 cars and more than 40,000 diesel trucks traverse the 710 Freeway on any given day. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the entry points for more than 40 percent of all products shipped into the United States. Large and bulky diesel trucks take the cargo and drive the majority of these items via the 710 Freeway to railroad stations in Commerce and Vernon, where they are distributed across the nation. Despite the heavy congestion, the flow of commerce continues unabated.
This vital artery may become even busier if the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (Metro’s) revised proposal to add auxiliary lanes comes to fruition: the Long Beach — East Los Angeles Corridor Mobility Investment Plan (CMIP), as it’s called, is a more than 250-page document that Metro describes as an “ambitious community effort to re-envision mobility.”
In an community meeting posted online in February, Robert Calix, Metro’s strategic planning advisor, characterized the nearly billion-dollar plan like this: “Two and a half years ago Metro jump started this whole process and said, you know, ‘We’re gonna look at a community center and community focused effort.’ So what we have done for the last two and a half years has not been done anywhere in the United States. This is the largest community centered effort that has been done in the United States right in this corridor.”
The plan is an accumulation of a decades-long push for I-710 freeway “improvements,” recently incorporating a new task force of community stakeholders in the wake of Metro’s failure to comply with the EPA standards after its previous 710 Freeway plan was sent back to the drawing board after getting pushback from environmental and community activists.
“This is the largest community centered effort that has been done in the United States right in this corridor.”
CMIP is “an equitable, shared, I-170 South Corridor transportation system that provides safe, quality multimodal options for moving people and goods that will foster clean air (zero emissions), healthy and sustainable communities, and economic empowerment for all residents, communities, and users in the corridor. That’s the vision of this plan and that’s what it is designed to do,” said Calix.
According to the urban planning news site streetsblog.org, though, Metro’s current CMIP includes four miles of freeway widening and twelve “interchange improvements,” which the report characterizes as Metro’s “euphemism for widening freeways, ramps and/or nearby roads.”
Residents around the 710 Freeway already have high rates of asthma/ Some have nicknamed the area “cancer alley.” Many see the 710 Freeway as a byproduct of environmental racism. More affluent, wealthier, and whiter communities in Pasadena and South Pasadena were able to permanently stop the construction of the freeway extension into their cities.
Today, the I-710 Corridor is disproportionately home to Latinx and Black communities. According to a study conducted in 2017, the I-710 Corridor areas have 36 percent higher average particulate matter concentrations than the LA County average. Particulate matter is known to damage the short- and long-term health of individuals who are susceptible to it, which tend to be children, the elderly, and those suffering from respiratory conditions, even at moderate levels.
According to studies, those who live in high emission areas have a significantly higher risk of developing asthma, heart disease, lung cancer, and premature births. Asthma is also statistically more common in Black and Latino children, making them more susceptible to air pollution and the associated poor health outcomes (such as hospitalization or even death). This helps explain why environmental activists describe it as the “diesel death zone.”
According to Metro’s research, air quality was the top worry among participants in the proposal’s vision and goals survey.
“Zero emission should be electric and only electric,” Ms. Elise, a public commenter, cautioned at a community meeting to review the plan in February. Ms. Elise, like many other residents, is concerned about Metro’s potential hydrogen use as a zero-emission source. “It’s probably gonna cause more pollution,” says Ms. Elise.
The plan floats the idea of developing hydrogen-power — once thought to be the clean fuel of the future — infrastructure along the 710 corridor to fuel its power-hungry cargo-hauling vehicles. This alarmed activists, including the Coalition For Environmental Health and Justice. In a recent letter to Metro, CEHAJ cautioned against it potential hydrogen investments, citing the risk it believes the highly flammable gas would pose to the community and its potential environmental hazards. “Testing dangerous, poorly studied hydrogen gas infrastructure in communities that already suffer from 710 corridor’s toxic legacy is unacceptable,” the letter states.
Testing dangerous, poorly studied hydrogen gas infrastructure in communities that already suffer from 710 corridor’s toxic legacy is unacceptable.
CEHAJ pointed out that more than 95 percent of hydrogen production comes from fossil fuels, which it says results in relies on methane gas and ends up releasing hundreds ten the amount of carbon dioxide the hydrogen it produces. “Conversion to hydrogen leads to the release of carbon dioxide, methane, and other pollutants,” CEHAJ argued in its letter to Metro.
“It is also a precursor to particulate matter and ozone, which we already know has a disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities along the corridor. If the primary goal of the Metro’s Investment Plans and the ZET Truck Program is to avoid further harming already impacted communities, then wholehearted support of hydrogen projects will surely undermine it,” the CEHAJ said.
CEHAJ is also worried about the transportation and storage of hydrogen, which pose risks of leaks and explosions and perpetuate the discriminatory practice of placing hazardous infrastructure in poorer, less powerful communities.
So far, Metro has not committed one way or another to investing in hydrogen along the 710 corridor.
“At this point we are silent on it and we will take a review to see what gets included in our final plan,” Michael Cano, Metro’s Deputy Executive Officer, said in the February community meeting.
Despite community concerns, Metro said in the same meeting that they are committed to reducing greenhouse emissions. “Metro has been a leader in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Calix.
Metro insists its plan to add auxiliary lanes to the 710 Freeway does not amount to freeway expansion. “We have eliminated ALL concepts that would require us to widen the freeway. The types of auxiliary lanes we are studying can be implemented without expanding the freeway. We are not expanding the freeway in any shape or form,” Metro said in a recent press release.
In late April Metro’s Board Planning Committee unanimously approved its plan, adding four miles of auxiliary traffic lanes “and other improvements.” This plan supersedes the previous widening plan that was scrapped due to resistance from environmental justice advocates and residents who worry about the history of freeway expansion and displacement. The planning board cited “no known displacements of residents,” when approving the plan, though some are criticizing the language as ambiguous and full of “wiggle room.”
The current plan is much smaller in ambition than the $6 billion plan Metro and Caltrans proposed in 2018 which would have added more that 40 miles of new lanes.
Meanwhile I-710 corridor residents are left sifting through the vague language and wondering whether the new plan, which promises “more than a third of the remaining $743M project budget would go to facilities for transit, bicycling, and/or minimizing goods movement emissions,” will improve their lives or be another expansion wolf in sheep’s clothing.
