Beyond the 710

Beyond the 710 is a subregional community-based effort to reimagine how to solve congestion and mobility problems created by the present configuration of SR710 between Alhambra and Pasadena without the destruction and disruption caused by a freeway tunnel. Beyond the 710 supporters include cities, elected officials, organizations, and community leaders. The Beyond the 710 Proposal, first released in May 2015, shows that congestion can be relieved and economic development promoted by removing freeway stubs at both the I-10 and I-210 freeways.

Numerous citizens and cities oppose the tunnel, which presents environmental, traffic, financial and planning flaws. Beyond the 710 proposes a 21st century multi-modal solution including reconfigured and improved surface streets, better community serving transit that connects people to key destinations and other transit lines, and strategies for increasing walkability and bikability.

A key insight of the Beyond the 710 proposal is that more than 85% of commuters exiting the 710 Freeway at Valley Boulevard are headed for local destinations, and not the kind of “cut-through” drivers that might benefit from a tunnel. The proposal is in stark contrast to a 1950s freeway orientation that ignores community needs and caters only to cars.

The Caltrans-Metro Environmental Impact Report has serious policy, technical and legal shortcomings and went off the tracks from the beginning with a deeply flawed “purpose and needs” analysis that ignores modern mobility goals and provides a skewed analysis unfairly favoring the tunnel. This bias was continued in the recently released cost-benefit analysis, also stuck in 1950s-era thinking. Beyond the 710 is requesting a formal analysis of its proposal and a more independent study of whether this tunnel could ever be worth its huge projected costs and impacts.

For more information, including the proposal, visit www.beyondthe710.org.

Marina Khubesrian, M.D.

Councilmember, South Pasadena