NEEDS ADDRESSED BY THE 710 FREEWAY GAP CLOSURE

Summary

The 710 Gap Closure addresses a number of critical needs in the transportation corridor. The Gap Closure reduces primary arterial street and local street traffic congestion. The 710 Project completes the central Los Angeles county freeway network and includes HOV lanes to promote carpool/vanpool formation as well as transit service. By improving area mobility both in the corridor and on surrounding freeways, the project contributes significantly to improved air quality and reduces vehicle accident and fatality rates in the corridor.

The Details

The 710 Freeway Gap Closure will confer enormous public benefits on the region. These public benefits outweigh by far the significantly mitigated impacts on the affected communities.

Over the years a number of different studies have been made of the benefits and impacts of the 710 Freeway. The most comprehensive study was the 1996 Caltrans evaluation of the South Pasadena Multi-Mode, Low Build Proposal. A working group of regional experts from SCAG, the MTA, FHWA, and hired consultants to the City of South Pasadena agreed upon a modeling approach.

Although South Pasadena's officials and its hired professional modeling experts participated in defining the modeling approach performed by Caltrans under the supervision of an interagency task force, when the results showed that South Pasadena's Multi-Mode, Low build Alternative would absolute not provide any significant traffic congestion relief in the corridor, then they began to attack the study. Regardless of South Pasadena's objections, the results of this modeling represent the most comprehensive and detailed study of the 710 Freeway available for review. The results of the modeling are reported in the following sections of the website.