SOUTH PASADENA'S MULTI-MODE, LOW BUILD ALTERNATIVE
Summary
The Low Build Alternative advocated by the City of South Pasadena and other 710 Project opponents is a cynical sham whose major purpose is to delay completion of the 710 Freeway. The Low Build Alternative was the subject of an intensive study in which South Pasadena representatives and experts participated. Only when the results of the study showed that the Low Build Alternative would have no positive impact on corridor traffic capacity or flow, did South Pasadena vehemently attack the study and its validity.
South Pasadena claims that its Multi-Mode, Low-Build alternative "would achieve 90% of the benefit for 10% of the cost of completing the 710 freeway". This is a noble ...but dishonest... claim. According to the official study, this "alternative" would actually make congestion and pollution worse than doing nothing at all... for 50% of the cost of completing the freeway.
The Details
The Multi-Mode Low Build Alternative Emerged After the Debate on the Freeway Route Ended
In the early years of planning the 710 Freeway Gap Closure, over 27 alternate routes were examined in the multiple environmental studies conducted for the project. In those early years, the City of South Pasadena advocated adoption of routes that would construct the freeway through largely minority communities south and west of South Pasadena and the City also advocated building the 710 in the Arroyo Seco which already has the 110 Freeway. All of these routes were determined to have worse impacts than the adopted route through South Pasadena.
Left with no other routing of the 710 Freeway to push, in the late 1980's the City of South Pasadena began to advocate mere street improvements to replace the road capacity of the freeway, despite the fact that the capacity of one freeway lane dramatically exceeds the traffic carrying capacity of a lane of a city street. A freeway lane carries about 2,000 vehicles per hour and a surface street about 600 vehicles per hour.
Various proposals for partial completion and low build alternatives have been examined in the environmental planning process over the years. For instance, in 1990, South Pasadena proposed the Raymond/Arroyo Couplet that sought to make each of these streets one way in opposite directions. This version of the low build was included in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the 710 Project in 1992, but rejected as not meeting the purposes and needs of the project.
Following the distribution of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, the 710 Project opponents claimed that Caltrans had not studied the low build alternative they had in mind. This claim was taken to other federal agencies by South Pasadena and resulted in the Council on Environmental Quality urging that the parties sit down and identify one low-build alternative for analysis.
To this end, the City of South Pasadena and other opponents retained a Florida transportation planning firm and published a detailed proposal of the Low Build Alternative. On September 17, 1993, the City of South Pasadena and its consultant Glatting, Jackson, Kercher, Anglin, Lopez Rinehart, Inc. of Orlando, Florida, released a report entitled "The Multi-Mode Alternative: A Low-Build Approach to the 710 Freeway Extension." Thus, the definitive and final Multi-Mode, Low-Build Plan ("MMLB") was launched.
The following sections provide an accurate survey of the proposal and the reason why it is not practical as an alternative to closing the gap in the 710 Freeway.