The power of the historic home destruction argument is greatly diminished by the extraordinary mitigation agreed to by the Federal Government. The Federal Government is now willing to pay the additional costs of moving 16 homes to new locations and landscape, and to move 28 houses off the right-of-way during construction of cut and cover tunnels and then move the houses onto rebuilt streets on top of the cut and cover segment.

Although the Federal Government has agreed to this extraordinary level of protection for historic homes, South Pasadena and its preservation allies have attempted to distort the true story. They continue to tell elected officials and the press that "hundreds" of houses will be "destroyed" by the 710 Freeway (implying that every house demolished for the freeway is historic). This characterization is absolutely false, but the historic home issue is perhaps one of the most powerful arguments against the 710 Freeway among casual observers who have not verified the truth of the opponents’ claims.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has disseminated a grossly one-sided viewpoint about the 710 Project. At its national conference held in Los Angeles in fall of 2000, the 710 Freeway was characterized differently than other preservation initiatives around the country. In workshop after workshop, the National Trust officials touted how historic buildings around the country have been preserved with such strategies as moving structures or adaptive reuse of buildings. In the case of the 710 Freeway, there was no discussion of how the National Trust has sought to work with transportation officials to plan for the best preservation of the structures in the path of the 710 Freeway. Instead, the litigation attorney for the City of South Pasadena was given the podium numerous times to perpetuate the misleading historic home destruction argument. In its refusal to work with Caltrans to plan the preservation of affected structures, the National Trust for Historic Preservation engages in a form of institutional NIMBYism.