The details on 710 Day, environmental impact still up for debate
http://www.alhambrasource.org/news/details-710-day-environmental-impact-still-debate
By Alfred Dicioco, June 13, 2013

City Council revealed on Monday evening plans for the 710 Day Celebration, an event
on July 10 focusing on traffic, safety, and air quality in connection
with closing the 710 Freeway gap. The Center for Disease Control,
Sparkletts Water, Metro, Alhambra Hospital, and the Alhambra Police
Department will have information booths. Activities also include
carnival games, face paint, food trucks, and live entertainment from a
Cars tribute band, who will be performing on a solar-powered stage in
the Gateway Plaza on Fremont Avenue and Valley Boulevard.
Alhambra officials support a tunnel between the 710 and 210 freeways as a solution to congestion and safety and argue that the option would improve the environment. “For me, it’s very important because it’s an environmental issue. If you read the news, Southern California, Los Angeles specifically, is the number one city in the country, in the entire nation, if you rank it in terms of contamination,” Councilman Luis Ayala said during Monday night's City Council meeting. "This is something that is going to impact most likely our generation, if we see this through. Our kids now living near this freeway are the ones being impacted the most.”
Despite the eco-driven motif of 710 Day, resident Lola Armendariz questioned the safety of the event's location, stating that 50,000 vehicles pass through this intersection of Fremont Avenue and Valley Boulevard each day, according to the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce’s monthly publication Around Alhambra. She also said that the city's new residential projects have contributed to the number of cars passing through the city and the contamination Ayala mentioned.
“You talk about air quality and automobiles and congestion and so on and yet you have high density on Main Street with your projects," Armendariz said during the meeting. "You’ve got the Casita de Zen coming in, the Super A coming in, the Ratkovich project on Mission and Fremont and you have two large projects there. So you can’t be walking around with clean hands here because you are contributing to a lot of the traffic that’s going on out there on the streets."
Alhambra officials support a tunnel between the 710 and 210 freeways as a solution to congestion and safety and argue that the option would improve the environment. “For me, it’s very important because it’s an environmental issue. If you read the news, Southern California, Los Angeles specifically, is the number one city in the country, in the entire nation, if you rank it in terms of contamination,” Councilman Luis Ayala said during Monday night's City Council meeting. "This is something that is going to impact most likely our generation, if we see this through. Our kids now living near this freeway are the ones being impacted the most.”
Despite the eco-driven motif of 710 Day, resident Lola Armendariz questioned the safety of the event's location, stating that 50,000 vehicles pass through this intersection of Fremont Avenue and Valley Boulevard each day, according to the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce’s monthly publication Around Alhambra. She also said that the city's new residential projects have contributed to the number of cars passing through the city and the contamination Ayala mentioned.
“You talk about air quality and automobiles and congestion and so on and yet you have high density on Main Street with your projects," Armendariz said during the meeting. "You’ve got the Casita de Zen coming in, the Super A coming in, the Ratkovich project on Mission and Fremont and you have two large projects there. So you can’t be walking around with clean hands here because you are contributing to a lot of the traffic that’s going on out there on the streets."
Folks who continue pushing - in many cases blindly - the 710 freeway solution in its current iteration are ignoring several key issues related to the current designs being considered as part of the environmental review process.
The most important being that Caltrans has acknowledged finishing the 710 may not actually improve traffic on surface streets, although there might be a slight improvement. Most of the people cutting through are headed to Huntington. Had there been a tunnel exit at Huntington we would have seen substantial improvement on Alhambra's surface streets according to its consultants and reports. Moreover, tolls have not been set. A significant percentage of people are expected to skip the tunnel due to the required tolls - called a diversion rate. That rate goes up with each small toll increase.
So, why support a plan that might only decrease traffic slightly, and without guarantees? Sounds like we're going along too easily. Why not exact more in return. How about our support in return for a light rail from El Monte to union station with 3 stops in Alhambra? On top of the east LA to Pasadena line?
The tunnel will cost billions. I think that if we're serious about decreasing traffic, that money is better spent on double tracking metrolink so people commuting in have a more valuable option. Double tracking and separating the train route from car traffic would allow more trains, take less time to traverse the route, and allow electrification.
Lastly, where is the light rail option in the 710 Day plans? That would be better for the city in the long run than a tunnel that only slightly decreased traffic. Sigh.
Ultimately, I think the City as a whole should wait for Metro to finish the environmental review before supporting the tunnel option. At this point we're blind to its actual value and costs.
(Posted by Joe Cano on No 710 on Avenue 64 Facebook page, June 13, 2013: