August 24, 2015
The San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments on Thursday approved a
transportation priority list that did not include the SR-710 tunnel.
Instead, the SGVCOG adopted a report that noted that possible funding
for a tunnel could come from a future and undefined public private
partnership.
“The SGVCOG’s action confirms what we’ve always known,” said Terry
Tornek, mayor of the City of Pasadena and the city’s representative to
the SGVCOG. “The tunnel project is deeply flawed, politically
unpopular, and presents so many environmental, health, legal,
engineering, and economic concerns that it cannot be funded, let alone
actually built,”
The SGVCOG’s action is part of a process set up by the Metro board
to gather a set of priority projects from each Council of Governments in
the county that might receive funding from a new measure to raise the
sales tax. That measure is expected to be on the ballot in November
2016.
Exclusion from the SGVCOG priority list makes it highly unlikely
that the tunnel will be on the final county-wide project list, many
observers say.
“The many supporters of the Beyond the 710 proposal, including the
City of South Pasadena, continue to encourage Caltrans, Metro and the
members of the SGVCOG to look beyond the terrible idea of the tunnel and
study a modern mobility approach to congestion in the western San
Gabriel Valley such as that represented by the Beyond the 710 proposal,”
said Diana Mahmud, South Pasadena mayor pro tem and the city’s
representative to the SGVCOG.
The Beyond the 710 Proposal shows that congestion can be relieved
and economic development promoted by removing the freeway stubs at both
the I-10 and I-210 freeways. The Proposal,
announced on May 28, 2015, has started a robust community discussion
about how to bring about a mobility solution that benefits everyone and
destroys no one’s community. The Proposal can be found at http://bit.ly/1hk0o9u.
Beyond the 710,
along with numerous cities, government agencies, elected officials,
community organizations, and prominent individuals, recently submitted
formal comment letters highly critical of the SR-710 environmental
review process and encouraging a new approach along the lines of the
Beyond the 710 proposal. Many of those comment letters are available at
the Beyond the 710 website.
Beyond the 710 is a project of the Connected Cities and
Communities, comprised of the cities of Glendale, La Canada Flintridge,
Cities of Glendale, La Canada Flintridge, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and
South Pasadena, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the
Natural Resources Defense Council.