To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net
PASADENA (CBSLA.com) — Caltrans has started
to sell off 42 homes it bought decades ago in anticipation of the
planned State Route 710 extension through Pasadena, South Pasadena and
Alhambra.
“The selling of these properties — that have been owned by
the state for six decades — is about keeping our promise to the
community to help it create a neighborhood they can be proud of,” said
California State Transportation Agency Secretary Brian Kelly.
The properties were purchased to be demolished, as part of
the plan to clear the area and extend the 710 Freeway from Valley
Boulevard in Alhambra to the 210 Freeway in Pasadena. Decades of delays
and legal challenges derailed the freeway extension, and Caltrans is now
exploring other options, including a tunnel, a light rail system or a
busway.
The properties going up for sale are among 460 the
department owns along the proposed State Route 710 Corridor but are
outside the scope of any current plans under consideration, Caltrans
officials have said previously.
Notices of conditional offers were mailed Friday to the
current occupants of the 42 residential properties that will be sold as
part of the Affordable Sales Program.
Eligible occupants will have the opportunity to purchase the
homes at discounted prices. The department will also provide affordable
rental options for eligible occupants and establish a trust fund for
future affordable housing programs.
“This is a major step toward returning these properties to
both the community and to the families who may have a chance at being a
homeowner for the first time,” said Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty.
Metro Gold Line train traveling to Irwindale Station with cars
transitioning to from (605) Freeway to (210). Train and track testing
Wednesday, February 24, 2016, on the Gold Line extension which opens on
March 5, with the new Gold Line Stations in Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale,
and Azusa. The Gold Line will be the longest light-rail train in
Southern California, at 31 miles. It is also the farthest east Metro has
ever gone.
While Pasadena’s local election won’t occur until March, several
races and issues on the November ballot could have reverberations in the
Crown City.
Perhaps the most relevant is the race for the 25th
Senate District, where Republican Michael Antonovich and Democrat
Anthony Portantino are vying to take over the seat held by state Senator
Carol Liu.
But both regional and state measures, such as
transportation-focused Measure M and even the recreational marijuana
initiative Prop 64, could also have boons and banes for Pasadena.
The Democrat-leaning Senate district stretches from Tujunga to Rancho Cucamonga, with the largest concentrations of people in Burbank and Pasadena.
SENATE DISTRICT 25
Voters
will have to decide between Antonovich, a soon-to-termed out county
supervisor, and Portantino, a former assemblyman and La Canada
Flintridge councilman.
Both have pet projects in mind if elected.
Portantino wants to reform California’s education system into K-14,
with community colleges providing the final two years. Antonovich wants
to push for better services for the homeless and the mentally ill.
The seat would put either man in a position to advocate or oppose
one of the most controversial topics in Pasadena: the 710 freeway
extension.
Portantino strongly opposes the 710 and a proposed
5-mile long tunnel alternative; Antonovich has supported previous
attempts at completing the freeway, but has so far declined to weigh in
on the tunnel project, saying he is waiting for more information.
MEASURE M COULD MEAN MORE GOLD LINE STOPS, ROUTES TO SAN FERNANADO VALLEY
Los
Angeles County’s Measure M is a one-half percent sales tax increase for
the county and is expected to generate $860 million a year to help with
traffic and the rail network.
In Pasadena, some of the money will go toward expanding the Gold Line from Glendora to Claremont.
Though its gained bipartisan support, opponents have criticized Measure M for never sunsetting, essentially guaranteeing the tax stays on the books unless voters remove it via another ballot measure.
Pasadena’s
City Council has voted to support Measure M, because they say it will
improve traffic flow, repave local streets and keep fares affordable.
PROP. 64 COULD OPEN THE DOORS FOR MARIJUANA SALE IN PASADENA
Proposition 64 legalizes the sale and use of recreational marijuana throughout the state.
Pasadena
already prohibits medical marijuana dispensaries from operating within
the city, but the city’s staff has recommended creating strict
regulations that would allow retail sales if Prop. 64 passes. Otherwise,
Pasadena would have to follow the rules created by the state through
its proposed Bureau of Marijuana Control.
The city’s
recommendations include a 1,000 foot separation from schools, parks and
churches and a cap of 7 — one for each district — on the number of
dispensaries.
Medical marijuana dispensaries already operating illegally in the
city would be barred from opening a retail store, according to a staff
report. The operators of those dispensaries have pledged to bring their own ballot measure forward, to force the city to allow them to stay open.
“They
would have the ability to regulate it and make sure its done properly,
but they wouldn’t have the right to ban it,” said Shaun Szameit,
president of the Golden State Collective, on Mentor Avenue.
MEASURE A SUPPORTS NEARBY PARKS
While parks in some parts of Pasadena are abundant, a study by
Los Angeles County found more than 30 percent of people in Pasadena and
Altadena had a high to very high need for parks in their neighborhoods. A
priority list for park projects in two areas studied in Pasadena and
our unincorporated neighbors included more than $200 million in work.
Measure A,
supported by the Pasadena City Council, will provide additional funding
for parks throughout the county through a levy that amounts to about
$22.50 cost per year for the average homeowner of a 1,500 square foot
home
.
It’s expected it would raise about $94 million annually.
Mod: I haven't been bagging on Sierra MadreCity Hall very
much lately. There is just so much else going on in the world right
now. But when it is something as unfortunate as what follows below,
well, it has to at least be noted. Here is how this week's City Council meeting staff report on the Measure M question inadvertently reveals what this unhappiness is all about (link).
Remember, the City of Sierra Madre has already spent a lot of money in the effort to defeat the 710 Tunnel. $50,000
is the number that comes to mind, though it could be more. Which in my
opinion was a very good thing to do. It was money wisely spent.
However, here is the problem as I see it. While Los Angeles County authorities such as Metro and CalTRANS, along with such regional deplorables as SCAG, have worked very hard to assure people that Measure M funds will never be used in any way to help plan - or God forbid build - the 710 Tunnel,
there is nothing at all about any restrictions on the already existing
funds that this new sales tax revenue will likely free up. We're talking
about Prop R and other similar money pots.
By using new Prop M moneys to pay
for some of the things these other funds have been covering until now,
couldn't that quite possibly free up some ready cash elsewhere to help
push forward the 710 Tunnel? Of
course it could. It would merely be a matter of shifting around some of
those already existing revenues. And what control would you have over
that?
Unlike with Measure M, there are no such restrictions in place for already existing fund sources such as Props R. Measure M
will raise an additional $121 billion dollars. Wouldn't that free up a
lot of cash from any previous propositions and tax money streams, money
that could then easily be used in other ways?
And there is absolutely nothing anywhere
that says any freed up funds from those other propositions and tax
resources will never be used to help pay for the 710 Tunnel.
Before you vote be sure to check out the Voter Information page
of the No 710 Action Committee website. Listed are the names of
candidates for various positions who oppose the SR 710 tunnel
alternative as well as those who support the tunnels. Be sure to
read the quotes from these candidates by clicking the link on
the left side of the page. There is much at stake. Successful
supervisor
candidates will take a seat on the Metro Board of Directors --
the Board that will determine whether or not ot proceed with
the tunnels. It will be very important to have anti-tunnel
state senators and assembly members representing us in
Sacramento to insure that CEQA is upheld and that the tunnels
are killed forever, These are positions where issues become
more important than following party line.
There was an informational meeting at the Pasadena Convention Center
last Thursday, September 22, to discuss the Cost/Benefit Analysis (CBA)
of the SR 710 North Study. The meeting was the result of a bill
introduced by State Senator Carol Liu to inform the public about what
the SR 710 tunnel extension will cost to build and what the supposed
benefits will be to the public. The Metro Board had also passed a motion
for a CBA study in June of 2010. It should be noted that this tunnel is
a State Route (SR) not an interstate highway.
Now that seems a simple thing, but it is not. Metro put out for
public comment the Cost/Benefit Analysis in June of 2015, a month after
the Draft Environmental Impact Report, but there was never an
opportunity for the public to weigh in at a public meeting to ask
questions and make comments. The study included all five alternatives
and several variations of the alternatives, including: Transportation
Systems Management and Transportation Demand Management (TSM/TDM),
tunnel single bore, tunnel dual bore, bus rapid transit, and light rail
transit).
Even though there are five alternatives still on the table the tunnel
is the only real alternative. The tunnel cost was presented as two
options, a single bored tunnel with four traffic lanes and a dual bored
tunnel with eight traffic lanes which has been challenged as not being
accurate. Note that the dual bore tunnel will carry 180,000 vehicles per
day and the single bore tunnel 90,000 vehicles per day. The dual bore
tunnel was estimated to cost $5.6 billion and the single bore tunnel
$3.86 Billion.
These figures are presented without an itemized listing of the
components of the cost. How they came up with these figures is a real
mystery. The study anticipates tolls. The amount of the tolls for this
study was set at an amount that would attract 75% of the physical
capacity of the tunnel and operate at a speed of 45 mph or greater. So
the tolls will be set to limit the use of the tunnel by people of lower
income. They plugged all their data into something called the California
Benefit/Cost (Cal-B/C) model.
This model is something that can only be understood by traffic
engineers. Carol Liu had prepared a detailed analysis of the use of this
model and believes it was not used correctly. Marina Khubesrian, City
Councilperson for South Pasadena, in the Q & A segment of the
meeting, brought up these defects and the panel listened, but made no
comments were made on their validity. These are very technical points
understood by few. The benefits came in many categories: travel time,
capital expenditures (construction and right of way costs), vehicle
operating costs, system and maintenance costs, safety effects, emissions
effects, employment benefits, and residual values.
The results of the CBA were simplified to a single table:
Alternative/Variation; Present Value of Costs; Present Value of Benefits; Net Present Value
Tunnel single Bore; $1,951-1,997 Million; $ 3,429-3,587 Million; $ 1,478-1590 Million
Tunnel Dual bore; $3,227-3374 Million; $3,337-3,733 Million; -$37-506 Million
Bus Rapid Transit; $510 Million; $879 Million; $ 369 Million
Light Rail Transit; $2,163 Million; $1,293 Million; – $870 Million
TSM/TDM; $255 Million; $599 Million; $ 344 Million
So the winner is the single bore tunnel! The key to this table is the
Net Present Value (NPV). The NPV is your best bang for the buck and the
single bore tunnel is the best with a value of $1,478-1,590 million.
Questions and Answer period
Many questionable assumptions are made along the way and some of these
were brought out in the Q & A segment. The Sepulveda Pass Tunnel was
estimated at one Billion/mile. The 710 tunnels are estimated at ½
Billion/mile.
The Alaskan Way Tunnel in Seattle was also about one billion/mile.
The discrepancy was not explained. The monetary benefit for tunnel
users, aka drivers, was $22/ hour while for transit users it was
$6/hour. It was asked, since the air pollution studies were inadequate
per the United States Environmental Protection Agency (no analysis of
hot spots like Old Town in Pasadena), if the CBA will be redone to
reflect the health costs due to the increased pollution in Pasadena, La
Cañada, and other areas seeing increased vehicular traffic. In my mind,
this was not really answered.
The next step in the process to build the tunnel is to analyze the
8,000 comments submitted regarding the EIR/EIS. This will be done some
time in 2017. After this is done, a preferred alternative will be
selected. Michelle Smith, Metro’s lead representative, said that when
the preferred alternative is presented to the Metro Board there will be a
funding plan. They plan on funding this project by creating a Public
Private Partnership (PPP). This means that they will have to sell this
project to someone and their numbers and assumptions cannot be as vague
as presented in this CBA.
Background Provided by Metro
On June 19, 2015, Metro and Caltrans issued an Analysis of Costs and
Benefits (CBA) for the State Route 710 (SR-710) North study alternatives
for public review. The CBA was prepared in response to direction by the
Metro Board and is a means of applying an economic value to
alternatives being evaluated for the SR 710.
The CBA is one of many technical reports that will be used to evaluate
the alternatives in the SR 710 North Study Draft Environmental Impact
Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS).
Editor’s Note: Metro provided the background for this commentary.
From Steve Madison, City of Pasadena Councilperson, September 21, 2016
We
had a great turnout for the 710 Tunnel Forum (even though thre
were several other events the same evening). The focus was
information-sharing about alternatives to the 710 Tunnel
project which would be catastrophic for Pasadena and the
Region.
Our
esteemed presenters—Paul Moore, renowned transportation and
traffic expert, public policy and transportation guru David
Grannis and highly respected architect and urbanist Stefanos
Polyzoides—were terrific.
If
you were unable to attend the forum, please know that the
program in its entirety has been uploaded to the District 6
website http://ww5.cityofpasadena.net/district6. (Scroll down to Featured
Stories and click on the image.)
Please feel free to
share any thoughts you may have after viewing the Forum.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Finally, please forward
this information to others. The 710 Tunnel project is an
important regional issue that is of great concern to us
all.
Alhambra council candidates, Mark Nisall who is against the 710 Freeway
tunnel option pointing to the traffic and potential area for the
underground 710 freeway tunnel on Fremont Avenue in Alhambra. Is
Alhambra ready to elect city councilmembers who don’t support the
completion of the 710? With the surface freeway option off the table,
the only other option to complete the freeway is an underground tunnel,
but two Alhambra council candidates, Mark Nisall and Ken Toh, oppose the
tunnel, bucking tradition in Alhambra.
ALHAMBRA >> For more than half a century, the battle over
whether to complete the 710 Freeway from its terminus in Alhambra north
to Pasadena has been divisive for San Gabriel Valley residents.
Many
people often boil down the battle to Alhambra versus South Pasadena,
with the former in favor of completing the freeway and the latter
opposed. All five members of Alhambra’s current City Council support
Metro and Caltrans’ tunnel proposal and make that opinion known by
hanging banners over Fremont Avenue that read “Close the gap” and even
closing Fremont once a year on July 10 to host a street festival
centered around completing the 710.
After 51 years, are Alhambra residents ready to shed the
pro-710-extension mantle as they prepare to elect two new City Council
members, with Vice Mayor Steven Placido and Councilman Gary Yamauchi
terming out?
Both seats are being contested by candidates who
oppose the 710 tunnel, but it remains unclear whether Alhambra voters
are ready to move in that direction.
Council
candidates Mark Nisall and Ken Toh, running for the seats in districts 3
and 4 respectively, both said they started out supporting the tunnel
but changed their opinions after learning more about the project’s cost,
which has been estimated at $5 billion-$10 billion, and a 10- to
15-year construction estimate.
Nisall and Toh both said the money could be better spent elsewhere.
Nisall
said he supports increased light-rail options, adding rapid bus lines,
improving traffic signal synchronization and the construction of an
above-ground north-south boulevard that lines up with the 710 terminus.
Toh said he supports increased light-rail and rapid bus lines.
Nisall also is concerned with the potential environmental impacts that boring a tunnel below people’s homes may have.
“I
couldn’t support it after looking at the cost, the time it would take
to construct and the environmental dangers ahead,” he said.
Nisall said his position isn’t making him any friends, but he’s
hoping voters will take time to consider the alternatives to the tunnel
and, ultimately, not just make their council decisions based on the 710.
“I
hope people won’t decide to vote for or against me or any other
candidate only on this one issue,” Nisall said. “I hope they look at our
positions on other issues as well.”
ANTI-710 SENTIMENT GROWING SLOWLY
For several
years, a group calling itself Alhambrans Against the 710 has been trying
to rally locals to fight efforts to complete the freeway, including the
tunnel.
The group protests at Alhambra’s 710 Day and marches alongside the
“No on 710” coalition in the South Pasadena Fourth of July parade.
The
group has grown from 40 members to 90 in the past two years, which may
sound low but illustrates a shift in philosophy among residents, said
member and 10-year resident Melissa Michelson.
“It’s time for
nonestablishment candidates to come up,” Michelson said. “People are
sick of the old guard. To me, it’s historic that we finally have
candidates willing to speak against the 710.”
Michelson said November’s ballot results will tell just how ready the city is for that change.
SUPPORT FOR METRO REMAINS
Nisall
and Toh are being opposed by Jeff Maloney and David Mejia,
respectively. While neither said they are specifically supporting the
tunnel, both said they would support whatever option Metro and Caltrans
deems most effective.
Mejia lives just off of Fremont near Valley Boulevard and said he has to deal with the traffic every day.
“The
other candidates don’t see what I see every day,” said Mejia, an
investigator with the Los Angeles Police Department. “We have families
trying to walk around here with cars zooming through. (Traffic
navigation mobile app) Waze loves my block, unfortunately.”
Maloney said he is ready to support Metro’s best solution to
reducing traffic, gridlock, air pollution and damage to the streets
created by the 710 emptying into Alhambra.
“It looks like they will end up recommending a tunnel,” Maloney said. “If that’s the case, I would support it.”
But
Maloney also said that, ultimately, Alhambra won’t be the one deciding
to dig a tunnel; Metro and Caltrans will decide the 710’s future.
CAN CITIES' OPINIONS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Metro
and Caltrans may be leading the conversation right now with the 710
alternatives under environmental review, but the positions cities take
on the matter still bear weight, said Sam Pedroza, mayor of Claremont
and vice chair of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments’
transportation committee.
“The environmental review process is out of the cities’ hands,”
Pedroza said, “But the advocacy for or against the project is still
largely in the cities’ hands.”
In 2018, Alhambra Mayor Barbara
Messina and City Councilmen Luis Ayala and Stephen Sham will term out of
their council seats, which leaves open the possibility of a new
majority opinion on the council.
Viola Rippon, president of the Alhambra Democratic Club, said she isn’t sure residents care anymore.
The
club held a candidates forum in August and endorsed Nisall and Toh, but
not because of their views on the 710. In fact, Rippon said she wasn’t
aware until recently that Toh opposed the tunnel.
Instead, Rippon said residents are more concerned with overdevelopment and accompanying traffic buildup in Alhambra.
“Right
now, the 710 is an antiquated issue,” Rippon said. “It could come up
again once Metro makes a final decision, but I think after 50 years most
people around here have moved on.”
Measure M would extend the route for the Metro Gold Line train, shown here in 2013 at the Del Mar Station in Pasadena.
It is vital that any ballot measure addressing our county’s
transportation needs provides a comprehensive, regional solution to
reduce congestion and improve air quality. Previous transportation
measures were created from the top down and failed to guarantee a fair
share for, or consider the needs of, Los Angeles County’s 88 cities and
134 unincorporated communities. Those measures also failed to develop a
truly regional, interconnected transportation system.
Measure M, the “Los Angeles County Traffic Improvement Plan” corrects these failures.
In 2013, as chairman of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan
Transportation Authority board, following the defeat of Measure J, I
sent letters to each of the county’s 88 cities and their regional
Councils of Government asking them to identify their local and regional
transportation priorities. This set into motion a first-of-its-kind,
bottoms-up approach to assess the transportation needs of our county,
which was supported by subsequent Metro chairs, Diane DuBois, Eric
Garcetti, Mark Ridley-Thomas and John Fasana. Hundreds of public
meetings were held with the cities, community organizations, business
groups, experts and advocates.
In contrast to previous measures, Measure M creates a regional
transportation system which is fair to our county’s local communities
because it was developed from the bottom up. It is subject to tough
accountability measures with an oversight committee and annual audits
posted online. Further, all funds generated are for local use only on
transit projects in Los Angeles County — and cannot be siphoned away by
the state.
Funding from Measure M will be used in each of our
county’s 88 cities and unincorporated communities to repair and build
new transportation infrastructure — from filling potholes to paving
roads to synchronizing signals to improving intersections. Measure M
will fix bottlenecks on freeways including the 5, 14, 405 and 605.
Relieving traffic congestion, it will improve freight and goods movement
by supporting the development of the High Desert Multi-purpose
Corridor, upgrading Metrolink, enhancing passenger and freight rail
corridors, and constructing critical grade separation projects.
Enhancing regional transit, it will extend the Gold Line through
the San Gabriel Valley to Claremont, connecting with existing stations
in Pasadena, Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale and Azusa. Dubbed the
“Brain Train,” the Gold Line is connecting educational institutions
including the Pasadena Arts Center, Cal Tech, Pasadena City College,
Azusa Pacific University, La Verne University and the Claremont
Colleges.
Measure M will also provide a vital connection between
the Gold Line and the Red Line, from Pasadena to North Hollywood via
Glendale and Burbank, on a dedicated bus line, which I proposed to
further connect the county’s transportation system. It connects the San
Fernando Valley to the Westside and will bring multiple lines to LAX. In
addition, it will fund improvements to the Orange Line, ultimately
transitioning to light rail, and build a 20-mile rail line from Downtown
L.A. to Artesia.
Under the leadership of CEO Phil Washington, Metro will continue to
be proactive and inclusive of the needs of our communities through the
region and Measure M will provide the resources to meet those needs into
the future. It will keep student, senior and disabled fares affordable
while funding critical earthquake retrofits of our bridges and
overpasses. It will also create over 465,000 jobs and has bipartisan
support from labor, business, chambers of commerce and public officials.
On Nov. 8, Los Angeles County voters will have an opportunity to
develop a comprehensive and interconnected transportation system which
will relieve congestion and gridlock, improve air quality and quality of
life for the residents of our County’s 88 cities and unincorporated
communities.
Measure M will modernize our aging transportation system
and provide a 21st century transportation network which accelerates
transit lines and ties them together into a comprehensive system with
improved freeway and local road networks. Vote yes on Measure M.
Michael Antonovich is a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing the 5th District.
So far, most of Streetsblog L.A.’s coverage of Measure M,
Metro’s sales tax proposal that will be on the fall ballot, has been
positive. With our eyes fixed on graphics showing the growth of our rail
and rapid bus network, a robust active transportation funding program,
and some flexibility in the language allocating highway funding; there’s
a lot to like in the proposal.
But no ballot measure, especially one of this size, is perfect and
there are many groups fighting the ballot measure for a variety
of reasons. Here’s a list of some of the main opponents of Measure M,
along with a few others that might join the fight in the future.
ALREADY OPPOSED
Fight for the Soul of the Cities and the Bus Riders Union
– The BRU has fought tooth and nail against Measure R in 2008 and
Measure J in 2012. Their arguments, both then and now, focus on two
points. First, they argue that Metro cannot be trusted with such a large
infusion of funds because of a poor civil rights record. Second, they
feel the measure’s focus on automobile flow and rail expansion instead
of more robust growth for the bus network and greater fare subsidies
won’t actually do anything to improve mobility or the environment. Read
more details on their arguments, here.
The City of Beverly Hills – John Mirisch isn’t just a commenter at The Source,
he’s also the Mayor of Beverly Hills. Given the city’s opposition to
one of Metro’s signature projects, the Purple Line Extension from
mid-town to the V.A. Hospital, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the City
renewed its opposition to a Metro proposed sales tax. Beverly Hills was a
key member of the coalition that narrowly defeated Metro’s Measure J in
2012. Mirisch recently authored a long piece on the Huffington Post outlining why, in his view, a vote for Measure M will benefit Metro staff and developers and be bad for everyone else.
The Crenshaw Subway Coalition – In 2012, the
Coalition was also a key member of the No on Measure J campaign mainly
because there was not enough funding going to fun a full-grade-separated
Crenshaw Line through South L.A.’s black-owned business districts.
At an anti-J rally, executive director Damien Goodmon argued
“We are all opposed to…the crony capitalism, we are opposed to MTA
becoming an ATM for the 1%, the developers and the contractors. We stand
across the street from View Park Prep School (at Slauson and Crenshaw)
where a proposed light rail line will be endangering the safety of
children. It’s a common thread throughout the region…in Beverly Hills,
in South LA, in East LA… and we see an agency that can simply not be
trusted with our tax dollars.”
While the Crenshaw Line is under construction, an infusion of funds
might not be enough to do the grade separation the coalition wanted four
years ago. The organization is still active and is doubtless not happy
with Metro.
“Taxpayers Rights” Organizations – There are a
handful of organizations that oppose every newly proposed tax including
the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Even if they haven’t taken a
position on Measure M yet, they almost certainly will.
NOT OPPOSED
No on 710 – The No on 710 Coalition is widely
believed to have fought Measure J because its imagery appeared at No on
Measure J events and the issue of the proposed highway tunnel extension
was brought up by opposition. However, when I reached out to one of the
leaders of the organization, they stressed that they were not in
opposition to Measure J in the past nor Measure M today.
“First, let me say that the our organization, the No 710 Action
Committee did not oppose Measure J. The issue of the tunnel was used by
other opposition groups, so there was some confusion about our official
position. As far as Measure M is concerned, Metro has included language
in the ordinance that precludes the use of Measure M funds for
construction of the tunnel alternative. The No 710 Action Committee does
not oppose Measure M. We have always supported good projects such as
the extension of the Gold Line to Claremont, and in fact strongly
recommend that the remaining $700 million dollars (approximately) targeted by Measure R for the SR 710 be used instead for the very worthy Gold Line Extension.”
WHO KNOWS?
Familiar faces.
The Coalition to Preserve LA –
The organization which is fighting to pass the Neighborhood Integrity
Initiative in March of 2017 has yet to take a position on Measure M and
quite possibly never will. However, some of the Coalition’s highest
profile backers are vocal opponents of Measure M and some of Measure M’s
highest profile supporters are opponents of the Neighborhood Integrity
Initiative. Will this lead to opposition on Measure M? Probably not, but
stranger things have happened.
Did I miss someone? Let me know in the comments section.
Scenes during the Councilmember John Kennedy's community meeting on Tuesday, August 31, 2016.
New hotels, a bike sharing program and a plan to re-imagine the
Northern “stump” of the 710 Freeway highlighted Councilmember John
Kennedy’s District 3 community meeting Tuesday evening, as nearly a
hundred residents gathered in the Donald Wright Auditorium at Pasadena
Central Library for a wide-ranging update from the Councilmember.
Poet Gerda Govine Ituarte added a soupçon of literary culture to the
evening, reading from a poem which told the tale of her arrival in
America as a young child in New York City.
Following Ituarte’s evocative poem, Kennedy honored newly retired
Director of Library Services Jan Sanders, commending her for her 11
years of service in Pasadena.
Kennedy then began his presentation with a report on the city’s five
new hotel projectss, highlighting the new and controversial proposed
Kimpton Hotel/YWCA project, in Pasadena’s Civic Center, which would if
approved convert the 1922 Julia Morgan-designed building at 79 North
Marengo Avenue into a 179-room two-to-six story luxury hotel.
That project is one of five new hotel projects in the city, in various stages of planning or construction.
Kennedy also praised the new Heritage Square senior housing project
being built north of the intersection of Orange Grove Boulevard and
North Fair Oaks Avenue. Kennedy said the project has already received
1,500 pre-applications for the 70 apartments being planned.
Reporting on the city’s 2014 embezzlement case, Kennedy revealed that
$5 million has been recovered through various insurance policies and
the City hopes to recover the balance following the disposition of the
case. A former management analyst in Pasadena’s Public Works Department,
Danny Wooten, along with two other suspects, faces more than 60 counts
of fraud, embezzlement and tax-related charges. No trial date has been
set yet.
The new renovations and rehabilitations at Jackie Robinson Park are
also getting underway, Kennedy reported, and a number of classes and
activities will be moved temporarily to the Jackie Robinson Senior
Center across the street to accommodate the work. While construction
dates are still pending on the four-year old project, construction
documents were completed and submitted to the Building Department in
February, 2016.
The City’s Recreation Department will also be working directly with
the Pasadena Unified School District in an effort to re-locate more
activities during the construction process.
According to Kennedy’s update, the Renaissance Plaza on Orange Grove
at Fair Oaks may also soon undergo some changes. As the original loan
for the project is about to be paid off, Von’s Market, the current
tenant, may be relocating.
“We are hoping to find a quality market for that location, who can
provide fresh and healthy food for this community,” said Kennedy of the
proposed change.
Kennedy also reported that 12,000 feet of city sidewalks have been
repaired this year, and reaffirmed the City’s commitment to repairing as
many feet of sidewalk as possible this year.
Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez delivered updates on two recent
shootings, but continued to bemoan the lack of community participation
in providing information to police regarding crimes.
“Without your support,” Sanchez told the meeting, “We can’t close
that loop, so we are constantly seeking information from anyone who
might know anything.” Sanchez also noted that during or after previous
District 3 community meetings, he has received information on crimes,
either by phone or e-mail.
“That information stays confidential,” Sanchez emphasized, “so if you
know anything, or you know anyone that is involved in that kind of
behavior, please give us a call.”
The Pasadena Police Department to date, said Sanchez, has seized over
1,300 guns, with “150 guns seized this year alone.” According to
Sanchez, the various guns were seized in search warrants, or from armed
individuals, or surrendered by community members.
Finally, hammering home a familiar theme at community meetings,
Sanchez told the group, “ I don’t want to get into a discussion about
the Second Amendment, but I will say this. If you own a gun, please be a
responsible gun owner. That means watching the gun, and keeping that
gun in an approved safe.”
In addition to the project updates and safety reminders, Conrad
Viana, principal engineer from the Transportation Department, reported
that the City is moving closer to the full implementation of its
proposed bikeshare plan, first proposed in 2014, making bicycles
available for short-term rentals and commutes.
The idea, explained Viana, is to ideally provide bikes for short
commutes to Gold Line or bus stations, and then bikes for the commute to
work from public transportation.
The Metro bikeshare program is part of the City’s Bicycle
Transportation Action Plan, with bikeways eventually located in 12 miles
of collector and arterial roadways in the city. When fully implemented,
the program will be located at 34 kiosks around the city, providing a
total of 411 bicycles. The city is currently evaluating 120 potential
kiosk sites.
Meanwhile to date, over 200 new bike racks have been added citywide to further promote bicycling
.
The evening also featured a dramatic presentation led by architect
Stefanos Polyzoides on the “Connecting Pasadena” project, a plan to fill
the trench at the Northern end of the proposed 710 extension and create
a brand-new new community flanked by Pasadena Avenue and the freeway.
“Freeways are the bane of our existence,” said Polyzoides. “No sane
person thinks that freeways are a good transit idea,” he said as he
outlined two plans from his group’s presentation.
The first plan would leave the ditch of the 710 freeway in place and
work around the existing topographic conditions, he explained. A main
parkway would be placed in the center and at the bottom of the existing
710 right-of-way. All thoroughfares would be reconnected and turned into
two-way circulation. With this plan, said Polyzoides, the volume and
manner of access to the 134 and 210 Freeways is maintained and
neighborhood traffic is slowed down and dispersed.
There would be development blocks located on either side of the parkway, according to the plan.
The second alternative would fill the entire ditch and re-establish
the topographic level of the site as it existed before the construction
of the freeway. A major boulevard, similar to Boston’s Commonwealth
Avenue, would replace Pasadena Avenue, and serve to both direct traffic
going into and out of the freeway, and disperse traffic to the
neighborhoods to the south, east and west through reestablished two-way
streets.
The proposed community would also locate housing close to public transit, and establish new green spaces as well.
Nellie Herrera, 91 has lived at 5513 Atlas Street in El Sereno for 54
years and will be moving to live with her daughter in La Puente because
Caltran is selling this home. Caltrans is preparing to sell the first 42
homes that were along the surface route of the proposed 710 Freeway
extension in about one month. Two key things have fallen in place:
release of a final Environmental Impact Report for the North 710 in El
Sereno (LA), South Pasadena and Pasadena surplus properties a few weeks
ago and simultaneously the finalization of a list of regulations on how
to go about selling the homes. The sales of surplus properties that were
supposed to be standing in the path of an extended freeway (surface
route) will begin at the end of September, said Caltrans. The EIR says
these will not be impacted by any potential extension , such as a
4.5-mile tunnel. There are 460 potential properties that Caltrans has
identified for sale. The final EIR says they will be selling off
properties in a five-year period, from September to 2020. They will be
sold to housing entities, previous owners, current tenants or other
private individuals or organizations.
Under orders by both the governor and the state Legislature, and
after a years-long push by both cities and tenants, Caltrans will soon
begin selling houses along the path of a scuttled surface route of a
north 710 Freeway extension,
The state transportation agency,
often criticized as an absentee landlord dragging its feet, will begin
taking first offers on 42 properties this fall, said agency spokeswoman
Lauren Wonder on Monday.
“That is what we are getting prepared to sell,” Wonder said,
referring to the list. “We will go out and start taking first offers.”
After
years of challenges, rewrites and delays, Caltrans on July 26 approved a
final, state-required environmental report on the sale of surplus
properties along what would’ve been the buildout of a surface freeway
route from Valley Boulevard in Alhambra to the 210 Freeway in west
Pasadena.
On the same date, Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty
signed off rules allowing the sale of 460 properties in the same
north-south strip under a state program.
With a new surface freeway route ruled out, Caltrans is still
considering other projects for the area: a dedicated busway, a
light-rail line, traffic management systems or a 6.3-mile freeway tunnel with or without trucks, according to the agency.
The first homes being sold will lie outside “the scope” of those transportation options, according to Caltrans.
Properties
closer to the new routes will be sold later, as will properties
considered excess if alternative routes are built or the project is
killed.
Any decision on a freeway tunnel or another alternative won’t be made until next year, she said.
Caltrans
said the approval of the reports will allow the agency to move forward
with the sale of the homes at appraised, fair-market value. Homes with
residents living there for more than two years will be sold at an
“affordable price,” according to Caltrans documents.
Sergio
Gonzalez, city manager of South Pasadena, said the city is “very excited
about getting these properties back into private ownership.”
Of the 42 properties listed, three are in Pasadena, six in Los Angeles and 33 in South Pasadena.
Gonzalez
said in the past, many of the Caltrans properties along the route were
shuttered or marked with graffiti. Many fell into general disrepair.
A recent bill
by state Sen. Carol Liu, D-La Canada Flintridge, required Caltrans to
remove itself from its landlord role and sell the homes as is. But the
opening of bids is likely to bring even more questions about the
properties and their residents.
Some wonder whether the
rent-paying tenants will be able to afford the asking price for their
homes. If not, advocates worry that they’ll be forced out.
But some residents, like Nellie Herrera, 91, who has lived in the
same home in El Sereno for 54 years, said it might be time to move on.
If her house is sold, she said she’ll go live with a relative.
“It is a nice home. I like it,” she said. “I take good care of my house. But it is too big for me.”
Chris
Sutton, a Pasadena attorney who has represented tenants of Caltrans’
homes located along the surface route for decades, was skeptical about
the sales moving forward. Caltrans has broken promises in the past, he
said.
Sutton is also worried that the formulas Caltrans proposed for
setting the selling price may leave low and middle-income tenants out on
the street.
“We are hoping that the EIR will suggest mitigation measures to allow people to buy as many properties as they can,” he said.
Gonzalez
said South Pasadena wants to see the homes sold so the owners can pay
full property taxes, a source of revenue for the city, county, school
and water districts. But he also said the city wants to see tenants buy
the homes from Caltrans. “They are our residents,” he said.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, the date
Caltrans planned to sell the homes was incorrect. Caltrans plans to sell
the homes this fall, but has not specified an exact month.
Pasadena City Councilmember Steve Madison invites
you to a Forum on Alternatives to the 710 Tunnel.
Everyone is invited, you do not have to live in Pasadena.
When: Thursday, September 15, 2016
Time: 6:30 - 8:00 pm (doors open at 6pm)
Where: Pasadena Convention Center Ballroom
300 E. Green, Pasadena
Message from Steve Madison:
We
hope that you will attend this important forum on
alternatives to the 710 tunnel. The forum will
address the preferred Pasadena plans and demonstrate
how they fit into regional transportation plans. We
think this is an important beginning for providing
information to the public about a better way to move
people and fix traffic.
THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-Just when you thought the November ballot was
splitting at the seams with volumes of initiatives and measures, the
Board of Supervisors has stuffed in another, agreeing unanimously last
week to add the MTA’s proposal, asking county voters to approve a
half-cent sales tax increase that would continue indefinitely to
bankroll a major expansion of SoCal’s transit network.
Back in June, MTA directors greenlighted the “Los Angeles County
Traffic Improvement Plan,” which would add at least $860 million a year
to expand the county’s rail network through the San Fernando Valley, San
Gabriel Valley, and the Sepulveda Pass. The funding isn’t limited to
rail; the proceeds from the tax would fully or partially fund ten new
highway projects, which would include a State Route 71 expansion and a
new carpool-lane interchange between the 405 and 110.
What does this mean to your wallet? The county’s base sales rate
would be pushed to 9.5 percent and 10 percent in cities like Santa
Monica and Commerce. Ouch. And if that isn’t enough to break a sweat,
the half-cent tax would double to one-cent in 2039 to replace revenue
lost when Measure R expires. That one-cent increase would also continue
indefinitely.
We all know that the traffic jams, Sig Alerts, and smog in these
parts are among the worst in the country, especially on that parking lot
otherwise known as the 101/405 interchange. Though the measure seems to
have support from labor groups and municipalities, Supervisor Don Knabe
expressed concern about what is now the third tax to fund Metro that does not have an expiration date.
If the measure is approved, Metro will get two cents on every dollar
spent in LA County, a mighty steep allowance. However, the measure faces
some uphill battles, including a ballot already jammed with a tax
initiative and a two-thirds pass threshold. Other taxes on the ballot
for county voters include a parcel tax for parks and a community college
bond measure; LA City voters will be voting on a $1.2 billion bond
measure to fund housing for the homeless.
Giving any entity unlimited access to our credit and debit
cards for eternity is always a dicey move but add in the fact that the
MTA doesn’t appear to be doing a bang-up job with what’s already in the
coffers just further raises our eyebrows.
Getting Angelenos to ditch the Prius for a ride on the Metro
is a challenge. Two months after the Westside light rail extension,
riders have been waiting for hours for a train because the MTA doesn’t
have enough rail cars to accommodate the Expo Line’s ridership, due to a
year-long delay in acquiring additional cars. As it stands, rail cars
don’t have adequate space for bikes, wheelchairs, sometimes even
passengers during peak hours. Waiting twelve-minutes for the next train
doesn’t make riding the Metro more of a draw to commuters who are on a
schedule.
Westsiders have been turning to the Metro during the week; trips have
increased by half since the trains began running in Santa Monica but
logistical issues have not allowed the Metro to keep up with demand for
cars.
Back in 2008, LA County voters approved a half-cent sales tax
increase to fund almost thirty miles of light rail tracks and rail cars;
the first fifty from Italian company Ansaldo/Breda came in years behind
schedule and overweight by almost three tons. The MTA deal with the
company collapsed and the transit authority was left scrambling for a
replacement, this time giving a $900 million contract to Japanese-based
Kinkisharyo International back in 2012 for 235 new cars. Kinkisharyo
delivered the first silver and yellow cars expediently but tests are
taking longer than planned. Of the 41 cars delivered, 13 still need to
be tested. While the goal is to run trains every six minutes by year’s
end and three-car trains by 2017-2018, platform length limits trains
greater than three cars, which means not everyone will get a seat.
The challenge of continuing to encourage commuters to trade in their
gas cards for a Metro Card and to attract new riders needs to be
balanced with the blank check sales tax proposal put up by the MTA. If
the MTA is not up to the challenge as of yet, handing over the checkbook
does not seem like a prudent plan.
Metro in trouble.
Lousy planning. New Westside extension short on train cars. Riders
left standing at stations for hours because trains are jammed.
Our question is, if they can't -- with years to do it -- manage to
prepare for the extension, then why should we trust them to handle the
new sales tax they're asking for?
Obviously, they're not ready for growth. So why would people give up their cars to stand in line for hours waiting for a train?
Students walk home after school near heavy traffic along Florence Avenue
bridge over the I-5 Freeway in Santa Fe Springs on Tuesday, Oct. 15,
2013. Florence Avenue is expected to be reduced from four to two lanes
as part of the I-5 widening construction project.
Lurking beneath a unanimous vote Tuesday by the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors placing a half-cent sales tax measure on the
November ballot to fund $132 billion in transportation improvements was
some hefty opposition from cities in the southeast and South Bay.
While others praised Measure R-2’s list of rail, highway and bikeway projects as equitable, the South Bay Cities Council of Governments and the Gateway Cities Council of Governments disagree,
saying the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
(Metro) kicked their freeway and railway projects to the back of the
line in favor of added projects for the west side of Los Angeles and the
San Fernando Valley.
Last month, the Gateway Cities voted 21-1 to oppose the measure,
with Long Beach abstaining. The South Bay cities voted 9-0 in
opposition, including Carson, El Segundo, Gardena, Hermosa Beach,
Lawndale, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills and
Torrance, records show. Inglewood, Lomita, Manhattan Beach, Redondo
Beach and Rolling Hills Estates abstained.
The two organizations,
representing 43 out of the 88 cities in the county, may stir up enough
opposing votes that could place Metro’s ballot measure — one it has
asked the county to name Measure M — in jeopardy of gaining the
necessary two-thirds vote on Nov. 8.
Ballot watchers and Metro insiders say obscure regional city
groups angry over missing out on local transit dollars may not sway
traffic-weary motorists from voting for congestion relief. On the other
hand, elected officials from tight-knit communities such as Bell, Cudahy
or Huntington Park could influence voters through word of mouth and
informational fliers mailed to thousands of homes from City Hall, said
Karen Heit, transportation consultant for the Gateway Cities.
“In
these small communities, where their councilman also coaches football or
soccer teams, it could be a very real factor in the way people vote,”
she said.
Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at
USC, said people vote for tax measures when they believe the dollars
will come home. Already, Metro is benefiting from Proposition A,
approved by voters in 1980; Proposition C, approved by voters in 1990;
and Measure R, approved by voters in 2008. Metro opened two light-rail
line extensions this spring using sales tax dollars. The new measure would bring the total sales tax for transportation to 2 percent. It does not have a sunset date.
“No community organization has absolute influence on these types of
votes,” said Schnur, who added: “It is not determinative but it doesn’t
help.”
A Metro survey conducted in May found 72 percent in favor
of a permanent, half-cent transportation measure, said Pauletta Tonilas,
Metro spokeswoman. Of those, 70 percent in favor lived in the South Bay
and 71 percent in favor lived in southeast Los Angeles County.
Still,
if Metro loses votes from these and other Gateway Cities such as
Artesia, Bell, Bellflower, Cerritos, Commerce, Compton, Downey, Hawaiian
Gardens, La Mirada, Lakewood, Lynwood, Maywood, Norwalk, Paramount,
Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs, Signal Hill, South Gate and Whittier, it
could doom the measure.
Because voters in many of these cities are mostly Democrats and
are more likely to approve a local tax, losing them means Metro has to
work harder in more conservative parts of the county to increase voter
support, Schnur said.
“If community leaders in one part of the
county come out against the measure, then you need to increase support
to an even greater degree in areas that support it ... or in communities
that are more likely to benefit,” Schnur said.
Unlike
presidential politics, strategies don’t focus on race or ethnic groups
but rather on location, he said. “On a transportation measure in
particular, geographic considerations have a huge impact,” he said,
calling transportation taxes a zero-sum game. “You either get the
light-rail route or you don’t.”
The measure’s project list includes 19 of the 44
projects that are new, added since 2008’s Measure R. Eleven are
scheduled for groundbreaking in the first 15 years. The Gateway Cities
argue that two of their projects, the widening of the 5 Freeway from the
605 to the 710, and the proposed Eco-Rapid rail line from downtown L.A. to Artesia, were pushed aside to make room for new ones.
“We do have a problem with all these other projects marching up front,” Heit said.
The
5 Freeway project would not break ground for another 20 years (2036),
well after the southern half of the 5 project is finished. But a tunnel through the Sepulveda Pass would
begin in 2024, part of a $9 billion project to connect the west side of
L.A. with the San Fernando Valley, most likely by rail. In addition,
the last segment of the Purple Line subway under Wilshire Boulevard
finishing in Westwood would break ground in 2018, while the Eco-Rapid
line would not be completed until 2041.
“If you read the ballot measure, the first thing it says is that
it will fix the freeways. What they don’t tell you is not for 20 years,”
Heit said.
It appears the middle, north and east
end of the county may favor the measure, while the southern and
southeastern areas may not, creating a north versus south scenario.
The
San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments voted in support of the
measure last week. “From our perspective, we kind of got what we wanted
from the tax measure,” said Mark Christoffels, a consultant to the
SGVCOG and chief executive officer of the Alameda Corridor-East
Construction Authority.
The east San Gabriel Valley’s next foothill extension of the Gold
Line from Azusa to Claremont is scheduled to begin construction in 2019
and will receive more than $1 billion from the measure, about 99
percent of the cost.
The San Fernando Valley Council of Governments
has not yet take a position but may vote in support in September. Seven
Los Angeles City Council members from the San Fernando Valley, led by
Bob Blumenfield, wrote a letter of support to Metro in June. Los Angeles
Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Metro board member, has ardently supported the
measure.
The East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor Project and the
extension of the Orange Line busway to the Gold Line would both begin
within the first few years. A light-rail station at 96th Street that
would allow a people-mover to take passengers directly into LAX would
start construction in 2018.
South Bay Supervisor Don Knabe said
Tuesday he believes Measure M is geographically unbalanced. Yet,
conservative Supervisor Mike Antonovich praised the tax measure, saying
Metro got it right by asking each COG for a list of projects.
“The proposal before us today includes input from the bottom up
for a regional transportation system,” he said before the historic vote.
Supervisor
Hilda Solis, whose district includes the San Gabriel Valley as well as
many southeast cities, said she believed the measure includes an
inclusive list of projects. “It didn’t necessarily mean a dollar would
be attached to every item (cities asked for). That is impossible,” she
said.
When Los Angeles County voters see a
measure on their November ballot asking them to approve higher sales
taxes for transportation projects, they may well ask: what's in it for
me?
The answer depends on where the voter lives — and that, in a
nutshell, is the challenge facing the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority as it seeks to convince two-thirds of the electorate to
approve the measure. It's a tall order in the biggest county in the
nation.
If the measure is adopted, county residents would pay a new half-cent
sales tax and continue to pay an existing half-cent tax originally set
to expire in 40 years.
The proposed sales tax increase would raise over $120 billion and fund train lines, buses and and highways as
part of a broad vision to reduce the region's dependence on cars and
connect a divided, far-flung county lacking a comprehensive network of
transportation systems.
With about 10 million residents living in 88 cities and
unincorporated areas, L.A. County is double the size of the next most
populous county, Cook County, Illinois. A wide variety of communities
characterize L.A. County, from dense urban areas to suburban housing
divisions, beachside enclaves and rural ranch lands.
"It’s just a colossal thing," said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.
A map from L.A. County's Metro shows existing transportation
projects and those that would be built with funds from a sales tax
increase that will be voted on this November. Slide the white bar to see
the changes.
Forging any kind of political consensus in a county as sprawling as
L.A., stretching from the northwest San Fernando Valley to the Port of
Long Beach, is difficult, he said. To do it, Metro will need to perform
an extraordinary balancing act by offering a broad range of projects
that provides something for everyone, Sonenshein said.
It’s a bit like trying to cater to a giant, unruly family: keeping
track of so many competing relatives at once can sometimes leave someone
behind.
A broad coalition did come together in 2008 to pass Measure R, which funded the recently opened Gold and Expo Line sections.
But an extension of that tax, known as Measure J,
failed in 2012 by a thin margin – falling short mostly in communities
on the edges of the county where investment in transit has been minimal.
"The Valley dramatically got short-changed," said state Sen. Robert
Hertzberg (D-18th District), who serves the San Fernando Valley and
pushed Metro hard to make his area a higher priority with this year’s
ballot measure.
When an early draft of the proposal didn't include funding for his
favored projects, Hertzberg held press conferences, took out full page
ads in newspapers and sent out emails campaigning against it.
"I went to war. It wasn’t gonna happen, I was not gonna support this," he said.
The effort paid off. In June, when Metro released its final project list,
it included plenty for the Valley: new bus service to California State
University, Northridge; streamlined improvements to the Orange Line
rapid bus; a new transit line along Van Nuys Boulevard; and a subway
under the Sepulveda Pass.
Hertzberg and a coalition of San Fernando Valley politicians and
business groups recently announced their full support for the latest
measure.
But inevitably, when one community gets attention, another ends up feeling abandoned.
For years, the Harbor Gateway Cities in the southeastern part of the
county have pushed for a light rail connection between downtown L.A. and
Artesia, traveling through densely populated, working-class Latino
neighborhoods that rely heavily on public transit.
Metro has included funding for the rail line in the ballot measure, but the line would not be completed for at least 25 years.
"It’s a slap in the face for the Gateway Cities," said Huntington Park City Councilwoman Karina Macias. Huntington Park City Councilwoman Karina Macias points out
the future site of a light rail station. Under Metro's ballot measure
proposal, it would not be completed for at least 25 years.
"I don’t know if I will be alive or any of the majority of my
residents are gonna be able to see that happen," she said of the rail
line. "There’s no incentive for us to go out there and really tell our
community, 'You know, vote for this and you’ll get something in return,'
when in reality they’re not."
Leaders throughout the Gateway Cities and the South Bay have publicly
declared they will not support the measure if Metro does not move up
the timetable for projects in their areas.
Metro CEO Phil Washington said the agency made every effort to equally distribute projects through the county.
"There is something in this plan for everyone," he said. "It's not
perfect, and everybody's not getting their project in the first five
years, simply because we're not collecting all the sales tax in the
first five years."
Washington points out officials spent years collaborating with local
representatives to narrow down the projects, and ranked them based on
factors like cost and impact on congestion. Each subregion was given a
project or program within the first 15 years of the plan, he said.
Metro hopes it can speed up many of the projects farther out on the
timeline with additional funds from the federal government or private
partnerships. But there’s no guarantee of that, especially with federal
transportation funding on the wane.
Cal State L.A.'s Sonenshein said the solution to the county’s
fractured politics and division over transportation spending could lie
in the question before voters.
"I really do think that in the long run, if we did have mass
transportation, that people in distant areas would feel more connected,"
he said.
However, to reach that point, projects funded by the measure would
need to be built and, to be built, voters would have to approve the
additional taxes. Whether they do or not will remain an open question
until the November election.
The southbound deck of the Highway 99 will be built, here, between two massive walls. This is the view looking north.
OLYMPIA — Tunnel-machine Bertha’s two-year breakdown will further
delay the Highway 99 tunnel’s grand opening until 2019 and saddle
Washington state with an estimated $223 million in cost overruns,
lawmakers were told Thursday.
The overruns are driven largely by the need for the state to keep its
staff and engineering consultants on the project longer than expected,
as well as by rising land, labor and materials costs for final road
connections after the tunnel is finished.
Taxpayer
costs could go higher still. The state’s figure assumes the prime
contractor, Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP), fails to win court battles
against the state. STP’s claims exceed $200 million.
A 2019 opening would mark a full decade since former Gov. Chris Gregoire chose
the deep-bore tunnel option and lawmakers approved the tunnel bill
sponsored by then-Sen. Ed Murray, now Seattle mayor. Gregoire dismissed
critics such as then-Mayor Mike McGinn, who warned that a clause in the
bill put Seattle taxpayers at particular risk for paying for overruns.
Nothing about that was mentioned Thursday.
The extra costs almost certainly would be paid by the state’s drivers
in gas taxes, more transportation-fund debt, or by tolls and fees.
In separate discussion this week, the state toll division said it would study a peak toll of up to $2.50 each direction — higher than a past committee’s suggestion of $1.25 each way.
Millar said he doesn’t know yet where $223 million would come from,
adding that state leaders have time to prepare and don’t need to make
decisions in a panic.
That amounts to a 7.1 percent overrun in the state’s total budget to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
State losses aren’t a completely new revelation. Last fall, WSDOT disclosed that it expected to lose $78 million to delays,
according to a letter in an insurance lawsuit. If the state were to
recover insurance money, that could reduce Millar’s new, higher $223
million estimate.
The 1.7-mile, four-lane tunnel was originally supposed to open to
drivers by the end of 2015, to replace the old and seismically
vulnerable viaduct.
The $3.137billion cost included the tunnel, connecting ramps, a
port-truck overpass, rebuilt Alaskan Way surface street, and viaduct
demolition. On Thursday, Millar issued a higher figure: $3.374 billion.
(This includes a new $14 million expected from Seattle, to compensate
for utility replacements.)
State and contractor officials had refused to discuss cost and
schedule figures for several weeks — saving the bombshell news for the
Washington State Department of Transportation’s bosses in the
Legislature.
Millar said the numbers were prepared for an annual
report due this month to the Federal Highway Administration, which
supplied one-fourth of viaduct replacement money.
Lawmakers mostly seemed to take the news in stride.
Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Curtis King thanked Millar,
who became WSDOT chief only last year, for being forthright and giving
lawmakers ample time to act.
King, R-Yakima, compared the pending 7 percent overrun with a study showing that megaprojects exceed their budgets by an average 28 percent. “It could have been a lot worse,” he said.
“I appreciate the fact that we are talking about $200 million, and
not the ‘$2 billion’ I hear on the airwaves regularly,” added House
Transportation Committee Chairwoman Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island. “It
is not a shock that if we have a three-year delay we have some costs,
and putting it out there, for the public to know that we are being very
transparent about it, is great.”
Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, said the increase is still very hard for
taxpayers to accept, because they were told in 2009 there wouldn’t be
overruns. “How are you ever going to earn the trust of the taxpayers …?”
Orcutt later said he blames the contractors — not WSDOT — for either ordering a flawed machine, or operating it incorrectly.
As for the tunnel-boring cost, the state last year passed $1 billion
in total payments toward the $1.35 billion STP contract. Chris Dixon,
project manager for STP, last week would say only that “cash flow’s
definitely a concern, but it’s not going to stop us from finishing.”
He spoke Thursday at the Olympia hearing about Bertha’s performance,
and quickly left the Capitol campus, saying he needed to catch a plane.
Delay grows longer
Bertha has finally been digging consistently this summer, at a pace
of close to 40 feet a day since April 29. It restarted Monday after a
three-week maintenance stop to inspect and replace some cutting teeth.
Dixon said Thursday it would emerge at South Lake Union next summer —
slipping further beyond the hope for December that his boss,
Tutor-Perini Corp. CEO Ron Tutor, expressed to shareholders this spring.
The overall three-year delay includes more than two years to reach
and repair the buried machine near Pioneer Square. In addition,
contractors added what state officials called a more conservative pace
for the remaining two-thirds of the dig from Sodo to South Lake Union,
including two more maintenance stops.
Linea Laird, chief engineer for WSDOT, said the state and contractors
are cooperating, and believe it’s smarter to keep working steadily on
the project, rather than have a funding impasse that drives up costs in
the long run for everybody.
In its claims, STP blamed a steel pipe, left over from state
groundwater testing, for the damage to Bertha, which led to grit
penetrating into the rotary bearing assembly. The state replies it’s
far-fetched to argue an 8-inch-diameter pipe could ruin a massive
machine.
STP and Hitachi Zosen, which built the giant drill in Japan, fronted the money to accomplish an unprecedented repair job and strengthening last year.
King said the 57-foot-wide tunnel could someday qualify as “the eighth wonder of the world.”
Its final costs remain an open question
Last month marked the first anniversary of the public release of
Beyond the 710, a proposal to resolve the nearly 50-year stalemate over
the north end of the 710 freeway. The proposal (www.beyondthe710.org)
could solve the problems of the current 710 configuration, improve
connectivity for all the affected communities and provide exciting
opportunities to better use newly freed-up land.
While there are
still obstacles to implementing a vision for the 710 that works for
everyone, we can celebrate that the Metro board of directors has taken a
major step forward by voting to place the proposed sales tax ballot
measure on the November ballot with a provision that makes clear the
funds generated by the new measure will not fund a tunnel that would
plow through and decimate our communities.
As leaders of the cities that are most opposed to the tunnel
proposal, I and the undersigned now encourage the board to separately
instruct its staff and Caltrans to add the Beyond the 710 proposal to
the current 710 north study. We see this as a path forward to ending the
stalemate between those bearing the brunt of the 710 Freeway bottleneck
traffic and those who fear the tunnel as an existential threat to their
communities.
And this fear is justified. The tunnel presents
significant health, financial, engineering, seismic, water, public
safety, traffic and legal problems. Studies have shown that the tunnel
would create cancer hotspots at the exhaust vents. Just as important,
the massive, multi-year project would have little positive effect on
traffic and commute times and in fact create new severe traffic
congestion and thus air quality impacts in other areas.
Further, while the cost of the 4.5-mile tunnel is estimated
between $5 billion and 10 billion, we all know that if it was ever
built, the costs would most likely be much higher.
At the same
time, our leaders recognize that the existing freeway “stubs” present
real problems for the surrounding communities. At the north end, the
stub is a huge gash in the fabric of Pasadena. On the south end, the 710
freeway funnels and dumps its traffic onto Valley Boulevard and does
not provide good connectivity to the surrounding communities.
But the Beyond the 710 proposal converts these problems into real
opportunities. It proposes to remove these freeway stubs, replace them
with four-lane great streets, and use the freed-up land to build new
parks and greenspace, transit, bikeways, residential and commercial
development, and affordable housing, and provide extra room for local
institutions such as Cal State Los Angeles.
On the north end,
this approach would reconnect and heal Pasadena. But it’s the south stub
transformation that would really be magical. Replacing the stub with a
grand boulevard would better disperse local traffic, making it easier to
get where people want to go and relieving congestion that currently
burdens Alhambra and other nearby communities. The price tag is 10
percent of the cost of a tunnel.
And that’s why our cities, along with organizations such as the
Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, believe that Beyond the 710 is indeed a path to moving
beyond the stale debate over the tunnel.
The Metro board needs to
step up and direct planners to formally study the proposal. It would
serve as a clear signal to voters that Metro is taking a truly balanced
approach to the issue, and would encourage them to support of the ballot
measure in November.
Voters must be assured that Metro works for them. By
demonstrating the vision necessary to resolve this issue, we’re
confident that we can move forward and ease congestion throughout the
county while preserving the quality of life our residents treasure.
Terry
Tornek is mayor of Pasadena. This column was also signed by mayors
Paula Devine of Glendale, Jonathan Curtis La Canada Flintridge and Diana
Mahmud of South Pasadena; Sierra Madre Councilman John Capoccia;
Glendale Councilman and Metro board member Ara Najarian; and South
Pasadena Councilwoman Marina Khubesrian.
