Pasadena (CA) –Today, Assemblymember Chris Holden will introduce legislation to remove the 710 North Project Area between Interstate 210 and Interstate 10 from the California State Freeway and Expressway code. The legislation, which will become public later today, comes days after the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) did not identify the freeway tunnel as the preferred alternative in its Final Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) for the SR 710 North Project Area.
“Fixing our state’s highway code to reflect the new reality is the logical next step to bury the tunnel idea once and for all,” said Assemblymember Chris Holden who represents the cities of Pasadena and South Pasadena in the California State Assembly.
The legislation aims to quell lingering concerns about Caltrans’ Final Environmental Impact Report and a 2017 Los Angeles Metro motion to move away from the tunnel concept for largely financial reasons. The reasoning for both decisions may leave the tunnel solution open to future consideration.
Holden’s legislation specifies that State Route 710 is from Route 1 to Route 10, essentially eliminating any future possibility of freeway tunnel.
The bill is also the result of a two year legislative effort by Assemblymember Holden that began with the introduction of AB 287 in 2017. After many discussions with Caltrans, Metro and, most importantly, members of the community Assemblymember Holden’s AB 533 (last legislative session) came to be. The bill brought together the cities of South Pasadena, Alhambra, and Pasadena to create language they could all agree on. This historic collaboration will be memorialized in the bill being introduced today.
“We couldn’t get to this point without the decades of hard work, passion, and leadership of community stakeholders, who have also made a direct impact on my views on this issue,” said Holden. “I look forward to working with all of my colleagues in the legislature to support local efforts that will implement 21st century transportation solutions that benefit us all.”
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