The proposed 710 Freeway tunnel extension would start here where the freeway ends at Valley Boulevard pictured April 4, 2008. (SGVN/Staff file photo by Leo Jarzomb)
LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE - The City Council set aside $500,000 of the city's general fund reserve this week in a preemptive effort to fight construction of a possible tunnel connecting the 710 Freeway to the 210 Freeway.
Councilman Donald Voss said he requested the issue be brought up to the council because the city needs to prepare in case the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority selects an option for the 710 freeway extension that could cause harm to the city.
"We want to make sure all the alternatives are equally and fairly considered. The (non-tunnel alternatives) are not fanciful, they are not alternatives just to check a box, they are real, genuine alternatives that in my view are 21st century," Voss said. "There have been things that have happened in the study that would suggest perhaps they are not getting the same level of scrutiny."
Metro is about halfway through a three-year environmental study of five possible options to fill the "gap" between Alhambra and Pasadena; "No build," traffic management solutions, bus rapid transit, light rail and a tunnel. The draft environmental report is scheduled for release in 2014, with a final decision to be made in 2015.
La Canada Flintridge City Manager Mark Alexander said the money could be used for a number of different things, from litigation to commissioning further environmental work if the city doubts the results of Metro's study.
"The council is very concerned about the potential impacts of a tunnel project or an alternative project that may increase traffic and congestion along the 210 freeway if the 710 is connected," Alexander said. "Because of the concerns of those impacts the council felt it important that we have monies available should the need arise to further study what those impacts are and to protect the interest of the city if it comes to that."
The city has $13.4 million in its general fund reserve and an $11.2 million operating budget.
Though the final decision on the freeway, fought about in the San Gabriel Valley for decades, isn't due for two more years, the issue has been heating up in the past few weeks. The council's vote comes the week after a rally against the tunnel before a Metro information session Saturday and a "710 Day" street festival in Alhambra supporting the "gap closure."
Alhambra Councilwoman Barbara Messina said she thinks recent actions by tunnel opponents were "sad and very unfortunate."
"They have just given me an absolute ulcer over this. The information they are giving people is just wrong and they choose to ignore the experts at Metro and the people that are doing these studies and I just think they are playing on people's emotional feelings and scaring them with the tunnel," Messina said. "The only thing I have to say is shame on them."
For more information on the 710 study, visit metro.net/sr710study.
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