Halted Work in 1972 : Freeway a Part of U.S. Judge’s Life

When former U. S. District Judge Harry Pregerson was elevated to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1979, he could have removed himself from one of the federal court’s most complex and durable cases--the class action involving the Century Freeway-Transitway and thousands of litigants, most of them unnamed.

But Pregerson, a federal judge for nearly 20 years, was so wrapped up in the freeway’s problems, he said, he wanted to see the case through to its conclusion.

“It’s part of my life, my work,” he said in a recent interview. “I want to see (the freeway project) succeed. I want to see the goals . . . realized.”

Staying with the case until it is decided could mean nearly a quarter century of Century Freeway hearings, arguments, motions, depositions and other legal actions for the jurist who stopped the freeway dead in its tracks in 1972. The project is expected to be completed in 1993, but clearing up lingering legal problems could go on for several years.

When Pregerson issued an injunction halting work on the freeway, he was responding to the pleas of several groups that felt the California Department of Transportation was bulldozing the freeway through cities and neighborhoods with no concern for environmental or social consequences.

Pregerson said he is satisfied, so far, with the project’s huge replacement housing and affirmative-action programs and the relocation plan for people displaced by the freeway. All are a direct result of his decision in favor of the plaintiffs, and are spelled out in a 1981 consent decree prepared under his watchful eye.

He acknowledged that some problems remain, notably procedural questions involving certification of minority and female-owned businesses for work on the freeway and the multimillion-dollar housing program.

The Century Freeway, he noted dryly, is “more than an ordinary construction project.”

“It involves housing for displaced persons and poor people--decent, safe and sanitary housing in an area where there’s a shortage of adequate housing,” he said. “It involves opportunities for employment for women and minorities, job training (as well as) the transportation aspects.

“The project is important to the community, to the corridor cities,” he said, and it is important “that it be completed and that the concerns of the residents are met . . . as expeditiously as possible.”

Pregerson said he believes that everyone involved--from lawyers on opposite sides of the various issues to officials of the agencies created by the consent decree--have made his job much easier.

Every few months, Pregerson gathers the case’s participants in his courtroom for progress reports. Frequently he has chastised some officials, especially Caltrans lawyers and engineers responsible for building the freeway, for straying from the consent decree’s guidelines.

And recently the judge, accompanied by a parade of lawyers, engineers, housing officials, court attaches and others, toured the freeway route to visit the Century Freeway Affirmative Action Committee’s headquarters and other offices created by the consent decree.

Pregerson said he also saw some of the people still living in the freeway’s path and was reminded anew of the project’s human impact.

“There was one lady--she had lived in the corridor for 40 years,” he said. “We stopped in front of her home. There was a profusion of blooming azaleas. She’s going to have to leave. . . . These freeways entail a tremendous disruption of peoples’ lives.”