South Pasadena’s Effort to Stop 710 Freeway Affects Other Cities

There have been many letters to the editor recently supporting or criticizing South Pasadena’s very successful 30-year effort to keep the 710 Freeway out of its city limits.

Two anti-710 letters were written by South Pasadena council members: Evelyn Fierro, who very inaccurately depicted some effects a completed 710 would have on costs to taxpayers and alleviation of traffic on north/south streets, and James Hodge Jr., who offered the bewildering analogy that the 10 Freeway created a 65% increase in traffic on Valley Boulevard. Think that one over for awhile.

Oh well, name one politician who supports the 710 Freeway that would get elected or reelected in South Pasadena.

Perhaps South Pasadena ought to consider how their 30-year campaign affects one resident on one street in his city, Monterey Park. I dread the time I have to drive north on Atlantic Boulevard on any weekday during peak hours. There may be up to 20 cars crunched at the signal on Garvey Boulevard eating away at the clock as well as our already polluted air. When our city’s traffic studies revealed that about 13 of those 20 cars belong to residents of cities other than Monterey Park because the incomplete 710 forces them to use side streets, I felt somewhat unkindly towards South Pasadena’s crusade that traffic is OK in my back yard, but not theirs.

When I think that there could be as few as six cars ahead of me instead of 20 if the 710 were completed, I find it hard to be sympathetic with the uprooting of some majestic, old house or building in South Pasadena along the freeway’s path.

Since the completion of the 710 Freeway is inevitable, isn’t it time South Pasadena put the millions it must have spent for lobbying to better use? Give us a break on Atlantic. And Garfield. And Fremont. And Del Mar. Etc.

JACK SANDEEN

Monterey Park