Neighboring Area Feels Impact of Effort to Stop 710

What do council members Evelyn Fierro, James Hodge Jr. and Dick Richards have in common? They’re South Pasadena politicians united to maintain the 30-year war against the Long Beach Freeway. All three are committed to preventing this freeway’s completion within their city limits. (Times, Nov. 2, 9.)

Whether or not you appreciate freeways, the fact remains that South Pasadena’s successful crusade against the 710 has a hideous impact on surrounding communities--on motorists and residents alike.

One has to wonder how much longer motorists will put up with the untenable traffic conditions South Pasadena has created at Fremont and Valley, on Atlantic, on Garfield, on all north/south streets in this area.

One has to wonder how much longer it will take for the tens of thousands of pedestrians and residents who live in the proximity of these streets to realize the 60% increase in traffic and exhaust fumes have been thrust upon them by South Pasadena.

One has to wonder how long these affected motorists, parents of students and residents will allow South Pasadena to dictate everyone else’s environment.

We may not have the megabucks that South Pasadena has been spending with impunity for the last 30 years, but we must outnumber them 500 to 1. If only half of us wrote our elected state officials or telephoned their local offices and assured them that we were not second-class citizens and that their reelection depended on their efforts to expedite completion of the 710, want to bet some barriers will begin to crumble?

We must remember Caltrans has been the only persistent agency trying to complete the “missing link.” They can see the total picture, but the only critics they hear are from South Pasadena. It’s critical they hear from the other side. If tens of thousands called Caltrans requesting completion of the 710, that would essentially end South Pasadena’s stranglehold on the last link of the Long Beach Freeway.

Should South Pasadena prevail once more, their greatest allies will have been the acquiescent motorists who quietly creep along side streets bumper-to-bumper and the non-complaining parents and residents, all of whom breathe incredible amounts of pollution that South Pasadena shoved out of their back yard into everyone else’s.

GEORGE RISTIC

Pasadena