Alhambra Files Suit Over Transit Projects

The city of Alhambra has sued the Department of Transportation for $50 million to try to jump-start one transportation project--the stalled Long Beach Freeway extension--and delay another, the Alameda Corridor.

The suit complains that thousands of cars flood Alhambra’s streets daily, flooding the city with tons of exhaust, because the Department of Transportation for 30 years has left a 6.2-mile span of the Long Beach Freeway uncompleted.

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, represents Alhambra’s entry into the legal battle over the plan. Twenty-three years ago, South Pasadena sued to block the extension.

An environmental impact report demanded by South Pasadena was finished in 1992 and awaits Transportation Secretary Federico Pena’s signature.

The unfinished freeway means commuters cut through Alhambra to reach Pasadena and the Foothill Freeway. An estimated 100,000 cars drive Alhambra streets daily, spewing 4.8 billion tons of carbon monoxide and wearing down streets so much that it requires $380,000 in annual repairs, Alhambra officials said at a news conference Tuesday.

The extra cars cause an estimated seven fatal crashes annually, and the exhaust so pollutes the city that respiratory problems are the top reason children in the Alhambra school district miss school, officials said.

Alhambra officials said they also feared that construction of the Alameda rail corridor from downtown Los Angeles to the Port of Los Angeles would divert even more surface traffic into Alhambra, and asked in their motion for further study before construction.