Extension of Long Beach Freeway Takes Back Seat

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Thursday approved a long-range plan that moves dozens of rail and highway projects closer to reality while putting the much-delayed Long Beach Freeway on the back burner.

The new plan, approved on a 10-0 vote, gives priority status to expansion of the Santa Ana Freeway from the Orange County border to the Long Beach Freeway.

Two lanes in either direction are to be added to the Santa Ana Freeway. Highway planners hope the new lanes will relieve a bottleneck that will develop when a freeway widening project in Orange County is completed.

The Santa Ana Freeway in Orange County is being widened to 10 lanes, but it will narrow to six lanes when it hits Los Angeles County.

In all, the MTA’s plan anticipates that $106.4 billion will be available for local bus, rail and highway projects through 2025. About $95 billion has already been committed on such projects as construction of a light rail line from Los Angeles to Pasadena.

That leaves $11.2 billion for new projects, such as the Santa Ana Freeway widening, construction of more carpool lanes and expansion of the Metrolink train service.

The long-range plan includes projects that the agency hopes to someday fund. At the top of that list is a new High Desert freeway north of Lancaster that would connect Interstate 5 with Interstate 15, the main highway from the Los Angeles area to Las Vegas.

The High Desert freeway would take pressure off California 138, also known as Pearblossom Highway. The two-lane rural highway is known for head-on crashes that have made it one of California’s deadliest roads.

Transportation planners say they will need every dollar they can find to handle a dramatic increase in population that is expected to push the existing transportation system well beyond its present capacity.

Before the vote Thursday, a stream of elected leaders from the San Gabriel Valley appealed directly to MTA board members to provide funding for the $1.4-billion Long Beach Freeway extension project.

The fight over the proposed 6.2-mile extension has been going on for 30 years, held up in large part by a lawsuit filed against Caltrans by South Pasadena and residents of El Sereno in Los Angeles. The extension would connect the Long Beach Freeway, which now ends in Alhambra, with the Foothill Freeway in Pasadena.

Nat B. Read, a Pasadena resident and leader of the 710 Freeway Coalition, said completing the freeway would provide the MTA with “the best bang for the buck” of any project in the 25-year plan. He argued that completion of the freeway would improve air quality by relieving massive traffic jams that develop as the freeway empties into Alhambra.

Also pleading for the freeway were mayors or city council members from Monterey Park, San Gabriel and Rosemead, and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, which represents about 30 cities.

The city officials challenged an MTA report suggesting that more support for the project would help.

“There is overwhelming consensus to build this project,” said Monterey Park Mayor Frank Venti.

The MTA board said the Long Beach Freeway project is likely to be tied up in legal problems for years, and the money earmarked for the extension should be used on other projects such as widening the Santa Ana Freeway.

Though the MTA’s decision was a blow to 710 supporters, it is not necessarily fatal. The project would be funded mainly by state and federal dollars.

Not all the planned projects will ultimately make it through the years of red tape that lie ahead.

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MTA Transit Highlights

Among the projects included in the MTA’s new transportation plan, which was approved Thursday:

FREEWAY

* Additional regular lane and carpool lane in each direction on Interstate 5 from Orange County line north to Rosemead Blvd. in Downey: (in millions) $222.3

* Additional carpool lanes

Interstate 5: Ventura Freeway to Hollywood Freeway

California 14: Pearblossom to Avenue L

Interstate 405: Ventura Freeway to Burbank Blvd. (northbound): (in millions) $291.8

* Sound wall construction: (in millions) $549.2

BUS

* Additional countywide bus service improvements: (in millions) $3,771.8

* 22 additional Rapid Bus lines: (in millions) $92.3

* Crenshaw Transit Corridor: Wilshire Blvd./ Crenshaw Blvd. to Green Line: (in millions) $346.1

RAIL

* Metrolink expansion: (in millions) $580.0

* Pasadena Blue Line (downtown Los Angeles to Sierra Madre Villa): (in millions) $4,392.6

* Eastside Transit Corridor (shown below, downtown Los Angeles to Atlantic Blvd.: (in millions) $716.7