Liu, Gatto beef up 710 bill to pay for sound walls

Pushing for quicker construction of sound walls along the Foothill (210) Freeway in La Cañada Flintridge, on Wednesday state Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge) and Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake) announced they have bolstered an existing Liu bill to compel Caltrans to use potential proceeds from the sale of homes to build the barriers.

Last month Liu introduced SB 204, a measure pushing Caltrans to sell the homes it owns in Pasadena, South Pasadena and Los Angeles, which were acquired decades ago to build an extension of the Long Beach 9(710) Freeway to the Foothill (210) Freeway. Liu’s bill originally called for the proceeds of the sales to be used on local transportation projects, and said Caltrans must consult on those projects with local cities.

The new version of the measure calls for 25% of the proceeds to go toward sound walls along the 210. La Cañada Flintridge is at work building sound walls along the 210 as it crosses the city, but expects the project to take more than a decade because of a lack of state funding.

“Our neighboring communities have long endured the impacts of Caltrans’ unfulfilled promise to build sound walls that shield them from the noise of the 210 Freeway,” Liu said in a statement.

“SB 204 is a creative way to turn a negative, the 710 extension, into a positive: relief along the nearby 210 corridor,” Gatto said in a statement.

--Bill Kisliuk, Times Community News

Twitter: @bkisliuk