Communities across North America are facing a watershed moment in their transportation history with citizens, leaders, municipalities, and transportation officials all looking for alternatives to offer a roadmap to better health, equity, opportunity and connectivity in every neighbourhood by reversing the trends of decades of decline and disinvestment.
To give you an example, in the city of San Francisco, two of North America’s most successful freeway removals have yielded celebrated results: the Embarcadero and Octavia Boulevards. Now, across the San Francisco Bay, the City of Oakland is considering replacing an underutilised, below-grade section of Interstate 980 with a surface boulevard that would reconnect West Oakland to Downtown.
Numerous such efforts are underway or are on the drawing board. This essay highlights one such effort in the city of Pasadena on the west coast of the United States of America.
Fifty years ago, the state of California seized a gigantic swath of valuable land in the centre of the city of Pasadena and demolished thousands of private properties to create what has now become known as ‘the stub’.
Beautiful traditional neighbourhoods and a bustling business district were destroyed to build an extension of the 710 Freeway.
Through the decades, this stub has divided the City of Pasadena, carrying traffic that rushes through it onto neighbouring streets to and from the 110 Freeway and to destinations to the south, creating a de-facto mini freeway through West Pasadena.
In the early 2000s, Pasadena residents learned about engineering studies being done along the original and long-disputed surface route. These studies yielded Metro’s proposed 4.9 mile 710 Freeway-tunnel. A tunnel with no exits between portals, with no venting within the 4.9 mile route and ‘scrubbed’ fumes to be released into the air at the portals.
Communities along the corridor intensified their opposition and the volunteer ‘No 710’ Action Committee went to work to educate people on the immense negative impacts of the Metro’s proposed tunnels. Unfortunately, the ‘No 710’ campaign was criticised for being too negative. People would say, “All we hear is ‘no’. How about something positive?” Or, the oft repeated, “This has been going on forever, it’ll never happen.”
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CPP rendering, before and after – view looking southwest. Note the transformation of the freeway stub into a boulevard and new development along its length | |
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CPP rendering, before and after – view looking northeast. (Image courtesy: West Pasadena Residents Association) | |
Meanwhile, in Pasadena, in a resident’s living room, the seed for a different approach was planted when someone asked, “Has anyone ever done any work to show what could replace the stub?”
A steering committee was formed in May 2014 to take a different approach to the divisive ditch. The group named their endeavour the Connecting Pasadena Project (CPP). Their mission: to reclaim the land, reconnect Pasadena by restoring the pattern of city streets and replace the stub highway with homes, businesses, parks, gardens – everything that had been destroyed and taken away from the city decades ago.
The steering committee recruited the Pasadena architecture and urbanism practice Moule & Polyzoides to guide them and invited fellow residents to participate in workshops to plan the transformation of the ditch. With the help of experts in the disciplines of transportation, economics, civil engineering and landscape architecture, engaged citizens sat at tables to consider appropriate uses and densities for the stub.
The workshop resulted in the idea to replace the stub with an elegant Pasadena boulevard and revitalise this ‘dead space’ with parks and structures that would provide economic and social value and create a beautiful new place in the city.
Concurrently, Pasadena’s Mayor Bill Bogaard appointed a citizen panel, the Pasadena Alternative Working Group (PAWG), to devise a Pasadena Preferred Alternative (PPA). The CPP created a report and submitted it to that group in December 2014. In April 2015, the City Council voted to oppose the tunnel and voted unanimously to approve the suggestions made by the Pasadena Preferred Alternative and the CPP.
Simultaneously, five proximate cities – South Pasadena, Pasadena, Glendale, La Canada Flintridge and Sierra Madre – formed a coalition. Named ‘Beyond the 710’, this group searched for a practical vision for alternatives that would solve transportation problems in the 710 corridors.
CPP’s ‘complete street’ incorporation – a roadway for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders as well as a park, shops and businesses – was looked upon as a good example to emulate for the south terminus.
Today, CPP’s goal to reclaim the ‘stub land’, rebuild Pasadena’s urban fabric and restore the economic and social activity that was destroyed is one step closer to realisation. In May 2017, the Metro board voted to shelve the proposed tunnel and adopt the Transportation Systems Management (TSM) alternatives. With the 710-tunnel project appearing to be on life support, the City of Pasadena hopes to build on the findings and the work of the CPP.
(This essay is an edited version of an article that appeared in the West Pasadena Residents’ Association quarterly newsletter, The News. For details on this project visit: http://connectingpasadena.com/ )
Audrey O’Kelley is a Communications Consultant and a 15-year resident of Pasadena. She initiated the Connecting Pasadena Project in 2014 working with key Pasadena thought leaders. (http://connectingpasadena.com/cpp-steeringcommittee-and-volunteers/)
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