Proposal Would Transform L.A.’s ‘Freeway to Nowhere’ Into Park, Housing

A never-completed freeway segment could see new life as a mixed-use development with housing, commercial space, and one of the county’s largest parks.

1 minute read

September 26, 2023, 12:00 PM PDT

By Diana Ionescu @aworkoffiction


Google street view of yellow "End Freeway 1/4 mile" sign on 90 freeway in Los Angeles, California.

The end of SR-90, known as the Marina Freeqway, in Marina del Rey, California. | Google Maps / Marina Freeway, Los Angeles

A Los Angeles freeway segment—alternately known as the Marina Freeway, “the Slauson Freeway, the Richard M. Nixon Freeway and, as Johnny Carson once mocked it, the Slauson Cutoff”—could make way for housing and a massive park, if a group of community activists has its way.

“The vision, said Michael Schneider, chief executive and founder of Streets For All, is to transform the road that was left incomplete in the 1960s into about 130 acres of green space and nearly 4,000 residential units,” reports Salvador Hernandez in the Los Angeles Times.

The proposal would allocate about half of the site to open space. “The project, across roughly 128 acres, would include 11 four-story mixed-use buildings, with the first floor used for businesses and the remaining floors for homes. The plan would reconnect neighborhoods that sit on opposite sides of the 90 Freeway and provide access to Centinela Creek, the Ballona Creek trail and Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve.”

Streets For All plans to apply for a grant from the federal Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Act to fund a feasibility study.

Saturday, September 23, 2023 in Los Angeles Times

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