LA Metro Board Approves New 710 Freeway Plan

The Los Angeles Metro Board Planning Committee approved a plan to widen the 710 freeway, citing “no known displacements” of residents or businesses.

As Joe Linton explains in Streetsblog LA, a prior plan, which would have widened the freeway significantly and displaced local residents, caused significant concern among environmental justice advocates and community members. That plan was scrapped after it was found in violation of the federal Clean Air Act. 

“Though it has many details still to be fleshed out, the resulting CMIP is definitely multimodal. More than a third of the remaining $743M project budget would go to facilities for transit, bicycling, and/or minimizing goods movement emissions.” The new plan adds about four miles of new auxiliary traffic lanes and other improvements that will expand car capacity, Linton notes. “That plan includes a lot of wiggle language, including citing ‘minimal or no displacement’ and ‘no known displacement’ numerous times, plus pledges to ‘avoid significant displacement.’”