Big SCAG Fail: The 710 Tunnel Is Dead (For Now)

The losers.

Mod: Just in case you unhappily believe citizen action does not work, and that nobody can ever hope to successfully fight the insane excesses of government, yesterday the proverbial stake was administered to the dark and unwholesome heart of the 710 Tunnel. Sometimes the good guys do win, and the planning integrity and environmental health of local communities can take precedence over the needs of our internationally beholden state and federal shipping and transportation bureaucracies. This is not to say that some unfortunate group or thing won't attempt to revive the tunnel someday, but for now it is quite officially dead. Here is how the Pasadena Star News is reporting it.

Metro takes 710 tunnel project off the table, will use money for local street fixes (Pasadena Star Newslink): In a historic vote, the governing board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority unanimously rejected an extension of the 710 Freeway on Thursday, saying building a multibillion-dollar tunnel would not be feasible.

The 12-0 vote removes the 6.3-mile freeway tunnel from the list of alternatives, the final option for closing the 710 Freeway gap from El Sereno through South Pasadena and Pasadena. The freeway extension has been on the state’s master freeway list since 1959.

Caltrans is expected to vote on the car-tunnel project in 2018, after it completes a final environmental impact report released in March 2015.

“This is a day that will go down in the record books,” said board member and Glendale City Councilman Ara Najarian, who has opposed a surface and tunnel freeway extension for decades. He was often the lone “no” vote on the Metro board.

On Thursday, the anti-tunnel sentiment swept through the board, taking in newly elected representatives from the county, the city of Los Angeles and cities of the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys.

Mod: The rest of this article is available at the link above. In the way of some celebratory comic relief, it was not too long ago that SCAG's very own Hasan Ikhrata was calling the 710 Tunnel a done deal and that those who were struggling to defeat this boondoggle needed to simply vanish. Again, from the Pasadena Star News (link).


Mod: Has there ever been a government official more consistently wrong than the always absurd Mr. Ikhrata? 

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