Emily Rusch
Vice President and Senior Director of State Offices, The Public Interest Network
CALPIRG Joins Asm. Holden in Calling for 710 Tunnel Alternatives
Media Contacts
Today CALPIRG joined Assemblymember Chris Holden at an event announcing new legislation to stop the 710 tunnel and offer alternatives. Here’s our statement from the event.
My name is Will Eley and I’m here on behalf of CALPIRG, the California Public Interest Research Group. We advocate for 21st century transportation solutions that best provide for Californians’ future transportation needs with less congestion and pollution.
Our 2014 report, “Millennials in Motion,” found millennials’ transportation choices differ from previous generations. They are driving fewer miles, getting driver licenses in fewer numbers, and expressing greater preferences to live in areas where they do not need to use a car often.
Our 2016 report, “Highway Boondoggles 2,” highlighted the 710 tunnel proposal as one of the biggest potential highway boondoggles in the country.
The 710 tunnel would be the most expensive, most pollution, and least effective option for solving the San Gabriel Valley’s transportation problems.
Our research tells us that millennials want to live, work, and thrive in walkable, sustainable neighborhoods. They demand transportation options, and another car-centric road or tunnel is just more of the same. A tunnel project would not only be costly for Californians in the short term, but would exacerbate pollution and traffic for decades to come.
The tunnel option would cause the most pollution of all the options considered by CalTrans and MTA, both during construction and during regular daily use. In fact, the tunnel would increase global warming pollution because it would induce demand and increase the number of vehicle-miles travelled in the area.
The freeway tunnel is also likely to be the least effective at solving the area’s transportation problems. Rather than solving congestion, the tunnel project would simply move traffic congestion from one place to another – specifically, to the tunnel itself and roads leading to and from it.
Finally, the freeway tunnel would be the most expensive of all of the options, at an estimated $5.6 billion.
We applaud efforts by Assemblymember Holden to bring the community together to figure out the best alternative solution to the 710 tunnel, and look forward to working with him in Sacramento on this bill.
