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Since 1959, local communities in the west San Gabriel Valley have fought against a proposed extension of the 710 Long Beach Freeway through El Sereno, South Pasadena and Pasadena. Their drawn-out battle worked, and the state killed the freeway project in 2018.
Though most certainly dead, the non-built freeway’s digital ghosts remain, jumping into your smartphone’s direction apps, conjuring up a confusing, and some say misleading set of GPS directions, maps and notifications.
Both Google maps and Apple maps label an exit from the intersection of the 210/134 freeways in Pasadena as “Route 710” and “Long Beach Freeway.”
Siri tells drivers to “take the Long Beach Freeway,” whether heading south from the 210/134 interchange, or north from the surface streets in Pasadena and South Pasadena toward on-ramps for both the 210 East, 210 West and 134 West, leading to a sunken stretch of roadway with a tunnel and overhead bridges known affectionately as “The Ditch” or “The 710 Stub.”
While there is no Long Beach Freeway in Pasadena nor South Pasadena, and never will be, the apps suggest there is. No motorist can get to Long Beach — at least not on a Long Beach freeway — from Pasadena. About as far as a motorist can go from the exit is to nearby Del Mar Boulevard and California Boulevard, east-west thoroughfares in Pasadena.
“Why is it on the GPS? That is a really good question and I don’t know why,” said Joanne Nuckols, a longtime member of the “Freeway Fighters” in South Pasadena. “It misleads people.”
In addition, something called the Caltrans “Quick Maps” shows the 710 Freeway existing in Old Pasadena.
“If you are referring specifically to the route label, you can see it on Caltrans’ QuickMap at QuickMap.dot.ca.gov. I’ve been told it uses the Google base map, so whatever Google decided to put on Route 710 in Pasadena is what appears on Caltrans QuickMap as well,” wrote Michael Comeaux, a spokesperson for Caltrans-District 7, in an answer to questions.
So if Caltrans uses Google’s data, where did Google get the information resulting in putting the 710 Freeway at the 210/134 interchange, as well as in The Ditch in Old Pasadena, on Google’s directions app?
The answer lies with the California Streets and Highways Code, or the SHC.
In the SHC, Article 2, The California Freeway and Expressway System, Section 253.9 states the following: The state freeways and expressway system “shall also include Route 710 from Route 47 to Route 1; from Route 1 near the city of Long Beach to Route 10 near the city of Alhambra and from Route 10 to Route 210 near the city of Pasadena.”
Of course, the Long Beach Freeway stretches 23 miles to Valley Boulevard near Alhambra, the northern terminus. However, the matter of what to call “The 710 Stub” is confusing. According to the state highways code, the on-ramps — the ramps off Pasadena Avenue to the 134 (Ventura Freeway) and 210 (Foothill Freeway) and the exit from the 210 — are “Route 710.”
But the state highways code says this small, unconnected section in Pasadena “shall remain in effect only until January 1, 2024, and as of that date is repealed.”
Why wait five years after new laws were passed eliminating any possible freeway extension before erasing the north 710 designation?
To answer that, a little history is required.
The 4.5-mile 710 Freeway extension was killed three times.
It was killed first in 2017 when LA Metro’s board voted 12-0 to not build it because the cost of about $5 billion to $7 billion was too high and the plan did not meet community needs.
The second time, the relentless opposition from South Pasadena’s Freeway Fighters ended the proposed 6.3-mile all-underground tunnel freeway four years ago, on Nov. 28, 2018, when Caltrans ended the freeway extension.
In 2003, the all-surface route that would have required demolition of 976 houses was defeated when the Federal Highway Administration withdrew its support.
The third time, bills that became law in 2019 said no extension of the freeway could ever be built. However, the bills left the nomenclature in the SHC.
When State Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Burbank, authored SB7, to end any building of a freeway extension, he put in language that said the small portion, or stub, built to connect to the 210/134 in Pasadena would remain as “Route 710” for about the next 13 months.
This allowed for Caltrans to transfer the property — all 50 acres — to the city of Pasadena. “They wanted time to officially end the freeway,” said Portantino on Monday, Nov. 21, referring to Caltrans. Pasadena obtained the land in June 2022 when the California Transportation Commission voted to return the 50 acres back to the city of Pasadena, which is preparing a master plan for the land.
Portantino said the lingering designation is a nomenclature or semantics issue. It does not change the project status.
“No, I don’t think anybody is confused by it. Everybody is excited that the stub is in Pasadena’s hands and the freeway is not a threat,” the lawmaker said.
Dr. Bill Sherman, another long-time Freeway Fighter and a former member of the South Pasadena Transportation Commission, said he hadn’t noticed the Caltrans map or the GPS systems appearing on phone apps that call the stub Route 710.
In fact, if a driver is paying attention to the road, the green overhead signs on the 210/134 freeways have been scrubbed of any mention of the 710. They simply read: “Del Mar Blvd./California Blvd.” and “To 110 Fwy.” The latter sign points drivers onto a circuitous route of surface streets, right and left turns and a S-curves that lead to an on-ramp of the Arroyo Seco Parkway in South Pasadena. This northern, narrow portion of the 110 Freeway eventually takes motorists into downtown Los Angeles, South L.A. and the South Bay.
According to Nuckols, Caltrans built The 710 Stub in the 1970s without obtaining approval for the entire extension. She said they called it “The 210 Stub.” Even Wikipedia says the stub “remains unsigned,” with no signs with the numerals 710.
A phone directions’ app from Waze, a Silicon Valley company, differs from the other two major direction apps in that it does not label the portion of roadway going to Del Mar and California streets as the 710 Freeway, nor Route 710, as the others do. Waze’s app stamp it as the 210, a kind of southerly stub, as Nuckols had said it should be called.
Google, Apple and Waze did not return phone calls, emails or voice mails for this story.
Eric Menjivar, a Caltrans spokesman, said that in essence the Google and Apple apps are correct. “That little terminus is considered the 710,” he said on Nov. 21. He said it’s possible that motorists might get confused and think they would be able to continue on a freeway to Long Beach.
Sherman said the app makers should simply change the phone directions to indicate “exit Del Mar Boulevard/California Boulevard” just like the freeway signs say, with no references to the 710 or the Long Beach Freeway.
“I would designate it as no different than any other exit, like the (nearby) exit to Orange Grove Boulevard,” Sherman said. “That is the only logical position.”
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