The big dig continues

They are slowly drilling a half-mile into the Santa Monica Santa Ana Mountains, carefully collecting rock sample for closer examination. The geologists want to see if they can ship water through the mountain. But the project, which the UT examined in depth, is also a first test at whether transportation officials could build eventually build a freeway under the mountain:

The drilling is also of interest to the Riverside County Transportation Commission, which – along with transportation officials from Orange County – is investigating the feasibility of tunneling under the mountains to link the counties. The freeway that provides the shortest access between the counties, state Route 91, is one of California's most congested. The counties are predicted to reach a total of 6.7 million people by 2030, an increase of 31 percent from today.

What do you think of this IE-OC tunnel? Hit the comment button and speak out!

Comments

[greg kay]

Good idea. But just replace the 8 lanes of cars with two tubes of rail, and you can save a lot of money and make a lot of commuters happier.

[Richard]

Nice postcard picture of the Figueroa Tunnels in the 1930’s.

The thought comes to mind that before World War II, local and state government made efforts to make things like highways, tunnel entrances, bridges and big buildings aesthetically pleasing. The Figueroa Tunnels, the Wilshire Boulevard of the 1930’s, the bridges over the Los Angeles River, and several Public Buildings at least appear to show attempts at this. Whether they are or not is up to the individual to decide.

Most of Southern California’s natural environment had yet to be destroyed in the 1930’s and highway builders and bridge builders at least appeared to try to make their creations as palpable to the local populations as possible. There was still a natural environment that these manmade creations had to bend into and compete with, and possibly even improve.

World War II must have changed all that. Beginning with and after World War II, industrial functionality was the norm. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, it was obvious that nobody cared much about or gave the slightest thought to building aesthetically pleasing freeways or to the natural environment the freeway was destroying, just making them so that people can get from point A to point B FAST.

Inevitably, there was a backlash.

Is it no wonder that it is so impossibly difficult to build a freeway in L.A. today? Do you really want to go back to the 1950’s and 1960’s?

Now of days, new manmade structures compete against older manmade structures. Is there any natural environment left to compete against?

[JJ]

Stop population growth, and then we will not need to waste money on tunnels, etc. We can start, obviously, with foreign immigration.

[Richard]

Santa Monica Mountains?

Santa Ana Mountains according to the linked story.

Start boring holes into the Santa Monica mountains to build Highway tunnels and all the hill folk that live up in those mountains (otherwise known as Hollywood celebrities), with their lawyers would lose no time descending upon civic center to halt such activity.

[Daniel Faigin]

Ummm, your blog says "Santa Monica Mountains", whereas the referenced article says "Santa Ana Mountains". Big difference. A Santa Monica Mountains tunnel, while interesting, would have more applicability towards relieving 405 or 101 congestion :-)