710 tunnel lawsuit and Measure R: Ramping up, Sept. 8

Good morning Bottleneckers. I'm back at the wheel of the blog and here are three quick hits to begin the work week.

Let the lawsuits begin: The cities of La Canada Flintridge and South Pasadena have filed a lawsuit against Metro, alleging that it committed $780 million in sales tax revenues to the 710 tunnel project without first doing an environmental review. Of course, the suit may be for naught if the sales tax (known as Measure R) doesn't make the ballot or makes it and loses. The Pasadena Star-News had a story Friday. This is a bit of an unusual suit, in that sales tax increases have been approved by voters around the country prior to environmental review of some projects. Another fun fact: The big reason that the $780 million was put in the spending plan was to try to pacify opposition from State Sen. Gil Cedillo, who held a key vote on the state bill allowing the sales tax.

More Measure R news: The Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. has taken a support position on the sales tax increase in Los Angeles County. Some elected officials -- primarily County Supervisor Mike Antonovich -- have complained that the sales tax wouldn't do near enough for the San Fernando Valley. As we reported here last week, AAA is also supporting the tax. 

Gas prices: The average cost of a gallon of regular is now under $3.50 in three states (Delaware, Missouri and New Jersey) with several other states likely to drop under that threshold soon, says AAA. The price in California sits at $3.861 as of this morning, down from a high of $4.61 on June 19. That means it's about $11 and change cheaper to fill the Road Sage's Subaru now -- nice, but not the way to stop an addict.

-- Steve Hymon

Comments

[Ken Alpern]

So South Pasadena and La Canada-Flintridge still doesn't want that I-710 Connector--great, fine with me!

They've warped the legal system for decades, and although I feel terrible for the rest of the Eastside because of the traffic impacts they've suffered from the failure to build that connector, we've got plenty of other freeway projects to build instead.

Let that $780 million go for the I-710 south that goes to the ports, or to spruce up the I-605 and I-405 South Bay freeways. Furthermore, let's start planning the widening of the I-5 from the I-605 to the I-710 instead, and let's make sure that the Eastside has enough funds to fasttrack improvements to the I-210, I-10 and SR-60 freeways.

Perhaps the I-710 Connector can best be funded by tolling every resident of South Pasadena and adjacent cities when they utilize an onramp or offramp from the freeway system they are happy to use but won't have in their own cities!