Designer Proposes $20 Billion Alternative to 710 Extension

David Alba, of the Gabriel River Infrastructure Development (GRID) Project, doesn't claim to have a single magic bullet that will kill the State Route 710 extension; he's touting a revolver full of them.

The systems designer has been taking his ultra ambitious proposal on the road in recent months, pitching a multi-mode alternative to the 710 Freeway extension that includes ideas as seemingly radical as constructing freight line beneath the San Gabriel River and the consolidation of every rail network at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles into a single electrified super terminal.

He calls his plan a "game changer."

"The one thing we have in common is that we don't want the [State Route 710] Freeway extension project in our neighborhood because it's not improving our quality of life," he said.

The proposed freeway extension project aims to connect Route 710 in Los Angeles to Route 210 in Pasadena, in hopes of alleviating traffic caused by freight trucks carrying cargo from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The extension project has been proposed both as a surface freeway straight through the heart of the city of South Pasadena or as a tunnel, which could be bored beneath five distinct zones in either Northeast Los Angeles or the San Gabriel Valley.
The proposed Zone 2 would put the tunnel directly beneath the neighborhoods of Montecito Heights, Highland Park, Mount Washington, Glassell Park and Eagle Rock.

In December, the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council officially stated their opposition to the project.

Alba's seven-tiered solution to the Route 710 traffic issue starts at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where 14 conventional ship to rail networks would be consolidated into a single electric powered super terminal that he's invented.
The super terminal is designed to mimic the interior of a cargo ship, only much larger. Freight is stacked into the massive steel matrix by automatic loaders which glide magnetically along the top of the grid. A rail line runs through the heart of the grid, where it can be loaded much faster than it could at a conventional ship to rail network, because there would be no need for cranes.

The freight trains would then chug along Alba's next big idea, a freight line running beneath the San Gabriel River that would connect the ports to the receiving areas in the Inland Empire.

Alba also suggested that a water and electrical utility lines could be run beneath the river, eliminating the need for above ground power lines.

With the above ground power lines out of the way, Alba envisions an opportunity for environmental remediation of the manmade river and for green, mixed used development on the surrounding real estate.

For good measure, Alba's plan also calls for the construction of a private, light rail commuter line that would run from Seal Beach to Irwindale, and intersect with all Amtrak and L.A. Metro rail stops along the way.

Alba estimates the total price tag of the project to be around $20 billion dollars, 80 percent of which he sees being funded by the public sector.

It's an incredibility ambitious, expensive and unconventional solution to one of the longest standing public transportation debates in United States history, and Alba, a private citizen with seemingly few political connections is confidant he can get it done.

In fact, he suggests that the sheer massiveness of the proposal is one of aspects of the GRID project makes it all the more possible.

"This would be a project of national significance," he said. "If the federal government wants this to happen, they could create a federal mandate for the project. They would give it the federal company credit card run it through the hurdles."

The payback would be swift too, Alba said, as the project would not only lead to traffic mitigation, but residential and business development and job creation across numerous industries.

For now, Alba is starting small. His pitched his ideas at several "No on 710" Steering Committee meetings and has started to gain some traction among local opponents to the freeway tunnel.

According to South Pasadena Patch, South Pasadena resident Odom Stamps, who is a former mayor and No on 710 Action Committee member, responded to a question from the audience during recent 710 alternatives meeting in Pasadena about his community's level of interest in larger regional issues. Stamps said, "South Pasadena is vitally interested in this. We embraced the Gold Line, and this is compatible with the kind of development we want to encourage for the region's underserved communities."

Others have raised legitimate concerns about the environmental impact of boring a tunnel underneath the San Gabriel River to make way for a freight line.

Sam Burgess, a South Pasadena resident, recently on a piece about the GRID project on South Pasadena Patch, saying Alba's project is a "a political, economic and environmental disaster waiting to happen."

"This project takes a major transportation issue from the 710 freeway corridor and transfers it to the San Gabriel River and surrounding communities," Burgess said. "This is NIBY'ism--at its most heinous."

Los Angeles residents with an interest in the State Route 710 extension project can get a look at some proposed alternatives on Thursday, February 24 at 6 p.m. at the Los Angeles Christian Presbyterian Church on 2241 N. Eastern Ave, where one of series of L.A. Metro conversations about transportation alternatives will be held.