Metro is seeking a diverse and committed group of community members to participate in the I-710 South Corridor Community Leadership Committee (CLC) from March to December 2022 for approximately 4 to 6 hours per month.
Applications for the CLC are now open for those who live or work within the I-710 South Corridor. This committee will allow residents and workers in impacted communities along the 710 South Corridor to advise the 710 Task Force throughout its process on goals, proposals, and recommendations.
The CLC will also “ground-truth” (verify) data and findings, advise on community engagement efforts, and take an active role in supporting the 710 Task Force’s work to engage with a broad base of local community members.
Community members can apply to the I-710 South Corridor Community Leadership Committee by completing the application in English, Spanish, Khmer, or Tagalog. The application has additional information CLC member responsibilities, compensation, qualifications and selection process. Applications will be accepted through Friday, February 18, 2022.
Some quick background for those new to the 710 Task Force:
The I-710 South Corridor Project was originally conceived as a way to improve traffic safety, modernize the freeway design and accommodate growth in traffic and goods movement — particularly from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This section of freeway was built in the 1950s and ‘60s and stretches 19 miles from the ports through 16 cities and communities to East Los Angeles.
The project was halted in March 2021 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signaled that the project wouldn’t meet federal air quality conformity standards. In approving the project in 2018, the Metro Board prioritized local interchange and arterial road upgrades, new pedestrian and bike crossings and more funds for near-zero and zero emission trucks — while also holding off a decision on potentially widening the freeway that would displace residents and businesses in adjacent communities.
In response to the EPA’s decision and these displacement concerns, the Metro Board in May 2021 directed Metro to suspend work on the environmental process and re-engage community members and local stakeholders. The Task Force is expected to provide a multimodal Investment Plan for the I-710 South Corridor that incorporates community feedback and findings to the Metro Board of Directors and State of California in 2022.
Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects
Metro will stop at nothing to expand the 710, so this committee is completely powerless and useless. Metro’s own chief highway planner, Abdollah Ansari, has made it clear that anything short of widening freeways is just a fantasy dreamed up by “visionaries” who want better transit, and bike and sidewalk connections instead of more polluting lanes through communities burdened by the heaviest pollution levels in the state. Keep with this charade, Metro, and the community will eventually cut your sales tax funding.
More background on this “committee” that Metro won’t tell you about: it’s the only meaningful medium for the community along the 710 to actually fight back against Metro’s never ending desire to expand the 710 and other freeways (in the name of “reducing congestion” which is a complete false notion given induced and latent demand especially in this corridor). Metro has a Highways Department that lives and breathes highway expansion, no matter what the cost, both environmentally and to our poorest residents in corridors with the worst air quality. And now they’re upset that the federal government, even under Trump, called them out on a destructive plan to expand the 710 at the expense of local residents and more efficient, environmentally beneficial alternatives. Metro highway planners not only live to expand highways wherever they can, they also like to actively denigrate transit and alternatives to driving a personal vehicle, and label anyone who wants a greener future for LA a “visionary”, treating them as obstacles to their number one goal and mission of expanding highways. It’s all documented with clear evidence on LA Streetsblog, but I doubt Metro will allow the link to the proof and documentation (including recordings), including Metro’s chief highway planner’s ridicule of anything that doesn’t involve expanding freeways to serve LA’s residents and their mobility needs. He and his team scoff at anything that impedes with this mission, and not one of them has ever experienced mobility in LA from outside of their personal car.
another pointless committee to beat around the bush of a pointless task force for a pointless project. The community is chafed from all the community engagement, they simply don’t want to widen the freeway. You don’t need a leadership committee in Español, Tagalog, English, ASL, and Khmer to know that. The sentiment has been to same for many years, and these exercises are just a waste of time and money. Too much community engagement destroys what little trust existed.