Larry Wilson: Still not sure who benefits for Governor's veto

Larry Wilson, ever the establishment apologist. The contrast between his bad boy surfer dude persona and the board room suck up certainly shines clear and bright today.

Unless you want to turn the SGV into something approximating the horribly polluted 710 corridor you are opposed to this tunnel. No matter what BS Caltrans Larry cooks up.

Arnold the idiot and his veto of SB 545 didn't do anything for anyone, including his own supposed efforts to bring public private partnerships (PPP's) to finance and invest in California's infrastructure.

Arnold agreed to PPP's in this years budget battle and supported Gil Cedillo's efforts at developing this finance mechanism for complex projects like the 710 Tunnel. Then at the whining of Caltrans bureaucracy in Sacramento Arnold apparently fell prey to arguments that no "options" including surface should be taken off the table.

Why anyone would even listen to Caltrans give the history of this project is frankly amazing, after 50 years of failure to deliver a viable alternative?

This continued failure by Arnold to understand or be consistent in his own purported policies is yet another example of his dubious competence.

The State is in dire need of infrastructure investment from roads, to water, and the private firms who have done these types of projects around the world have shown a strong interest in partnering. The biggest concern these firms express is a fear that we are not serious about following through. With this stupid move, I guess the Governor has shown that their fears are justified?

Yeah sure wrote:

Larry Wilson, ever the establishment apologist. The contrast between his bad boy surfer dude persona and the board room suck up certainly shines clear and bright today.
Unless you want to turn the SGV into something approximating the horribly polluted 710 corridor you are opposed to this tunnel. No matter what BS Caltrans Larry cooks up.

yes to the tunnel!

I am still trying to understand why we are not utilizing the existing Los Angeles river causeway?

The river's path already runs from, "the valley", south east to Glendale, though the west side of South Pasadena and southward to the city of Long Beach.

http://www.notesfromtheroad.com/files/los_ang...

Sure, it would need to be an elevated roadway but no need for a tunnel under all those petty rich people houses in Pasadena. The chances of completing the 710 surface roadway is impossible due to all the litigation.

Might as well follow the natural course of nature (excluding the man made concrete). THE ROUTE IS ALREADY THERE!!

Larry, you were right about not being able to tell the SB 545 players without a program. The saga of SB 545 was unique in the 50-plus-year 710 Freeway drama. The City of Alhambra and the 710 Freeway Coalition, long-time champions of finishing the freeway, were fighting alongside South Pasadena, the venerable freeway opponent, in support of Senator Cedillo’s bill on South Pasadena’s behalf to take the surface alternative off the table for good. And who was leading the opposition to this measure that South Pasadena had sought for years? South Pasadena’s own state assemblyman, Anthony Portantino! And Governor Schwarzenegger, the fierce advocate for moving forward public-private projects vetoed a bill moving forward what is arguably the state’s top candidate for public-private partnership. Alice through the looking glass!

As Senator Cedillo repeatedly said, with the tunnel alternative, South Pasadena has won the freeway fight. For years it battled against a project that would take a two-block-wide swath out of its community, removing historic houses, mature trees and intact neighborhoods in its path. The completed tunnel alternative means no property takings in South Pasadena, no tunnel portals, no off- or on-ramps and no freeway noise or vibration – exactly what the city has lobbied for so effectively lo these many years. SB 545 would have sealed their wish and banned the surface freeway they sought to relegate to history.

On the other hand, the 710 Freeway Coalition supported SB 545 to take off the table the most emotional arguments against the freeway’s completion: lost historic homes, lost trees, lost neighborhoods in South Pasadena. The 710 Freeway Coalition sought to focus on the tunnel and take the surface alternative off the table. The governor left it on.

Where now? The veto of SB 545, although fraught with symbolism, doesn’t change the forward momentum of the freeway’s completion. The energy of the process is focused solely on a tunnel, not a surface route, and the technical study on the tunnel’s feasibility is due to be released in weeks. The imperative for the process is to move forward the environmental study with all possible speed. The data and conclusions in that study will answer most of the questions which have stirred such community emotion during the technical study’s drilling. What route will be chosen, will the solution for completing the freeway include trucks or not, how much will the project cost, how much of the cost can be borne by private pockets and what will the traffic impacts be freeway by freeway and arterial by arterial. We need those answers and the sooner the better. While we continue to scratch our heads at the strange SB 545 drama, let’s deliver the answers that only the environmental study can bring.