Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Traffic in Pasadena is already bad. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows the workarounds.
We take side streets. We avoid certain intersections. We plan our day around choke points. We do it because there is no 710-freeway connection. For years, we have dealt with that reality and made it function.
Now the City is moving forward with plans to redevelop the 710-freeway stub into a park and community space, along with affordable new housing. That may sound attractive. Green space is attractive. Housing is needed. But good intentions do not erase consequences.
If you remove what freeway function exists and add density without a clear traffic plan, congestion will get worse. That is not speculation. It is common sense.
And here is what should concern every resident: after countless meetings and years of discussion, we still have not seen a real traffic simulation showing what this plan will do to West Pasadena, Central Pasadena, or East Pasadena. There has been no clear modeling of what happens when freeway connections are terminated, and thousands of new residential units are added to the 710 properties.
That is backwards.
Before anything is approved, two things must happen
The city must conduct and publicly release a full Caltrans traffic simulation study.
Caltrans provides professional-grade modeling software to cities at no cost. There is no excuse for not using it. Residents deserve to see, in plain numbers, how this proposal affects their streets.
There must be a complete CEQA environmental review.
Projects of this size are supposed to be examined thoroughly. If this proposal is truly in the best interest of Pasadena, it should withstand serious scrutiny.
Surface Street Impact
We do not have to guess what stress looks like. We are already living it.
Orange Grove Boulevard is already carrying far more traffic than it was designed to handle.
An average of 23,000 cars travel on it every day. If the roads through the 710 corridor are closed, an additional 30,000 vehicles will be forced to look for alternate routes.
That is today’s reality. Before redevelopment. Before adding density.
Orange Grove has limits, and when those limits are pushed, the entire system feels it.
If the 710 stub is converted and vehicle flow is redirected onto surface streets, Orange Grove will feel it first. And it will not stop there.
Every one of these north-south routes would absorb more pressure:
What About Our Schools?
We’ve already shown how added traffic will slow emergency response times. But it will also make getting to school harder for families across Pasadena by overloading the city’s main north south corridors.
Westridge depends on Pasadena Avenue for drop off and pick up. If that access changes, families will spill onto Orange Grove and surrounding neighborhood streets. Mayfield, Sequoia, Montessori, and Maranatha rely on predictable routes. Congestion on those corridors would ripple outward quickly.
In Central and East Pasadena, the same pattern affects Caltech, Polytechnic School, Pasadena City College, McKinley School, Washington Elementary STEM Magnet, Blair and Pasadena High Schools.
Pasadena does not need to make getting to school harder for parents and students.
What You Can Do
Now is the time to speak up.
Contact your City Council member
Attend upcoming Commission and Council meetings
Ask your neighbors to pay attention.
Keep asking one simple question: Where is the traffic study?
Until there is a publicly released Caltrans simulation and a full environmental review, approvals should not move forward. Pasadena deserves transparency. Pasadena deserves analysis. And Pasadena deserves leadership that measures the consequences before making irreversible decisions.
Thank you,
Pasadena Voices & the Orange Grove Residents Council
Pasadena Voices and the Orange Grove Residents Council, a DBA of Pasadena Voices, welcome support from anyone in the community. We accept financial contributions and gifts in kind.
Mail correspondence to:
