As part of a $6 billion widening of the 710 Freeway, a Metro committee is asking the transit agency to add a lane dedicated to electric vehicles — cars, buses and trucks — which would use wireless power transmission pads placed in the roadway to recharge their batteries as they travel.

While wireless charging is being used at transit yards, including in the Antelope Valley to power electric buses, the notion of a freeway lane embedded with devices that continuously recharge a moving vehicle’s battery pack would be a first in the United States.

“I think the technology exists or is about to exist, so we can have both long-haul trucks as well as cars be zero-emission,” Janice Hahn, county supervisor and board member for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority said Monday. “I believe the market will respond to Metro creating that policy.”

Hahn noted in a written statement that these so-called “rechargeable roadways” are under construction today in China, Israel and Norway. By the time the 19-mile, 710 Freeway improvement project, stretching from Long Beach to the 60 Freeway in East Los Angeles, is complete in 2040, such technology will be commonplace, Hahn said.

“It doesn’t make sense to invest $6 billion in widening the 710 Freeway without demanding we have a zero-emissions requirement to drive in these new lanes,” she said in an interview.

Daimler AG and Tesla have built long-haul electric trucks, as has the Playa Vista company Chanje. Hahn said Monday she plans to set up a meeting with Tesla CEO Elon Musk “to see if this piques his interest,” adding: “If not a rechargeable lane, then we can find out what else is out there.”

It has taken 15 years of study and community meetings for Metro to consider a specific project design. Last week, Hahn amended what is known as “staff project design 5C,” which basically adds a lane in each direction and provides truck bypass lanes at the 405 Freeway juncture.

The changes bolster the clean-air components, requiring Metro to not just improve traffic flow but address the detrimental health impacts on nearby residents from diesel pollution spewed from trucks leaving the Port of Long Beach.

“I am very familiar with this ‘diesel death zone‘ that has characterized this freight corridor,” she said, referring to higher risks of lung disease and cancer from diesel tailpipe exhaust and fine particulates from truck tires and brake pad residue affecting such communities as Wilmington, San Pedro, Long Beach, Bell Gardens, Bell, Maywood, Cudahy, Compton, Paramount and East Los Angeles

“Our community should no longer suffer health risks so somebody in Kansas can get a flat screen TV,” she said.

Hahn’s motion received full support of the five-member Metro’s Ad Hoc Congestion, Highway and Roads Committee, which she chairs. The motion comes before the full, 13-member Metro board on March 1.

The committee did not support a different approach, labeled “Alternative 7,” which would separate trucks from cars on an elevated, truck-only roadway. This design costs almost twice as much as the design the committee endorsed, or about $10 billion, said Metro. So far, Metro has about $1.09 billion for the project.

In addition to a dedicated recharging lane, the committee wants: