For almost 60 years, the 710 Freeway’s unfinished gap has affected traffic in the entire San Gabriel Valley but nowhere moreso than in Alhambra.

Drivers heading to South Pasadena and Pasadena move like herded cattle from the freeway’s terminus at Valley Boulevard onto Fremont Avenue. Desperate for another way, others continue east on Valley to Atlantic and Garfield boulevards for slightly better, less-clogged, conditions.

However, after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority struck down the last hope of completing the freeway — a 6.3-mile underground tunnel — area cities began looking at different options to relieve the congestion created by the unfinished 710.

Alhambra’s proposal, which was approved by the Metro Ad Hoc Congestion, Highway and Roads Committee earlier this month, would radically change the way traffic moves in the region. The city’s proposal is to end the 710 where it meets with the 10 Freeway and to turn the no-longer-needed freeway “stub” into a regional park.

The $100 million project, which Metro would fund with Measure R money approved by voters in 2008 and was originally meant to be used to complete the 710, and 33 other projects across the region will go before the Metro Board of Directors for final approval at its Dec. 6 meeting.

Unable to handle the load

Anyone designing a freeway system today would never have one end at a city street because it would dump all that traffic into an area not made to handle it, Alhambra Mayor Jeff Maloney said.

“That was done in anticipation of the 710 being connected either via a surface route or a tunnel, but that’s off the table now,” Maloney said. “Just because it’s there now is not a good enough reason to keep it there.”

Under Alhambra’s plan, the terminus at Valley Boulevard would be plugged by parkland, and commuters heading toward the Pasadenas would have to exit the 710 either at Ramona Road or transition to the eastbound 10 and exit Fremont Avenue. While the latter is in Alhambra, the former is in Monterey Park, a detail that hasn’t gone unnoticed in that city.

Nearby cities affected

Monterey Park City Manager Ron Bow said traffic is already bad; Alhambra’s plan could make it worse. Many drivers who seek to avoid traffic on Valley Boulevard take the eastbound 10 Freeway into Monterey Park to exit at Ramona Road, which leads them to the city’s major east-west street, Garvey Avenue.

One of Monterey Park’s projects approved by the Metro Ad Hoc Congestion, Highway and Roads Committee was the widening of Ramona to accommodate the cars that already exit the 710 there, but Bow said removing Valley Boulevard as an exit option would change the situation significantly.

“We’re not against Alhambra’s proposal, but we’ve got to figure out additional solutions for what to do with the added” load, Bow said.

Maloney and Bow agree that the 10 Freeway on- and off-ramps would have to be improved to accommodate additional traffic.

The idea, Maloney said, isn’t to put the burden of hosting the 710 traffic onto other cities but to improve flow and pounce on an opportunity to create a 51-acre park.

Going green

South Pasadena Mayor Pro Tem Marina Khubesrian, who said she was excited about the prospect of a “green zone” park to soak up the carbon created by the freeway, also favors the construction of a new street route from the 710 to Cal State Los Angeles.

“Why not have a direct exit and add connections to the campus,” Khubesrian said. “Maybe put buses on there. Maybe you can deliver a lot more students and faculty to that campus without relying on their cars.”

All of the 710 alternatives are in very preliminary stages, especially given that the Metro board has yet to vote — and all of the additional improvements are on the table and will require years of poring over traffic data, holding community meetings and, eventually, design and construction, Maloney said.

The park proposal is less important than the traffic improvements presented by ending the 710 at the 10, Maloney said, but it would be the “icing on the cake” to be able to add open space with native plants and possibly the restoration of a stream known as the now-concrete channeled Arroyo Rosa de Castilla.

“We want to deal with the traffic first, and if that creates an opportunity to add park space, that’s an opportunity we can’t pass up,” Maloney said.