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That is not exactly the case. In Los Angeles, the 710 freeway was abandoned due to people losing their minds over the eminent domain shenanigans. https://imgu

That is not exactly the case. In Los Angeles, the 710 freeway was abandoned due to people losing their minds over the eminent domain shenanigans. https://imgur.com/inSyTTV https://imgur.com/inSyTTV

throwup238 2y ago
It was abandoned because they made the mistake of trying to build it through South Pasadena which is very wealthy and full of politically connected old money families that didn't want anything to do with that kind of traffic. They dragged Caltrans through decades of lawsuits and Caltrans spent who knows how many millions on property in the area so I don't know if eminent domain was really an option, at least not in the 21st century. Their last ditch attempt was going to be a tunnel that cost >$1 billion per mile but the city shut that down fast too, even though it wouldn't have required seizing any land. Source: South Pasadena is my home town and I left shortly after Caltrans officially gave up. The year after Caltrans dropped the project altogether, a massive chunk of the city's budget was reallocated back to the schools and roads which made a huge difference to the infrastructure.
- parineum 2y ago
  Is the solution to build things through poorer neighborhoods where people still feel exactly the same but can't stand up for themselves? The issue wasn't that they tried to put the freeway where someone didn't want it because nobody wants a freeway nextdoor, the issue is they tried to force it upon people who could fight back.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    > Is the solution to build things through poorer neighborhoods where people still feel exactly the same but can't stand up for themselves? Pretty much. The history of US highway construction is full of politicians using freeways to bulldoze and split poor communities. That's how the euphemism "urban renewal" got its name.
- skissane 2y ago
  This reminds me of what happened in Sydney, Australia. Sydney has this freeway (the M4, formerly the F4) which starts in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, the western edge of the Sydney metro area, around 55 km west of the city centre. And it heads due east, towards the centre of the city. And they built the western portions of the freeway first, since the land acquisition costs were cheap. By the late 1970s, it finished 15 km short of the city centre. And the government had acquired the land to continue it to the edge of the city centre, another 13 km or so. But a lot of local residents didn't want the freeway built. So in 1977, the recently elected centre-left Neville Wran government decided not just to cancel its construction, but also sell the land reservation to property developers to ensure it never could be built. Did that actually stop its construction? No. The state government ended up building the eastern section anyway, starting in 2019, and it opened in 2023. But the surface reservation had been lost, and reacquiring it through eminent domain would have been prohibitively expensive due to high property prices, and politically too controversial too, so it had to go through a tunnel. A surface freeway would have cost AU$1–3 billion, with underground tunnelling the cost was well over AU$15 billion (around US$10 billion) Wran's 1977 decision to sell the freeway land reservation was arguably one of the most expensive decisions ever made in Australian history. In the long-run it had made life worse for local residents, as the freeway dumped commuter traffic 15 km short of its primary destination, and they had to put up with that traffic traversing their local roads–which made the eventual completion of the freeway almost inevitable
- starik36 2y ago
  South Pasadena is not wealthier than outlying communities including the ones that 710 currently goes through. https://imgur.com/4Uxg7kn https://imgur.com/4Uxg7kn

That is not exactly the case. In Los Angeles, the 710 freeway was abandoned due to people losing their minds over the eminent domain shenanigans. https://imgur.com/inSyTTV https://imgur.com/inSyTTV

throwup238 2y ago

It was abandoned because they made the mistake of trying to build it through South Pasadena which is very wealthy and full of politically connected old money families that didn't want anything to do with that kind of traffic. They dragged Caltrans through decades of lawsuits and Caltrans spent who knows how many millions on property in the area so I don't know if eminent domain was really an option, at least not in the 21st century. Their last ditch attempt was going to be a tunnel that cost >$1 billion per mile but the city shut that down fast too, even though it wouldn't have required seizing any land. Source: South Pasadena is my home town and I left shortly after Caltrans officially gave up. The year after Caltrans dropped the project altogether, a massive chunk of the city's budget was reallocated back to the schools and roads which made a huge difference to the infrastructure.

parineum 2y ago
Is the solution to build things through poorer neighborhoods where people still feel exactly the same but can't stand up for themselves? The issue wasn't that they tried to put the freeway where someone didn't want it because nobody wants a freeway nextdoor, the issue is they tried to force it upon people who could fight back.
- throwup238 2y ago
  > Is the solution to build things through poorer neighborhoods where people still feel exactly the same but can't stand up for themselves? Pretty much. The history of US highway construction is full of politicians using freeways to bulldoze and split poor communities. That's how the euphemism "urban renewal" got its name.
skissane 2y ago
This reminds me of what happened in Sydney, Australia. Sydney has this freeway (the M4, formerly the F4) which starts in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, the western edge of the Sydney metro area, around 55 km west of the city centre. And it heads due east, towards the centre of the city. And they built the western portions of the freeway first, since the land acquisition costs were cheap. By the late 1970s, it finished 15 km short of the city centre. And the government had acquired the land to continue it to the edge of the city centre, another 13 km or so. But a lot of local residents didn't want the freeway built. So in 1977, the recently elected centre-left Neville Wran government decided not just to cancel its construction, but also sell the land reservation to property developers to ensure it never could be built. Did that actually stop its construction? No. The state government ended up building the eastern section anyway, starting in 2019, and it opened in 2023. But the surface reservation had been lost, and reacquiring it through eminent domain would have been prohibitively expensive due to high property prices, and politically too controversial too, so it had to go through a tunnel. A surface freeway would have cost AU$1–3 billion, with underground tunnelling the cost was well over AU$15 billion (around US$10 billion) Wran's 1977 decision to sell the freeway land reservation was arguably one of the most expensive decisions ever made in Australian history. In the long-run it had made life worse for local residents, as the freeway dumped commuter traffic 15 km short of its primary destination, and they had to put up with that traffic traversing their local roads–which made the eventual completion of the freeway almost inevitable
starik36 2y ago
South Pasadena is not wealthier than outlying communities including the ones that 710 currently goes through. https://imgur.com/4Uxg7kn https://imgur.com/4Uxg7kn