A Southern California metropolis is dealing with backlash after it accepted a $2 million grant to check whether or not a serious stretch of the ten needs to be coated with a large park — or ultimately ripped out altogether.
The Santa Monica Metropolis Council not too long ago authorised a decision permitting officers to check methods to reconnect neighborhoods divided by the ten freeway, citing the necessity to tackle “historic hurt” and “environmental hazards,” in accordance with the Santa Monica Each day Press.
The examine will deal with the freeway’s affect on the town’s traditionally Black Pico Neighborhood and residents whose houses had been displaced when the roadway was constructed.
However critics say the proposal sounds extra like a taxpayer-funded fantasy than a severe transportation plan.
Underneath the decision, metropolis officers agreed to look at the “trade-offs between capping and options equivalent to freeway elimination” whereas additionally looking for to “reaffirm the Metropolis’s dedication to closing the freeway and comply with fashions of municipalities that restored and healed cities by eradicating freeways.”
One choice being studied would place a large land bridge over the ten Freeway between eleventh and twentieth streets, successfully making a park above the roadway.
“It’s mainly a park on high of a freeway,” Senior Park Planner Antonio Lopez instructed the council.
Lopez additionally acknowledged the proposal stays extremely conceptual, describing the examine as “mainly a design mission with out … a design.”
Councilmember Ellis Raskin argued the freeway’s development got here on the expense of minority communities.
“It was black and Latino households” whose houses had been demolished to make manner for the freeway within the Nineteen Fifties, Raskin stated.
However he recommended even the park idea could not go far sufficient.
“Capping the freeway, in my view, could be a partial enchancment, however it doesn’t remedy the underlying issues,” Raskin instructed the council.
“We have to keep targeted on the long-term purpose of eradicating the freeway and changing it with parks, a grand boulevard, or different neighborhood-serving makes use of.”
“And we need to have a look at alternatives to rebuild this neighborhood,” Raskin instructed CBSLA.
The proposal rapidly ignited backlash on-line, with many residents calling the examine a colossal waste of cash.
“Creating issues the place there are none. I’ve lived on either side and by no means felt in any manner impacted nor ever met anybody that talked about that,” one individual commented on the report.
“Full waste of cash: the grant and metropolis council salaries. Nonsense. Go do one thing truly helpful for the group like decreasing crime or decreasing taxes.”
“Nothing goes to occur. It’s only a manner for the native authorities to waste tax payer cash by doing pointless analysis. Most likely somebody’s member of the family who owns the agency doing the examine and they’re simply funneling the cash,” one other individual added on an Instagram publish.
“So destroy residential neighborhoods and make them unsafe with reckless commuters driving like maniacs to get to work by rerouting visitors off the freeways and into residential streets. These individuals receives a commission to create extra issues, not remedy them,” a 3rd shared.
One Op-Ed author for the Santa Monica Mirror appeared to sum up many individuals’s frustration concerning the metropolis’s transfer.
“Council Member Ellis Raskin not too long ago directed workers to check capping our portion of the ten Freeway for park areas, and… eliminating the ten utterly,” Charles Andrews wrote.
“Can’t make this up. And Council Member Barry Snell seconded it. With a straight face? I don’t know.”
“People, that is who you voted for to guide this metropolis. Please don’t make the identical errors this fall,” Andrews added.
The transfer follows an earlier one by the town in 2022, when officers issued an apology, admitting the town within the Nineteen Fifties had “focused neighborhoods of colour for condemnation.”
“Santa Monica African Individuals who had been thriving within the Belmar Triangle had houses and companies condemned and brought away by eminent area to make manner for the town’s new Civic Auditorium and Santa Monica Excessive College enlargement,” the assertion learn.
“And a few constructions that had been owned or occupied by African Individuals had been burned down on web site.”
“Within the Sixties the brand new Santa Monica Freeway minimize by way of the center of the town predominantly occupied by African Individuals and other people of Mexican descent, depriving 550 households of long-time investments in houses and companies,” it added.
For now, nonetheless, the plan is little greater than a examine. No closing suggestions are anticipated till July 2029, and the grant funding stays accessible by way of 2030.
Nonetheless, skeptics be aware that eradicating or decreasing the freeway close to twentieth Road would drive a lot of the visitors headed towards Santa Monica and its seashores onto native streets — a prospect that has many residents already seeing crimson.
