It's an elusive missing link in Los Angeles' freeway system: A 6.2-mile dotted line on the map that transportation planners have for decades hoped would connect the Foothill Freeway in Pasadena with the Long Beach Freeway in Alhambra.
But that dotted line runs through a historic neighborhood of California Craftsman homes and tree-lined streets in South Pasadena. For nearly 50 years, residents there have fought the freeway. Just as tenaciously, residents of nearby traffic-weary cities, particularly Alhambra, have battled to have it built.
Now, some officials believe the solution to the standoff might lie beneath their feet. Earlier this month, they persuaded Congress to approve $2.4 million to study the possibility of extending the freeway through a five-mile, $2-billion tunnel that would run under South Pasadena and part of Pasadena.
The idea of building the longest continuous highway tunnel in the United States by digging under one of the country's most crowded metropolitan regions may seem far-fetched.
Even if the feasibility study points the way forward, years of environmental impact reports, engineering plans and financial wrangles would remain. But supporters of the tunnel -- driven in part by a near-desperate desire to end the fighting over the freeway -- believe that several developments make the idea practical.
One involves the subject that rivals traffic as a Southern California obsession: real estate.
Over the last three decades, the California Department of Transportation has purchased more than 500 homes that occupy the potential freeway right of way. Most were bought a generation ago, many for prices in the $50,000 range. One was recently appraised for $780,000. Building a tunnel would allow Caltrans to sell most of the homes, although a change in state law would be needed to sell them at full-market prices.
"We're probably sitting on half a billion worth of property," said Ron Kosinski, Caltrans' deputy district director for environmental planning.
On the other side of the ledger, finishing the freeway above ground would require taking more than 400 homes at a price, including relocation benefits, of about $1 million each, Kosinski estimates. "That's $400 million right there for real estate," he said. "That's a substantial chunk of money."
Combine the real estate with new techniques pioneered in Europe that lower the price of tunneling and the cost to taxpayers of putting the road 100 feet to 200 feet below ground may be not much more expensive than building on the surface, Caltrans officials say.
