Meeting_Body
PLANNING AND PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE
MAY 18, 2022
Preamble
Motion by:
DIRECTORS HAHN, SOLIS, MITCHELL, AND DUTRA
I-710 South Corridor Motion
The I-710 South Corridor is a 19-mile stretch of the I-710 Freeway, from East Los Angeles in the north to the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles in the south. Connecting the ports with shipping and warehousing facilities in Southern California, this corridor is a goods movement corridor of national significance, as 40% of all waterborne or containerized imports into the United States come through the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which have become California's and America's loading docks. Metro has been studying ways to relieve congestion and improve safety along the I-710 South Corridor for more than two decades.
Of the 1.2 million people who live along the I-710 South Corridor, nearly 1 million, or 83 percent, identify as Black or Hispanic. These residents face some of the worst air quality anywhere in the country, as the corridor accounts for 20% of all particulate emissions in Southern California. The I-710 South is known as the "diesel death zone" owing to very high levels of diesel pollutants within a quarter-mile either side of the freeway. These high levels of pollutants have been linked to health challenges including decreased lung function, asthma, increased lung and heart disease symptoms, and chronic bronchitis in communities along the corridor, which also face long-standing disparities in health and access to healthcare.
In 2018, the Metro Board of Directors voted in favor of the I-710 South Corridor's Environmental Impact Report's recommended "Alternative 5C." That Board decision was contingent on Federal approval, in order to fully fund the project. In 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally opposed "Alternative 5C" on the grounds that any increase in vehicles and trucks along the corridor would increase particulate emissions in communities that are already heav...
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