Gridlocked: Opposition to New Freeway Projects

1. Why, in unanimously agreeing to this route, did you override the best thinking of the most highly respected highway engineers in the nation?

2. Why, in agreeing on this route, did you not consider that every objection to the green route posed at the public hearing in Lynwood, was overruled by a special report of these same engineers? (i.e. noise at the hospital, effect on various churches, etc.)

3. How can you justify the selection of this route at an estimated cost of $8 million more than the green route?

4. How can you assume that the loss of 5% of the assessed valuation of Lynwood will not have a major effect on our economy?

5. What importance did you place on the fact that the adopted route was charged unacceptable by all political subdivisions and organized groups in the City? (i.e. the City Council, the Lynwood School Board, the Coordinating Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and every interested service organization.)

6. In reaching your decision, what possible consideration was given to the total effect of the freeway on the Wilson Elementary school and the St. Paul School and church?

7. In stating that the route would benefit the commercial and industrial uses of Fernwood Avenue, were you aware this adopted route was totally unacceptable to the major industrial firm in Lynwood?

8. And least of all, how can the unusual manner in which the decision reached the news media be justified? The Associated Press was made aware of the Commission’s decision prior to the public discussion and prior to the official vote. How can the Commission predicate its decision on such statements as, “least disruptive to Lynwood, the Lynwood tax base has room for expansion, the Lynwood schools can better stand the tax loss, that Fernwood is an industrial-commercial street” when, in reality, these statements are not true.

On the heels of war and with a tremendous amount of Federal support for rapid highway construction, the wheels of change were set in motion. Before concrete could be poured for any particular projects, local and Federal agents would utilize right-of-way action to gobble up parcels of land that would pave the way to a future dominated by the automobile. 

A Federal Commission in 1965 estimated that between 1964 and 1972 over 800,000 families and over 100,000 businesses would be displaced by highway construction and/or urban renewal programs. In its report, the Commission was tasked with investigating the procedural approach to these acquisitions and aimed to take a particularly close look at whether or not the poor and elderly were bearing a disproportionate amount of “costs” relative to the “social good” that would be created by new construction projects. 

The Commission's report included the following statement from Lyndon B. Johnson:

“Despite existing programs assisting families and persons displaced by urban renewal projects, the human cost of relocation remains a serious and difficult problem. The vast majority of those displaced by urban renewal and public housing have relocated in better and standard housing, but some have not. For most, the cost of improved housing has been an unsought burden. For some, the inconvenience of displacement has meant only another slum dwelling and the likelihood of repeating this experience.” President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964

By all accounts, the practice of eminent domain calls for “just compensation” to be paid to the displaced individuals or businesses. While it was noted that most actions simply made efforts to compensate at market value, the Commission noted that “market value” as a construct failed to account for other damages and losses that could be suffered as a result of property acquisition. Precedence was being established as more and more agencies were working to cover other incidental costs borne by the displaced such as moving expenses and personal property loss. 

The report also notes that at its essence, demolition in preparation for new development quite obviously reduces housing stock. While by no means profound, the report’s authors urged policymakers to consider the availability of housing in advance of a project commencing and not after the fact. Those spearheading the Century Freeway project most assuredly did not take heed to this advice. 

In 1969, Stuart L. Hill, a Supervising Right-of-Way Agent for the California Division of Highways shared his observations on the agency’s work in the Watts. Sitting west of Lynwood and also slated to be directly impacted by the development of the Century Freeway, the agency took extra care to ensure that its advocacy for the freeway would not be reduced to an agenda of “Negro removal.” It was this notion of “Negro removal” that Hill cites as one of the contributing factors of Newark’s race riots in 1967 on the heels of three separate freeway projects. Given the wave of race riots in the country at the time, the Division of Highways was likely hellbent on avoiding such a flare up in Watts, which was an unmistakably black neighborhood. 

However, Hill doesn’t only share commentary on the merits of his agency’s willingness to engage deeply with the community - even those “militant organizations that receive so much publicity in the national press.” Instead, he goes beyond the lessons learned from San Francisco and talks about what the displaced individuals represent to the neighborhood. Of the 2600 families to be displaced, half of them were owner occupied and a sizable number of them were on fixed incomes. Given discrepancies between the average home value in Watts relative to values outside of the neighborhood, the housing inventory would essentially be “impossible to replace.” And beyond the economic realities, it was determined through surveys that only ⅓ of families in the corridor actually wanted to leave the area.

And nearly all proposals for community improvement began to be suspiciously regarded as an attempt by the white power structure to break up Watts and scatter its residents all over Los Angeles.

Hill would also add that “The people affected by the Century Freeway are part of the most stable elements in Watts. Displacing them would leave a vacuum in Watts that would be hard to fill.”

While the impact on the Los Angeles region was being calculated, funds originally earmarked for the Embarcadero Freeway were made available in the early 1960s after San Franciscans successfully revolted against planned highway projects in their city.

As Jones Jr. notes, one key driver of freeway opposition was the fact that most “easy jobs” had already been completed. “Easy jobs” is the term used to describe those projects that followed the paths of existing railways or other existing transportation corridors. New projects in the 1960s would prove to be increasingly complex given the constant need for community disruption via right-of-way acquisitions. An increasingly informed populace would also begin to raise concerns around that pollution and possible health impacts that went hand in hand with automobiles racing along freeway corridors unceasingly.

At their core, freeways are most beneficial to those living at the endpoints being connected and less so to those whose communities are enabling the connections. During the freeway craze in California, proponents saw highways as a form of currency that could help retain the importance of the urban center and the central business district in the face of a suburban wave that threatened to take away residents and shopping traffic. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, residents in San Francisco (and the greater Bay Area) began mobilizing against infrastructure projects that would have carved up the region beyond recognition. Their opponents, the proponents of more freeways, were being fueled by the 1956 Interstate Highway Act which mandated that fuel tax revenues be spent on highway construction projects. However, where numerous protests across the country failed, San Francisco managed to succeed. 

In his book City Against Suburbs: The Culture Wars in American Metropolis, Joseph Rodriguez details how the SF Chamber of Commerce and other local leaders began devising plans that would ensure San Francisco would remain the “heart of the Bay Area.” These plans included a 2nd transbay bridge, new freeways along the Embarcadero and through the prized Golden Gate Park. NIMBY activists quickly mobilized starting with groups like the Park Commission. In fairly short order, seven property owners’ associations formed and banded together to voice opposition. In addition to narratives around city aesthetics and personal property values, the groups also demonstrated a willingness to empathize with groups most susceptible to being negatively impacted by new freeway projects. Protesters focused on cost of living in SF and wanted to give a voice to those who “saved and slaved” to buy property in San Francisco only to find themselves at risk of being pushed out. 

San Francisco is landlocked and truly an urban environment that freeway opponents felt most specifically lent itself to public transportation. Rodriguez also argues that “the city’s urbanism also encouraged social tolerance” in a way that the vast area that is the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area never could. At least by the author’s estimation, it might appear that it’s easier to empathize with others when you live in the neighborhood with them and not simply driving through their neighborhood to reach your destination. 

The Ferry Building, San Francisco’s iconic cable cars and Golden Gate Park would become the aesthetic city elements around which opponents would mobilize. One such opponent proclaimed after an unsightly double decker highway sprang up and obscured views of the Ferry Building: ““The only solution is to tear it down and give the Ferry Building and the celebrated view of the bay back to the city.”

The success of the freeway revolts in San Francisco would ultimately serve to further enhance the inevitability of the Century Freeway by freeing up funding that would be diverted to the project. 

“Freeway opponents are telling each other ‘if San Francisco stopped freeways, we can too” Thomas Lammers, District Highway Engineer

In the 1960s and into the 1970s a vocal group of freeway opponents worked to prevent Interstate 710 from ripping through the city of South Pasadena. This left the freeway incomplete with two pronounced “stubs” that have sat dormant for decades awaiting a final verdict as to whether or not the freeway would ever be completed. The battle between proponents and opponents would be waged for many years but ultimately CalTrans decided in 2018 that they would no longer pursue above ground nor tunnel connection plans for the 710.

Although Century corridor cities weren’t able to mount as cohesive of a response as their friends further north, Downey and Hawthorne did express early opposition. In the early 1970s, the Hawthorne “Freeway Fighters” sponsored a citywide referendum that passed by a margin of 5 to 1 and aimed to counteract the decision of city leaders to sign onto the DOH Freeway Agreement. While the Hawthorne referendum aimed to have an impact within a limited scope, a larger contingent of freeway opponents would make use of the National Environmental Policy Act as a tool for waging war against the Century.

Throughout the corridor others groups would eventually take up positions that stressed concerns over the impacts of the project. In Lynwood, the Citizens Freeway Complaint Center sprang up in a vacant medical building. The building was abandoned due to heavy vandalism and robbery activity along Fernwood Avenue. A woman named Mrs. Ida Williams, who was identified as one of the group’s leaders shared the following with a journalist from the Los Angeles Times:

“Before the freeway came in here, we had a beautiful residential community. It was a lovely place to raise children. Now it looks like Watts. There are rats, cockroaches, open piles of dirt, open toilets, hanging wires, transients, hippies, criminals and God knows what else. It’s so terrible I don’t even want to talk about it.” 

Mrs. Williams - like so many of Lynwood’s White residents - spoke in a mournful tone. Almost as if to say that the freeway project was singularly responsible for taking away the “Lily White” community that had persisted. 

After a while the value of the long stalled freeway became less apparent to many State and Local officials. Adriana Gianturco, who would officially take an opposition position on the freeway, felt that there was not nearly enough discussion around rapid transit. While Gianturco’s observation was spot on, circumstances made it unlikely that the parcels acquired for the freeway would be repurposed as a rapid transit corridor. One could argue that there was simply too much inertia that was forcing officials at all levels to continue advocating for the completion of the freeway. 

Although the plaintiffs in the Keith v. Volpe case wanted to freeze the corridor in time to fend off against the inevitability of the freeway, the fact of the matter is that State had simply acquired too much property within the corridor for things to be undone. 

“Based on the costs of the project, I couldn’t see that the benefit was worth it, but once the governor decided otherwise, we have gone like gangbusters to get this thing ready.” Adriana Gianturco, Director of CalTrans

Gianturco and her boss, Governor Brown, would do the needful to continue moving the project forward; albeit reluctantly.