Southern California Freeway System
A journey through the origins and long-term impacts of America's most notorious freeway system.
In many ways, roadways are a quintessential feature of the Southern California landscape. The story of Southern California's freeways is tainted with tales of heavy smog and environmental damage, as well as with histories of routing freeways through underrepresented communities as opposed to through more affluent communities.
In this StoryMap, we explore the origins of the Southern California freeway system and how the pursuit of the mythical California Dream influenced the rise of automobile culture and the proliferation of freeways around the state. We then explore the stories of racism, displacement, and slow violence and how freeways continue to affect local communities. Lastly, we explore the various histories of the environmental and ecological impacts that the freeways have had, as well as future attempts to expand sustainable infrastructure.
This is an interactive StoryMap: feel free to follow the predetermined map tour order, or tailor your own experience by clicking on any pin on the map.
Pacific Coast Highway
The modern California Dream is perhaps best described by the image of “sun-kissed couples” and “the shimmering Pacific waves” (Robinson 2013, 74). The modern California Dream is strongly derived from patriarchal roots, where the success and pleasure that California promised excluded the gratification and desires of women and the LGBTQ community. An example is the popularity of convertible cars among men, where “sunlight promises both maximum exposure of the bodies of car and driver, and a view of—perhaps, in the [driver’s] wildest dreams—‘babes’ with ‘tops down’” (Lutz 2000, 51).
Disneyland
When Disneyland opened in 1955, Disney described the park as being “‘dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America’” (Marling 1991, 170). Disney implied that his park is a place to pursue the American—and more specifically, the California—Dream, and indeed this appeared sufficient to attract over ten million tourists within the first two years (Marling 1991, 174).
Dodger Stadium
In 1950, residents of the Chavez Ravine were forcibly evicted from their homes under a policy of slum clearance and to make room for a federal housing project. Right-of-way agents forced the residents to vacate their houses, promising that they would be the first people to have access to the new low-income housing that would be built in place of their old homes.
Public Art "Going to the Olympics"
Frank Romero was commissioned to paint a mural on the freeway walls as part of the 1984 Olympic collection. His painting, Going to the 1984 Olympics, is a tribute to L.A.’s car culture, while including vibrant colors and broad brush strokes that characterize his style of art.
710 Freeway
The 710 freeway has an abrupt stop when it reaches South Pasadena because wealthy city residents successfully campaigned against the construction of the 710 Interchange through their community. Now, there is excessive congestion on the 210 freeway, so the City of Los Angeles had been making plans to reduce this congestion by lengthening and widening the freeway. However, within the last week, plans to expand the 710 freeway have been canceled. The city of Pasadena canceled a plan that would build an interchange connecting the 10, 210, and 710 freeways.
Sears Building
In the 1950s, the owners of the Sears company were ardent proponents of freeway construction and urban renewal projects. The urban renewal projects they lobbied for included “slum clearance” projects, which they said would improve commercial success. Sears insisted that Latino communities could “redeem” themselves if freeways were built through them (Estrada).
Pomona Freeway (60)
Major roadways and freeways aggregate massive numbers of motor vehicles, mobile sources of air pollution. The most widely reported pollutants in vehicular exhaust include particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, and black carbon. These pollutants not only degrade local air quality but also can still be found in significant concentrations more than a mile downwind of a freeway.
Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing
One problem freeways introduce to ecosystems is habitat fragmentation. Freeways create barriers to animal movement when they inhibit an animal’s ability to cross the road safely. This obstacle to animal movement creates a number of problems for wildlife. One of these problems is a reduction in genetic diversity. For example, the 101 freeway in California has broken up mountain lion habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains, leading to inbreeding within the small mountain lion populations, as evidenced by physical defects such as deformed tails. This bridge will be the first of its kind in the California highway system.
Pacific Coast Highway
The modern California Dream is perhaps best described by the image of “sun-kissed couples” and “the shimmering Pacific waves” (Robinson 2013, 74). The modern California Dream is strongly derived from patriarchal roots, where the success and pleasure that California promised excluded the gratification and desires of women and the LGBTQ community. An example is the popularity of convertible cars among men, where “sunlight promises both maximum exposure of the bodies of car and driver, and a view of—perhaps, in the [driver’s] wildest dreams—‘babes’ with ‘tops down’” (Lutz 2000, 51).
The status of the California Dream as an exclusionary mythology of individualism and the pinnacle of American manifest destiny is also heavily reflected in the Southern California freeway system. The organization of Southern California’s transportation system as a collection of freeways was widely accepted by the public, even within the first two decades of the opening of the freeways (Arnold 1976, 28). In this sense, California’s automotive culture is inherently distinct from the more collectivistic infrastructures of public transportation in the northeastern United States. The notion of ‘riding along the freeway’ with the ‘top down,’ letting the ocean breeze run through one’s hair, describes the free, individualistic qualities that the freeway supposedly brings.
Indeed, the mere act of driving on freeways and overpasses high above the surface-level streets has been shown to alter the perception of drivers: “as speed increases, one’s concentration increases, peripheral vision diminishes” (Arnold 1976, 28), and only “distant objects, the sky or the silhouette of the horizon, have any degree of permanence and can be observed at leisure” (Arnold 1976, 28). California is considered by many to be a promised land, in a way: it is the western-most edge of the United States, the golden land where the ideal of manifest destiny is to be fulfilled. To many Americans, California is elevated to a nearly divine level. Many southern California freeways support this vision of California, as families cruise down the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) observing the vastness of the ocean and the beaches that border it (see image).
Given the changes in drivers’ perceptions due to driving at fast speeds and the impermanence of the view from an automobile except the sky and the horizon, freeways like the PCH reinforce the dominance that imperialist America has over the environment, in the eyes of the public. The freeways are fundamentally a symbol of power, the gray concrete overpasses not even trying to blend in with the surroundings.
References:
Arnold, Vivien. “The Image of the Freeway.” JAE 30, no. 1 (1976): 28–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/1424397.
Lutz, R. C. “On the Road to Nowhere? California’s Car Culture.” California History 79, no. 1 (2000): 50–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/25591577.
Disneyland
When Disneyland opened in 1955, Disney described the park as being “‘dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America’” (Marling 1991, 170). Disney implied that his park is a place to pursue the American—and more specifically, the California—Dream, and indeed this appeared sufficient to attract over ten million tourists within the first two years (Marling 1991, 174).
The primary automobiles driving to the park were “family car[s]” (Marling 1991, 176), promising to liberate the family from the stress of modern life. Amid the worries of suburban middle-class lifestyle, driving on the freeway (and in particular when the destination was Disneyland), made it “possible to play the part of the pioneer, headed bravely off into that unknown America of the presuburban past, in search of adventure and self-exploration” (Marling 1991, 176).
And yet, with this familial individualism comes the reality that upon leaving the “rows of identical houses” (Marling 1991, 176) of the suburbs, a family driving to Disneyland is immediately joined by thousands of other families on the freeway, all desperately seeking to rediscover the myth of the California Dream. But crucial to the California Dream is individuality and exploration, and when entire neighborhoods drive alongside each other to the same destination, to sit on the same rides, and to feel the same sense of rationalized enthusiasm, the freedom and individualism offered by the freeway and the private family cars is merely a facade to hide the collectivism of a society that deceives itself into believing that there are still lands to explore, wealth to be acquired, and roads to be traveled.
References:
Marling, Karal Ann. “Disneyland, 1955: Just Take the Santa Ana Freeway to the American Dream.” American Art 5, no. 1/2 (1991): 169–207. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3109036.
Dodger Stadium
In 1950, residents of the Chavez Ravine were forcibly evicted from their homes under a policy of slum clearance and to make room for a federal housing project. Right-of-way agents forced the residents to vacate their houses, promising that they would be the first people to have access to the new low-income housing that would be built in place of their old homes.
In 1953, LA city officials decided that the federal housing project was too “socialistic.” Instead of building new housing as promised, the city sold 300 acres of the ravine to Walter O’Malley to build the Dodger Stadium. The Chavez Ravine was an ideal location for the stadium because it is bordered by the 110, 101, and 5 freeways. Thus, the Dodger stadium is an example of how freeways and commercial infrastructure worked together to displace the East L.A. community.
Public Art "Going to the Olympics"
Frank Romero was commissioned to paint a mural on the freeway walls as part of the 1984 Olympic collection. His painting, Going to the 1984 Olympics, is a tribute to L.A.’s car culture, while including vibrant colors and broad brush strokes that characterize his style of art.
Now, a piece of Chicano culture is on the Hollywood freeway, reclaiming a piece of infrastructure that tried to tear the community apart. Romero also inserted freeways into his other paintings, such as Pink Landscape, which depicts a freeway cutting across the painting, with houses and buildings in the background. However, the freeway was painted in bright pink and purple, which challenges the perception of a dull, concrete freeway (Romero). This style of Chicano art can be identified as rasquachismo because it favors bright, intense colors rather than dull ones (Ybarra-Frausto). Chicano artists reimagined freeways in ways that the Division of Highways, the organization that approved the freeway construction, did not predict.
710 Freeway
The 710 freeway has an abrupt stop when it reaches South Pasadena because wealthy city residents successfully campaigned against the construction of the 710 Interchange through their community. Now, there is excessive congestion on the 210 freeway, so the City of Los Angeles had been making plans to reduce this congestion by lengthening and widening the freeway. However, within the last week, plans to expand the 710 freeway have been canceled. The city of Pasadena canceled a plan that would build an interchange connecting the 10, 210, and 710 freeways.
Plans to widen 19 miles of 710 freeway were also canceled. LA Metro had spent $60 million planning the project, which they have now canceled citing environmental impacts. LA Metro also acknowledged that canceling this project meant they would not wipe out homes and neighborhoods for a freeway project. Between 1965 and 1974, 1500 homes were lost and 4000 residents were displaced due to the construction of the 710 freeway. CalTrans owns land in communities where freeways have yet to be built, and many of the houses they own on such land are vacant. Community groups such as East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice have been pressuring Metro to commit to the “Community Alternative 7”, which improves the I-710 corridor without displacement or emissions and ensures community jobs and benefits. The project has been in the works since 2005, but LA Metro has finally succumbed to city leaders and activists.
Sears Building
In the 1950s, the owners of the Sears company were ardent proponents of freeway construction and urban renewal projects. The urban renewal projects they lobbied for included “slum clearance” projects, which they said would improve commercial success. Sears insisted that Latino communities could “redeem” themselves if freeways were built through them (Estrada).
The 101 freeway was indeed diverted to arc southeast, away from the Sears building and towards low-income communities. The construction of the 101 Hollywood Freeway challenged cultural identity by tearing down places where Latino communities gathered, such as churches. The freeway was diverted to avoid the white-serving Hollywood Presbyterian Church, while the Saint Isabella Catholic Church in Boyle Heights, which offered elementary school and was a gathering place for the Spanish-speaking community, was bulldozed to accommodate for the East Los Angeles Interchange (Estrada 302). In general, freeways were rerouted to cut through East L.A., a predominantly Latino region, in order to accommodate for White suburbia and wealthy stakeholders.
Pomona Freeway (60)
Major roadways and freeways aggregate massive numbers of motor vehicles, mobile sources of air pollution. The most widely reported pollutants in vehicular exhaust include particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, and black carbon. These pollutants not only degrade local air quality but also can still be found in significant concentrations more than a mile downwind of a freeway.
Air monitoring near the 60 freeway in Ontario found the highest levels of soot in the Southern California region. Air pollution can cause a range of human health effects, from irregular heart beat to asthma.
The effects of these pollutants extend far beyond the impact on human health. Haze caused by particulate matter reduces visibility and impedes the movement of birds that rely on the sun for guidance.
Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing
One problem freeways introduce to ecosystems is habitat fragmentation. Freeways create barriers to animal movement when they inhibit an animal’s ability to cross the road safely. This obstacle to animal movement creates a number of problems for wildlife. One of these problems is a reduction in genetic diversity. For example, the 101 freeway in California has broken up mountain lion habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains, leading to inbreeding within the small mountain lion populations, as evidenced by physical defects such as deformed tails. This bridge will be the first of its kind in the California highway system.
The National Wildlife Federation and the Santa Monica Mountains Fund collaborated with the #SaveLACougars campaign to raise money for the project.
The most visible impact that freeways have on the environment is the sheer number of wildlife-vehicle-collisions, more commonly known as roadkill. An estimated one million animals are killed per day on the roads in the United States.
The 101 freeway, over which the wildlife crossing will be built, is a notable roadkill hot spot in California. Roadkill is not only costly to wildlife; wildlife-vehicle-collisions cost the state of California an estimated 1 billion dollars over the past five years.