Federal and state law impose both procedural and substantive constraints on Caltrans' proposal to extend the Route 710 Freeway through El Sereno, South Pasadena, and Pasadena. Most of these laws were developed in the last 25 years in response to early experiences with the Interstate Highway System, in which the unnecessary and unjustified destruction of exemplary American neighborhoods occurred.

South Pasadena is the fortunate beneficiary of those legislators, judges and citizen leaders who fought to ensure that the mistakes of the past would not be repeated in places like South Pasadena.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires that federal approval and funding of the freeway be preceeded by an adequate environmental assessment (called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS) that describes the project and less-damaging alternatives. Because no EIS had been prepared on this project in 1972 when South Pasadena and the Sierra Club initiated their federal court litigation against the project, the federal court in Los Angeles issued an injunction against the freeway in 1973.

That injunction will remain in place until the EIS is finally completed and all federal and state route approvals are granted. If those approvals are granted, South Pasadena will ask the court to continue the injunction until the adequacy of the EIS, and other legal claims, are finally resolved.

The NEPA claims on the present EIS include failure to assess all historic impacts, failure to examine honestly the "low build" alternative, and failure to consider current (post 1990) conditions like the Clean Air Act amendments.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) parallels NEPA for state approval and funding, requiring an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). For a project such as the 710 Freeway extension, the EIR and EIS can be the same document. But lack of an environmental assessment under state law also forms a basis for the existing injunction, and the inadequacy of the existing EIR/EIS will also form the basis, if necessary, of future claims.

While CEQA and NEPA are similar, CEQA requires a more careful consideration of project alternatives, and also requires that promised mitigation be realizable and enforceable. Thus, claims under CEQA will not only include NEPA claims, but other specific violations as well.

The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) requires that the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and the California State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) be afforded the opportunity to comment on a federal project such as Route 710, and to object if the damage to historic resources is unjustified.

Under this law, both the ACHP and SHPO have determined that the Route 710 Freeway project is not justified. While the NHPA by itself does not give these agencies the power to disapprove the freeway project, as a practical matter, their findings, when combined with "Section 4f" (described below), will prohibit federal funding.

The Department of Transportation Act, through its "Section 4f", contains specific substantive limits on federal transportation projects:

• They cannot harm historic or recreational resources unless no feasible and prudent alternative exists
• All planning to minimize harm has been carried out.

Especially in the western United States, the federal courts have interpreted Section 4f to disaprove freeway construction even when the only alternative was "no project". In light of the incomplete historical assessment for the Route 710 extension proposal, the availability of a "low build" alternative, and the findings of the ACHP and SHPO, it is extremely unlikely that Route 710 can pass muster under Section 4f.

The federal Clean Air Act, and in particular its 1990 amendments, impose strict conditions on major new projects in the Los Angeles basin. Moreover, this law and its implementing EPA regulations require that the assessment of air quality impacts include "state of the art" techniques. Because the Route 710 project will prove to be a traffic generator, and because Caltrans existing assessments use outdated and discredited modelling analysis, the Route 710 proposal will not be justifiable under the Clean Air Act.

The California Streets and Highways Code requires that before construction of a freeway through a city, the city must consent to a "freeway agreement" with Caltrans. Because of this legal requirement that protects "home rule" and denies Caltrans the power to impose impacts that a city finds unacceptable, the freeway has not been built into South Pasadena.

In 1982, the City of Alhambra, apparently believing that destruction of South Pasadena is justified to meet Alhambra's own ambitions, sponsored a bill (AB 1623) to exempt only the Route 710 extension from the "freeway agreement" requirement. In 1982, Caltrans itself condemned the measure as "special interest" legislation and opposed it, believing that it should earn the approval of all cities before being authorized to construct a freeway through them. The bill did nonetheless become law -- but subject to an important condition: that Caltrans complete its environmental assessment, and that the California Transportation Commission select the exempt route by 1985.