Our freeway opposition campaign was brushed aside by freeway proponents and our local newspaper, the Pasadena Star-News, as just "a handful of people". Let them eat their words.
We are proud to announce that Neighbors for Better Transportation proved that there is significant opposition to the proposed 710 Freeway in the city of Pasadena. Forty-Two percent of the vote opposed the freeway*. This is quite an achievement considering that:
Pasadenans formed their opinion about the project back in 1965 and the City has treated the issue as a taboo subject ever since. Since then, grassroots freeway opponents in the city had produced limited and occasional information campaigns, mostly targeted to the southwest area of Pasadena only, due to lack of resources and lack of interest in the issue from the wider Pasadena community. Many residents outside of the southwest Pasadena area didn't know where the route was planned (it's not down Fremont Ave.!), much less about the more complex transportation consequences of the freeway. The proponents had been misleading the community for years that the freeway would take traffic off of their streets and be the answer to transportation woes across the county.
Our volunteers had two months to raise $140,000 in order to run an effective citywide information campaign to dispel these long held myths (we reached $70,000).
Our volunteers were up against a well financed freeway lobby from outside our city, funded by engineering firms, construction interests, labor unions, and real estate developers. Their campaign was run by a paid freeway lobbyist working for the city of Alhambra, the main proponent of the freeway.
Our "local" newspaper, the Pasadena Star-News, ran a daily campaign against us by way of Charles Cherniss' daily column, which started a good month before we could produce our information. The paper also chose not to print 99% of the letters to the editor in support of our cause, in favor of several letters from the other side. It chose not to print an opinion piece written by one of our five supportive councilmembers, Steve Madison. It chose to bury two informative advertisements, that we purchased at great cost in order to bring more visitors to our web site (while using tactics that would make a used car salesman proud, assuring us there was a very strong chance that they would print them in more prominent locations that we requested). The editorial board published an editorial endorsing the pro-freeway outsiders, then repeated their endorsements on the day of election. (Fortunately, the Pasadena Weekly endorsed our side but it was a small, one-column inch, announcement in the last week of the campaign. Note to supporters: Please thank the Weekly for it's in-depth coverage of the issue.)
This campaign has now become a movement. We will fight back stronger than ever. This freeway will never be built.
*The unofficial tally (doesn't include a handful of absentee ballots delivered the day of the election) was 58.2% in favor to 41.7% opposed to the freeway.