In 2022, the City of Pasadena and Caltrans moved forward with plans to relinquish the SR 710 Northern Stub: a large, unused stretch of asphalt constructed during the 1960s in Pasadena. The SR 710 Northern Stub is what remains of a failed freeway project that was intended to run through communities in El Sereno, South Pasadena, and Pasadena. Despite the freeway never coming to fruition, the small section that was constructed displaced thousands of residents at a time when Pasadena was largely made up of minority communities. Even for those who were not directly ousted due to the project, the construction of the freeway has had lasting negative impacts. Since then, adjacent areas have seen a decline in the number of housing units and property values, as well as increased health hazards and noise pollution.
The 710 Revisioning Project presents the opportunity to alleviate some of the harm that the construction of the freeway caused in the sixties. The City of Pasadena has received funding from the Reconnecting Communities pilot program to complete this mission.
The Robert Group, in teaming with Perkins Eastman, were given the exciting opportunity to provide community outreach facilitation and support to the City of Pasadena starting on June 22, 2024 with the first Open House meeting. TRG’s approach acknowledges the complicated history surrounding the SR 710 freeway project to identify the planning efforts that best reflect the needs of local residents, past harms and the interest in reconnecting displaced communities.
The outreach efforts that TRG has conducted thus far are designed to engage a wide array of community members through various channels and activities, ensuring broad participation from the public. TRG understand the sensitivities surrounding the 710 Freeway and communities that once called it home, our outreach efforts focuses on working with many community groups and key partners through focus group meetings, youth-focused engagement activities, walking and biking tours, and partnerships with Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) for deeper community engagement.
TRG has combined these approaches with in-person community meetings, events, and online engagement tools, utilizing Esri StoryMaps and virtual community meetings, for continuous community interaction and feedback, all while tracking and analyzing the impact of these activities. These engagement efforts will help to support a community-driven plan that will focus on a vision for all residents of Pasadena, especially for the marginalized communities that this project originally impacted.
As of now, the project has completed two phases of outreach. Phase 1 had a date range of May 2024 - November 2024 and Phase 2 had a date range of December 2024 - May 2025.
Phase 1 outreach engaged with a diverse group of community members across multiple events and workshops, drawing over 675 participants. Nine unique engagement methods, such as interactive boards, comment cards, model-building activities, presentation and an online form, enabled community members to share their perspectives in diverse ways, resulting in over 500 comments being collected. The project’s StoryMap also reached over 600 views.
During Phase 2, the project team coordinated a range of outreach activities, including the Second Community Engagement Workshop, a youth workshop in collaboration with Day One, and the launch of the Phase 2 survey which had an English and Spanish version. These coordinated engagement efforts reflect the project’s ongoing commitment to inclusive, transparent, and community-driven planning. Feedback gathered will continue to guide the development of a vision that reconnects Pasadena through equity, sustainability, and shared opportunity.
