Column: Widening freeways does not reduce traffic but it does hurt communities
LA Metro is still planning on widening the 605 Freeway despite data and community pushback.
In the summer of 2020, I learned that LA Metro was considering plans to demolish hundreds of my neighbor’s homes as well as the elementary school I attended and the park I frequently played in to make way for a wider freeway.
The 605 Freeway expansion has been in the works longer than I have been alive, yet that summer was the first time I’d heard of it. I was horrified to learn that the Downey neighborhood I grew up in along the 5 Freeway could be destroyed to make space more for cars, so I rallied with neighbors, advocates and friends to put a stop to the expansion.
