Pasadena has ambitious plans for changing how we travel. But are we solving the transportation problems we already have?
Anyone who regularly drives along California Boulevard knows what happens when the Metro train comes through. Traffic comes to a standstill, sometimes backing up all the way to Los Robles Avenue. Drivers sit and wait for the train to pass before traffic can begin moving again. This is hardly news to anyone who drives in Pasadena, but here’s why it bothers me:
Pasadena is pursuing a $75.1 million roadway project along Pasadena Avenue and St. John Avenue. That’s quite an investment. Proposed improvements include better sidewalks, upgraded traffic signals and intersections, lighting, landscaping, and bicycle facilities.
The money to fund this project was originally part of a $230.5 million Metro Measure R allocation meant to separate the train tracks from vehicle traffic at California Boulevard. That plan never came to fruition because preliminary estimates showed just how expensive and disruptive the construction would be. I understand why Pasadena walked away from it.
But finding a less expensive alternative was never supposed to mean giving up on fixing the traffic problem. I fought hard to make those railroad crossings a priority because I knew how frustrating they were for residents. In September 2022, I wrote to City Council asking why improvements to the crossings ranked sixth on their list of priorities while the $75.1 million Pasadena Avenue and St. John Avenue project came first. I honestly believed residents would be outraged to learn that addressing such an obvious, everyday problem wasn’t the city’s first priority.
Ultimately, Pasadena set aside $2.5 million in 2023 to improve traffic monitoring and signal coordination along the Metro A Line, with equipment planned for up to 18 intersections. But when I recently asked the Transportation Department about progress on that project, I learned that it is still in what the city calls the “pre-design” phase. The city is preparing to hire a consultant, and it doesn’t expect to award a contract until the first half of 2027. Only then will the design phase begin. More than three and a half years after the funding was approved, we’re still waiting for the actual design work to start. Meanwhile, we are still stuck in traffic.
Pasadena is moving ahead with its $75.1 million Pasadena Avenue and St. John Avenue project, with public meetings scheduled for October 29 and November 4. Shouldn’t we understand whether the railroad-crossing improvements will help traffic before making decisions that could send more cars onto surrounding streets? And when will those railroad-crossing improvements finally be installed? Asking for a friend.
I’d love to see Pasadena Avenue and St. John Avenue looking better, with improved sidewalks, more trees, and attractive landscaping. Those streets could certainly use it. But City Hall seems more interested in putting its transportation policies into practice than fixing the problems we’re already dealing with.
It’s no secret Pasadena wants more people to walk, bike, and take public transportation more often. But when did implementing these policies become more important than fixing the traffic problems right in front of us?
I sometimes wonder how many Pasadena residents realize just how much emphasis City Hall has placed on bicycle transportation. Beyond the $75.1 million Pasadena Avenue and St. John Avenue project, there’s another $12.6 million for Greenways along four north-south streets and $9.9 million for improvements along Columbia Street. That’s nearly $100 million in roadway projects that include bicycle infrastructure, with even more transportation planning underway.
Those who use bicycles in Pasadena want safer streets; I can understand that. But what about everyone else trying to get around Pasadena? According to the city’s own transit plan, 97% of residents live in households with at least one vehicle. And just ask any current resident who’s tried to get from one side of Pasadena to the other lately; traffic is a problem. When we’re talking about $75.1 million, shouldn’t we be asking whether we’re spending it on the problems that need our attention most?
Before we spend this kind of money, I’d like to know how many bicycles actually use the Union Street Protected Bikeway and how many cars sit and wait at our most congested intersections. I’d also like the city to explain what we’re expecting to accomplish with these significant Metro investments and how we’ll know if they’re working. Is that really asking too much?
In a December 2024 article, Pasadena transportation planner Scott Johnson wrote that the project would “encourage traffic to use other arterial corridors, such as Fair Oaks Avenue and Arroyo Parkway.” That caught my attention. Shouldn’t we have the $2.5 million traffic-monitoring system up and running before encouraging more cars onto those streets? We need to understand how traffic is moving today so we can measure what happens when the roadway changes are made. Surely that should be part of planning a $75 million project. Otherwise, how will we know whether we’re improving traffic or making the backups at the railroad crossings even worse?
These aren’t just numbers on a traffic study. They affect our everyday lives. We use our cars to drive kids to school, run them to soccer practice, take our parents to appointments, pick up groceries, and try to get to work on time. Cars have been part of life here for generations. After all, historic Route 66 ran right down Colorado Boulevard! We can encourage people to change their transportation habits, but expecting our dependence on cars to disappear overnight simply because City Hall has adopted new policies? It’s just unrealistic.
We seem to have an extraordinary commitment to changing how people travel in the future, while some of the most obvious transportation problems affecting Pasadena today remain unresolved.
Mayor Gordo acknowledged this reality during the October 14 Housing, Homelessness and Planning Committee meeting. He asked when he might realistically be able to give up his car and acknowledged it could be a long time. He also questioned the practicality of riding a bicycle up North Lake Avenue carrying groceries, particularly for senior citizens.
I was glad to hear him say it. Because, like it or not, a lot of us aren’t giving up our cars anytime soon or even in our lifetime.
And that’s why I keep questioning our priorities. What good is another transportation plan like the Pasadena Avenue and St. John Avenue Roadway Network Project if we’re still sitting at the same intersections, waiting for traffic to move? Before Pasadena spends millions redesigning how we travel tomorrow, has it done enough to fix how we travel today?
If you’ve ever sat through the traffic at California Boulevard, you know why this matters. I’ve created a One-Click letter asking Pasadena City Council to count the bikes, count the cars, and show residents how these projects could affect our streets before the plans get too far along.
