Wednesday, May 14, 2014

SR 2 Freeway Terminus Project: Planned Sound Walls, The View From The Hills

All photos: Diane Edwardson, 2013.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

It's hard to grasp the scale of the 2000 foot long sound walls planned for the 2 Freeway between the northbound lanes and Allesandro on the Echo Park Side.  It's even harder to get photos to illustrate the scale, so here's what we've published before.  Above is the view from the top of 18-Acre Elysian Park Parcel  at the end of Echo Park Ave facing toward Silver Lake.  Whitmore is the street leading down to the freeway.  The yellow line is a portion of the planned sound wall between Oak Glen & "north of El Moran Way."
CalTrans & Metro were genuinely perplexed by the comments from the community that we would be able to see the sound walls from the opposite side of the freeway.  Photo above is from Silver Ridge Ave in Silver Lake.
The sound wall at Oak Glen will be 10' - 12' tall.  It will only dampen the sound for the people who live on the first floor of that apartment building across the street on Allesandro.  If you live upstairs or further up hill, the sound wall will have no effect whatsoever.  Photo above from Fair Oak View Terrace in Silver Lake.
CalTrans is attempting to define the 35-40' tall Brazilian Pepper Trees as shrubs so they don't have to tell us they're cutting them down, nor replace them.  Last summer, they told us they would not be planting trees, nor would they be planting anything on the freeway side of the wall.  So Silver Lake will have a stellar view of the Great Wall of Echo Park's graffitiPhoto above from Allesandro Way in Silver Lake  looking toward Whitmore.

Links:
CalTrans/Metro PR
Cal Trans 1 Page Fact Sheet 
Great Wall Of Echo Park: The Eastsider  
All our sound wall posts