The Brief

Southern California has more than a few uncompleted freeways. But have you ever noticed the one that has a 40-mile gap?

We’re talking about the 90 Freeway and transportation officials’ grand plan to connect Marina del Rey to Yorba Linda in Orange County.

It’s one of the region’s timeless examples of what happens when residents get angry about transportation, and how a multi-million-dollar project became a bit of a dumpster fire.

A brief history of the freeway

Today, Route 90 is split in two. There’s a few freeway miles in Marina del Rey that primarily lets drivers connect to the 405 Freeway. Then there’s a few miles way to the east that start as street-level Imperial Highway. But further into Yorba Linda, it quickly turns back into what resembles a freeway that ends a few miles away at the 91 interchange.

It’s one of those things that make you scratch your head and wonder, “Who thought this was a good idea?”

You could say it works for each section’s current purpose, but they’re slices of what could have been. The freeway master plan from the 1950s called for a route that would have given inland Orange County a straight shot to Pacific Coast Highway.

Parts of it have gone by different names over the years: The Slauson Freeway, the Richard M. Nixon Freeway and the current Marina Freeway on the Westside. At one point, the whole freeway was named after Nixon because he was born in Yorba Linda, but officials removed it in 1976 after the Watergate scandal.

It’s unclear whether Caltrans officially ever acquired the entire route, but some of their sections were relinquished back to their respective cities over the decades, which removed the Route 90 designation. That’s why it’s so split apart on maps. (Fun fact: The Yorba Linda City Council opted to bring the name back for its portion as the Richard M. Nixon Parkway. And yes, that means they don’t officially call it a freeway anymore.)

The master plan got mixed reviews depending on who you ask. In the beginning, there was excitement for new areas to get high-speed access — the 90 was even called “one of the most vital elements in the freeway system.” But that love quickly soured as the paths were drawn.

Problems with the path

The project was plagued by an alleged bribe.

In 1965, West L.A. Assemblymember Lester McMillan was indicted by an L.A. County grand jury on a charge of soliciting a $10,000 bribe. The charge stemmed from a secret recording during a discussion between the lawmaker and Culver City business leaders about introducing legislation to reroute the freeway.

McMillan admitted to taking action against a proposed route that would have gone through a business district in the neighborhood because “people were up in arms about it,” but money never changed hands. The charges were eventually thrown out after his lawyers argued it would have been a fee for his expenses.

A panoramic view of the Los Angeles Freeway system, taken from a blimp at an unknown date.

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Security Pacific National Bank Collection

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Meanwhile homeowners who would have been displaced in other areas if the freeway was fully built also got angry and protested votes on the path. Residents argued that there was a serious lack of oversight in the state’s freeway planning process.

As opposition grew, county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn asked then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967 to intervene in the “Slauson Freeway fight” and cancel a key public hearing that was slated to happen with his administration shortly after he took office.

However, the meeting was held, and added to concerns that the freeway was being developed too fast and without much thought. Residents and local officials grew concerned that a commission, which was in charge of reviewing freeway recommendations from the state division of highways, was improperly making decisions. Opponents claimed the division used “questionable practices” and gave inaccurate traffic predictions. (Early figures estimated at least 170,000 drivers a day by 1970.)

Ronald Reagan and several officials look at a freeway monitoring system in 1971. The map monitored the San Diego, Santa Monica and Harbor freeways.

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Herald Examiner Collection

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Los Angeles Public Library

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As residents worried L.A. would become a patchwork of freeways, demands grew for an overall state transportation study that included rapid transit planning.

At the end of 1967, city leaders banded together to come up with better ideas. While the state highway department still had jurisdiction, the hope was that they could try to ensure a route that didn’t “wipe out the middle of a city,” said La Mirada Mayor Edward Le Clair.

But disdain for the freeway solidified in the early '70s, in part because there wasn’t enough money to build it, and other freeways with similar routes were already happening, such as the 105 Freeway. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors, which had previously backed the Slauson Freeway, moved to kill portions of it in 1973, and two years later, so did the state.

The 90 Freeway plans died that decade in part because money dried up, inflation was high and there was a major gas shortage. Groups hope to reuse some of the space. Plans have proposed in recent years to turn the Westside’s Marina Freeway into affordable housing and green space.

Nearly 300,000 California K-12 students experienced homelessness in the 2024-25 school year, the highest numbers ever recorded by UCLA researchers and a 10% increase from the prior peak in the 2018-19 school year.

“The sheer magnitude of how many students are experiencing homelessness and how much it's increased, that was the biggest finding for us,” said Grace Kim, study co-author and research analyst at the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools.

Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties account for half of the students experiencing homelessness in the state. About 62,000 — nearly 5% — of L.A. County students experience homelessness in the 2024-25 school year.

Researchers at UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools examined data collected by the California Department of Education between the 2017-18 and 2024-25 school years, including homeless student enrollment, attendance and test scores.

Schools are required to identify students who lack stable housing and provide resources, such as transportation, so they can access the same quality of education as a housed child.

Students experiencing homelessness are more likely to frequently miss school and fall behind academically. While many students have started to score higher on the state’s standardized math and reading tests following pandemic-related declines, the percentage of students experiencing homelessness who meet the benchmarks is about 20% lower than their housed peers, the research found.

Black, American Indian and Alaska Native students experienced higher rates of homelessness than their peers of other races — about 1 in 12.

California’s most recent budget includes $116 million to help schools identify and support students experiencing homelessness. The report’s authors say while “encouraging,” more than one-time funding is needed to support students experiencing homelessness.

“Having integrated systems of support is also a super important factor,” Kim said. “The reason why we see these gaps in terms of academic achievement or chronic absenteeism … it's not [students’] fault.”

Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.

The small southeast L.A. city was built on industry — in the early 20th century it boomed with auto, chemical and other manufacturers.

That legacy also left it with three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.

The three sites are all clustered on a large lot framed by Southern and Rayo avenues. A residential neighborhood is nearby.

“This site is less than 50 yards away from a home, so we want to make sure that we clean it to a point where we can feel confident,” said South Gate Mayor Joshua Barron.

South Gate is home to about 90,000 people, the majority of whom are Latino. The median household income is about $74,500 and the state has identified the city and surrounding communities to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and its health effects.

This site, dubbed the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.

The pollution at this property was compounded by pollution from companies next door.

One of the two adjacent Superfund sites was used by Cooper Drum Co., a steel drum recycling plant. A group of Cooper Drum’s former customers, including chemical manufacturers and oil companies, are paying for part of that cleanup. The other site, previously operated by an aircraft rivet and conveyor belt manufacturer, is still in the analysis and planning stages.

At the Southern Avenue site where the EPA broke ground Tuesday, analyses commissioned by the agency found widespread lead and other toxic contamination in the soil, as well as a plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen, in the groundwater.

Officials say the plume has not affected the deeper aquifer South Gate and other southeast L.A. cities rely on for drinking water.

In 1986, the city closed water wells contaminated by the neighboring Cooper Drum site.

EPA project manager Kelia Liang explains the cleanup effort in South Gate on Tuesday.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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“ The water is safe to drink,” said Mike Montgomery, superfund director for the EPA. “What we're trying to do is prevent it from becoming impacted.”

EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more. The whole effort is estimated to cost between $45 million and $60 million, primarily through federal dollars.

The summer heat may be sweltering at the moment in Southern California, but predictions about this winter’s El Niño show it could be the strongest on record.

So the LAist newsroom wants to know: What questions do you have? (You can submit below.)

We can tell you now that El Niño is a climate pattern that happens roughly every two to seven years, and is one of the most powerful drivers of the Earth’s weather.

During an El Niño event, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America warms to above normal temperatures. The warm ocean adds moisture and heat to the atmosphere, influencing atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation on a massive scale.

El Niño typically results in mild weather in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern part of the country.

In Southern California, we could start to see the effects of El Niño in the late fall or early winter. Generally, those effects include significant rain and high sea levels and the consequences that come with them, such as flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.

Forecasters say there is a more than 90% chance of a powerful El Niño event this year, and a 70% chance that it’s record-setting.

That said, uncertainty remains around how exactly this winter’s El Niño will play out here.

So as you gear up for an El Niño winter, ask us your questions and we’ll do our best to get answers in the months ahead.

The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan.

GKN Aerospace employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.

What happened?

GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate.

Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.

All of the toxic chemical, methyl methacrylate (also known as MMA), has been removed from nearby tanks as well, Elshakre said.

What about the compensation fund?

This week, the company also announced a forthcoming $100 million compensation fund for affected residents and businesses. GKN expects to release details on how to apply in the coming months.

What's next?

At least 39 lawsuits have been filed against the company in conjunction with the hazmat incident, according to a GKN webpage set up to track the fallout. The company pledged to explain the legal effect of participating in the compensation fund before it is launched.

What's the community reaction?

Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said in a statement that the city “welcome[s] this progress and will continue to expect GKN to address the broader effects on our community.”

A coalition of community groups called GKN Out of Garden Grove Coalition wants the city to shut down the GKN plant completely. The coalition plans to release a report documenting the company’s alleged history of hazardous waste failures at a news conference Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at 11300 Stanford Ave. in Garden Grove.