The 91
Project Fast Forward, which began construction in 2014, will shut down the 91
Freeway for a whole weekend later this month. The 91 serves commuters from
Riverside to Orange County, and currently boasts such accolades as the worst
rush-hour traffic in Southern California and the most expensive rush-hour tolls
in the United States of America. While reading Roads, I could not help but
apply their theories to the stated goals of The 91 Project Fast Forward.
Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox write,
“roads are primarily thought of in terms of their integrative potential. As
network infrastructures, they are conceived in terms of their capacity to
facilitate flows of people, goods, and wealth. What becomes erased from the
network image of the road, however, are the ways in which roads are also
infrastructures that bring people and things into relation with one another,
with often powerful differentiating effects” (75).
The stated goals of The 91 Project
include improving commute time and local access to the 91, allowing access to
affordable housing. As the project benefits description website points out,
The average home price in Riverside
County is considerably less than the average home price in Orange County –
leaving little choice for many Orange County workers to commute from affordably
priced homes in Riverside County.
Infrastructure improvements are
needed to allow people to have access to affordable housing and get to and from
work without extreme traffic congestion and delay. These improvements will
allow Inland Empire residents to have a livable commute to job centers in
Orange County and Los Angeles County.
This infrastructure promises hope for a more affordable and
pleasant life for those who must work in Orange County, but cannot afford to
pay rent there. Speaking anecdotally, when traveling at or near peak hours, it
usually takes my partner two and a half hours to travel twenty-five miles on
the 91. Relief is needed, and the Riverside County Transportation Commission
offers infrastructure as a solution to social vulnerability in what Harvey and
Knox call “material politics of inclusion and connectivity” (114). But a closer
look at the proposed solution reveals an “ongoing politics of differentiation”
(75).
The 91 Project contains a hierarchy
of value. A main aspect of the plan is to build new express lanes, adding to
the privately operating express lanes that have been in operation since 1995.
The numbers, performing politically, advertise the improved speed after
construction for express lane users, underemphasizing the results for drivers
who do not pay tolls. In addition, a description of benefits reveals that the
U.S. Treasury Department has targeted congestion on the 91 as a serious problem
for the movement of goods East from the Port of Los Angeles. Those who most
desperately need relief are seen as a problem, but their presence is also a
hindrance to the flow of goods, and assisting them is seen as secondary to
shoring up the project’s future financial solvency. The 91 Project Fast Forward
shows an example of roads bearing the promise of connectivity and failing to
deliver equally, perhaps because the problem in this case is symptomatic of
economic and infrastructural issues roads could never cure.
The official website for the project can be found here.
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