The City Council has decided to spend about $100,000 for vines on the 4.5 miles of sound walls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will build along the 210 Freeway in 2004-2005.
Sound walls will be built along the 210 Freeway by Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) at a cost of $549 million. Under state rules, walls can be built wherever freeway noise is above 67 decibels.
The City Council voted to fund 1/3 of the nearly $700,000 cost for the 1584-foot sound wall from 2nd to 5th Avenues. The state of California, following a 1991 senate measure, will pay the remaining 2/3.
Freeway sound walls promised for Arcadia and Monrovia appear to be still on schedule, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). The sound walls scheduled for construction as early as 2005 run from Michillinda Avenue to Santa Anita Avenue in Arcadia, and from Huntington Drive to California Avenue in Monrovia. Lower priority sound wall project locations are also given.
About 1000 feet of sound walls will be built by the westbound lanes of the 210 Foothill Freeway between Second Avenue and Fifth Avenue. There is also discussion of future sound wall construction projects.
210 Freeway sound wall is finished. The Metro project, which started in 2009, consists of 2 miles of sound walls along westbound and eastbound lanes of the 210 Freeway between Santa Anita Avenue and California Avenue in Arcadia and Monrovia, paid with Measure R funds. The sound walls provide at least 5 decibels of noise reduction. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held. Several Arcadia residents near Victory Chapel on N. First Avenue, where the sound wall ends, are disappointed the barrier doesn't extend farther west.
Construction is stalled on a $11.9 million project to build sound walls on a stretch of the westbound 210 Foothill Freeway, between Baldwin Avenue and Rosemead Boulevard, but work is expected to resume soon. The delay is due to inaccurate design plans that are being modified.
Six student-made murals line Arcadia High School’s halls. The murals are painted every fall by students in the Art Honors classes. The tradition of murals being painted traces all the way back to the 1980s.
Fall of the House of Baldwin. Part 3 of a 6 part series: What happened to the Jinks Room murals by Maynard Dixon? The Jinks Room had nine Dixon murals. The Lowry B. McCaslin family, which owned Anoakia at the time, held onto three murals, the rest were donated to the University of Southern California (USC). The McCaslin family bought the Anoakia estate after Anita Baldwin passed. By Galen Patterson. See hard copy in VF Baldwin, Anita
"Blind Justice," an 11-foot tall tile mural at the police station dating back to the 1950s, will not be preserved when the new police station is built. The mural was judged not to have significant artistic or historical merit. The mural will be archived, with some element maintained for display in the new building.
Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church may take legal action against the City. On April 1, the City Council turned down a request from the Church to solicit funds within City limits.
The City Council has extended the operating hours and reduced fares for Arcadia's Dial-A-Ride program. The service is available to anyone within city limits who needs a ride anywhere in town by calling 445-2211.
Lower Arcadia City Hall walkway that leads to the upper part of City Hall. Notice no murals on the walls, they have not been uncovered yet. 240 West Huntington Drive. Photograph by Terry Miller.