UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

In 1972, a lawsuit. Keith v, Volpe. stopped implementation of the Century Freeway project and resulted in an injunction. By that time approximately 18,000 people had been displaced from the Century Freeway corridor. By the terms of the lawsuit, the then Division of Highways was required to develop a formal environmental impact statement on the entire Century Freeway project and to carry our additional public hearings. In 1979 parties to the lawsuit entered into a consent decree, amended two years later, which laid out the terms under which-the project would go forward. 

This injunction and consent decree were employed during a period of considerable regulatory and social change which nationwide was affecting the completion of public works projects, highways in particular. The period of the Century Freeway's early years has been called the time of the freeway revolution. Whatever it is labelled, it provided a context for interpretation of and response to the Century Freeway lawsuit and consent decree. The context involved: 

- legal changes (environmental, transportation and housing law enactments, enhanced access to judicial review of administrative agency actions, codification of the gains of the civil rights movement); 

- social changes (increasing environmental awareness, the public interest law movement, demands for greater participation in the workplace by women and minorities); 

- economic and political changes (adoption of a federal Urban Initiatives Program, changing leadership at Caltrans, decreased gasoline tax revenues because of the Arab oil embargo and the use of fuel-efficient vehicles). 

This report presents the results of a two year study of the Century Freeway undertaken under a Research Technical Agreement between UCI and Caltrans.