THIRD WRITING PRIZE WINNER –
WINTER 2019 – 2020
is RACHEL HARRIS
of PASADENA, CALIFORNIA – USA
110
By Rachel Harris
To understand how hatred is passed down through generations, ask any Angeleno under the age of ten how they feel about the 110 freeway. An underlying enmity to the 110 runs deep in Southern California, permeating our collective consciousness long before we know how to drive.
One of the easiest ways to distinguish West Coasters from East Coasters is how we name our freeways; New Yorkers drive on I-86 or Route 1, but Californians take the 110. This article before the number may just be an involuntary verbal tick, but it gives a level of authority to our highways; they are not just roads, but the roads, bestowing upon them a personality, a reputation beyond the simply transitory.
The 110 is no exception. Originally known as the Arroyo Seco Parkway, State Route 110 was the first freeway built in the West. At this time, the Arroyo Seco was groundbreaking, not just for the engineering prowess it required, but for its unique ability to connect disparate parts of the city, uniting Los Angeles across the Parkway’s 6.7-mile stretch.
The irony lies in what had to be destroyed for this connection.
Prior to the construction of the freeways, Angelenos primarily used a far-reaching trolley railway system to traverse the city. These “Red Cars” allowed residents to live and work in more distant neighborhoods yet, in doing so, brought them closer together. Like all public transit systems, the trolley railcars created forced interactions between people from different neighborhoods and walks of life. There’s a power to looking in the eyes of someone whose story you don’t know, in sitting next to them on a train. There’s a subtle, unspoken connection, however tenuous, that can’t be made through the rearview mirror of a car.
But the trolleys also united communities. New neighborhoods blossomed at the intersections of railway lines, creating areas like Boyle Heights and Watts, uniquely racially and socioeconomically mixed communities in a time of strict segregation. Between shared railcars and diverse neighborhoods, Los Angeles was on track to become a singularly connected city.
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I was a terrible driver long before I got behind the wheel of a car. A lifelong worrier, I could never get past the dangers of driving; visions of accidents, mortality rates, and the threat of hurting another person swamped my mind and clouded my vision whenever I attempted to change lanes or count to three at a stop sign. I failed my driving test three times, never due to a preponderance of technical errors, but for a so-called “critical error:” giving the examiner that feeling that I simply wasn’t ready to control a vehicle. On my fourth test, I received a form marked “Pass” with the comment “but I still don’t think you’re a good driver.”
Most people know the dangers of cars but, in order to effectively drive, such ideas have to be put out of their minds. Too much fear, too much information will scare you into jittery, passive driving, a major liability on a freeway built for mid-twentieth century commuters, where the lanes are barely wide enough to accommodate a large car, let alone the pressure of holding the lives of others in your hands.
— — — —
The unity of the trolleys began to concern white, upper-class individuals who worried about contagious diseases coming from sharing tight quarters with lower-income workers and people of color. This fear, based on a lack of knowledge and understanding in the highest echelons of society, motivated “public health” cries for more effective transportation: the modern freeway.
Decades later, growing up an Angeleno means experiencing your earliest views of the world from the backseat of a car. Our mess of freeways, interchanges, and stoplights purport to unite a vast city while managing to keep us comfortably isolated in our locked vehicles. LA is more mosaic than a melting pot, an ostensibly diverse city where people from different neighborhoods manage to avoid one another’s freeway exits altogether.
— — — —
Even after I was licensed, it was months before my mom let me drive on the 110. Every time I told her where I was going, I saw her mentally calculate the risk of my solo adventure downtown before grabbing the keys out of my hand. By the time I was given full access to the road, I had no desire to face it. I learned to take the 134 to the 2 to Alvarado, adding twenty minutes to my route but avoiding the Figueroa tunnels and sharp turns of the 110. I became the friend who was constantly sitting in the passenger seat, controlling the aux and Venmoing for gas money, rather than driving myself. For me, the independence that comes with a driver’s license ended at the onramp to LA’s most notorious freeway.
— — — —
To build LA’s freeways was a massive infrastructure undertaking, one that required existing roads, homes, and public works to be destroyed and covered with cement. In the interest of uniting the city, a bicycle path along a tributary of the Los Angeles River was expanded, turning the Arroyo — brook, Seco — dry, destruction disguised in plain sight within LA’s unique brand of intentionally mispronounced Spanish.
Page 2
When I was sixteen, I participated in a dialogue-based conflict resolution program for teenagers from around the United States. Three thousand miles away from home, I heard stories of people who lived in communities that could not be more different from my own, from Deering, Maine to the South Side of Chicago. One of the most poignant moments, however, came from a fellow participant who shared the fear he felt living in a neighborhood controlled by gangs and plagued with violence. He painted a verbal picture of a suffering yet vibrant and tight-knight community, one that seemed to exist in a different world than my walled-off private school life. From my school, Jacob’s neighborhood is one stop away on the 110.
— — — —
In the early 1950s, collective misunderstanding had once again given way to fear; this time, the threat wasn’t contagion, it was communism. Angelenos were scared that the Russians would nuke LA, and they wanted a way out of the city, fast. Once again, they turned to the freeways. The Arroyo Seco underwent a makeover; it was lengthened to meet the 101 and rechristened State Route 110. The short on- and off-ramps, narrow lanes, sharp turns, stop signs, and Figueroa Tunnels remained, an homage to the quickly-forgotten history of our failed attempts at connection.
— — — —
At sixteen, still unlicensed, I got a ride from a friend to a birthday party downtown. Although we were barely juniors in high school, this moment felt undeniably adult. She drove up to the freeway onramp with a calm confidence I envied. Her identity as a Californian validated by her comfort behind the wheel of a car. As we pulled onto the freeway, though, there was an almost frantic nature to the way she accelerated out of the stop sign, her hands gripping the steering wheel as if attempting to control the fear she couldn’t quite explain. She immediately merged into the center lane, saying, “My mom’s okay with me driving other people, but she doesn’t know we’re taking the 110.” I was nervous about breaking a rule, but my friend reassured me. “I’ll tell her after.”
Page 3
When the 110 was dedicated, California Governor Culbert Olson said, “[I]t takes courage to do a thing the first time, no matter how simple and obvious it may appear after it is done.”
As my friend and I flew down the 110 for the first time, a little too quickly for comfort, intently navigating the narrow lanes, our mini rebellion united our intimidating perception of the 110 and the genuine threat of driving, imbuing the moment with a feeling of stress and courage, of fear and maturity. For an instant, the drudge of daily transit became human.
— — — —
In hindsight, the perception that people could escape the impact of a nuclear attack by getting in their cars and driving all the way to Pasadena has a kind of dark humor. Nonetheless, the 110’s history as a product of fear without understanding shapes the stories it creates. The 110 stretches from wealthy suburbs to wealthy downtown offices and restaurants, with only stop signs and short ramps to mark the communities through which it cuts. These communities, their identities reduced to numbered exits on poorly lit street signs, are easy enough to avoid if you heed your mother’s advice and always drive in the center lane.
We don’t think about the exits we pass, not because we are focused on the future, but because we always keep our eyes on the road. Los Angeles is a city preoccupied with process. It’s a town where hipsters will ask how exactly that avocado was farmed before even thinking of making brunch reservations, where having a perfect “waitress to actress” story is almost as important as the fame itself, and where people spend almost more time talking about how we get from place to place than actually getting there. Maybe it’s this obsession with the journey that gives our freeways their mystique; they are not just how we get to our plot points, but part of our stories.
Page 4
Driving on the ramp that connects the 101 to the 110 is strangely magical; the pavement is suddenly smooth and, for a moment, you’re suspended sideways at a carefully calculated angle, watching the lights of downtown turn into the taillights of the car in front of you. For some reason, this ramp always seems to be traffic-less, a brief moment of solitude before the interminable stop-and-go lane changes of the beginning of the 110.
No matter how many times I’ve driven the 110, its character never seems to fully fade. There remains a meditativeness to sitting in this bumper-to-bumper traffic, unable to think about anything else out of fear of being honked at or rear-ending another car. In these moments, surrounded by the isolated headlights of my neighbors, it’s easy to feel a sense of connection, of communal purpose, if for nothing else than our shared hatred of the 110.
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About the author:
My name is Rachel Harris, a student originally from Los Angeles, California. I am currently living, working, and studying abroad (in Madrid and Shanghai) before beginning classes at Harvard next fall. I plan to study history or social studies, and I ultimately hope to become a law professor. I tend to skew towards academic writing, so writing this essay has been an exciting process for me as I’ve attempted to combine my love of history with a more creative form of expression. I hope you enjoy reading it even half as much as I loved writing it. Thank you! ~Best, Rachel Harris
