Whatever happened to the Marina Bypass?  Those two words make many cringe.  They are fighting words in Venice.  For those who were around in the 70’s, even 80’s, the new century, one might have heard mention of the “terrible” Marina Bypass?  What stopped it?  Could it come back?  It makes many of the problems of today minimal.

Note:Talks of the bypass have come and gone since the 70’s.  The electric line has been sold.  Houses and parking lots now cover the line.  There has been talk of a bypass from Lincoln to Washington paralleling Admiralty a few times.  It too would eliminate what is precious in Venice, in Marina del Rey.

The Marina Bypass of the 70’s originally was a highway that was to extend the Marina Freeway to Route 1.  It’s intention was to be another freeway and alleviate some of the street traffic.

It’s original design of the 70’s was to use the former electric line that started at the Beverly Hills rental car on Lincoln, near Ralph’s Market and travel toward the ocean via former electric line on Oxford Blvd, cross Abbot Kinney and go behind the Abbot Kinney stores where the line was, toward the bus terminus.

Its effect would have been to wipe out the heart of Venice, split neighborhoods, and turn Venice into a sea of cement, noise and pollution.  Its effect short and simple would have been to kill Venice.

What to do?  The residents of the Triangle were ignited. It was fortuitous that DeDe was selected.  Everyone knows the woman’s tenacity that she won’t quit until the act is accomplished.  “She is like a dog attached to the postman,” many say.   Her sleuthing too is unparalleled. But let DeDe Audet of the Triangle tell the story, her story about how it got stopped.

By DeDe Audet

In the late nineteen-seventies, in front of Challis and Wally Macpherson’s house on Howard street in the Oxford Triangle of Venice, California, a collection was taken up to make a last ditch effort to keep Venice from being split up by a freeway called the “Marina Bypass.’

They emptied their pockets and found $38.56 to buy a plane ticket to Sacramento. Since I was the only one without a regular job to go to, I put another twenty bucks with it for a ticket to Sacramento. So there I was on Southwest Airways on my way to the capitol of California without a clue to where I was going or what to say.

A cab got me to the capitol where I found my way to the offices of the officials we elected to represent Venice. At the first stop of an office used by a person my husband and I had escorted around on a bicycle tour, the staff who responded to my query told me that the official was unavailable at the moment. So I then went in search of another official we took on the bicycle tour. At that office, the staff couldn’t seem to understand that I had a message urgent enough to find the official.

So, wandering the offices. I saw the name of someone I recognized. But the door was locked. Then I knocked on the door until I got a response. A guy about six-foot-five jerked the door open and said, “Who are you?”

I was beginning to understand that I did not count for much in the capitol. I was severely disappointed, to say the least.

By then, my feet hurt, I was hungry and trying to swallow some very bad feelings about my mission when I spied an open office door. There was a nice lady who smiled as I approached and asked if I might sit down for a minute. She asked why I was there. So I told her. I showed her the big roll of signatures of voters who didn’t want a Marina Bypass.

Then I heard a voice from the next room, “Bring that in here.”

The voice introduced itself as Assemblyman Frank Lanterman. He said, “I grew up in Venice.”

Then he gave me instructions where to be at 2:30 pm that afternoon and be sure to bring the petition from Venice.

Lo and behold, the assemblyman who grew up in Venice was chairman of the subcommittee reviewing CalTrans funding. He killed the Bypass there that day. With the right kind of publicity, nostalgia, and the help of many other local elected officials, the Marina Bypass never got off the paper it was drawn on. The only place it ever existed was on paper and in the minds of those who wanted it. See Chapter 1415 below.

What resulted is that there is now a Frank D. Lanterman Freeway between Route 134 and Route 210 and no, repeat, no Marina Bypass.

What Lanterman is most remembered for is his care for the developmentally disabled. I have two nephews who have benefited from his landmark legislation.