Report
Homes Before Highways
Tracking the true costs of highway expansion and building a future that protects homes, communities, and everyday Californians
- Jump To
Overview
Highway Expansion is Worsening
the Housing Crisis
Highway projects are destroying homes and driving up the cost of living.
Highway construction divides neighborhoods, displaces families, shutters businesses, and pollutes air, primarily in low-income communities and communities of color.
In just the last five years in California, over 600 homes and businesses were forcibly displaced and demolished by highway widening projects.
With more than 200 planned highway expansions in California alone, many more families and communities remain at risk.
Who bears the worst consequences of highway expansion is not accidental.
Low-income communities and communities of color have been systematically targeted for highway expansion projects for decades due to redlining and racist transportation policies. The impacts on these communities persist, even though historic forms of redlining have since been outlawed. As a result, these same communities continue to disproportionately bear the burdens of ongoing highway expansion.
This is a systemic failure in transportation planning. One that worsens traffic and congestion rather than solving it, while failing to deliver the long-term benefits promised.
The result: enormous costs to our homes, health, and communities.
The Price Tag of Highway Expansion
High Costs, Low Return: California Pays The Price
California has the largest transportation budget in the nation. In 2024 alone, the state spent $30.4 billion. Most of that money is poured into highways and roads, projects that grow more expensive every year and leave the state with maintenance bills the state openly admits it can’t afford. Californians can’t afford them either.
And what do we get in return? Despite this spending, California’s roads and highways still rank 47th in quality nationwide. While our communities absorb the rising costs, traffic, and health harms, the road-building lobby cashes in by pushing leaders to double down on the same failed investments.
the price tag
Highway expansion doesn’t just reshape infrastructure; it reshapes lives and communities.
Despite billions spent, highway expansions have failed to deliver on the promise of reduced traffic; and instead, induce more demand and traffic.
- Rising Costs for Drivers
Californians pay up to $1,000 in vehicle maintenance per year as a result of poor road quality, and several thousand more dollars each year on gas to fuel long commutes made worse by highway expansion.
- Worsening Traffic
Highway expansion is often sold as a solution to traffic, but evidence shows it does the opposite—by increasing demand, it ultimately puts more cars on the road and makes traffic worse over time. In Los Angeles alone, drivers lose an average of 88 hours every year stuck in traffic.
- Pollution & Health Impacts
More lanes = dirtier air. Frontline communities face higher asthma, heart disease, and other pollution-related health risks.
- Safety Risks
California is the third deadliest state in the nation for pedestrians.Expansions create dangerous conditions for pedestrians, cyclists, and nearby residents.
- Billions of Wasted Tax Dollars
Multi-billion-dollar projects like Interstate-5 ($1.6B) and Interstate-405 ($2.16B)routinely run over budget and divert funds away from maintaining existing infrastructure or investing in sustainable transit.
Impact By Numbers
550+
Miles of highways added from 2018 - 2023
Equivalent to the length of California, from Oregon to Mexico.
623+
Homes & Businesses Demolished
Untold livelihoods erased in just five years.
$34.4 billion
spent in 2024
A record transportation budget – mostly poured into highways.
200+
Planned highway expansions
Potentially putting countless more families and businesses at risk.
Interactive Map
Mapping the Damage
New public data on homes and businesses demolished due to highway expansion reveals the scale of harms on communities, while billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted.
The Greenlining Institute used the data to create the Homes Before Highways Interactive Mapping Tool. The map shows where projects are displacing people, overlapping with environmental and housing burdens, and highlights what’s at stake in neighborhoods across California.
This tool will be updated each year and we expect the numbers to keep growing, exposing the ongoing harms of highway expansion.
Our goal is to shine a light on these impacts so communities, advocates, and decision-makers can demand a different path forward; one that prioritizes people, health, and resilience instead of more lanes.
Between 2018 and 2023:
- 550 lane miles were added—the length of California from Oregon to Mexico.
- Highway projects used eminent domain to seize and demolish 317 homes and 306 businesses.
Filter Projects
Use the dropdown menus to filter by County, Route, or Year.Explore the Map
Zoom using the + / – buttons, and drag to explore different areas.View Project Details
Click a highlighted route or section to view more project information.Custom Layers
Use the checkboxes under Map Layers to toggle visibility.About the Data
The Select State Highway System Project Outcomes, as required by SB 695, Gonzalez, 2023 marked a critical step toward transparency, providing statewide data on highway expansion projects completed in the last five years, including lane miles added by these projects each year and their impacts on traffic, safety, community displacement, and emissions. Unfortunately, this data only reflects past damage,— and Caltrans has not disclosed how many more homes and businesses they plan to demolish for future highway expansions.
CASE STUDIES
The Community Toll
of Highway Expansion
STORIES OF DISPLACEMENT, RISING COSTS, AND COMMUNITIES FIGHTING BACK
Highway expansion has become a quiet engine of gentrification. It erases homes, displaces families and businesses, worsens air pollution, worsens traffic overtime and drives up the costs of commuters for those who can least afford it.
The case studies below reveal the human impact: families uprooted, local economies disrupted, and already burdened neighborhoods left with poorer air quality—all the result of a transportation system that prioritizes cars over people and quick fixes over lasting solutions.
Case Study
Los Angeles
Interstate 5
Most destructive expansion in five years
Between Burbank and Norwalk, Caltrans demolished 569 homes and businesses along the corridor, accounting for over 90% of all demolitions statewide for highway expansions completed since 2018.
The Los Angeles region bore the brunt of this impact between 2018-2023, with seven out of 11 major expansion projects concentrated there, causing significant displacement.
Key Community Impacts:
- This community ranks in the 98th percentile of CalEnvironScreen, meaning they suffer from worse socioeconomic and environmental burdens than 98% of the state. This project exacerbates pollution in the community by generating even more traffic.
- 96% of nearby households are severely housing cost-burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing. This project worsened the housing crisis in those neighborhoods by displacing 300 families from their homes.
- The $1.3 billion project was delayed five years and required a $73 million loan from LA Metro.
Case Study
Fresno
State Route 99
Small Businesses Displaced
Caltrans spent $146 million to widen State Route 99 through South Fresno, demolishing multiple small businesses and structures along the corridor. The expansion fractured the fabric of an already overburdened community, where residents have long faced some of the highest pollution and poverty rates in the state.
Between 2018 and 2023, South Fresno experienced intensified truck traffic, worsening air quality, and further strain on local housing and small businesses.
Key Community Impacts:
- 72% of nearby households are severely housing cost-burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing.
- This community ranks in the 90th - 99th percentile in CalEnviroScreen, meaning it suffers from worse socioeconomic and environmental burdens than 90-99% of the state.
- Loss of 11 local businesses disrupted the local economy and neighborhood stability.
- Increased heavy truck traffic in a region already suffering from some of the nation’s highest air pollution levels.
Case Study
Los Angeles
Interstate 405
Billions Spent, Traffic Worsened
Between 2018 and 2023, Caltrans spent $2.16 billion expanding Interstate 405, demolishing 20 homes and three businesses along the corridor. Despite promises to ease congestion, traffic and commute times increased within the first year of the project’s completion
The expansion deepened environmental and economic pressures on neighborhoods already struggling with high housing costs and poor air quality.
Case Study
- Following billions that were intended to reduce traffic, commute times and traffic increased in the first year the project was open.
- Neighborhoods along I-405 have CalEnviroScreen scores in the 60s, meaning they suffer from worse socioeconomic and environmental burdens than 60% of the state.
- 96% of nearby households are severely housing cost-burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing.
- Cars, trucks, and buses generate 75% of regional air pollution, making vehicle emissions the leading environmental health concern for Southern Californians.
Solutions
A Better Way Forward
California doesn’t have to choose between efficient transportation, affordability, and healthy communities. We can build an equitable transportation system that delivers all three by investing in strategies that:
- Expand affordable, climate-friendly public transit, and safe options for walking and biking.
- Protect communities from displacement and preserve and expand affordable housing.
- Cut pollution by investing in electric vehicle infrastructure and electrifying trucks and buses, improving health in neighborhoods most impacted by highway projects.
- Create good local jobs through investments that connect and strengthen communities.
It’s time to stop adding new lanes and start investing in a future that puts people before highways.
Take Action
Together, we can create a future where transportation infrastructure connects and uplifts communities rather than dividing and displacing them.
It’s time to stop adding new lanes and start investing in a future that puts people before highways.
Stop the Widening of Highway 101