Ventura Freeway Panel Keeps Moving Without Tooting Horn

There will be no champagne celebration after Los Angeles County transportation officials decide March 25 whether to widen a short section of the Ventura Freeway in Sherman Oaks.

Not that members of the Ventura Freeway Improvement Coalition, a little-known Woodland Hills citizens group that has spent seven years pushing for the new lane, don’t think their campaign will succeed.

It’s just that breast-beating is not the style of the coalition, a group that since 1978 has wangled approval of more than $29 million worth of changes to the freeway that runs the length of the San Fernando Valley.

Lane Restriping

If their idea is approved, coalition members will quietly take note of it the way they always do--with a brief mention at their next monthly meeting in a back room at Woodland Hills’ Reubens Summerhouse restaurant. Then they’ll briskly move on to the next order of business, barely stopping long enough for their waitress to read that day’s list of luncheon specials.

The Sherman Oaks widening, which would cost $800,000, involves a relatively simple lane-restriping to squeeze in an extra lane, using a bit more of the road near the center divider. The purpose of adding the fifth lane, on the eastbound side of the freeway between Van Nuys and Laurel Canyon boulevards, is to relieve morning rush-hour congestion.

The restriping is the last of the coalition’s original recommendations to be acted upon by local and state transportation officials. The transportation planners set freeway construction priorities by controlling the limited amount of cash available for such work. Projects typically receive approval five years before actual construction begins.

The Sherman Oaks proposal also is the last “easy” improvement project that could help beleaguered Ventura Freeway motorists, experts say. That’s another reason coalition members will not gloat over its approval.

‘Going to Get Worse’

“I have pity for commuters. It’s only going to get worse,” said Roger L. Stanard, a Woodland Hills lawyer who heads the Ventura Freeway coalition. “The projects we’ve gotten approved have only been Band-Aid improvements. These have just been minor operational changes.”

But motorists who have turned the road into the state’s busiest freeway might disagree.

Projects successfully pushed by the coalition cover virtually every inch of the freeway between Calabasas and North Hollywood:

An $18.6-million interchange at the Valley Circle Boulevard-Mulholland Drive off-ramp is targeted for construction starting in 1988. It will ease twice-a-day traffic jams at the boundary between Woodland Hills and Calabasas.

A $3.1-million widening project between Mulholland and Topanga Canyon Boulevard will eliminate a bottleneck that occurs when traffic is funneled from four lanes into three. Work is scheduled to begin this summer on the project, which will include new lanes in both directions.

Restriping that will add a fifth westbound lane between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and White Oak Avenue to speed up evening rush-hour traffic through Tarzana. The $700,000 project is expected to be done in the 1988-89 fiscal year.

Construction of a fifth eastbound lane between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway at a cost of $2.4 million. The project is in Caltrans’ 1988-89 budget.

Restriping to create a fifth westbound lane between Laurel Canyon and Van Nuys boulevards, expected to cost $800,000. The project is included in Caltrans’ 1987-88 construction program.

Construction of new traffic lanes in both directions between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway’s Ventura Boulevard overcrossing, to begin in 1987 or 1988. The project’s cost is estimated at $3.9 million.

The group responsible for all the highway projects is still known among its members as the “Summerhouse Seven”--for the restaurant that was the original meeting place and the number of original members.

Seven years after its founding, the restaurant is the same but the group has grown to 12.

Besides Stanard, original members still active are the coalition’s founder, Ken Miller, a former Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce president; Thomas McDonough, a retired businessman; Ray Mellen, an Auto Club transportation engineer; and Bobbi Paine, an urban planning consultant.

Variety of Members

Members who have joined since the founding range from a police captain to a hospital executive.

Miller, a retired Auto Club of Southern California manager, said the coalition has from the start viewed its projects as intermediate solutions.

“By 1977 it was obvious we were choking on the freeway,” Miller said. “I knew the state highway commission was in trouble and didn’t have a lot of money. It occurred to me that whoever got the money would have to put pressure on to get it.”

Miller talked up the idea of a coalition among business and Chamber of Commerce leaders along the freeway corridor. The seven-member committee was the result.

The group was quick to decide that its success would hinge on its ability to lobby Caltrans budget planners in Sacramento. The members decided that their best strategy was to line up support from Valley-area legislators and elected city and county officials.

Political Support

“We felt we could do it because we were talking about a motherhood type of thing. Who wouldn’t support an improved freeway?” Miller said. “But I was still very happy when the politicians started climbing aboard.”

The freeway group has used a no-frills approach since it was launched. It has no budget and does not try to overwhelm legislators with slick booklets promoting proposals. Its lobbying is done through short letters and face-to-face visits.

When Valley lawmakers started using their clout before the California Transportation Commission, the coalition began seeing its yearly lane-widening recommendations pop up in Caltrans “STIPS”--shorthand for five-year plans called “state transportation improvement programs.”

Area legislators say their support for the group’s proposals does not stem from the Ventura Freeway being a “motherhood” issue that no one can oppose.

La Follette Praises Group

“The thing about the Ventura Freeway Improvement Coalition is that they do their homework,” Assemblywoman Marian W. La Follette (R-Northridge) said. “They’re very knowledgeable about the transportation process. They’re very well-prepared, and they take the time to meet with legislators individually. They never mislead you.”

Part of the coalition’s low-profile approach has been to quickly pass all credit for freeway improvements to the local lawmakers, La Follette said.

For politicians, a local road improvement is the type of accomplishment that can be cited on campaign flyers sent to constituents.

In 1982, when the state Transportation Commission approved the financing to widen the Woodland Hills bottleneck, coalition members publicly credited a series of politicians. Receiving public thanks were La Follette, state Sens. Gary K. Hart (D-Woodland Hills) and Ed Davis (R-Canoga Park), former Assemblyman Charles Imbrecht (R-Ventura) and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus.

Effectiveness Cited

“They have been effective, both in articulating the needs they have and in getting into them in enough depth that they have sound proposals,” said Rick Richmond, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. The commissioners help screen local highway project needs and set up construction priority lists for the state.

Richmond also said of the coalition: “They come in for very resonable requests. They will come in with projects that can be done without large amounts of money.”

Because of that, Richmond said, the coalition has managed to “accelerate” many of its projects ahead of others.

Heinz Heckeroth, Los Angeles district director of Caltrans, said most other citizens groups “have an ax to grind” that limits their interest to a lone issue and their involvement to a short period. “The Ventura coalition has staying power. They’ve taken on more than one problem,” he said.

Open-Mindedness Lauded

Heckeroth said the Ventura Freeway coalition has proved to be “open-minded in terms of alternatives. And that’s very helpful in terms of resolving priorities against shortfalls of money.”

Richard H. Kermode, a senior Caltrans engineer who has worked closely with the coalition over the years, said the group’s consistency has gradually won over state transportation planners.

“Last year, Caltrans was totally in alignment with the coalition’s recommendations,” Kermode said. “Other groups don’t have that. The coalition comes in with recommendations that are properly described, and with dollar amounts proposed with them.”

But the coalition’s record of success may be tested this year. Besides the proposal for the $800,000 fifth eastbound traffic lane between Van Nuys and Laurel Canyon boulevards, the group has asked that several of its end-of-the decade projects be speeded up.

Canoga Avenue On-Ramp

Additionally, the coalition is pursuing a new project, a $2-million westbound on-ramp at Canoga Avenue in Woodland Hills. The members say the ramp is needed to help handle growing afternoon rush-hour congestion in the Warner Center area.

Caltrans engineers have indicated that the Canoga Avenue ramp may be difficult for the coalition to sell because it might not be practical: On-ramp traffic would have to blend with freeway vehicles heading for the nearby Topanga Canyon Boulevard off-ramps.

Stanard said the coalition will keep up its lobbying efforts at least long enough to make certain that the approved projects are completed. Beyond that, there may be little left for the group to do, short of promoting grand new plans such as double-decking for the Ventura Freeway.

More Members

Other current coalition members, besides the still-active founders, are Ron Palmer, a Litton Guidance and Control Systems executive; Jim Stanley, a retired executive; Capt. Richard Kerri, commander of the California Highway Patrol’s West Valley office; Charles Stevenson, the Woodland Hills Auto Club manager; Dean Daily, a developer; John King, controller of the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital; and Norman Emmerson, a planner with the Voit Cos.

Stanard’s forecast shows that the group is not prone to exaggerate its effect.

“When our projects are completed, you’ll see temporary improvements in traffic flow for a few months,” he predicted. “But, in a year, the traffic will be back to where it was. And, a year after that, it will be even worse than it was before the projects were started.

“I have no words of comfort for commuters. There’s just too much growth for the freeway to handle.”