Eastbound 118 Freeway Commuters to Gain Lane

The agony of commuting into the San Fernando Valley from Simi Valley on weekday mornings could soon lessen, but there is no relief in sight for the equally congested evening westbound commute.

The California Department of Transportation, after 18 months of study, has agreed to let eastbound motorists use the inside shoulder of the Simi Valley Freeway for the three miles between Kuehner Drive and Topanga Canyon Boulevard during the morning rush hour.

A Caltrans official said it would be the first time a median shoulder has been opened to all vehicles on a part-time basis.

An Attractive Alternative

Opening up the Simi Valley bottleneck could make the freeway, California 118, an attractive alternative to the clogged Ventura Freeway for residents of Thousand Oaks and Camarillo commuting to jobs in the north Valley, local officials say.

To the dismay of Simi Valley city officials, the traffic jams that ensnarl motorists twice daily while crossing the Santa Susana Pass began without warning when the last gap in the 118 freeway was completed in January, 1983.

City officials and many motorists said they thought their troubles were over when the final leg-- from DeSoto Avenue to Balboa Boulevard--was opened, creating three lanes of freeway each way from the north Valley to Moorpark.

Instead there was a dramatic increase in congestion because new traffic was attracted to the uninterrupted stretch of freeway.

Lobbying Caltrans

Since then, Simi Valley officials have been lobbying Caltrans to open up the inside shoulder to rush-hour traffic.

Caltrans spokesman Tom Knox said that a contract to paint new stripes on the Simi Valley Freeway’s median shoulder has been approved by the transportation agency and is expected to be approved this week by the state attorney general’s office.

Restriping the three-mile stretch will create a fourth lane for eastbound commuters between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. The $82,182 project is expected to be completed by mid-August.

But Caltrans officials say there is nothing planned to relieve congestion during the evening rush period between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Kuehner Drive, at the western base of the pass.

Commuter Complaints

Commuters have complained regularly to the Simi Valley City Council that the westbound congestion from 5 to 7 p.m. is the equal of the morning jam.

Caltrans spokeswoman Felicia Archer said that Caltrans cannot restripe the westbound median shoulder because of abutments for a bridge over the freeway at Iverson Road, a private road about a mile west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

She also contended that there is less slowing on westbound lanes during the evening rush period than on eastbound lanes in the morning.

“For one thing, they don’t have as steep a hill to climb westbound,” she said, “and steep hills slow traffic down and usually reduce the carrying capacity of a freeway.”

Goal Is a Fourth Lane

Simi Valley Mayor Elton Gallegly said the city’s goal is to have a permanent fourth lane built in each direction over the pass, a project that Caltrans has estimated would cost $22 million.

He said he hopes to have the extra lanes built by 1989 or 1990, when Caltrans is scheduled to complete a link-up between the 118 freeway and California 23 east of Moorpark.

“That connector will make the Simi Freeway a lot more attractive to a lot of drivers,” Gallegly said, noting that the connector will create an all-freeway link between Camarillo, Oxnard, Ventura and Thousand Oaks and the north Valley.

The restriping project, he said, is “nothing more than temporary relief in one direction. It’s that permanent fourth lane in both directions that we need ultimately.”

John Reeves, Caltrans construction chief for Southern California, said that there are more than 20 stretches of freeway in the state where motorists are permitted to use the outside shoulder either part- or full-time, or the median shoulder full-time. But part-time use of the inside shoulder has never been tried, he said.

Unsure of Motorists

“We don’t know whether motorists will really stay out of the lane when the signs say they are not allowed in,” he said.

“And we don’t know what kinds of problems, if any, we face when motorists on the inside shoulder are forced to merge into the No. 1 lane.”

Highway engineers consider a shoulder on both sides desirable whenever possible to accommodate disabled cars and trucks and emergency vehicles.

Reeves said Caltrans expects to obtain some information on part-time use of a median shoulder beginning next month when the inside shoulder is opened on the Artesia Freeway between Cerritos and Carson.

But that restriped lane will be restricted to buses and car pools, he said, making it different from the Simi Valley project.