Drivers in Jam as Road Projects Stall Traffic

When it comes to road projects, long-term gain means short-term pain, as motorists in the San Fernando Valley have been discovering this summer.

Traffic delays caused by construction have frayed tempers throughout the Valley area, where there have been more than 60 major road repair and construction projects this year, almost three times as many as were undertaken two years ago. City officials attribute the increased activity that began last year to additional money from state gasoline tax funds that local officials made available for street rehabilitation.

$9-Million Expenditure

At least $9 million is being spent this year for projects in the Valley, Sunland-Tujunga and the Santa Monica Mountains. Officials say the projects are being completed at a rate of 1 1/2 miles a week.

The projects include a range of minor work, such as smoothing and resurfacing at intersections, to major underground installations of storm drains, which usually requires massive upheaval of streets and pavements.

Along with the added roadwork have come the inevitable traffic delays. City officials say that at times motorists have become so irate while stalled in construction-caused traffic that they have knocked down orange safety cones and screamed at street workers.

Although motorists may be detained as much as five minutes when they drive past street construction, the delay can seem much longer, officials said.

“We’ve never had anyone hurt yet,” said Curtis Bianchi, general superintendent for the city’s street maintenance division. “But we just wish everyone would just be patient and courteous and let us do our job. If we do, we won’t be back for another 25 years.”

‘Try to Stay Clear’

Douglas Dow, Valley district supervisor for the city’s Engineering Department, said he has been caught in the construction traffic himself a couple of times, and “it really bothered me, even though I know what’s going on. Now I just try to stay clear of it.”

Edward Longley, director of the city’s Street Maintenance Department, said $7 million was added to his $57.5-million budget by Mayor Tom Bradley and the City Council “when they realized that the streets all around the city were badly in need of repair.”

The added money enabled the department to purchase updated and sophisticated equipment, which means crews are completing jobs faster, department director Longley said.

Some of the completed projects, such as repaving a two-mile stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard from Mulholland Drive to the Ventura Freeway, took less than two weeks and caused relatively little inconvenience for motorists because it was done mostly on weekends. Others, slated to last several months, are creating severe traffic tie-ups, with cars being squeezed into one lane in each direction.

Sewer Installation

One of the most expensive projects, and one of the most troublesome for motorists, is a $777,000 sewer installation and repaving project centered at Winnetka Avenue and Saticoy Street in Canoga Park. The work stretches for about a third of a mile.

That project, officials say, is causing “a real bottleneck” for motorists, and Dow said he didn’t know how many months it would take to complete.

Other complex road construction projects are harder to schedule and control. Sherman Way in Van Nuys, from Hazeltine Avenue to Lennox Avenue, Bianchi said, is “full of holes because the Los Angeles County Flood Control District is installing a storm drain. The whole street is being restructured.” He said street improvements will have to wait until the county finishes its work early next year.

Motorists on Nordhoff Street in Northridge were also slowed recently by a repaving project that stretches about 4 1/2 miles from Wilbur Avenue to the San Diego Freeway. More repaving on Nordhoff between Wilbur and Corbin Avenue, a one-mile stretch, is slated to begin later this year and will take about a month.

More Projects Coming

Besides several projects slated to last through the summer, extensive repair on streets in the far west end of the Valley and in the Granada Hills area is scheduled to begin as early as next month, officials said. The work will include street widening, restriping and repaving.

Some of the streets that will be repaved starting in October and November are:

Valley Circle from about Vanowen Street to the Ventura Freeway.

Vanowen Street from Woodlake Avenue to Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Saticoy Street from Woodlake Avenue to De Soto Avenue.

Sherman Way from Fallbrook Avenue to De Soto Avenue.

In the East Valley, a repaving of Coldwater Canyon Boulevard from Mulholland Drive to Ventura Boulevard is expected to begin in about five weeks. “This may necessitate closing the whole street while we pave,” Bianchi said. “We’re going to try to do a lot of work on the weekends.”

Also scheduled to start this month is a widening of Burbank Boulevard between Sepulveda Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway. Bianchi said his department had originally intended to resurface 90 miles of road in the San Fernando Valley and West Los Angeles area this year, but difficulties arose “because we have to work in concert with utility companies and gas companies which have pipelines and gasoline transmission lines running underneath the streets.”

Two crews worked on a repaving project on Victory Boulevard from the Burbank city limits to the Hollywood Freeway earlier this year. “There was a disruption, sure, but we were able to complete the job in about a month, where normally it might have taken about two months,” Bianchi said. “The quality was also better.”

Weekend work and off-hours work are also being done to decrease the inconvenience to motorists, Bianchi said. “We did some work on the intersection of Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards, and on Reseda and Nordhoff, on the weekends and early morning before rush hour,” he said.