Widening Projects : Ventura Freeway Jobs Off ‘Hit List’
The California Department of Transportation announced Thursday that three projects to widen the Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley have been taken off a “hit list” of projects that the state Transportation Commission planned to delay.
The Ventura Freeway projects, which would cost $10.4 million, were put back on the list of projects that will be voted on at a commission meeting Sept. 26 in Eureka.
One project would add an extra lane eastbound from Woodland Hills to Universal City; two others would add an extra lane westbound from Universal City to Sherman Oaks.
The new lanes are tentatively planned as “diamond lanes” for use by car-pooling, rush-hour commuters.
If approved, construction would begin in 1987, Caltrans spokeswoman Felicia Archer said.
“Although the projects have to be approved by the state commission, at least they are off the hit list,” Archer said.
State officials in July said work on the extra lanes would have to be postponed by at least a year because of an expected $650-million cutback in federal highway financing over the next five years.
The Ventura Freeway projects are among 1,100 projects statewide that make up a five-year plan that the commission will vote on at its monthly meeting, Archer said.
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