Decibel Test Bars Relief for Residents

Lillian Schermer dozes off on the sofa in her comfortable Sherman Oaks home at night, heading to the bedroom when she is drowsy enough to sleep through the din of traffic behind her house.

Her bed is 30 feet from the San Diego Freeway, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the world. Even with her windows closed, as they always are, the rushing vehicles fill her home with sound. And the big, rumbling trucks sometimes make her bed shake.

Though Schermer describes the constant roar as “really just deafening,” the affluent neighborhood on Sherman Oaks Avenue does not meet the criteria for a state-funded protective sound wall to cut out the noise.

Sound levels recorded there by the California Department of Transportation do not reach 67 decibels, about the level of a vacuum cleaner or loud conversation. That’s the level required before the state Transportation Commission will consider an area for sound-wall funding.

Long Fight for Wall

The neighborhood has fought for more than a decade for a sound wall, enlisting the help of Assemblyman Gray Davis (D-Los Angeles), gathering hundreds of signatures and protest letters from residents and meeting at private homes to come up with a strategy to fight Caltrans.

But even with the clout of an assemblyman and an organized group of well-to-do homeowners, the answer has always been the same.

The neighborhood is noisy, said Bill Minter, a Caltrans sound-wall expert, but not noisy enough. In 1984, the state refused to put the area on a priority list for sound-wall construction.

“These people have a valid complaint--they all do--but they just don’t qualify,” said Minter, who oversees the construction program in the Los Angeles area.

Lots of Explaining

“We’d like to do the right thing by these residents, give a sound wall to everybody who has complained,” Minter said. “But I spend a lot of my time explaining to them why it can’t be done.”

According to Minter, hundreds of communities across the state have been found to be in greater need than Schermer’s neighborhood. Caltrans’ statewide priority list includes 237 neighborhoods. Since 1983, sound walls have been built in 25 areas.

But residents in scores of other communities, who have noticed the walls going up nearby, are increasingly demanding inclusion on the list.

Because sound-wall funding is a low priority in the Caltrans budget, communities at the bottom of the list face a wait of at least 25 years, Minter said. Neighborhoods that are not on the list have little hope of ever getting a wall, he said.

“When I tell people at the end of the list how long it takes, they say to me, ‘I’ll be dead by the time we get a sound wall,’ ” Minter said. “Actually, that’s about the size of it.”

That is little consolation to Schermer and other residents around Sherman Oaks Avenue. Situated on the west flank of the San Diego Freeway just south of the Ventura Freeway, the neighborhood starts buzzing with sound before 5 a.m.

People are jolted from sleep by the groaning gears of southbound trucks as they downshift for the climb from the San Fernando Valley’s floor into Sepulveda Pass.

During rush hour, conversation in the front or backyards of many homes is impossible without shouting, and relaxing or barbecuing outside “are out of the question any time of day,” Schermer said. A neighbor’s chandelier once swung so sharply from freeway activity that it cracked, she said.

Neighborhood Came First

It wasn’t always that way. The neighborhood, which includes the homes of several actors and the lavish former residence of pianist Liberace, was built before the freeway, which opened in 1962.

Residents say that, when it opened, the freeway was relatively quiet. But over the years, the noise level has skyrocketed.

“This is a lovely place to live, a wonderful neighborhood,” said Nini Cutter, a resident for 17 years. “And that’s the crux of it. You’ve got trucks shifting gears to move up the hill, and it’s just overwhelming to have a window open or to be outdoors.”

Residents say the state Transportation Commission, which places communities on the priority list, refused to listen to their argument that the incline into Sepulveda Pass caused unusually high peaks of sound from commercial trucks.

‘Had Its Mind Made Up’

“Caltrans had its mind made up before Gray Davis or we even got to them,” said Fred Kahan, who said he bought the former Liberace residence three years ago without realizing that the freeway was a block away.

“We fell in love with the house, and we would have bought it anyway,” Kahan said. “But we are depressed to think that there is no hope of muffling that sound for many, many years. Now Caltrans tells us we should put our bid in again in 1999 or so,” when freeway noise may be loud enough to help the neighborhood qualify for funding.

State officials say they have to draw the line somewhere.

In communities that do not qualify for a sound wall, cities can finance the walls themselves, then ask the state for reimbursement. So far, few cities have been willing to finance the projects, which often cost millions of dollars.

Residents also can organize a tax assessment district to pay for the walls. But that is a new concept that is largely untested and could be very expensive, Minter said.

Many Disheartened

Pat Craig, an aide to Davis who helped the Sherman Oaks residents fight for a sound wall, said the tremendous odds against getting relief have disheartened many communities that need sound walls.

“You see these new sound walls going up in areas where there are no homes, where developers have agreed to pay for a sound wall before they can get a permit to build,” she said. “But what do you say to someone whose home is 30 years old, who can no longer enjoy the neighborhood they’ve been in all these years?”

Residents of Sherman Oaks Avenue say the freeway noise increased several years ago when Caltrans widened an exit lane that borders their backyards, bringing the freeway even closer.

On muggy days, soot and smoke sometimes hang like fog in the backyards of the homes closest to the freeway, residents say.

State law requires sound walls to be built when freeways are widened near homes. But Caltrans argues that the freeway itself was not widened and that changing an exit lane does not count.

“They keep coming up with all these technical reasons why we have to live with this,” Schermer said. “I keep saying, ‘This is the busiest intersection in the world, and it’s mass confusion out there in back of my house.’ Isn’t that enough?”