Stern Strategy Unveiled to Stem Traffic Congestion

A body of San Fernando Valley elected and civic officials Monday proposed a set of stern measures to combat Valley traffic congestion, which planners say will be the worst in Southern California by the year 2000.

Among measures advocated by the committee are limiting access to several thoroughfares by blocking off side streets, banning on-street parking and left turns on some streets, prohibiting daytime deliveries in busy commercial areas and staggering working hours.

The group also proposed building bridges over several major intersections, extending several streets across railroad tracks and tunneling Saticoy Street under Van Nuys Airport.

The San Fernando Valley Area Transportation Study Committee, which has been working on the recommendations more than a year, is chaired by Los Angeles City Councilman Howard Finn, who also is chairman of the council’s influential Planning Committee.

Valley Elected Officials on Panel

All city and state elected officials from the Valley are members of the study committee, which was appointed by the Southern California Assn. of Governments. Representatives of state, city and county agencies are also on the committee. Several members said the committee’s broad base and participation by elected officials give its recommendations more clout.

Finn, who represents the Northeast Valley, said he would submit the recommendations to the City Council after the committee staff puts them in final form, probably in September.

Brad Rosenheim, deputy to Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents several communities along Ventura Boulevard in the West Valley, predicted that “recommendations with low costs, such as parking restrictions, stand a pretty good chance of being implemented, provided the local council member is willing to go to bat.

“But I have my doubts we will soon see many of those with high price tags like grade crossings and freeway ramps.”

But Finn said that, with the weight of the committee behind them, many of the recommendations can be implemented “because in years ahead, we will see more and more money available for traffic improvements because we are now levying fees on developers for that purpose.”

The committee was formed in response to a 1984 study that showed the Valley facing far greater congestion than any of the other 25 planning areas into which Southern California is divided by SCAG.

For example, the study found that 26,000 people an hour now travel east during the peak morning commuting period, and west during the evening rush period across an imaginary north-south line just west of the San Diego Freeway.

By the year 2000, the study predicted, 52,000 people will cross the same line each hour, either by car, on foot or by public transportation.

To handle such an increase, 14 new lanes of freeway or surface street will be needed each way, planners say.

Yet, only one new lane each way is scheduled--on the Ventura Freeway in the West Valley.

“There is no other area in Southern California that even comes close to the kind of future congestion that we have projected for the Valley,” said Larry Foutz, a planner who administered the federally funded study for SCAG.

Modest Population Projection

The report assumed only a modest population increase of 120,000, to 1.24 million, in the Valley from the year 1980 until 2000.

Most of the added traffic is expected to come from new housing in Ventura County, bringing thousands of new commuters into or through the Valley, and from a continuing increase in the people who work in the Valley but live elsewhere, Foutz said.

Several recommendations aimed at relieving congestion for east-west traffic in the south Valley were among those given the highest priority by the committee.

They include banning parking during rush hours on Ventura Boulevard, relocating the Burbank Boulevard on- and off-ramps to the San Diego Freeway and limiting access to Victory Boulevard from Burbank Boulevard in Burbank to Platt Avenue in Woodland Hills.

Private driveways and many small intersecting streets along Victory would be closed off under the committee’s recommendation.

The group urged that bridges be built over major intersections along Victory but did not specify which intersections.

Also recommended was the conversion of the two inside lanes of Sepulveda Boulevard to reversible lanes, flowing north during morning rush hour and south during evening rush hour.

Widening of Sherman Way

The committee suggested that Sherman Way in the West Valley be widened and that parking be banned on Sherman Way during peak commuting hours.

The group also endorsed extending both Wilbur and Louise avenues across the Southern Pacific tracks to relieve crowding in the northwest Valley’s growing industrial area.

It said that, to improve access to Warner Center, sections of Canoga Avenue and Topanga Canyon Boulevard should be widened.