Fresh Approach Improves Chances for Diamond Lane

For the third time in five years, state highway officials are proposing a diamond lane for car pools and buses on the Ventura Freeway.

When the two previous plans for car-pool lanes were turned down, critics proclaimed final victory over what they denounced as bureaucratic folly.

Yet state officials keep resuscitating the proposal, saying the lane is needed to induce people into car- pooling, thereby relieving congestion.

In its latest incarnation, the diamond lane’s prospects for implementation appear to be much improved.

For one thing, the state Department of Transportation is claiming success for two other car-pool and bus lanes that have begun operating in the past year in Southern California.

For another, the latest proposal is backed by the California Transportation Commission, which controls all highway spending in the state.

The commission has mandated an eastbound diamond lane, restricted to buses and cars with two or more occupants, as a condition of building one new lane each way on the freeway between the Hollywood Freeway and Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

Lanes to Be Narrowed

The 13-mile, $5-million project would create the new lanes by narrowing existing ones and using the center divider area.

In mandating the diamond lane, the commission has provided an incentive for opponents to hold their tongues.

If there is opposition to the diamond lane from either the Los Angeles City Council, a newly created 68-member advisory committee or two regional agencies, the state Department of Transportation would be forced to reapply to the commission for construction funds.

“That would involve a distinct risk of being turned down when you reapply,” Allan Hendrix, Caltrans’ liaison to the commission, said in a telephone interview from Sacramento. “Every area of the state has a project with a pretty high priority that would want those funds.”

Fear of losing the extra lanes altogether has compelled many business leaders to support the diamond lane, although others remain opposed or unconvinced of its worth, said Roger Stanard, a Woodland Hills attorney who heads the advisory committee. The panel is expected to make a recommendation in August.

Feeling of ‘Let’s Take It’

“The feeling seems to be spreading that, so long as we get a new lane, let’s take it,” he said. “Later, if we don’t like the diamond lane, we can see about getting the diamonds sandblasted off the pavement.”

And West Valley Councilwoman Joy Picus, who said she has taken car pools to City Hall for several years, said she will support the diamond lane because it “certainly seems like an idea that is worth a trial.”

However, state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), a longtime opponent of diamond lanes, said Friday he would attempt to insert language into Caltrans’ budget forcing the agency to drop the Ventura Freeway car-pool lane.

In a statement released by his office, Robbins, a member of the Assembly-Senate conference committee formed to put the state budget into final form by mid-June, said he was “displeased with the arrogance” of state officials who say freeway funds cannot be spent “unless we agree to make the freeway lane into a diamond lane.”

Robbins successfully introduced legislation in 1983 requiring that car-pool lanes be approved in advance by appointed and elected local officials.

Groups Hold Veto Power

In Los Angeles, the City Council, the Southern California Assn. of Governments and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission have veto power over diamond lanes. Also, Caltrans has said it will drop the plan if the advisory committee disapproves it.

When his legislation was approved, Robbins predicted that diamond lane proponents were vanquished, saying that “sending Caltrans to the L. A. City Council for a diamond lane is like sending somebody to the Pope for a divorce.”

Robbins contends, as do other opponents, that car pools have already been formed in most of the cases in which they are practical.

Before passage of Robbins’ legislation, Caltrans proposed two separate car-pool lane plans for the Ventura Freeway.

One plan would have designated two new freeway lanes in Thousand Oaks, one in each direction, for car pools and buses. Those lanes were built and opened for general use instead.

Another would have made diamond lanes out of two new lanes for the freeway between Topanga Canyon and Valley Circle boulevards, where the roadway is now six lanes wide.

Most of the freeway is now eight lanes or wider from the Hollywood Freeway to Camarillo. Through Woodland Hills, it narrows to six lanes. Construction of two new lanes in that area is to begin in August and be completed in 19 months.

Neither of those two plans was submitted to local officials for consideration because Caltrans found that “traffic conditions did not warrant a diamond lane at the time,” said David Roper, deputy director for Caltrans’ Los Angeles district. “We also decided it would be premature in terms of community support.”

But the study initiated for the two earlier plans indicated that a diamond lane could be effective in reducing congestion west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Roper said, thus laying the groundwork for the current proposal.

In 1984, when Caltrans submitted its proposal for new lanes east of Topanga, the transportation commission agreed on the condition that the eastbound lane be a diamond lane.

Roper and Hendrix said the car-pool lane was not recommended by Caltrans staff members but was added by commission staff and approved by the nine commissioners, all of whom were appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

But Robert Remen, deputy executive director, disagreed with the Caltrans officials. He said it was his “recollection that Caltrans staff reports suggested the diamond lane and the commission went along.”

He said the commission’s written policy on diamond lanes remains unchanged from when Edmund G. Brown Jr., an ardent advocate of car-pooling, was governor. It says the feasibility of a diamond lane should be studied each time a freeway lane is added.

Nonetheless, Remen noted that the commission supports car pools wherever feasible.

He noted that the commission “solidly” supported the two new diamond lanes recently implemented on an experimental basis in Southern California.

One on Artesia Freeway

Last June, Caltrans opened the eastbound center divider on an eight-mile section of the Artesia Freeway to car pools and buses.

In November, a 12-mile section of the center divider area of the Costa Mesa Freeway was opened as a diamond lane.

Roper said both lanes are “operating quite well, are being utilized by more and more car pools all the time and appear to have community support.”

An Artesia Freeway advisory committee similar to the group Stanard heads recently recommended that a westbound car-pool lane be opened, he said.

Roper said Caltrans has not compiled statistics from the two new lanes, but considers the operation of the El Monte Busway to be an indication of what could be expected on the Ventura Freeway.

The 11-mile bus lane, restricted to buses and car pools, was opened in 1974 on a railroad right-of-way in the center of the San Bernardino Freeway between El Monte and downtown Los Angeles.

The proportion of car pools on the freeway along the bus-way has climbed steadily to 23.8%, nearly 50% above the average for all Southern California freeways, said Marshall Young, a Caltrans senior traffic engineer.

Also, the average occupancy per vehicle in all lanes is 1.45 people, as opposed to a regional average of 1.2 people, he said.