Supervisors Join Diamond-Lane Opposition

Los Angeles County supervisors, who might have the final voice on the issue, voted Tuesday to oppose restricting a new eastbound lane on the Ventura Freeway to car pools and buses.

The supervisors’ 4-0 vote comes two days before a sharply divided 48-member advisory committee is scheduled to vote on whether the new lane between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway should be a so-called diamond lane or should be open to all vehicles.

The state Department of Transportation, Caltrans, has pledged to be bound by the committee’s decision.

But state law requires that any such lane must also be approved by two-thirds of the 11-member Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. And, although the supervisors’ vote Tuesday was only an expression of sentiment, all five supervisors are members of the transportation commission.

Tuesday’s action thus suggests that there will not be enough votes on the commission to approve a diamond lane.

While studying the issue over the past 11 months, many committee members and Caltrans officials have expressed confidence that the transportation commission would follow the committee’s wishes.

The supervisors’ vote, however, “seems to preempt the committee,” said Ron Klusza, who oversees development of car-pool lanes for Caltrans in Southern California.

James Sims, the transportation commission’s director of programming, said the supervisors’ vote on the car-pool lane “makes chances of approval by the commission seem pretty slim.”

The vote, on a motion by Supervisor Mike Antonovich, was taken without debate. Supervisor Kenneth Hahn was absent.

The eastbound lane would be created by narrowing existing lanes from 12 feet to 11 feet and using the median.

A new westbound lane along the same 13-mile stretch would be open to all vehicles.

The $12-million project is scheduled for completion in March, 1989.

Among advisory committee members, the car-pool lane has been endorsed by representatives of major employers in the San Fernando Valley, the Automobile Club of Southern California and most chambers of commerce.

It has been opposed by homeowner groups, most elected officials and several Ventura County cities represented on the committee.

Proponents of car-pool lanes say they increase a freeway’s carrying capacity by providing an incentive for motorists to form car pools or ride buses.

The Ventura Freeway, the nation’s busiest freeway, is congested up to eight hours daily, Caltrans engineers say.

With a new lane open to all vehicles, congestion “will return in a year or so because the demand on the 101 is so high,” Klusza said.

But opponents say that diamond lanes cause accidents and that the claimed benefits of restricted lanes are unproved.

Critics attribute the increase in accidents to the speed differential between cars and buses in a diamond lane and other vehicles caught in heavy congestion a few feet away, and to the confusion that results from car pools and buses working their way across traffic to get into a restricted median lane.

Diamond lanes also are unjust, critics argue, because motorists for whom car-pooling is not an option are precluded from using them, even though freeways are built with their tax dollars.

Caltrans proclaims diamond lanes launched in recent years on the Costa Mesa (California 55) and Artesia (California 91) freeways successful.

Both lanes have led to steady increases in per-vehicle occupancy, Klusza said, suggesting that motorists are forming car pools or riding buses in greater numbers to take advantage of the restricted lanes.

Homeowners of Encino and the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization have opposed any widening of the freeway, saying the 11-foot lanes would be unsafe on a freeway as congested as the Ventura.

Caltrans engineers say 11-foot lanes have been used throughout the state, including a stretch of the Ventura Freeway, without an increase in accidents.