Officials Get an Earful at Woodland Hills Meeting : Neighbors, Tired of Dodging Cars, Extract Pledge of Help

In an emotion-filled meeting with city officials, Woodland Hills homeowners extracted a promise of a crackdown on speeders along a narrow residential street where three motorists have died in accidents.

The use of radar has been authorized by police along a milelong section of Canoga Avenue between Dumetz Road and Mulholland Drive, and emergency steps to physically control traffic will be considered, Los Angeles officials said.

Fifty residents met with a city traffic engineer and an aide to City Councilman Marvin Braude Tuesday night to demand quick action. The homeowners said car crashes and close calls on the avenue are so common that many of them are afraid to step into their front yards.

The most recent fatality occurred in June when a 16-year-old youth died after his car veered out of control and smashed into a wall in a front yard. Days later, a 5-year-old boy was struck by a hit-and-run driver at nearly the same location.

Since then, residents have lobbied for the complete closure of the avenue near its connection with Mulholland Drive and for the installation of stop signs at scattered places along the avenue.

Most Have Witnessed Crashes

Neighborhood leaders said a poll of 73 families living along the street showed that nearly three-fourths have witnessed traffic accidents in recent years. About two-thirds have suffered property damage from crashes, according to the survey.

“Residents have put up reinforced walls, fences and posts,” said resident Gia Koontz. “One person removes his mailbox every day. Another person has moved his bed from the front of the house into the living room for fear he will be hit by a car coming into his house based on previous property damage.”

Using graphs to chart accident rates from 1970 to this year, the residents calculated that homeowners at two cross streets--Golondrina and Rios streets--have suffered six crashes per house. They said residents have witnessed three fatal accidents.

“It gets crazier and crazier every day,” complained homeowner Mike Ryan, who lives near one of those intersections. “We’re talking about accidents that are not fender-benders. We’re talking about airborne automobiles.”

City officials acknowledge that the two-lane, meandering avenue was not designed with fast cars in mind. Its posted speed limit is 30 m.p.h.

The southern end of Canoga Avenue was built along the bottom of a narrow ravine in the mid-1920s by Victor Giraud, Woodland Hills’ original developer. For its first 40 years, it was a sparsely used, shady country road lined by pepper trees planted by Giraud. The road served weekend cabins and small homes built on hundreds of tiny lots in nearby hills.

A hillside construction boom that started in the 1970s changed all that, however. The development pace became so frenzied last year that city officials instituted a one-year construction moratorium designed to give them time to prepare permanent building controls for land bordering Canoga Avenue.

City officials came to Tuesday night’s meeting prepared to make a few street improvements to the avenue--but not to close it or line it with stop signs.

Improvements Approved

Los Angeles traffic engineer Kenneth Dietz said several safety improvements have been approved, including a new double-yellow line and raised reflective markers down the middle of the avenue and painted lines showing the edge of the pavement on both sides of the street.

But Dietz balked at stop signs. “The only effective way to enforce the speed limit is through police enforcement,” Dietz said. “The purpose of stop signs is to assign right-of-way, not control speed.”

Brad Rosenheim, a San Fernando Valley field deputy to Councilman Braude, said Valley homeowners frequently look to stop signs as a quick way of controlling neighborhood speeders.

“But stop signs are not going to solve your problem,” Rosenheim said, adding that the neighborhood’s avenue intersections do not meet federal guidelines for stop-sign use.

“If we don’t follow some set of standards, we’ll have stop signs at every corner. We wouldn’t be able to get anywhere,” Rosenheim said.

Residents were unmoved, however.

“So much blood has been shed at Saltillo Street that you wouldn’t believe it,” said homeowner George Ross. “I’ve been hit there, my ex-wife was hit there. I witnessed a policeman chasing a speeder go airborne and break his back.”

Signs, Guardrails Sought

Rob Lessin, father of 16-year-old Brian Lessin, who died June 6 on the avenue, said stop signs and guardrails are needed. “Death is a pretty extreme punishment,” Lessin said.

Larry Allen told the officials that he watched as his 5-year-old son, Eric, was struck by a hit-and-run driver in late June.

“I can’t deal with this emotionally,” Allen said. “We can’t give in to the guys who go 80 m.p.h. We have our house up for sale. We love this area, but we can’t live on this street.”

The discussion turned heated when one resident, who described himself as “a father who doesn’t want his 4-year-old flattened,” accused city officials of foot-dragging on the safety improvements.

A shouting match ensued when the man suggested that meeting moderator Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, was in league with the what he called “the bureaucrats.”

Fisticuffs Avoided

The dispute ended when Murley left the speakers’ table to invite the man to “step outside and settle this.” The man declined.

By the meeting’s end, Rosenheim had reconsidered the stop-sign issue.

“We’ll take your suggestions. Ken will reconsider your stop signs, and I’ll review our enforcement efforts out there,” Rosenheim said.

The residents’ more drastic proposal--turning their section of Canoga Avenue into a cul-de-sac--will also be investigated, he said.

“I don’t see how we can implement that, but it may be something we can pursue,” Rosenheim said.