Smog Enforcers Renew Push for ‘Diamond Lane’ : Caltrans Gets Month to Decide on Revising Ventura Freeway Project

Emboldened by a legal opinion that suggests they would prevail in court, Southern California smog regulators demanded Friday that the state reverse itself again and construct a lane restricted to car pools and buses on the Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley.

The demand by South Coast Air Quality Management District board members places another cloud over the oft-delayed widening of the nation’s busiest freeway, which carries more than 270,000 vehicles daily.

In a vain effort to get the smog board to back off, state Department of Transportation officials argued Friday that opposition to a “diamond lane” in the Valley is too strong to be disregarded.

Caltrans leaders also contended that substituting a diamond lane for a general-use lane at this point would force a one-year delay in the widening and add at least $30 million to the $22-million cost of the project.

8-2 Vote

Undeterred, smog board members voted 8 to 2 to give Caltrans a month to agree to redesign the widening to include an eastbound car-pool lane. They also injected themselves more deeply into the diamond-lane issue by demanding that Caltrans add car-pool lanes to “any similar future freeway construction” elsewhere in the region.

Caltrans has three diamond lanes in operation in Southern California and is studying whether to add the lanes to more than a dozen other freeways in the region.

Highway planners say that, because there is not enough money for needed new freeways and there is little room left to add lanes to existing freeways, the best solution in many cases is to increase the number of people in each vehicle with diamond lanes.

Whereas legal action was not discussed in open session Friday, smog board member Larry Berg said after a closed session of the board that “sentiment seems to be very strong in favor of going to court if Caltrans won’t change its mind on this.”

He said Curt Coleman, the district’s chief legal counsel, informed board members that a suit against Caltrans would stand a good chance of prevailing if based on the argument that, by ignoring state transportation policies favoring car-pool lanes, the highway agency is violating the federal Clean Air Act.

Berg and several other smog board members said their advocacy of car-pool lanes parallels a 2-month-old board policy of seeking to reduce air pollution by forcing employers to get their workers to form car pools or ride buses.

Smog board officials say they aim to cut rush-hour traffic by as much as 25% with ride-sharing regulations approved in December.

Unaffected by the board’s action is an $18.3-million project in which the freeway will be widened to four lanes each way between Valley Circle and Topanga Canyon boulevards in Woodland Hills.

Work on that project is to begin within two weeks.

The smog panel’s action is aimed at Caltrans’ plan to expand the 101 Freeway to five lanes each way between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway. That work is to get under way in a year.

Although the westbound fifth lane has been designated as a general-use lane from the outset, the use of the eastbound lane has been the subject of heated controversy for more than two years.

Caltrans first sought to sell its diamond-lane plan for the freeway to a committee of elected officials, business leaders and homeowner representatives studying the question.

But the highway agency reversed itself a year ago when car-pool lane advocates could muster only a 22-20 margin endorsing the diamond lane. Also, opponents swamped Caltrans with more than 12,000 protest letters.

In Limbo

In the study committee vote, most homeowner leaders opposed the restricted lane, most business representatives favored it and elected officials split about evenly on the issue.

Since then, the widening project has remained in limbo while the Federal Highway Administration determined whether to demand that the eastbound diamond lane be reinstated as a condition of federal aid for the project.

Caltrans headed off a dispute with federal highway officials last week by withdrawing its application for federal funds for the widening.

The panel’s vote Friday was in response to Caltrans’ withdrawal of the federal-aid request, which signaled the state’s intention to proceed with its year-old decision to build an eastbound lane for all vehicles.

C. J. O’Connell, Caltrans’ acting deputy director, told smog board members Friday that “this is a consensus society, and the consensus doesn’t exist in the Valley.”