Clean-Air Group Acts to Force Building of Car-Pool Lane

A clean-air group announced Tuesday it has taken the first formal step toward suing the state to force construction of a car-pool lane on the heavily congested Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley and on about 60 other miles of Southern California freeways.

If successful, the suit by the Coalition for Clean Air could delay for more than a year a portion of Ventura Freeway widening, state Department of Transportation officials said.

At issue is the Ventura Freeway’s new eastbound fifth lane from Woodland Hills to Universal City.

The new westbound fifth lane along the 15-mile stretch has been designated a general-use lane from the outset and is not in dispute.

Also not affected by the threatened lawsuit is a widening project begun in February in which one lane is being added to the Ventura Freeway in Woodland Hills between Topanga Canyon and Valley Circle boulevards.

Caltrans initially had proposed a “diamond lane,” restricted to car pools and buses, as part of the Ventura Freeway widening project scheduled to begin early next year.

But the agency backed away from the plan 15 months ago when opponents of the diamond lane swamped the agency with more than 12,000 protest letters.

David Roper, Caltrans deputy district director, said Tuesday there “certainly will be delays if this gets tied up in court. And if we are forced to redesign, the delays could be considerable.”

In its notice of intent to sue, the Coalition for Clean Air contends that the federal Clean Air Act requires implementation of the 1979 Air Quality Management Plan for Southern California that calls for 74 miles of diamond lanes.

Although a 1982 revision of the Air Quality Management Plan dropped the network of ride-sharing lanes, the revised plan was ruled invalid by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in response to a suit by the clean-air group.

Mark Abramowitz, coalition vice president, said the suit will argue that as a result of the court’s ruling, the 1979 plan remains in effect.

Although the Ventura Freeway was not included in the 1979 network of diamond lanes, Abramowitz said the suit will argue that “it is included by implication” because the freeway was similar to other freeways that belonged to the network.

Also, he said, the 1979 plan requires that all freeway widenings be accompanied by measures to reduce air pollution “so we contend the widening is illegal on the grounds that there are no mitigation measures.”

The fact that the Ventura Freeway was not part of the 1979 car-pool lane network was a key factor in a 5-4 decision in April by South Coast Air Quality Management District directors to forgo their threatened suit to force Caltrans to build a diamond lane on the freeway.

Abramowitz said the coalition was undecided on what it would seek in the lawsuit.

“We might ask that they be allowed to go forward and then be required to change it to a ride-sharing lane later,” he said, “or we could seek to simply stop the project until they comply with our interpretation of the law.”

Although cleaner air is the coalition’s goal in pushing diamond lanes, highway planners in recent years have come to view the lanes as essential for expanding freeway capacity at a time when money for new freeways is scarce.

But critics say the restricted lanes are unfair to those who travel at varying times and cannot car pool, are unproved as a device for inducing motorists to form car pools or ride buses, and increase accidents because diamond-lane drivers must cross general-use lanes to get to and from the restricted lanes, which are in the median.

In Southern California, Caltrans has three diamond lanes in operation, four under construction and more than a dozen others under study.

For the Ventura Freeway, Caltrans engineers calculate that a diamond lane and a general-use lane would, after several years of use, carry 12,800 people an hour during peak commuting hours, while five general-use lanes would carry 12,000.