Freeway Interchange Proposal Criticized

West San Fernando Valley residents who live near a town they call “The Last of the Old West” were ready Tuesday night to toss a rope over their famous hanging tree.

Instead of outlaws, supporters of historic Old Town Calabasas seemed ready to string up transportation planners who want to wipe out part of the village with a new $40-million freeway interchange.

The new interchange would replace the overworked Valley Circle Boulevard interchange at the border of Calabasas and Woodland Hills. As proposed by state Department of Transportation engineers, the new interchange would include an extra freeway bridge that would connect 4-lane Ventura Boulevard with 2-lane Calabasas Road.

The proposed hookup would wipe out part of Calabasas’ Western-looking clapboard main street --including the town’s 1860s-era oak hanging tree.

Most of the more than 425 people who jammed into El Camino High School’s auditorium Tuesday night to debate the proposal seemed opposed to the Ventura Boulevard freeway “flyover” plan.

“It’s the most ridiculous thing in the world,” said Frank Basso, who has operated a pharmacy in Woodland Hills for 32 years.

Said Woodland Hills homeowner Bob Exum, “Before they route traffic through Old Calabasas, they ought to come out some Saturday and wander around and see how it makes this area worth living in.”

But Ken Nelson, a Caltrans engineer who is heading the interchange study, said it is not worth building a new interchange unless Ventura Boulevard is directly connected with the fast-growing Calabasas area.

Nelson told the crowd that the only viable alternative to the Ventura Bridge plan is to scrap the project and do nothing to the Valley Circle interchange. That comment drew applause from many.

Anger over the interchange proposal has been building since Caltrans officials issued a report outlining the project’s scope two weeks ago.

Calabasas leaders claim that until the report came out, they had thought that a scaled-down, conventional-looking interchange was being considered for Valley Circle.

Opponents of the proposed Ventura Boulevard bridge say it is the worst part of Caltrans’ proposal, which state transportation engineers have labeled their “preferred alternative.”

According to Calabasas leaders, the Ventura Boulevard cross-over plan was first suggested in 1969 by Los Angeles officials.

The cross-over idea was later shelved when Calabasas leaders complained that it would cause unnecessary congestion in their sleepy business district--which at that time consisted of a 2-block collection of aging clapboard storefronts centered on the Leonis Adobe on both sides of 2-lane Calabasas Road.

These days, new development has extended westward from the 50-year-old “downtown” Calabasas area. Some of the old storefronts have been replaced by newer buildings. Farther west, portions of Calabasas Road already have been widened and lined with sidewalks, curbs and gutters.

Opponents of the project have charged that the new interchange also would seriously affect more contemporary properties near the Calabasas-Woodland Hills boundary.