Caltrans Says No to Diamond Lane Plan

While there is the lingering threat of a lawsuit by clean-air crusaders, Caltrans on Tuesday removed what may be the last major barrier to the start this summer of widening the Ventura Freeway between Woodland Hills and Universal City.

California Department of Transportation officials disclosed that they have decided to stick to their conclusion, reached two years ago, to build the new eastbound fifth lane on the freeway to accommodate all vehicles rather than make it a diamond lane restricted to car pools and buses.

And the executive director of the California Transportation Commission--which controls Caltrans’ budget and in October ordered the highway-building agency to look again at the diamond-lane proposal--said Tuesday he expects that commissioners will go along with Caltrans’ decision.

“It’s my educated guess, based on what commissioners have done in the past, that they will accept Caltrans’ position after this three-month re-evaluation,” said Robert S. Nielsen, commission executive director.

Commissioners, who are appointed by the governor, are expected to consider Caltrans’ request to proceed with the $40-million project at their Feb. 23 meeting.

Diamond Lane Strategies

Before the commission injected itself in the diamond-lane debate in October, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Federal Highway Administration discussed--but ultimately abandoned--various strategies to force Caltrans to include a diamond lane in the project.

The project calls for the Ventura Freeway, which is a patchwork of four and five lanes each way, to be widened to a uniform five lanes each way from Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Universal City and then south on the Hollywood Freeway one mile to the Los Angeles River crossing, where it is already five lanes.

While debate has raged for years about whether the new eastbound lane should be restricted to buses and cars with two or more occupants, the new westbound lane has been designated a general-use lane from the outset.

Not affected by the dispute is a 16-month widening project begun in February in which one lane each way is being added to the freeway between Topanga Canyon and Valley Circle boulevards, a heavily congested two-mile section that is now only three lanes each way.

Lawsuit Notice Filed

The only obstacle that seems to remain to the start this summer of the widening between Universal City and Woodland Hills is the threat of a suit by the Santa Monica-based Coalition for Clean Air, which in May filed the legally required notice of intent to sue Caltrans over the issue.

The coalition, which has successfully sued regional agencies on clean-air issues in recent years, contends that the federal Clean Air Act requires the construction of 74 miles of diamond lanes, including a Ventura Freeway lane, because that network is included in the region’s 1979 Air Quality Management Plan.

Air quality experts say that car-pool lanes reduce emissions as well as relieve congestion by inducing motorists to form car pools or ride buses.

But Jan Chatten-Brown, coalition president, on Tuesday backed away somewhat from the group’s oft-repeated vow to try to block the project in court if Caltrans moves to build a lane open to all vehicles.

Car-Pool Lane Backlash

“We don’t know at this moment what we will do,” she said. “There are limitations on our resources, and we don’t want to create a backlash against other car-pool lanes under consideration.”

Jack Hallin, Caltrans’ Southern California project development chief, said Tuesday that if the commission approves the 16-month project as proposed, work could begin in August.

If the project is redesigned to include a diamond lane, he said, work would be delayed at least a year.

The new lanes would be created by shrinking the existing 12-foot- wide lanes by a foot each and using the median.

Caltrans, which has three diamond lanes in Southern California and is constructing or studying more than a dozen others, projected that one car-pool lane and four general-use lanes on the Ventura Freeway would carry 12,800 people an hour.

Five general-use lanes would carry 12,000 people an hour, Caltrans projected.

Critics, who mounted a successful letter-writing campaign against the proposed car-pool lane two years ago, contend that it has not been proven that such lanes induce motorists to form car pools or ride buses, that the lanes are unfair to those who travel at varying times and cannot car-pool, and that the lanes increase accidents because diamond-lane motorists must cross general-use lanes to get to and from the restricted lanes, which are in medians.