Roads Scholars : Transportation: The judgments of traffic engineers can affect backups on major streets, the safety of intersections and the profits of business people.

By STEPHANIE CHAVEZ

Feb. 25, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Commuters inched forward, part of a mile-long backup. Several drivers jerk-stopped their cars, too late to slip through the green light. One frustrated pickup driver cut off another car, and the two motorists instantly exchanged obscene gestures. A gas station operator grumbled that business was down. A traffic cop proclaimed that ticket tallies were up.

Amid the commotion at the intersection of Victory and Sepulveda boulevards last week, there stood soft-spoken Eleanor Pui Ng, stopwatch and clipboard in hand, preparing to tinker once more with the commutes of the 65,666 motorists who pass through the intersection each day.

At a time when horn-honking, fist-flailing traffic woes are a prime target of complaints all over the San Fernando Valley, Pui Ng is a member of a little-known but powerful cadre of Los Angeles city traffic engineers that quietly disperses onto the roadways every workday on a sometimes futile, occasionally victorious mission to fix troubled streets.

“Maybe if I take two more seconds from Sepulveda it will help Victory,” Pui Ng said, eyeing the traffic-signal timer. “Maybe two and a half seconds. You know, sometimes this can be very delicate. A few seconds can screw everything up.”

The traffic engineer’s judgment can alter the length of the backup on major avenues, the safety of an intersection and the profits of a business person. Some residents, desperate for traffic improvements, plead with engineers for relief because their life styles, even their lives, are at stake.

“I take my life in my own hands when I make a turn,” wrote one resident who lives near Mulholland Drive. “We must have a left turn arrow.”

“My street was a race track. I was afraid to go jogging,” said Stanton Bellard, who has successfully fought for an end to the speeding traffic.

“Customers can’t reach us because the alley is blocked off,” said David Lynch, the operator of a drive-through hotdog stand, asking engineers to settle a dispute between competing restaurants.

Hundreds of similar complaints create the traffic engineer’s raison d’etre, officials said. Although the complaint-line telephone number--818-989-8441--is not publicized like a hot line, hundreds of Valley residents have managed to find it, creating a backlog of more than 1,500 complaints that would take up to six months to deplete, city transportation officials said.

“Quite frankly, we are buried in answering requests from the public,” said Ed Rowe, general manager of the Department of Transportation. “In terms of dealing with the public, the engineers are on the front line with an incredibly wide range of requests, some of them very sticky situations.”

While high-level transportation officials handle mammoth Valley traffic improvement projects--such as the selection of a rail route, the widening of the Ventura Freeway and the installation of a multimillion-dollar traffic-signal synchronization program--traffic engineers often deal in minutiae: stop signs, red curb zones, left turn arrows and median stripes.

But their workload shows that the popularity of the simple street sign cannot be underestimated.

Last month alone about 200 Valley residents requested new street signs.

About 100 more wanted some type of new pavement marking and about 40 residents requested a new traffic signal.

And they all seem to want their signs, markings and signals now.

“We carry the brunt of a lot of frustrations. Some people come to us truly belligerent about things,” said Thomas Jones, the Valley’s senior transportation engineer. “There is only so much we can do to make traffic flow better. I can’t promise a miracle, but we can do some good things.”

What people have trouble understanding is that raising a street sign is a complicated business.

There are car-count surveys, geometric designs, “pedestrian-seconds” and signal cycles to be considered before anything can be done.

“People don’t see any difference between installing a speed-limit sign and a stop sign. It’s just a post and pole to them,” said Aurelio Albaisa, transportation engineer.

Few Valley locales offer such a fine example of a traffic mess as the intersection of Victory and Sepulveda boulevards.

Pui Ng describes it as “very exciting” to try and find a way to quell the wrath of residents, ease the commutes of tens of thousands of drivers, reduce speeding and stop traffic just long enough to give pedestrians time to cross the boulevards.

For months, residents in a four-block neighborhood southwest of the intersection pleaded with the city to stop what many described as the selfish practice of speeding commuters who turned right off of Victory to take a shortcut through their streets.

“It was bedlam out there,” said longtime Orion Street resident Kathleen Freeman. “There is no reason for a neighborhood to be destroyed so that someone can get to a job 10 minutes faster.”

The residents demanded that traffic engineers install a “No Right Turn” sign.

But first, the city had to investigate. Was there really bedlam on Orion Street? A thin plastic tube was laid on the road to count the number of cars. The calculator tabulated more than 800 vehicles an hour.

“That’s pretty much,” Pui Ng said.

Up went several “No Right Turn” signs.

A new right turn lane was added on Victory to accommodate the 800 cars back on the boulevard each hour and a new right turn arrow was added to help the 800 cars make it around the corner.

The result?

Smiling residents. Scowling commuters. And a 6- to 13-minute delay eastbound on Victory Boulevard that on a bad day creates a one-mile backup.

Pui Ng figures that she can steal two, maybe 2 1/2 more seconds from Sepulveda commuters so that two more cars on Victory can traverse the intersection each cycle.

If she took half a second more, the average pedestrian, who walks four feet per second, would not have enough time to cross Victory Boulevard.

“This intersection was like a suitcase that had been stuffed as tight as it can,” Pui Ng said. “Then someone wanted to put a pair of shoes in because it would be nice. Now you see what’s happening, the whole thing is bulging.”

To prevent the suitcase from bursting open and spilling its contents back onto Orion Street, Los Angeles police officers are ticketing “No Right Turn” scofflaws.

To be sure, the intersection of Sepulveda and Victory is an exceptional case, Rolando Buensalida explained as he began a typical traffic engineer’s day last week.

Equipped with his foot meter--a hand-pushed measuring instrument on wheels that is rolled across roads--Buensalida’s first stop was the intersection of Beverly Glen Boulevard and Mulholland Drive.

Vincent Petrosino said a left turn arrow is needed there because he is putting his life “at great risk” at the intersection. Speaking of this spot, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said that “frankly, my own personal experience at this intersection urges me to strongly endorse” Vincent Petrosino’s request.

After baby-sitting the intersection several afternoons, witnessing eight “close calls” and a left turn backup that stalled traffic along the critical cross-mountain roads, Buensalida supported a left turn arrow.

But a bureaucratic backup at City Hall will likely mean a six-month wait for the light, officials said.

“Sometimes nice people will stop and let others turn left,” Buensalida said. “Maybe that will continue.”

Second stop: the 12300 block of Laurel Terrace Drive in Studio City. This traffic dilemma on a curved stretch of roadway is best viewed from the bedroom window of Myrtle Jones, 82, a resident of Laurel Terrace for 52 years.

“It’s just awful what I see out this window,” said Jones, who is confined to a wheelchair and passes much of her time reading near her wood-framed window. “I see people cross over that median line every day. They have taken down the lamppost and the hydrant. Something must be done.”

Buensalida watched almost every motorist cross over the double yellow line at what appeared to be speeds exceeding the 35-m.p.h. limit.

After measuring and sketching out the street stripes, Buensalida was confused.

This is a case for the Geometric Design Team, he concluded. These traffic experts use mathematical formulas to determine how the yellow stripes should best be repainted.

Final stop: the deep dips of Milbank Street in Sherman Oaks. The complaint: missing “Dip” signs.

The sight and sounds on Milbank are spine chilling. The cars of unsuspecting motorists dip-and-scrape, dip-and-scrape as their metal chassis strike the pavement.

“Eeeks! Yeah, I felt that one,” Buensalida said, stiffening his back when his city-issued Ford Escort did its own dip-and-scrape. This problem was solved by a simple work order to install a “DIP” sign.

Back at the office, Transportation Engineer Raymond H. Wellbaum grappled with what promises to be the next project of Sepulveda-Victory magnitude.

He points to a stack of letters from Tarzana and Encino residents and repeats a familiar lament: “They are unhappy because traffic is clogging their neighborhood.” Motorists are avoiding the Sepulveda Pass on the San Diego Freeway via hillside shortcuts. A traffic-count study will soon be under way.

As Wellbaum studied a map of Ventura Boulevard, the Valley’s notoriously congested thoroughfare, he began to mumble in traffic-engineer-speak: road capacity, peak-hour restrictions, signal cycles.

A traffic engineer “can only deal with what’s physically there and operate the best he can,” Wellbaum said, walking away from the map of troubles.

This may be a case where no one ends up smiling.

Nonetheless, Wellbaum said, he will attempt “to balance the needs of the neighbors against the needs of commuters.”

His determination resembles the spirit of the cartoon near his desk that reads, “Your traffic engineer is always ready to get you out of a jam.”

Never mind that the picture above the caption depicts a hopelessly gridlocked intersection.

STREET NUMBERS

Miles of roadway in the Valley: 2,853

Miles of paved streets: 2,812

Miles of unpaved streets: 41

Miles of one-way streets: 6

Miles flanked by houses and apartments: 2,136

Miles flanked by commercial and industrial businesses: 283