Study Authorized on Use of Riverbeds for Highway
The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission Wednesday authorized a $100,000 study of the feasibility of allowing car pools, buses and trucks to travel the beds of the Los Angeles River and the Tujunga Wash in order to relieve congestion.
The six-month study will consider a proposal by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) to use the riverbed as a highway during rush hours on days when there is no threat of flooding.
The commission voted to oppose a bill by state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) that would require the state to plan the river as a park and would ban the commission from studying it for transportation.
Torres and some environmentalists contend the river should be a verdant park, but Katz and others see it as a roadway that could be used as a park on evenings and weekends.
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