Officials Argue Over Traffic Jam’s Cause : Transportation: Caltrans and the city blame each other for a debacle that occurred Saturday when they did roadwork at the same time and in the same area.

City and state traffic officials acted decidedly non-collegial Tuesday as they traded barbs over the cause of a giant traffic jam that tied up the Ventura Freeway as well as surface streets in Sherman Oaks and Encino for several hours Saturday.

Officials agreed that the tie-up was caused by motorists detoured off the Ventura Freeway by lane and ramp closures that are part of a widening project. But city officials said they were not adequately notified of the closures, which were scheduled for the same time as repair work at Sepulveda and Ventura boulevards that added to motorists’ woes.

“We weren’t adequately notified” by Caltrans of the freeway closures, said Guy Quinn, assistant general manager of the Los Angeles city Department of Transportation. “They told us about the closures but not the extent of it.”

Caltrans also failed to notify the city that motorists would be directed to use Ventura Boulevard as an alternative route, Quinn said.

“The city was adequately notified,” said Pat Reid, a Caltrans spokeswoman. She said a Caltrans engineer gave the city a detailed explanation of the agency’s road closure and detour plans. “This was a routine contact with DOT. It was done just like it’s been done before, for weeks,” Reid said. “We have no further comment.”

The traffic jam clogged streets for miles at midday. Traffic snarled major east-west streets between Reseda and Van Nuys boulevards and north-south streets between Victory and Ventura boulevards, Quinn said.

Diverting traffic off the Ventura Freeway were lane and ramp closures that are part of a $76-million project to widen the roadway between Agoura Hills and Studio City.

The worst congestion occurred at Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards, where a private contractor was digging a trench for the city’s Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control system. The contractor, Steiny & Co., was allowed to close one lane of the boulevard in each direction, Quinn said. Ventura Boulevard has six through-traffic lanes and two left-turn lanes at that intersection.

Quinn said the contractor closed only the number of lanes allowed. “There’s no way that little work caused that tie-up,” Quinn said. “It wasn’t us.”

City traffic crews, which use the computerized control system in City Hall to detect traffic jams and alter signal operations in response, watched the jam-up develop Saturday, Quinn said.

“They dealt with it as best they could,” he said. But no amount of signal manipulation could ease the movement of two lanes of freeway traffic being diverted onto city streets, he said.

Despite Saturday’s problem, Quinn vowed that a similar mix-up “won’t happen again. We’re going to be a lot more cautious in the future.”