QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE VALLEY : Andrea Gutman, equestrienne

“When we moved to Coldwater Canyon, there were still chicken ranches there, right at Coldwater Canyon and Vanowen. The congestion has certainly increased since then. I remember smog being a word that wasn’t there in those days. You used to see horses walking down the streets, you used to have guys walking around taking pictures of kids on ponies and you could go to the pony rides anyplace.

“As I go back to that part of the Valley now, there’s no trace left of what was there then. But it seems like we were always living on the edge of that demise. We’ve been really fortunate here in Sunland. Basically nothing has changed, except that we’ve lost some access trails to development. Other areas of the Valley have really changed for horse riders--Reseda, Chatsworth. But around here some of the roads are still dirt, we can ride right down them. I really think we have the best of all lifestyles here: We’re close enough to L.A. that we can enjoy the entertainment, but you come up over that hill and it’s a whole other world. Councilman Wachs has really put himself out for us.

“When they put through the Foothill Freeway, there were concerns for horse riders. Caltrans wasn’t totally insensitive. We do have underpasses. But there was nothing they could do about the noise level. I don’t want to sound too corny, but we lost the ambience of being out there in nature.

“Also, our trails are now multiuse, they’re no longer just horse trails. We find them to be bike trails and we find them to be joggers’ trails. That’s not good or bad, it’s just one of the things that has changed--we have to share.

“I’d like to see more of a regression. It sounds silly, I know, but I’d like to see us go back to utilizing some of those old transportation modes--bicycles, maybe horses. Footing roads up so that bicyclists and riders can use them, so we could go to the corner store on our horses. There’s no reason why some of the more commercial establishments can’t provide a horse tie rail. Right now the laws on everything are such that they really impede our movement. You have to be 100 feet from any kind of eating establishment. It’s really encroaching.”