Scaled-Down Interchange Plan Also Is Controversial : Traffic: Despite Caltrans revisions, area residents are upset because new guidelines do not preclude a ‘flyover bridge’ into Old Town Calabasas.

State transportation officials on Thursday unveiled a modified plan for a controversial Ventura Freeway interchange near the border of Los Angeles and Calabasas.

The new plan would scale back plans to extend Ventura Boulevard south of the freeway and eliminate four freeway exits that had stirred protest from residents who feared a flood of new traffic in the area.

But a high-ranking Caltrans official acknowledged that the new proposal, though significantly scaled-down, would still allow the future construction of what is known as a flyover bridge into historic Old Town Calabasas--one of the most controversial elements of the original plan.

“We’re not designing it to accommodate that,” the Caltrans official, Ken Nelson, said of the previously shelved bridge plan. “But it’s possible that somebody could come in and build a flyover in the future.”

The revised plan, outlined Thursday evening during a public hearing at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, would involve building two ramps near the 145-year-old Leonis Adobe and reconstructing the Valley Circle Boulevard-Mulholland Drive overpass that connects Ventura Boulevard and Calabasas Road.

Although notices were sent to about 450 residents and businesses, about 75 people showed up for the meeting.

Several speakers said that they were disappointed by the revisions and that they felt the Woodland Hills residential neighborhoods northeast of the interchange had been shortchanged.

“This is not being done right,” said Michael Schaaf, a tax specialist who lives in the neighborhood. Schaaf urged Caltrans officials to restore a series of ramps and street realignments that were companions to those on the south side of the freeway. Without those improvements, Schaaf said, the evening commute from downtown Los Angeles would become even worse and congestion at the interchange would turn it into a “Third World intersection.”

“It’s an unsatisfactory compromise,” Schaaf said of the revised plan. He and retired engineer Stan Opatowski said they believe that property owners on the south side of the freeway, including the Leonis Adobe Assn. and powerful homeowners organizations, had been more successful in winning concessions from Caltrans because of greater political clout.

If approved by Caltrans headquarters in Sacramento and the Federal Highway Administration, construction on the project would begin in the fall of 1992 and be completed in early 1994, said Nelson, a Caltrans’ executive assistant.

The new plan would cost $15.6 million to $23 million in state and federal highway funds, Nelson said.

The original $43-million design called for six ramps, rebuilding the heavily used Valley Circle bridge and constructing a second overpass or flyover bridge to extend Ventura Boulevard south of the freeway.

Caltrans scrapped the first plan in April, citing its cost. Nearby residents and business leaders, however, claim their vocal opposition forced revisions. Attorney Jack H. Rubens, who filed lawsuits against the project on behalf of Leonis Adobe Assn. and three homeowner groups, said Thursday that his clients were concerned that the Los Angeles city Department of Transportation could build the controversial bridge at a later date.