Balboa Boulevard Is Not a Freeway

Our Granada Hills neighborhood would like to inform the Santa Clarita Valley that Balboa Boulevard is not a freeway, nor was it intended to be a freeway.

For the past six years, Balboa Boulevard traffic has gotten extremely congested (2,200 cars per hour in the morning and 2,400 in the evening). Councilman Hal Bernson had tried to limit “freeway” traffic during rush hours and has been pressured to change his mind. In addition to the excessive traffic from the Santa Clarita Valley, the city has planned an additional 151,000 car trips to be generated by the Porter Ranch project.

Santa Clarita City Council member Joanne Darcy says that “business in Granada Hills will be hurt by limiting access to Santa Clarita residents.” She obviously does not travel this route.

Cars use Balboa Boulevard to travel directly from the Simi Valley Freeway to the Golden State Freeway. There is only one small Alpha Beta shopping center along this route, which has not gained business from Santa Clarita residents, but has lost local patronage, including mine. It is impossible for local residents to exit from the shopping center onto Balboa and cross three lanes of traffic to get to Midwood.

I challenge the council member to make that trip during rush hours. That intersection plus other intersections on Balboa have been the cause of numerous accidents, including fatalities, just because people treat Balboa as a “freeway.”

Just because Caltrans has failed to develop adequate freeway capacity does not mean that Granada Hills should suffer by default. We have nothing against Santa Clarita residents but we do have problems with large numbers of cars using our local streets as a “freeway shortcut.”

STELLA BENDER

Granada Hills