Council to Take Up UCLA Traffic Plan : Congestion: City officials hail the accord, which allows the city to monitor car trips. But two leaders of a Westwood group say they’ll fight it.

The Los Angeles City Council is expected this week to consider an agreement permitting city officials to monitor traffic from UCLA and stop development if the university exceeds its traffic quota.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavksy and other elected officials have hailed the accord between UCLA and the city as a landmark that gives the city a say in development on state lands that are usually exempt from local planning laws.

But two leaders of a Westwood neighborhood group promised to fight the plan, which is scheduled to be heard by the City Council on Friday.

Laura Lake and Sandy Brown of the Friends of Westwood last week told the council’s Transportation Committee that further environmental study is needed before the city embarks on the traffic monitoring plan with UCLA.

The debate over the traffic monitoring proposal began late last year, when officials from UCLA and the city announced a tentative agreement on a plan to limit traffic from the university. The agreement would cap trips to and from the campus at 139,500 a day, 13,500 above the current level.

UCLA had projected that, with 3.71 million square feet of new campus facilities anticipated over the next 15 years, traffic could increase to 151,000 trips day. But the university agreed to the cap “to show its resolve to hold the line on traffic,” said Mark Horne, UCLA’s director of campus and environmental planning.

UCLA would be able to keep the number of trips to and from campus below 139,500 by building more on-campus housing and instituting van pools and other programs, Horne said.

The agreement already has been approved by the UC Regents.

Yaroslavsky called the accord a “tremendous opportunity” for the city to have a say in UCLA’s growth. He also charged that Lake’s opposition is politically motivated.

Lake, who lost to Yaroslavsky in a 1989 council election, said the agreement effectively places the city in support of campus growth that will further clog Westwood’s streets, already among the city’s busiest.

Her objections prompted Lake to ask the council committee to recommend further environmental study of the traffic plan. Councilmen Michael Woo and Nate Holden, who made up the committee Wednesday, declined to pass judgment on the traffic plan. Instead, they sent it on to the full council without recommendation.