Holiday Lights Bring Drivers Out in Droves

Candy Cane Lane has been hit with the same malady that plagues most of the rest of Southern California--traffic congestion so bad that it could make even Santa Claus lose his cool.

But in contrast to everyday rush-hour traffic, this roadway backup is generating almost no complaints.

Over the years, word has spread about the eight-square-block Woodland Hills neighborhood where each Christmas season the residents lavish their houses with colored lights, oversized candy canes, tinsel, presents, and plywood cutouts of Santa Claus, the Grinch, Garfield, Snoopy and the three wise men, among other decorations. The tradition has been going strong for almost 40 years.

But the growing fame has attracted an increasing number of sightseers who line up in a slow-moving procession that jams adjacent streets for several blocks in each direction. This year, so many have come to view the displays that some motorists are starting to park their cars and tour the brightly decorated streets on foot.

In addition to the carloads of onlookers, the homes have attracted tour buses and vans carrying groups of senior citizens. Visitors to the neighborhood routinely cause a mile-long backup on the adjacent Ventura Freeway from the Winnetka off-ramp east to Tampa Avenue.

But residents who each year go to greater and greater lengths to make their homes the most spectacular on the block said they welcome the traffic because it means people are enjoying the attraction.

Roy Skolion, who lives on the corner of Oakdale and Oxnard streets, said he believes that the traffic has increased because of word-of-mouth advertising.

“Most people seem to know this exists here,” he said. “Most of us here look forward to it.”

Bill Rush, a resident of Lubao Avenue, which every Christmas season is unofficially renamed Candy Cane Lane, said: “I’ve seen visitors come during the day so that they don’t have to fight the traffic.”

Officials at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation said they do the best they can to manage the traffic flow but are short-staffed and can no longer rely on the voluntary assistance of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Mary Moss, a transportation supervisor, said police officers had for many years volunteered without pay to help city traffic officers with traffic around Candy Cane Lane. But she said the police stopped helping three years ago, leaving the entire traffic headache in the hands of two city traffic officers assigned to the area.

“If 7 million people show up, there is nothing we can do about it,” she said.

Police officials said they, too, are short-staffed and cannot afford to take time away from crime fighting to manage traffic, even though the assistance given in the past was on the officers’ own time.

“We don’t have the manpower to do that anymore,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Fred Tuggey. “We are busy, you know.”

Sgt. Dennis Zine of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Bureau said: “To put a DOT officer in every corner would not help the problem, in my point of view. Traffic goes slow because it’s a caravan of cars, but it flows.”

The eight blocks where residents participate lie directly south of Oxnard Street and west of Corbin Avenue. Each street in the neighborhood has assigned itself a theme: Jumilla Avenue is Avenue of the Bells; Oakdale Avenue is Candlelight Lane; Lubao Street is Candy Cane Lane, and Penfield Avenue is Caroler’s Way.

Visitors usually snake through the neighborhood with their car lights off to get the full effect of the Christmas decorations. Traffic officers block off some streets and allow only one-way traffic on others.

The worst congestion takes place on Winnetka Avenue near Oxnard Street, where one traffic officer has been assigned to keep the intersection clear. At the peak of Sunday night’s traffic, two fender-bender accidents on Winnetka added to the snarl.

Zine said there have been some confrontations between traffic officers and motorists who try to get into the streets that have been temporarily closed. But, for the most part, he said, the situation is not a crime problem and therefore not the responsibility of the police.

Rush said he doesn’t mind the lines of cars inching past his house, which features huge candy canes and other Christmas icons.

“Hey, I complain about the traffic but not too much,” he said. “I don’t think it’s that big a deal. I wouldn’t call it a health hazard.”