SAN FERNANDO VALLEY : Elevated Car-Pool Lanes Mulled for Ventura Freeway
State and county transportation officials are floating a plan to build elevated car-pool lanes on the Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley, although plans for car-pool “diamond” lanes and an elevated monorail on the freeway have drawn vehement public opposition in the past.
The plan to add car-pool lanes on an elevated guideway above the freeway--the nation’s busiest, carrying 277,000 cars per day--is on a list of projects slated for construction only when new funding sources are found, state and county officials said this week. Money could come from sources such as an increased federal tax on gasoline, they said.
The proposal is part of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission’s 30-year transportation plan, a blueprint for projects supported by the California Department of Transportation.
A 1988 Caltrans study said double-decking the heavily congested freeway would be costly, but feasible. The study said an upper deck from the Hollywood Freeway to Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas would cost $910 million and would displace more than 1,000 homes and businesses.
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