Downshifting in Order for Ventura Boulevard : $222 Million for Improvements Is Unwise in Tough Times

In case anyone has forgotten, the city of Los Angeles and the entire state of California are still reeling from a recession. In 1992, for example, business failures in the state increased by 33% over the previous year, a rise that was nearly four times higher than national figures. In Los Angeles, the situation was even worse, with a 73% increase in business failures between 1991 and 1993. It is within this gloomy context that the local plan to spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars on improvements for one road must be placed. Much of that inordinate cost is being placed squarely on the backs of local businesses, and that, quite simply, makes very little sense.

We are referring to Ventura Boulevard, a roadway of admittedly important historical, aesthetic and economic significance in the Valley. The plan to tame its unruly growth, to ease traffic and to enhance it over the next 20 years is too costly and extravagant, and it ought to be reassessed.

Now, architects have begun to supply their visions of what the boulevard should look like well into the next century, and their efforts range from the pragmatic to the whimsical. Some envision tree-lined jogging trails paralleling the boulevard, which is not such a bad idea.

Others go much further, emphasizing the need for a park-like feeling. We’re not sure why. There might be public sculptures such as a baseball diamond and the statue of a boy in a baseball uniform at the center of the intersection of Ventura and Topanga Canyon boulevards. There could be an embedded image of a giant bat and baseball at the entrance to Woodland Hills, parking lots that double as public plazas, meandering walkways as a pleasant path to the doors of boulevard businesses, smog absorbing trees, solar-powered street lights, graffiti-proof bus stops. All of it is billed as “a room for you to drive through.”

We’d settle for a street you could drive on without overheating your car and your blood pressure.

The attempt to raise funds for this project has already begun, and $103 million of the $222 million required is being raised via trip fees levied against boulevard businesses that are trying to expand or change in a way that attracts more traffic. But relatively few businesses are trying to grow at the rate envisioned by planners during the relatively flush times of the middle 1980s. That makes the funding package unrealistic. Moreover, the costs represent more of a financial burden than businesses ought to be expected to take on at this time.

“The plan, as far as trip fees, is not materializing,” said Jeff Brain, who heads the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan Review Board’s budget and finance subcommittee. Brain has called for reducing the overall budget of the plan by at least half, as well as reducing dependence on trip fees by forming a benefit assessment district. Under such a plan, Brain said, costs would be spread among all commercial property owners, not just those trying to expand. “By spreading the cost, it basically comes down to pennies per square foot per property owner, and it makes it more fair and more equitable.” That sounds perfectly reasonable to us.

There are other disputes, pitting those experts pushing for traffic improvements (which ought to be the issue of most importance here) against architects and planners who say that medians are an essential visual element of the plan. Transportation and safety officials would oppose placing any kind of median in the center of the boulevard. Also, the costs predicted for lane widenings need to be refigured. Currently, quite a bit of that widening is blocked by buildings.

It seems to us that a scaled-down project could take much of this into account and produce a Ventura Boulevard that is aesthetically correct without bankrupting the businesses along its route.