Questions and Answers About Your Commute : Freeway Dips Left by Quake a Low Priority

Dear Traffic Talk:

The San Diego Freeway between the Simi Valley and Ventura freeways is settling. You don’t notice it until you drive over a major cross street (such as Nordhoff Street). What are the long-term plans to resolve this?

Ken Keller

Valencia

Dear Ken:

Those dips, which were caused by the earthquake, will probably not be smoothed out any time soon. According to spokesman Rick Holland, Caltrans considers those depressions to be a minor problem.

After the earthquake, Caltrans did put down some asphalt to make those dips less severe. But Holland said he viewed any major improvements as unlikely, because the state transportation agency has earmarked most of its earthquake recovery money for seismic retrofitting projects.

Dear Traffic Talk:

I have written to you in the past concerning the parking on Greenleaf Avenue between Sepulveda Boulevard and Saugus Street in Sherman Oaks. I wanted to let you know that the signs on the north side of Greenleaf have been changed and now prohibit parking between 7 and 9 a.m. and between 4 and 7 p.m. If this was through your good offices, I thank you.

There is one other thing that would assure a smooth flow of traffic along Greenleaf onto the San Diego Freeway onramp. The traffic signal at the corner of Greenleaf and Sepulveda needs to be fixed so that it regularly permits the traffic on Greenleaf to proceed.

The signal cycle is supposed to have four sequences: 1) green light for Sepulveda traffic; 2) green light for drivers leaving the freeway offramp; 3) green light for westbound Greenleaf traffic wanting to enter the freeway onramp; and 4) green light for northbound Sepulveda motorists who want to turn left onto the onramp.

Lately, however, the signal has intermittently failed to fully cycle, skipping the sequence that allows the Greenleaf traffic to go. Can you help with this problem as well?

John Hamilton Scott

Sherman Oaks

Dear John,

The problem with the traffic light should be fixed by the time this column is printed, thanks to the good offices of city transportation engineer Brian Gallagher. Gallagher said there are two possible reasons the Greenleaf sequence may have been skipped.

One is that the traffic light occasionally resets stuck sensors under the asphalt activated when a car stops at an intersection. While the light resets the sensors, the sensors temporarily don’t work, so the light might not give you a green even though you are waiting at the light.

Gallagher has arranged for the light to go green when it is Greenleaf’s turn, even when this resetting process is going on, so this problem should now be solved.

There is another reason that Greenleaf gets skipped. Once every cycle, the light “checks” all of its stops, and then decides to do a full cycle or skip a sequence if there are no cars at a particular stop. If a westbound Greenleaf driver arrives at the intersection after the light decides to skip the Greenleaf sequence, he or she will have to wait until the next cycle to get a green light.

Traffic Talk appears Fridays in The Times Valley Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic in the Valley. Please write to Traffic Talk, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted. To record your comments, call (818) 772-3303. Fax letters to (818) 772-3385.