Questions and Answers About Your Commute : Area Not Noisy Enough for Sound Wall

Dear Traffic Talk:

You recently had a question about freeway sound walls and stated that Caltrans’ No. 1 priority is to build them behind residences.

Can you tell me why, then, when the Foothill Freeway was built many years ago they never built a freeway wall on the westbound lanes from Wheatland Avenue to about a mile west of that, where it actually does begin?

Our yard is wide open to all of the onlookers at the westbound onramp and freeway.

Maybe Caltrans will build a wall sometime.

Joe Kilkenney

Lake View Terrace

Dear Joe:

According to Pat Reid, a Caltrans spokeswoman, the few residences located near the westbound Foothill Freeway between Christy and Wheatland avenues in Lake View Terrace do not meet Caltrans’ sound wall criteria for two reasons:

First, the existing noise readings there are well below the eligible standard, and second, the area contains a combination of residential and commercial structures.

At this time, Reid said, the agency does not believe it would be cost effective to build a sound wall in that area.

Dear Traffic Talk:

A friend insists that you must always have a window open when you have the air conditioner on, as people, especially little children, can die from the fumes.

Klayton Kidd

La Crescenta

Dear Klayton:

A variety of experts in the air-quality and pulmonary-disease fields indicated they have not heard of anyone dying as a result of breathing fumes coming from conditioned air.

Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the Air Quality Management Control District, said, if anything, rolling the windows up while driving on city freeways and breathing the car’s conditioned air is a healthy practice.

Studies have shown, he said, that polluted air is most heavily concentrated alongside the freeways.

Dear Traffic Talk:

When the highway patrol makes a traffic stop in rush hour, why doesn’t the officer take the person off the freeway so the stop doesn’t cause further congestion and unsafe conditions for the rest of us due to all the onlookers?

Don Leibowitz

San Fernando

Dear Don:

California Highway Patrol officers often do take drivers who have been stopped for traffic violations off the highway, according to Sgt. Ernie Garcia, a spokesman for the agency. Officers do this in cases when the stop is made near an offramp.

But not every officer on the side of the freeway is conducting a traffic stop, Garcia explained.

Sometimes officers are assisting a motorist who may have flagged them down for a variety of reasons, including car trouble or other emergencies.

The officers may also be conducting investigations unrelated to traffic, Garcia said, or they may be providing drivers with information.

And, at least in cases when officers have pulled over suspected drunk drivers, they don’t want those vehicles to move any farther, even if an offramp is nearby, Garcia said.

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