Assemblyman Urges Work to Ease 405/101 Freeway Snarls

Saying the San Fernando Valley has been ignored long enough, Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) on Tuesday called on transportation officials to speed up a $10-million project to ease the gridlock at the Ventura-San Diego freeway interchange.

The freeway improvements could begin as early as February, thanks to nearly $1 billion in new transportation funding being made available statewide. The improvements, however, have yet to become a priority for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The MTA, chaired by Mayor Richard Riordan, has until the beginning of December to amend its priority list for highway, rail and other transportation projects it wants funded under the state’s transportation spending plan.

Knox, who is running for reelection, urged the MTA to put the traffic-snarled freeway interchange “at the top of the list.”

“For years, all the transportation authorities have given the 405/101 interchange short shrift,” Knox said. “It’s time to pay attention to the needs of the Valley and the needs of the Westside.”

More than 555,000 vehicles a day pass through the interchange, making it the fourth-busiest freeway junction in Southern California. The state Department of Transportation’s plan to improve the congestion, however, remains unfunded and at least two years away.

The projects Knox is lobbying for would add a lane to the northbound San Diego Freeway from Mulholland Drive to Ventura Boulevard, and add a lane to the northbound San Diego Freeway connector to the eastbound Ventura Freeway. Both are among the improvements recommended by Caltrans.

The project is not on the MTA’s priority list, said Karen Heit, the MTA’s director of strategic policy and planning. But that may change in the months ahead, Heit said.

Caltrans, however, does consider the interchange improvements a priority project, spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli said.

Knox said the proposed improvements are just the first step, and that the interchange will still require an overhaul to untangle the traffic jams it creates each weekday.

“It does not, by any stretch of the imagination, solve the entire problem, but if we don’t take the first step, we will never get to a second step,” Knox said. “We don’t need to live with the frustration we’ve lived with.”

David Fleming, a Studio City attorney and Riordan ally who sits on the California Transportation Commission, said improvements to the San Diego-Ventura freeway interchange are desperately needed, but that the MTA has been more focused on building railways.

“Obviously, the suggestion Assemblyman Knox has suggested is a good one; it’s a Band-Aid approach to a real festering problem,” Fleming said. “It’s just a mess, and it just gets worse every day. We have to do something about it.”

Fleming said the state commission, which must approve any transportation project recommended by the MTA before it can proceed, may even insist the MTA include the San Diego-Ventura freeway interchange project on its list of top priorities.

The extra state transportation money includes more than $300 million made available when Gov. Pete Wilson recently vetoed a statewide transportation bill.