Lawmaker Vows to Push 405-101 Work

A legislator said Tuesday he will use a new Assembly committee to pressure state and local bureaucrats to get to work on improvements to relieve congestion at the San Diego-Ventura freeway junction.

Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) was named Tuesday to head a new panel that will focus on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Caltrans, the agencies that would oversee the proposed $13-million project.

“We will monitor, oversee, dog the process on a daily basis to make sure that every single step that needs to be taken is taken,” Knox said in an interview.

At the request of Knox, who represents parts of Encino, Sherman Oaks and Studio City, Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) created the Select Committee on Transportation Congestion Relief and appointed Knox its chair Tuesday.

Knox pledged to ensure that Caltrans breaks ground on the project this year.

“They need to deliver the goods,” said Knox, who has been a regular at recent MTA board meetings, persistently pushing a plan to widen the connector and build a new auxiliary lane for the interchange.

“This is a watchdog committee, the function of which is to dog the agencies and get the job done. I do not simply want to point fingers. I want to get the job done,” Knox said.

One of the key gateways to the San Fernando Valley, the junction is California’s fourth-busiest interchange. Stories of nightmarish commutes through the intersection are legion, and Knox’s office has collected about a thousand in response to a questionnaire sent to residents.

“I had hysterics,” one upset motorist wrote. “I missed a very important appointment. I’m normally compulsively on time.”

Another recounted that delays at the interchange made her husband late to his mother’s funeral--even though he had left home half an hour earlier to account for traffic.

Funding for the highway fix appears to be around the corner. Last month Caltrans included the project on its priority list for state funding. Staff members at the MTA, meanwhile, plan to recommend that the agency’s board provide $2.6 million to help get the job done, said Robert Cashin, deputy executive officer for planning.

David Fleming, a Studio City attorney who sits on the board of the California Transportation Commission, said Tuesday that he “will guarantee that this project will be funded.”

Although Knox said funding will very likely materialize, he said he believes only sustained public pressure will keep the project on the fast track. Once improvements are made, he said he intends to pursue additional upgrades to ease traffic at the clogged crossroads.

“Dealing with the arcane approval measures and the considerable bureaucracy is enormously difficult,” Knox said. “The way you end up getting results out of the system is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

The creation of the committee brought a muted reaction from MTA and Caltrans officials, who said the project is already moving forward.

“This is the normal process,” the MTA’s Cashin said. “The thing is that the process involves multiple agencies--the MTA, Caltrans, 89 cities, the county, the state of California, the California Transportation Commission, and the Federal Highway Administration. So when you have that many agencies, it’s a time-consuming process.”

Caltrans spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli said her department is scheduled to begin designing the project, if funded, in July. Knox’s resolution notwithstanding, she projected that ground will be broken in 2000.

“We have steps that we have to follow,” Tiritilli said. “We can’t just go out and start construction, even if it is a worthwhile project.”