Fast-Lane the Fix

Apparently the only thing that moves slower than rush-hour traffic on the Ventura Freeway is the bureaucracy that built the thing. Although Caltrans has promised to move up construction of improvements at the gridlocked Ventura-San Diego freeway interchange, don’t expect to see relief until sometime after 2001. Even with an abbreviated environmental review and design schedule, Caltrans officials anticipate construction to begin in two years.

Some local leaders think the work can begin sooner. We agree.

Fixing the 43-year-old interchange--which is the state’s fourth busiest, accommodating 550,000 vehicles each day--highlights what can happen when the San Fernando Valley pulls together in a campaign that benefits everyone. The Daily News newspaper began pointing out problems with the interchange more than a year ago. Community leaders called for action. Political representatives from City Hall to the state Capitol badgered various transportation agencies to focus on the interchange’s problems.

The result: Bureaucracies up and down the state moved with unprecedented speed and force, providing a lesson in how well government can work--and so often doesn’t. But as Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) pointed out earlier this month: “We need to do better.” Knox and others believe it is possible to speed up the work even further.

Caltrans officials already have agreed to procedures that will allow separate processes to proceed simultaneously. Normally, Caltrans conducts an environmental review of a project and then sets about designing it. For the San Diego-Ventura interchange, review and design will be on parallel tracks. Even more unusual, though, is that both will begin before funding has been secured.

Those are extraordinary steps that few thought possible even a few months ago. With that kind of momentum--and with the Valley working together with its elected officials--there’s no reason construction on the freeway could not begin sooner than scheduled. As anyone who drives that interchange regularly can attest, the sooner work begins the better.