Chance to Improve Valley Traffic Cited

Flush with nearly $500 million from a state traffic relief fund, local transit officials have a great opportunity to improve life for San Fernando Valley commuters, a leader of a new group pushing Valley transit improvements said Wednesday.

But Richard Katz said progress can be made only if area activists keep the pressure on state and local transportation bureaucracies.

Katz said his group, which includes Valley business interests, has already paid dividends. On one project funded by governor’s funds--a synchronization system of more than 400 Valley traffic signals--Katz said city transportation officials initially estimated it would take six years.

After prodding, Katz said the city shortened that projection to four years.

“If we harangue them enough maybe we can get them to have it done by Thursday,” Katz said at a lunch sponsored by the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce.

The traffic signal project--which will cost $16 million and is fully funded in Gov. Gray Davis’ budget plan--is an advanced synchronized system that can adapt to traffic tie-ups and accidents as they occur.

The technology is already in use by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s rapid bus system on Ventura Boulevard and Wilshire and Whittier boulevards, where buses have a transponder that can control signals for a longer green light.

Katz cautioned that Davis’ congestion plan funding--which will pay for the Valley traffic signal project, an east-west busway along Chandler Boulevard, a north-south bus route in the northeast Valley, improvements to the Ventura and San Diego freeways, and other projects--is vulnerable to the vagaries of the economy.

The governor used surplus money for his $5.2-billion traffic-busting plan, and that extra cash, Katz said, could be diverted to state emergencies, be it the current electricity crisis or an earthquake.

The group co-chaired by Katz, which calls itself the San Fernando Valley Transportation Strike Force, was started with $500,000 from Washington Mutual Inc., the company that is building the Ahmanson Ranch housing and commercial project in Ventura County.

Katz is a former assemblyman and co-chairman of the transportation committee of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., or VICA. The new group’s other co-chairman is David Fleming, who heads the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

The Valley’s United Chambers of Commerce, the Economic Alliance, California Highway Patrol and VICA are all represented on the board of the new organization, but do not contribute funds, Katz said.

In addition to putting pressure on Caltrans and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Katz said the group can serve as a de facto Valley transit board. It recently met with four cities that each have jurisdiction over sections of San Fernando Road. That busy industrial corridor has separate city signal synchronization programs that work independent of each other.

“Wouldn’t it be smart to synchronize them together?” Katz asked. “We are in the process of bringing [the cities] all together to synchronize [the road] as a group.”

Katz spoke more cautiously about large-scale construction projects for the perennially clogged Ventura and San Diego freeways.

More than half the congestion, he said, is caused by “invisible choke points”--sites of a disabled vehicle or an accident. Motorists frequently slow needlessly at these points, and the domino effect of brake lights creates far-reaching delays, he said.

Guy Ninio, who owns a Woodland Hills limousine firm, questioned the benefit of building carpool lanes on the southbound San Diego Freeway when the project itself is causing delays.

“It’s taken us double the time to get from the 101/405 to the Santa Monica and San Diego freeway interchange,” Ninio said.

Katz said he agreed that many of the interchange improvements will only temporarily relieve congestion, and a better solution would be to alleviate jams in the entire network of freeways and city streets. But the carpool lanes, he said, are needed for state air quality requirements and to help complete the vast network of carpool lanes.

“Carpool lanes will work once they connect to something,” Katz added. “Our sprawl and our jobs are everywhere. It makes urban transit difficult.”