Freeway Congestion Battle Never Ends

I am delighted to see a real “bite the bullet” solution to the congestion problem of the 101 Freeway corridor (April 30). I have been commuting from the West Valley to Glendale since 1971 and have watched the traffic steadily deteriorate. I was outraged that $5-billion-plus of transportation money was buried under downtown with the Red Line to provide a world-class ride to nowhere. Perhaps there is still hope for L.A.

Henry David

Calabasas

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No one could dispute the fact that congestion on the 101 Freeway between Studio City and Thousand Oaks is frustrating, at best. Given that it is inevitable that we are going to need more freeway lanes to handle the continued growth of the city, why are we spending millions of dollars building huge sound walls down that same stretch of freeway when we know that they will have to be torn down? If the city, as well as the U.S. government, would spend more time planning for the future instead of putting Band-Aids over present problems, we could save the taxpayers millions.

J. Paul Higgins

Los Angeles

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So, they want to add four lanes to the Ventura Freeway to alleviate the present intolerable conditions. Then we build 3,000 new homes (the Ahmanson Ranch project) -- which will add how many more cars? And why are we building sound barriers, which will probably need to be torn down to make way for this freeway? Why not just get it over with? Tear everything down now, displace thousands of homes and businesses and add eight lanes. This would eliminate some of the traffic, and all of the people in the new Ahmanson project could go sailing to their destinations with ease. Yeah, right!

Marlene Alexander

Woodland Hills