L.A. Lists 260 Ways to Help the 101

A year after Caltrans shelved a controversial proposal to widen the traffic-clogged 101 Freeway, city officials have unveiled an alternative plan that would make more modest improvements that would not require the razing of hundreds of homes.

Instead of a massive project that would add up to six lanes to the freeway, the city is proposing about 260 smaller improvements, including widening ramps, improving street signs, lengthening turning lanes and adding more express bus service. But some critics question whether the work will do much to relieve congestion on one of the nation’s busiest freeways.

The plan was generated not by traffic engineers but through meetings and brainstorming sessions with community groups that had protested the California Department of Transportation’s earlier proposal.

If the Los Angeles City Council approves preliminary work next week, it would be an endorsement of a different kind of transportation planning -- one rooted in community involvement.

“It’s a consensus plan, and we believe it’ll make a difference,” said Councilman Tom LaBonge, who spearheaded the effort in coordination with the city’s transportation department. “The is not the old days of just taking people’s land. The original [Caltrans] plan floated down the river, the Los Angeles River, into the ocean.”

Caltrans’ $3.36-billion widening proposal raised the ire of many community groups because officials said it could result in the removal of more than 1,000 homes and businesses in the San Fernando Valley. Caltrans estimated that the extra lanes of traffic would save motorists a cumulative 78,000 hours a day in freeway driving time.

There is no such estimate about how the new proposal would alter traffic patterns on the 101 Freeway. Nor is there a price tag. And some experts question whether it would make a significant dent in congestion.

“I don’t mean to dismiss marginal improvements. There are things that can be done. In theory, many small incremental improvements might add up,” said James E. Moore, chairman of USC’s department of industrial engineering.

But, he said, measures such as adding lanes would probably do much more to relieve congestion. “The benefits to the region of adding more capacity is very substantial,” Moore said.

Some commuters lament that the plan isn’t ambitious enough.

“Heck, I would love for everything [to be] double-decked. Give me seven lanes in each direction,” Hank Yuloff, a board member of the Encino Chamber of Commerce, said as he sat Friday in late-afternoon traffic. “I still don’t see any political will to improve the 101.”

Many transportation experts, including Moore, say a better solution would be levying tolls during rush hours to encourage commuters to use mass transportation, carpool or drive at off hours. The residents’ plan lists toll lanes as an idea but assigned it low-priority status.

Projects that residents deemed high priority include planting trees to reduce sunrise glare, installing turn signals and improving landscaping.

Other high-priority projects include adding auxiliary lanes to facilitate cars exiting the freeway, adding turn lanes, improving ramp metering and extending operating hours of DASH buses into evenings and weekends.

The City Council is being asked to provide $400,000 to pay for feasibility studies of high-priority items and preliminary engineering analyses. Caltrans would then decide whether to make the freeway improvements proposed under the plan. But a Caltrans representative said the agency would assist the city in doing the study.

Community leaders praised the grass-roots approach. Caltrans “did everything wrong ... in terms of what to do about the 101 Freeway,” said Gerald A. Silver, president of Coalition of Freeway Residents. “It was a bulldozer approach. Caltrans, I’m pleased to say, learned their lesson. They need to go to residents first.”

But residents’ ideas, in the end, mirrored parts of Caltrans’ proposal. In addition to freeway widening, Caltrans proposed smaller and medium-sized projects, including beefing up public transit, improving nearby streets and widening ramps.

At least one community suggestion, adding a connecting ramp from the southbound Hollywood Freeway to the westbound Ventura Freeway in Studio City, might result in the removal of some homes.

The report notes that though the citizen advisory committee for that area considered this connector a high-priority project, the Studio City Residents Assn. does not support it.

At least two ideas seem to conflict. One would remove the carpool lane on the Hollywood Freeway. Another would extend it.

But many more of the suggestions enjoy broad community support, those involved in the effort say.