Residents find freeway walls sound idea

Buck Wargo

GLENDALE -- Glendale residents like Armen Boyadzhyan, who live next

to the Ventura (134) Freeway, will finally get a chance for a peaceful

night’s sleep.

A resident of the 600 block of Patterson Avenue, Boyadzhayan and his

neighbors will benefit from plans by Caltrans to finish what it promised

in 1989 -- the construction of freeway sound walls to block the noise.

The state Transportation Commission voted Monday to spend $226 million

to build 63 sound walls across the state, including three projects in and

bordering Glendale.

One will be built between Concord Street and Columbus Avenue on the

north side of the Ventura Freeway. Glendale officials expect it to be

done in conjunction with a scheduled ramp to start in two years to

improve the exit off the freeway at San Fernando Road.

“That is good,” Boyadzhyan said Friday afternoon as he stood on his

porch with cars whistling by on the freeway above. “Sometimes you can’t

sleep at night. Something falls on the road and cars keep going over it.

It keeps making a noise until it is picked up in the morning.”

Noise from the freeway has been a concern for many Glendale residents

and brought up during a public hearing in April, when Caltrans unveiled

plans for the ramp improvements near San Fernando Road. Many residents on

both sides of the freeway said the sound walls are needed to project

their neighborhoods. Some said their request had gone unheard for 10

years.

A few residents along the Golden State (5) Freeway also complained

about noise during a hearing in May and planned improvements in 2003 for

ramps at Western Avenue in Glendale.

Caltrans will build a sound wall on the west side of the Golden State

(5) Freeway between Western and Alameda avenues in Burbank. The will

protect the Riverside Rancho neighborhood.

The third sound wall at the Glendale border will go from the Los

Angeles River at the Ventura Freeway to Forest Lawn Drive in Burbank.

No other sound wall projects are pending for the Glendale area at this

time, said Caltrans spokesman Presley Burroughs.