Westwood commuters may have come one step closer to traffic relief this week as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and city officials lobbied the California Transportation Commission to widen the 405 Freeway near Sepulveda Boulevard.
Villaraigosa’s efforts came after the commission opted to omit the proposed expansion, slated for 2009, from its list of projects to be funded by a $19.9 billion statewide transportation bond created under Proposition 1B.
The mayor outlined his position in a press release Monday, arguing that Los Angeles County accounts for more than a quarter of the state’s population and a third of its traffic congestion, yet would receive only 12 percent of the available funding.
“No matter how you cut it, this proposal leaves commuters of Los Angeles severely short-changed,” Villaraigosa said in the statement.
“The people of Los Angeles were sold on the idea that Los Angeles would get its fair share and overwhelmingly voted for the bond in good faith. … We did our part. Now it’s time for state officials to do their part.”
Traffic on the 405 is notorious among many UCLA commuters.
Kim McNeill, a graduate student in social welfare, called it the “four or five-mile-per-hour freeway.”
Paul Ong, a professor of urban planning, said he supports the proposal, but stresses that it should only be a starting point.
“I think they should do it,” he said. “But it will only deal with congestion in the short run.”
Ong added that in order to address congestion in the long-term, the city should ideally consider higher-density housing development on the West Side, an investment in mass transit and better planning for the location of housing and jobs.
According to the Los Angeles Times, some California Transportation Commission, or CTC, members opposed the Caltrans-recommended expansion out of consideration for limited statewide funding.
The CTC received $11 billion in freeway-improvement proposals but can only allot $4.5 billion of the bond to “corridor mobility improvements,” such as adding new lanes, according to a letter sent by Gov. Schwarzenegger to CTC chairwoman Marian Bergeson.
Schwarzenegger joined Villaraigosa in urging the commission to reconsider their recommendations out of respect for the voters of California. The governor included the expansion in his list of “high-priority” highway development projects.
Los Angeles County supervisor Gloria Molina, who is also the chair of the local Metropolitan Transportation Authority, called CTC’s recommendations an “insult to the people of L.A.”
“L.A. County delivered more “˜Yes on Prop. 1B’ votes than any other region in the state, but now the state does not want to deliver us our fair share of these funds,” Molina said in a statement.
The city’s MTA requested that $1.7 billion of the bond be used for projects in Los Angeles County, but the commission’s initial project list would allocate only $328 million, according to another statement released by Villaraigosa.
According to the Los Angeles Times, some commission members are not convinced that the money could not be spent better elsewhere in the state.
Objections also stemmed from confusion over the project’s start date, which commission members incorrectly assumed would be 2011 rather than 2009.
The confusion was reportedly caused by the proposal’s design-build designation, which means that the planning and building phases would overlap, allowing production to start sooner than would normally be possible.
Some students were hesitant to endorse the proposal, citing the apparent lack of finalization and detail.
“I like to reward people who carpool, … but I don’t know the repercussions of the expansion,” said Zoe Zeitlin, a fourth-year history student.
David Howard, a graduate student in social welfare, also said he was skeptical of the expansion.
“Traffic isn’t going to get any better (on its own),” Howard said. “But it’s a tough issue.”
Howard added it would be difficult to form opinions without first knowing how the expansion would effect the environment and Los Angelenos living near the highway.
The Los Angeles Times reported that commission vice chairman James Ghielmetti emerged from a meeting with Villaraigosa on Tuesday, saying the expansion was needed and should move forward soon.
The commission is obligated by Proposition 1B, which established the bond, to make its decision by March 1.