$41 MILLION PROJECT DONE 6.2 MILES OF CAR-POOL LANES SET TO OPEN ON FRIDAY.

Byline: Daily News

PALMDALE -- Transportation officials and lawmakers on Friday will officially open 6.2 miles of car-pool lanes built on the Antelope Valley Freeway at a cost of $41 million over the past 16 months.

The lanes run from Avenue P-8 in Palmdale to Mountain Springs Road, where the existing car-pool lanes end just south of the Pearblossom Highway interchange.

The project is on budget and coming in ahead of schedule by a few months, officials said.

The dedication ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. Friday beside the freeway on Avenue P-4 at 5th Street West. Scheduled to participate are state Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster; Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster; Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich; Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member Ara Najarian, and Caltrans Chief Deputy District Director Raja Mitwasi.

When the lanes actually open sometime Friday, autos with multiple riders during rush hours will be able to travel 35.9 miles of car-pool lanes from Palmdale to the Interstate 5 interchange south of Santa Clarita. The lane construction started in 1996 in Canyon Country.

Eventually, the car-pool lanes will connect with car-pool lanes on Interstate 5. Antelope Valley officials would like to see the car-pool lanes extended north to Avenue L.

The car-pool lane project had a torturous path to getting started in March 2005. It was originally expected to start in 2003 at a cost of less than $32 million, but in 2003, the project was among some 140 dropped in a budget-cutting move.

MTA leaders in 2004 financed the work by shifting money earmarked for other highway projects that weren't ready for construction.

The Antelope Valley Freeway's previous new section of car-pool lanes was completed between Escondido Canyon Road and Pearblossom Highway, a distance of 10.5 miles, in 2002. That job lasted two years and cost $32.9 million, officials said.

Car-pool lanes are on 380 miles of Los Angeles County freeways and are planned on 70 more within five years. Officials say they encourage motorists to stop driving alone and also provide express lanes for public buses.

On the Antelope Valley Freeway, the car-pool lanes are open to motorists driving alone outside rush hours, under legislation authored by George Runner, when he was an assemblyman.

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(color) A new stretch of 6.2 miles of car-pool lanes, built a t a cost of $41 million on the Antelope Valley Freeway, is scheduled to open Friday.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer