101-405 TOLL LANES? STUDY BACKS PAY ROUTE AS PART OF VALLEY GRIDLOCK SOLUTION.

Byline: Steve Carney Daily News Staff Writer

High-speed toll lanes that bypass traffic on the 101 and 405 freeways, flyover connectors for express buses, and shuttles that lace the San Fernando Valley - these are keys to easing worsening traffic, according to a report released today.

In its nine-month study, the Reason Public Policy Institute said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must abandon its push to get people out of cars and instead focus on ways to make the freeways move faster. To do this, the agency should focus on improving and expanding its bus service, and give up its expensive, unworkable dream of mass-transit rail in the Valley, researchers said.

``They're still very narrowly focused on conventional ways of thinking,'' said Robert W. Poole Jr., president of the nonprofit foundation. ``We're not proposing anything that's really that radical.''

Fundamental to the report's recommendations is that the MTA beef up its bus service, which researchers contend would be more cost-effective, versatile and widely used than rail.

The MTA's chief spokesman insisted, however, that rail must be part of solving gridlock in the Valley.

``Buses are clearly the workhorse, but you need these other elements,'' said Marc Littman, the MTA's media relations director.

Still, the transit agency is at least exploring many of the solutions the think tank suggests, Littman said. For example, next month MTA officials will ask its board to approve the Rapid Bus Demonstration Project, which will feature dedicated lanes for buses and transmitters to change lights to green as buses approach, to speed service.

One of the three test routes will be in the Valley, but the two-year pilot program is at least a year away, said Jim de la Loza, the MTA's executive officer for planning and programming.

The Bus Riders Union, which won a federal court order for the MTA to reduce bus crowding, said the agency must do more, however.

For example, though the MTA is touting the 2,095 new buses it will buy during the next six years, the union says those will only replace aging buses, and won't provide any new service.

``What definitely has to happen is massive capital investment into buses, especially in a place like the Valley, which is so underserved,'' said Rita Burgos, a union organizer.

Toll lanes

The boldest part of the foundation's plan involves adding toll lanes to the 101 Freeway and replacing car-pool lanes on the 405 Freeway with toll lanes, called High Occupancy/Toll lanes, or HOT lanes.

Specifically, the proposal entails a lane in each direction along the 101 Freeway between Woodland Hills and the Hollywood Freeway. The new lanes would be open to buses, emergency vehicles and car pools of three or more people, as well as individuals willing to pay tolls for access to the fast lanes. The toll system is similar to the one on the Riverside Freeway in Orange County.

The foundation also suggests converting car-pool lanes on the 405 Freeway to HOT lanes, and linking the HOT lanes on both freeways with flyover connectors that would span the 101-405 freeway interchange.

The project would cost about $418 million, but the foundation predicts the toll lanes could generate $22 million a year from drivers willing to pay extra to bypass congestion in the other lanes. That income could offset bonds that would pay 80 percent of the project's cost, Poole said.

``It's almost free, in comparison with the rail systems,'' which he said cost billions and bring in very little income.

Caltrans pessimistic

However, drivers shouldn't expect to see HOT lanes any time soon in the Valley, particularly on the 101 Freeway, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

``It is not too likely we would put (HOT) lanes on the Ventura Freeway,'' said Margie Tiritilli, Caltrans spokeswoman. ``If we were to add lanes and had to take significant amounts of property, the costs would be astronomical in such an urban area.''

Caltrans already widened and repaved the freeway from 1988-1992, she said, adding that, ``If we were going to do it, we needed to do it then.''

Poole said he and the foundation thought residents adjacent to the 101 would fight freeway widening. But Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, said residents would support the plan because the toll lanes would ease traffic for all freeway lanes.

``That is a good idea if and only if it can be accomplished without affecting the residential community on either side of the freeway,'' he said. ``The residents get a lot of freeway noise now.

``It probably is solvable, with sound walls and other methods to control the increased noise,'' he said. ``Unless there is mitigation, it would be very difficult to get community support.''

Valley shuttles

Widespread use of cars has led people to demand door-to-door travel, so the MTA should contract with private shuttle and jitney services to haul some passengers, the study says.

The transit agency now contracts with shuttles that serve routes to the business hubs of Warner Center and Sun Valley, de la Loza said. Workers can call ahead to be picked up or flag down the vans along the route.

The foundation proposes expanding these shuttle routes, and opening them to private companies by relaxing regulations. These would link with express bus routes and other transit venues, taking riders to homes, schools, jobs and hospitals across the Valley.

The MTA's plan once was to tie the Metro Red Line subway extension, being built in North Hollywood, to a rail line running along the Burbank-Chandler east-west rail corridor.

The foundation disagrees not only with the use of rail but with the MTA's focus on the Burbank-Chandler Corridor, because the researchers contend no one lives or works there.

Even a route for express buses along the corridor would be too expensive or too distasteful to neighbors, the report says. So the foundation suggests the land be converted to bikeways and linear parks.

``Is it financially the best use of the property?'' Close said of the park proposal. ``I think it looks good on paper, but I don't think it's practical or feasible.''

WHO THEY ARE

The Reason Public Policy Institute is a think tank that critiques public policy and advocates personal responsibility and limited government. The study was funded by a $50,000 grant from the Haynes Foundation, a Los Angeles-based group that pays for research on Los Angeles County issues for groups including the Environmental Defense Fund.

The principal authors were: Reason Foundation President Robert W. Poole Jr.; Peter Gordon, a University of Southern California professor of urban planning and development and economics; James E. Moore II, associate director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies at USC; and Thomas A. Rubin, a consultant and former controller of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, who has worked for the Bus Riders Union and the United Transportation Union.

CAPTION(S):

Box, Map

Box: Who They Are (see text)

Map: A plan to ease gridlock

Daily News