ACTION TO UNCLOG 405/101 STARTS.

Byline: Eric Moses Daily News Staff Writer

Extending the car-pool lane on the southbound San Diego Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass could begin as soon as January, and Caltrans has agreed to take the first step in approving two other proposals to relieve congestion in the 405-101 interchange, a city transportation engineer said Monday.

Haripal Vir told the City Council's transportation committee that one project, re-striping the westbound Ventura Freeway to add another lane between Sepulveda Boulevard and Hayvenhurst Avenue, was already under way. That project is designed to help ease the transition from the southbound 405.

In the meantime, Caltrans has agreed to study proposals to add a northbound lane on the 405 from Mulholland Drive to the interchange and widen the northbound connector from the 405 to the eastbound 101, Vir said. The studies are required to get state funding for the projects, and are expected to be completed by December.

The 101-405 transition carries approximately 536,500 vehicles daily, making it the state's fourth-busiest interchange.

Caltrans and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation have agreed to review two projects:

Widen the southbound 405 connector to the westbound 101 by adding another lane just south of the Burbank Boulevard overpass.

Close the westbound 101 off-ramp at Haskell Avenue.

Previously, City Councilman Richard Alarcon has asked that Los Angeles include the 101-405 freeway interchange in the study of whether Los Angeles International Airport should be expanded, with more runways and terminals, boosting passengers from 60 million to 100 million a year. Money has been set aside to improve freeways and roads immediately around the airport.

But Alarcon said that even though the interchange is more than a dozen miles from the airport, he believes the expansion would affect traffic through the area - one of the state's most heavily traveled interchanges.

City engineers have been studying what effect the expansion will have on traffic moving through the interchange, and have reached no conclusion. Allyn Rifkin, a city transportation engineer, said that report would determine how much the Department of Airports could contribute toward construction costs for the interchange.

In Daily News stories in September 1997, a retired Caltrans engineer who helped design the 101-405 interchange some 40 years ago said it was not designed to carry today's volume of traffic. Following the stories, California Department of Transportation officials agreed to study possible improvements to the interchange.

Alarcon said improving the flow of traffic in the interchange was recognized last year as a priority in the city's list of projects seeking state attention, but the project did not make the cut when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board gave the state the county's final list of priority projects.

At an October transportation committee meeting, Alarcon said he was upset that the MTA approved other projects ranked lower in priority by the city as well as other projects submitted by other jurisdictions.

Alarcon blamed the failure of the funding request on an insufficient lobbying effort by the city DOT for the projects it considers as priorities. The councilman directed DOT officials to develop a strategic plan to better lobby for the city's priorities.