ALARCON WANTS 101-405 PUT IN LAX STUDY.

Byline: Rick Orlov Daily News Staff Writer

Concerned that Los Angeles International Airport expansion could lead to San Fernando Valley traffic jams, a councilman called Wednesday for the city to include the 101-405 freeway interchange in its airport study.

LAX is considering whether to spend as much as $12 billion to add 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.

Councilman Richard Alarcon believes that is shortsighted.

``It should not ignore the need to fully mitigate the impact of such proposed expansion on the 101-405 interchange,'' Alarcon said in a motion sent to the council's Transportation Committee, which he heads.

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

``Many of the additional trips that the airport will generate will originate from or come through the San Fernando Valley,'' Alarcon said.

The committee must vote on approving the inclusion of the Ventura-San Diego freeway interchange in the LAX study, and then the matter must go to the full council.

``When this comes up, we will look at it and respond to the wishes of the council,'' LAX spokesman Tom Winfrey said. ``We've worked on the interchanges around and into the airport. That interchange is quite a ways away. We'll wait to see what happens and then respond to it.''

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.

``We've been discussing what we can do for that area,'' Caltrans spokesman Rick Holland said. ``Unfortunately, nothing's been decided. We don't know if we can redo what we have out there and we are concerned about what happens if we widen the freeway.

``It's a case of if you build it, they will come. We don't know if we widen the freeways it will just make more of a problem.''