BURBANK STUNG BY SUCCESS : STUDIO EXPANSION BRINGS BIG TRAFFIC.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

NBC this month became the latest of three major entertainment companies to announce a major expansion of its facilities in Burbank's thriving Media District.

While that was good news for the entertainment industry, business community and city leaders, it left residents living in the area with one big question: Where is all that traffic going to go?

The city's Media District Specific Plan, approved in 1990, was supposed to provide a mechanism to control growth in the area and, by extension, traffic congestion.

But a traffic study required of Warner Bros. for its expansion proposal - done by Crain and Associates of Los Angeles last year - labeled several intersections in the area as ``overloaded,'' resulting in long delays.

Among the worst intersections were: Magnolia Boulevard and Hollywood Way; Alameda Avenue and Buena Vista Street; and Barham and Cahuenga Boulevards.

``The studios are the big game in town,'' said Barbara Briel, a member of the Burbank Rancho Homeowners Association. ``Obviously, the city of Burbank isn't going to control them.''

Councilman Ted McConkey said that in 1990, city leaders were under pressure to be more business-friendly to help make up for the anticipated imminent departure of the area's biggest employer, Lockheed.

``(The studios) made it clear that if Burbank didn't approve their plans, they'd go to Glendale or North Hollywood,'' said McConkey, who in 1990 was a neighborhood activist who opposed the media district plan.

``The city was desperate because there was every indication Lockheed was going to leave,'' he said.

``Now we're captive to our success and trying to play catch-up,'' McConkey said. ``The traffic on the local streets has become almost unbearable.''

Disney and Warner Bros. already have received approval for major expansions, and NBC is expected to have little trouble getting the go-ahead since its proposal does not ask for any exceptions to the Media District Specific Plan.

Traffic has been the big issue in the Media District for years. But with the expansions now materializing, residents are becoming even more agitated.

``The traffic is going to get significantly worse than it is now,'' said Carolyn Berlin, a member of the Burbank Planning Board, and a one-time neighborhood activist. ``It creates a real traffic nightmare.''

The city has taken some steps to relieve the pressure, adding speed bumps and ``choker'' islands on side streets to stop short-cutting through residential areas. The city is also taking a lead role in planning for improvements to the Barham Boulevard corridor. The studios have also recently changed traffic patterns to divert traffic away from congested intersections.

But city officials acknowledge they need to come up with more long-range solutions, considering that the intersections are clogged now and the expansions are just getting started.

But the long-term solution goes way beyond putting in choker islands and widening streets and off-ramps. City officials have their eye on new interchanges along the Golden State and Ventura freeways.

``We need more opportunities on the freeways instead of on the streets,'' Berlin said.

One of the main reasons traffic is so congested in the Media District is because of the configuration of local freeways.

Traffic planners figured Burbank wasn't a place where a lot of people would want to stop when the state built the Golden State and Ventura freeways in the 1950s and 1960s.

So they skipped a few things - like freeway interchanges.

``They just didn't have the traffic to warrant it,'' said Bill Lundgren, a Burbank transportation administrator.

The city's top priority is an interchange between the southbound Golden State Freeway and the westbound Ventura Freeway, Lundgren said.

Since there is no interchange there now, motorists pull off the freeway and enter the streets around Magnolia and Verdugo Park in order to make the switch. The extra traffic there impacts traffic circulation in the Media District.

On the other side of the Media District, motorists pull off the eastbound Ventura Freeway and travel through the media district up Hollywood Way to get to Burbank Airport. If there were an interchange to the northbound Hollywood Freeway, they could skip the surface streets and take the Victory Boulevard exit to the airport, Lundgren said.

Burbank city officials want the state to come back and add those interchanges that never got built. But they admit it will take a massive lobbying effort to get the state to commit the millions of dollars needed to get the structures built.

``The problem is Caltrans isn't as interested as we are,'' said Steve Helvey, Burbank's assistant city manager. ``It's a real expensive item.''

Rick Holland, a spokesman for Caltrans, said the city of Burbank is free to make a formal proposal to Caltrans and try and get the interchange project put into the state's long-range transportation planning. Still, he acknowledged that the state has more pressing priorities than adding interchanges.

``We're under duress with retrofit types of things,'' Hollans said.

In announcing plans for the NBC expansion, Jack O'Neill, the company's vice president of facilities, said he fully expects that traffic will be the biggest source of contention among residents as the proposal goes through the city's approval process.

He plans to meet with residents in coming weeks to talk to them about how the studio can accommodate their needs.

Dan Garcia, who led expansion planning at Warner Bros., secured approval for the studio's master plan in September.

During that process, he had traffic consultants do a study to see if it would be possible to build an additional interchange at the Golden State and the Ventura freeways. That study showed that the nearby rights-of-way would be relatively easy to acquire.

The proposal to make improvements to overloaded Barham Boulevard, combined with plans to improve off-ramps along the Ventura Freeway, should help traffic circulation, he said.

Garcia said he expects the studios will continue to support the city's efforts to get such major improvements built but acknowledged that the projects need to get rolling.

Berlin, the planning board member, said a balance needs to be struck between the needs of the studios and the residents.

``You have to respect the residents,'' she said. ``They feel like they are being driven out.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo, 2 maps

PHOTO (color) The intersection of Olive and Alameda avenues in Burbank has become prone to gridlock with accelerating development in the Media District.

David Sprague/Daily News

Map: (1) Busiest traffic intersections in the media district

(2 -- color) Burbank Media District