COLLISION 3RD TO JAM TRAFFIC IN PASS SINCE NEW YEAR'S; MAJOR CRASHES JAM NEWHALL PASS.

Byline: Stacy Brown Daily News Staff Writer

The wrong-way collision Wednesday on the Golden State Freeway was the third spectacular crash since New Year's Day that has crippled traffic in the Newhall Pass.

Although the accident rate sets no record, the impacts of freeway collisions are getting bigger and bigger, particularly because the pass provides the only major access between the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

When it closes, traffic sits.

On Wednesday, the thousands of commuters heading north to jobs in the Santa Clarita Valley fretted on the freeway - calling their employers from cellular phones or sitting helplessly as their cars overheated in the 1 mph pace.

The road was closed as California Highway Patrol investigators checked the scene of a crash that killed two Pacoima women.

``There were more than three times the number of mobile-to-land calls than usual and more than four times the number of mobile-to-mobile calls,'' said Melissa May, a spokeswoman for Airtouch Cellular, which has a station near the crash site.

``I'm currently on my phone stuck on a freeway, too, but generally in a major accident such as this one which effectively closes the freeway, call volume is way up,'' May said. ``People call their jobs letting them know they are going to be late. They call home and also we have a lot of people that kind of work from their car using the phone.''

Santa Clarita, now in its 11th year as a city, has more than doubled in size since 1980 and has successfully drawn business and jobs to the area. But nothing has changed to expand access to the area. Add to that the heavy truck traffic on California's main north-south route.

``You have to keep in mind that the Golden State Freeway is the main freeway in California,'' said Connie Worden-Roberts of the Santa Clarita Telecenter where highway activity is monitored locally. ``It is the most traveled freeway in the state and serves everyone.''

And things will only get worse with tens of thousands of new homes planned in the north county, Worden-Roberts said.

``Yes, the growth in the Santa Clarita Valley is a contributing factor to the traffic,'' she said.

The growth not only means commuter traffic, but truck traffic.

``I don't know if you can directly relate the traffic and the accidents to the growth but you do have more commercial vehicles coming through the area than you did 10 years ago,'' said Caltrans spokesman Vincent Moreno.

On Jan. 3, 14 trucks collided in heavy rain on the Golden State, closing the truck lanes most of the day and slowing other traffic as rubbernecking motorists slowly cruised by. The same thing happened again Jan. 9 when 10 big rigs tangled up in nearly the same spot. Each time traffic in the Newhall Pass came to a standstill.