PLAN FOR 138 WORK IN BUDGET; BUT FUNDING FOR WIDENING PROJECT ITSELF NONEXISTENT.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

Gov. Gray Davis has recommended spending $6.5 million in state money to design the widening of Highway 138 but did not include any money to fund the $54.5 million project, disappointing Antelope Valley leaders.

The Highway 138 design money was included in a $373 million plan Davis submitted under the Interregional Transportation Improvement Program to the California Transportation Commission. The panel is expected to vote this summer on whether to include the funding in the State Transportation Improvement Plan.

``We're disappointed. We wanted to get real road-widening work done,'' said Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster.

Runner asked Caltrans to compare safety statistics from Highway 138 to similar highways in the state.

``We want to make sure they aren't funding less dangerous highways,'' Runner said.

The design work for Highway 138 is for three segments that together would stretch from 165th Street East to Highway 18. The highway is slated to be widened from two lanes to four. Work is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2002.

Antelope Valley officials long have wanted to widen Highway 138, which carries more than 21,000 vehicles a day and is the Antelope Valley's main link to San Bernardino County. They intensified their lobbying after crashes in August left three people dead and nine injured.

Last October, California Highway Patrol and local officials announced that extra patrols, including one in a CHP airplane, would be put to work searching for speeders and reckless motorists along the highway.

State Sen. W.J. ``Pete'' Knight, R-Palmdale, is pushing legislation to have the highway marked as a special enforcement zone, doubling the fines for traffic violations.

The state has already earmarked $38.5 million for widening the highway to four lanes between Avenue T and 165th Street East. Caltrans district officials hope to begin construction in February 2002, and to have the work completed two years after that.

While the environmental impact report is being drafted, a project report also will be prepared to give firmer cost estimates. Caltrans officials then will learn how far east from Avenue T widening will be affordable. The goal is to reach Big Rock Wash, near 165th Street East.

In 1993, Caltrans widened a 1-1/2-mile stretch from one mile west of Little Rock Creek Bridge to 77th Street East.

That same year, passing lanes in each direction and a 12-foot-wide left-turn median through Pearblossom were added on a 1-1/2-mile stretch between 106th Street East and 128th Street East.