SHORT CUTS NEEDED TO RELIEVE TRAFFIC.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - When traffic is the No. 1 problem in the minds of Santa Clarita residents, when a sea of red lights meets every commuter in the early morning, when getting from here to there takes a lot longer than it did just a few years ago, is there really any way out?

Short cuts - everybody's got 'em - are one way of dealing with the gridlock that paralyzes Santa Clarita streets during rush hour and on weekends. What might seem like the long way around something might actually cut a few minutes off the drive, but might also raise the ire of residents in previously bucolic areas.

Sheriff's Deputy Mark Slater, a traffic investigator at the Santa Clarita Valley station, said that most of the roads known locally as ``short cuts'' actually were designed as alternate routes to move traffic.

``Any time you have a street that feeds onto a main drag, you're going to have a problem,'' he said, ``especially one that goes straight downhill.''

He said that increased enforcement has been requested recently in northeastern Canyon Country on residential streets in the Pinetree neighborhoods.

Other areas of note include Friendly Valley Parkway, where commuters take the Golden Valley off-ramp from the Antelope Valley Freeway and through neighborhoods. Residents in the area of Valencia High School called to complain when the city opened the Decoro Drive bridge and traffic increased not only for the school but for drivers cutting through the hills of Saugus along Pamplico Drive, a new short cut to the area's biggest job base.

One of the areas heating up is Plum Canyon Road, which opened up the top of Whites Canyon to Bouquet Canyon Road and is heavily used at all times of the day.

``It's change that people complain about,'' Slater said. ``It's different from the peaceful coexistence that they've experienced. There are only so many roads and so many drivers that they have to jockey around for whatever space they can find.''

Short cuts seem to abound around the high schools; a quick way to Canyon High School takes traffic through the hilly Shangri-La tract.

``There is difficulty with what we call cut-through traffic,'' said Ian Pari, senior traffic engineer for the city of Santa Clarita. ``Unless we follow vehicles or do a license plate survey, we can't tell who's passing through on a regular basis.''

Pari said that the area that's received the most attention from the city is Benz Road, which connects to a newer stretch of Copper Hill Drive, leading to the industrial center.

``The actual terminus of Copper Hill is David Way, but Benz cuts the corner of the triangle nicely. We had a real problem when truck drivers learned of the route,'' he said. ``We've installed stop signs at Dan Court and Canterwood Drive, but we're going to City Council in April to request a load limit, restricting trucks that weigh more than 14,000 pounds. Those two measures will have a big impact.''

Sheriff's Sgt. James Anderson, a traffic supervisor, got involved with the homeowners on Benz Road when they protested the opening of their street to Copper Hill.

``A lot of people were upset because Benz was closed for so many years; they treated it like a cul de sac,'' Anderson said. ``They're supposed to warn you about things coming up that were planned and approved when property changes hands, but that didn't always happen. When it opened, they were in shock, especially at the number of vehicles that come through there on an average day.''

Anderson added that the speed limit transition - from 55 mph on the unrated Copper Hill to 25 mph in the residential area - is a shock to many drivers.

``We always knew it would be opened, and, in fact, we encouraged it as another way off of our street,'' said Tony Natoli, who has lived on Benz Road since 1979. He sees their street as part of ``the next best thing to a cross-valley connector; people can go from Whites Canyon to Plum to Benz to Copper Hill and either to the industrial park or the freeway.''

Natoli said he has gone to the City Council several times to ask for help to solve the traffic situation on Benz, succeeding in getting a couple of stop signs to slow things down. But his first request was turned down, only to be approved after a much more expensive lesson for the city.

``In all the years I lived here before the road opened, there were two accidents, one of them involving my own kid,'' he said. ``In the first six months this road was opened, there have been six accidents. One of them was a kid with a four-wheel drive Jeep that was being pursued by a sheriff''

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Resident Tony Natoli has seen traffic on Benz Drive go from no more than 100 vehicles a day to more than a thousand, as drivers try to dodge congested traffic areas.

David Crane/Staff Photographer