STUDIOS HELP PUSH FREEWAY PROPOSALS.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Residents of Burbank and Glendale have complained for years about congestion at interchanges along the Ventura and Golden State freeways, but to the deaf ears of state transportation officials.

Enter the big guns of Hollywood: Disney, Warner Bros., DreamWorks. And just like in a movie, the two cities and their residents are looking forward to a happy ending.

With studio employment in the area expected to soar as part of the booming entertainment industry, state transportation officials say they are likely to provide up to $71 million for interchange work to relieve congestion on the Ventura and Golden State freeways.

California Transportation Commission member David Fleming said he expects at least three interchange projects and possibly a fourth to win funding when the commission divvies up $1.1 billion for major projects later this year.

``I have a great deal of confidence that at least three of the four projects will get on the list,'' said Fleming. ``It looks very promising.''

He, like others, pointed to the expected huge growth in entertainment employment in Burbank and Glendale - jumping from 26,000 jobs in 1997 to a projected 55,000 in 2010 - as a major reason to back the improvements.

``That's a lot of jobs and an enormous amount of money in this economy,'' said Fleming. ``It's important we take care of it.''

The high-level interest in the projects has been gratifying to local officials such as Glendale Mayor Larry Zarian. The officials are trying to accommodate studio expansions that have turned the two towns into the new home of Hollywood.

``We're always reacting to things, but we know ABC will have 400 employees (at its new studio), DreamWorks (new animation studio) will have 1,000 and Disney just bought 100 acres that it's going to develop. Burbank has 4 (million) to 5 million square feet of office space coming in,'' said Zarian. ``We've got to do these projects.''

Without the improvements, traffic projections show that the freeways will become dangerously congested in coming years as exiting cars back up at the off-ramps, said Hal Suetsugu, Zarian's transportation deputy.

``In the next 10 years, the ramps will be so inadequate that it will be unsafe to be in the right (most) lanes of the freeway, because they'll be so congested,'' said Suetsugu.

One project would add a westbound on-ramp to the Ventura Freeway around Hollywood Way in Burbank, said Mark Yamarone, a Burbank principal transportation planner.

Though a westbound ramp already exists in that area, with Warner Brothers, Disney and NBC studios close by and Burbank Airport not far away, it already is heavily used, Yamarone said. That project would cost an estimated $5 million.

``This would be one more access point for people trying to get to the studios and the airport,'' Yamarone said.

Another project would improve the exit ramps along San Fernando Road off the Ventura Freeway, feeding traffic into a Glendale redevelopment area where DreamWorks SKG is planning a huge new animation studio, Yamarone said.

That project also is expected to ease traffic trying to get from the eastbound Ventura Freeway to the northbound Golden State Freeway. Currently, there is no direct connection, forcing drivers to wind through Burbank residential areas to get back on the Golden State Freeway. That project would cost an estimated $15.2 million.

The third project would improve the on- and off-ramps on Western Avenue at the Golden State in Glendale. It would cost $22 million.

The three projects are considered highly likely to make the funding list when Caltrans and the California Transportation Commission finish their priority-setting process in June, Fleming said.

Not everybody is sold on the projects, even in the two cities.

Glendale Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg, for instance, said the San Fernando Road improvements will force the relocation of the city's recycling center so that traffic from the Ventura Freeway can be dumped into the redevelopment area where DreamWorks' new animation studio is about to open and KABC-TV (Channel 7) is relocating.

``I have no objection to improving anything, but what is it doing to our existing facilities,'' Bremberg said. ``Who's going to pay for it and what (other project) is not going to be done? No one's answered those questions yet.''

The politically powerful studios aren't getting a free ride, supporters said. The projects in Burbank, for instance, are partially financed by millions of dollars in local mitigation fees the studios paid in exchange for the right to expand their operations.

Burbank Councilman Phil McConkey said the Walt Disney Co. is financing nearly half the $53,000 study costs for the two projects at Western and San Fernando.

The studios' involvement has been crucial in the projects' political viability and visibility as well, McConkey said.

``It has helped tremendously to have the studios with us on this one,'' McConkey said. ``They are the 900-pound gorillas of this world at the moment, and when they speak, Sacramento and Washington and everyone else listens.''

The fourth proposed interchange, linking Empire Avenue near Burbank Airport to San Fernando Road, is trailing the others because it didn't have important planning documents completed as quickly, said Pete Hathaway, deputy director of the California Transportation Commission.

Though it could receive state backing this year, it is more likely to get support in the next funding cycle two years from now, several officials said.

``That horse didn't get out of the gate at the same time as the others,'' Fleming said.

The $29 million proposal would extend Empire from its current dead end at Victory Place, going below-ground on former Lockheed property by the airport that is now being redeveloped, Yamarone said.

Empire would dip under neighboring railroad tracks as well, then link up with San Fernando Road near its Golden State underpass. The project also would change San Fernando Road's connections onto the interstate there.

``I think the projects are needed out there regardless of studio involvement,'' said the MTA's Bob Cashin, a deputy executive officer for planning. ``The whole Route 5 corridor up there needs work. The interchanges aren't geometrically up to standards now.''

If the Transportation Commission agrees to provide funding in June, work on one or more of the projects could begin 18 months later, officials said.

Carolyn Berlin, a member of Burbank's Planning Board who lives in the city's southeast end, welcomed the projects but said she'd like to see more being done in the heart of the Media District itself along the Ventura Freeway.

``It's unfortunate they're not focusing on NBC, Warner's and Disney,'' said Berlin. ``All three have 20-year master plans and will have huge growth in traffic as well as jobs. The traffic is going to be really unbelievable.''

Despite the area's longstanding freeway problems, the two cities had had little luck for years in getting funding to fix them, officials said.

But now, with the rising economic importance of the region's entertainment business, the projects have undergone a political makeover that has generated much more interest.

The projects now are glitzy enough to attract the attention of state officials who rank them in political and economic importance along with only a handful of proposals statewide.

FREEWAY IMPROVEMENTS

These four intersections in Burbank and Glendale are drawing state funding interest because of their expected impact on traffic caused by the many fast-growing movie studios in the area.

-- Empire Avenue would be extended under the railroad tracks to San Fernando Road at the GoldWen State Freeway. On and off-ramps from San Fernando would be reconfigured also.

-- The Hollywood Way area would have an additional westbound on-ramp to the Ventura Freeway at Olive Street or Alameda Avenue, west of existing ramp.

-- San Fernando off-ramps at the Ventura Freeway would be improved as would eastbound connection to northbound Golden State Freeway.

-- Western Avenue on- and off-ramps at the Golden State Freeway would be improved.

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Map

MAP: FREEWAY IMPROVEMENTS (see text)

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