Osage Neighbors Association

LAX Connector Road & Ring Road

405 to Arbor Vitae

----- Original Message -----
From: "Denny Schneider"
To: "Harry Rose"
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2001 10:03 PM
Subject: Arbor Vitae Exit on 405


From Today's Dailybreeze:

Ring around the airport
$119 million Caltrans project would ease traffic jams on 405

By Ian Gregor
STAFF WRITER


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"We are going to save lives, reduce travel costs, save time and make people
happier ..." - John Vassiliades, the Caltrans engineer who is managing a
proposed freeway extension that would improve traffic to LAX





Caltrans is planning to build an interchange connecting the San Diego (405)
Freeway with Arbor Vitae Street to reduce congestion on the heavily traveled
interstate and feed into a ring road around LAX that is part of a proposed
airport expansion.

A Caltrans report says the $119million project is needed because
interchanges to the north and south are operating above capacity, creating
traffic jams that spill back onto the freeway. In addition to improving
access to Los Angeles International Airport, the project will make it easier
to get to and from Hollywood Park, the Great Western Forum and Centinela
Hospital Medical Center, the report says.

Construction on the first of two phases - the $55million southern half of
the interchange - is scheduled to begin in May 2003 and take one year, said
John Vassiliades, the Caltrans engineer who is managing the project.

"We believe this interchange is warranted because it will reduce the amount
of congestion, the amount of pollution, the amount of acci dents and the
amount of waiting while people are stranded on the freeway," Vassiliades
said. "We're going to save lives, reduce travel costs, save time and make
people happier who are traveling to LAX."

Some people, however, believe the interchange is actually part of the
proposed $12billion LAX expansion. The ring road, which will connect to an
expressway linking the airport with the San Diego Freeway, could not be
built without the interchange, they say.

They argue that the interchange's traffic, noise and pollution effects on
surrounding communities should be evaluated in the airport's CALTRANS/A5
Caltrans Plan, where they would be considered along with the impacts of
other big expansion projects.

"This interchange project is nothing more than Caltrans operating as the
agent for LAX," said Mike Stevens, president of an Inglewood group called
LAX Expansion No!, or LAXEN.

"In my opinion you have a conspiracy - a conspiracy against the poor and
working class children of Inglewood, Lennox and south Los Angeles who don't
have the economic ability to fight back."

Nearly forgotten in the debate are the people whose properties Caltrans will
have to acquire. Both phases of the project will eat up 46 homes and seven
businesses in an area of Inglewood bounded by the freeway, West 95th Street,
Ash Avenue and Ashwood Park.

More than half of these people will be left in limbo for years because
Caltrans won't acquire their properties until the second phase begins, and
nobody knows when that will be. In the meantime, they say, it will be
impossible to find a private buyer given the looming project.

"My life is at a total standstill because I don't know what's going on,"
said Jerry Johnson, 42, who owns a home on Buckthorne Street adjacent to the
freeway and wants to move to Northern California.

"If they're going to do it, I'd prefer they do it now rather than put me off
for two, three, five years."

The interchange has been in the planning stages for two decades, but is
generating considerable public opposition because of the timing of its
funding. Skeptics note that Caltrans failed to get money for it in 1981 and
1994. Only recently, as the airport expansion plan neared completion, did
the Metropolitan Transportation Authority determine that the first phase
warranted funding, they say.

This will include a northbound off-ramp from the San Diego Freeway onto
Arbor Vitae, and on-ramps from both sides of Arbor Vitae to the southbound
freeway, Vassiliades said. It will require Caltrans to initially acquire
about 20 properties.

The interchange will ease congestion at the Century, Manchester and La
Tijera boulevard interchanges, allow Century (105) Freeway traffic to flow
straight into LAX and smooth traffic flow and reduce accidents on the San
Diego Freeway, which is used by about 287,000 vehicles a day in each
direction, the Caltrans re port says. It also will feed into the proposed
ring road.

The cities of Inglewood and Los Angeles plan to widen their sections of
Arbor Vitae in conjunction with the interchange project.

El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon, a leading LAX expansion opponent, said he
believes the project was going nowhere until airport officials began
lobbying Caltrans to revive it.

"They had 24 years to put it in and never did," Gordon said. "Why do it now?
Solely because it's the access point to the ring road."

Vassiliades said Caltrans is developing the project in conjunction with the
LAX expansion but that it is not part of the airport plan. It will help
solve traffic problems that exist today in addition to meshing with the
proposed expansion, he said.

Caltrans concluded that the project will not have significant effects on the
surrounding environment.

The interchange, in fact, will cut pollution in surrounding neighborhoods by
reducing the number of vehicles stopped on the freeway, and dampen freeway
noise with a new 14-foot sound wall, Vassiliades said.

LAXEN's attempt to crush the project "is not going to solve anything,"
Vassiliades said. "In fact, it will deteriorate the quality of life
altogether."

Stevens, however, said the interchange will pump more noise and exhaust
fumes into surrounding neighborhoods by spilling more vehicles onto Arbor
Vitae and other surface streets.

"What it is a violation of environmental justice because the people
they're impacting are people who are expected to suffer the burdens of
(expansion) so other communities will benefit," Stevens said.


Publish Date:Sunday January 07