Makeover Planned for Valley Interchange

Caltrans officials on Tuesday unveiled plans for nearly $46 million in improvements to the interchange of the Ventura and San Diego freeways in the San Fernando Valley.

Currently, drivers using the Ventura Boulevard onramp to get onto the northbound San Diego Freeway have to weave through two lanes of traffic merging onto the Ventura Freeway, creating a bottleneck and safety hazard.

By building a tunnel that will channel cars under the Ventura and directly onto the San Diego Freeway, officials hope to eliminate the weaving, improve motorists’ safety and reduce traffic.

“The beauty of the project is it reduces the congestion by 10%, reduces traffic accidents and improves the traffic flow and overall safety of commuters,” said Kirk Patel, chief of Caltrans’ west branch.

In 2003, Caltrans ranked the interchange as the second-busiest in the state, with 573,500 vehicles per day. The link of the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways in Los Angeles was the busiest, with 576,000 vehicles.

In the next few weeks, the Sepulveda Boulevard exit on the northbound San Diego and the Ventura and Sepulveda boulevard onramps will be closed for the start of construction, project manager Ed Andraos said. Any freeway lane closures, he added, will occur during off-peak hours.

The Ventura Boulevard onramp to the San Diego Freeway will be closed permanently because of the highway’s widening in that section.

Deborah Harris, a spokesperson for Caltrans District 7, said other options would be even more inconvenient for drivers. “The other alternative is to close the whole interchange and do the construction,” she said.

The so-called Gap Closure/Flyunder project also will extend an existing lane on the northbound San Diego Freeway past the Greenleaf Street offramp, taking it to the Ventura Freeway connector lane.

Construction, which started Monday, is scheduled for completion in spring 2007.

“We are very pleased that this project is now moving forward,” said Steve Finnegan of the Automobile Club of Southern California. Although officials estimated that the project would take 32 months, they awarded the contract to Steve Rados from Santa Ana, in part, because he said he could finish it in 23 months.

Andraos said the agency would offer Rados financial incentives if onramps and offramps were completed early. If the Sepulveda Boulevard offramp opens before the seven-month deadline, Rados will receive $8,500 per day, with a maximum of $600,000.

The contractor will also get $5,000 a day each, with a maximum of $300,000 per project, if the onramp to the Ventura Freeway reopens before the 15-month deadline and the new northbound onramp to the San Diego Freeway opens before the 26-month deadline

If he does not meet deadlines, Andraos said, Rados will be required to pay the same amounts per day to the state, with no maximum limit.

Motorists can check the Caltrans website for updates on construction: www.dot.ca.gov/dist 07.

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Times staff writer John Spano contributed to this report.