405 widening plan set (for now)

State transportation officials said Wednesday that they would demolish two homes and create a controversial wildlife path on an expanded Skirball Center Drive bridge over the 405 freeway as part of a project to widen the freeway through the Sepulveda Pass.

The $950-million project will add a northbound carpool lane on the east side of the freeway along Sepulveda Boulevard between Montana Avenue and Moraga Drive, and between Getty Center Drive and the northbound Getty Center offramp.

To accommodate the project, Caltrans is purchasing six homes near the freeway. Two will be torn down and four will be resold at the end of construction, said agency spokeswoman Judy Gish.

Plans include $455,000 to widen the Skirball bridge by five feet to allow wildlife to cross the Sepulveda Pass without using the freeway.

— Patrick McGreevy

Comments

[Thushara]

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[John McNary]

What a bunch of know-it-all idiots.

For your information, wildlife is very clever at finding places like this bridge to cross freeways. Unlike humans, they don't need signs.

Cougars, for example, have been tracked crossing back and forth over the 118 freeway using the Box Springs Road overpass, a little-used road in Santa Susana pass.

One cougar with a radio collar was tracked all the way from Point Mugu to Mount Saint Mary's College (just west of the Getty Museum) before he turned around.

The bridge is an important link -- not for cougars -- but for other animals that need to be linked between the wild areas of the Hollywood Hills to the outside world. Without that link, inbreeding and stagnation. Kind of like Fox News.

[Thrasher]

Freeway expansion and a $500k wildlife lane. These are such wonderfully clueless approaches to our city's traffic problems, it just makes me smile and shake my head a little :)

[Thrasher]

Freeway expansion and a $500k wildlife lane. These are such wonderfully clueless approaches to our city's traffic problems, it just makes me smile and shake my head a little :)

[Thrasher]

Freeway expansion and a $500k wildlife lane. These are such wonderfully clueless approaches to our city's traffic problems, it just makes me smile and shake my head a little :)

[Denis]

I love that we add a wildlife-pool lane as well. How about implementing some concession pricing on the animal bridge to mitigate the costs? "Plans include $455,000 to widen the Skirball bridge by five feet to allow wildlife to cross the Sepulveda Pass without using the freeway." - which wildlife is crossing the 405? And what is the current survival rate?

[Richard]

How will the wildlife know to use the bridge?
once they find the bridge how will they know to use the section designated for them?

i'm just curious how this works because I'm pretty sure animals don't read signs. :)

[Dan W.]

Freeway expansion is a waste of money.

It only encourages more cars, and the car culture as we have known it is Los Angeles is economically and environmentally unsustainable. That money would be much better spent building a light-rail line from LAX up/through the Sepulveda Pass, up to Metrolink, and building the Santa Monica Blvd. rail alignment from North Hollywood to Century as per Alternative #9 in the MTA's Westside Transit Corridor Extension Project.

These two lines would allow a viable alternative to traveling to/from the San Fernando Valley to/from the Westside.

Don't waste any more money on freeway expansion.

[Dan W.]

Freeway expansion is a waste of money.

It only encourages more cars, and the car culture as we have known it is Los Angeles is economically and environmentally unsustainable. That money would be much better spent building a light-rail line from LAX up/through the Sepulveda Pass, up to Metrolink, and building the Santa Monica Blvd. rail alignment from North Hollywood to Century as per Alternative #9 in the MTA's Westside Transit Corridor Extension Project.

These two lines would allow a viable alternative to traveling to/from the San Fernando Valley to/from the Westside.

Don't waste any more money on freeway expansion.