Questions and answers about your commute : Motorists May Pay Price for Signs Ignored

Dear Traffic Talk:

I live at the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village on Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Chatsworth. At the end of the eastbound off-ramp of the Simi Valley (118) Freeway onto Topanga Canyon Boulevard, there are two signs that say “No Right Turn Between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.” There is also a stop painted on the ground on Topanga Canyon Boulevard in front of the entrance to the 118.

No one stops at the stop, and very few pay any mind to the signs on the off-ramp. How can we get Los Angeles police to put an officer and four or five volunteers there to write tickets? The city would get rich, and we the residents could get in and out of the park safely.

Martin Cohen

Chatsworth

Dear Reader:

Los Angeles Police Department officers will soon be watching the intersection. We passed along your letter to the LAPD Devonshire Division’s complaint officer, whose primary duty is to investigate recurring traffic problems.

Residents who notice recurring violations can call the complaint officer at their local police station, said Sgt. Ron Ryan.

“People don’t obey signs anymore, anywhere,” Ryan said. “We’ll write some tickets and it should clear up--at least for a few weeks.”

Dear Traffic Talk:

I would like to find out if you know what is being built on the northbound 170 Hollywood Freeway between Sherman Way and Roscoe Boulevard. It appears to be a sound wall but I’m not sure, as I live directly across the freeway section being worked on and would feel silly stopping to ask the workers.

Also, do they plan to do the same on the southbound side of the freeway? If not, why not?

We have a small strip of park running parallel with the freeway behind our properties. However, that does not distance us from the noise and shakes that come from the traffic on this freeway at all hours of the day and night. The park strip is no larger than our back yards, and the so-called vegetation along the freeway has been pretty much wiped out directly behind my house by repeated accidents over the past several years.

Yvonne Smith

North Hollywood

Dear Reader:

Don’t feel bad--we didn’t stop and ask the workers about that construction project either. We spoke with Vincent Marino, an administrative assistant with Caltrans.

That is indeed a sound wall along the Hollywood Freeway in the area you’ve mentioned. It’s actually between Strathern Street and Whitsett Avenue, and workers installed it after freeway traffic was rerouted closer to the nearby residential area during a widening project.

Sound walls are normally placed along streets that generate at least 80 decibels of noise, a level higher than the 65 decibels generated by most traffic on a four-lane highway. A 12-foot-high wall has the potential to dampen up to 75% of the noise from a nearby freeway, Marino said.

Although there are no plans to install a sound wall on the southbound side of the freeway, public and private officials periodically request department personnel to recheck the decibel levels in an area to see if a sound wall is warranted.

Traffic Talk appears Fridays in The Times Valley Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic in the Valley. Please write to Traffic Talk, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted. To record your comments, call (818) 772-3303. Send fax letters to (818) 772-3385.