Car Accidents Lead to Call for Canoga Avenue Barricade

A group of Woodland Hills homeowners--upset by what they say is an intolerable number of fatal accidents on their street--want to put the brakes on commuters using Canoga Avenue.

Members of Canoga Avenue Residents for Safety have launched a campaign to erect a permanent barrier at the southern end of the street so that it no longer connects Mulholland Drive and Ventura Boulevard.

In a petition to City Councilman Marvin Braude asking that the street be turned into a cul-de-sac, Gia B. Koontz, a founding member of CARS, wrote that “Canoga Avenue should be reclaimed by its residents” from speeding commuters who she said are “endangering their own lives as well as residents.”

But police say turning Canoga into a cul-de-sac would simply divert problems to other, more dangerous streets already choked with traffic. Although they are sympathetic to the homeowners who want a quiet, safe street, police say heavy traffic, speeding and accidents are not unique to Canoga Avenue.

“Canoga Avenue shares the problems of many other streets in the San Fernando Valley,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Dennis Zine. “If the answer is to erect cul-de-sacs, where do we stop?

“If everybody developed the concept that their street is a private street, what would you do with traffic? That is a public street paid for by public taxes,” he said. “Our answer is more responsible driving.”

A spokeswoman for Braude said the councilman will consider the proposal.

South of Ventura Boulevard, Canoga Avenue has the look and feel of a country road. Built in the mid-1920s by the original developer of Woodland Hills, the twisting, narrow street, lined with peppertrees and single-family dwellings, lacks sidewalks and shoulders.

In the past four years on that stretch of the street, there have been at least two fatal accidents and one that caused serious injuries. In a fourth incident, a 5-year-old boy playing outside his home was knocked across the street when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver. The child was not seriously injured.

Most recently, on March 25, 19-year-old Carlos Ramirez was killed when he lost control of his car, struck a fire hydrant and a tree, then came to rest on a resident’s front lawn.

Neighbors “watched the life drain from his body as we stood under torrents of water from the broken hydrant and listened to the unnerving sound of his crashed automobile horn,” which blared continuously for half an hour afterward, Koontz said.

That experience, she said, galvanized neighbors to try to have their street turned into a cul-de-sac.

“This is the third time I have had to assist in an emergency crash in front of my home,” she said. “I am ready to move, but I don’t want to.”

In July, 1988, after a yearlong campaign by members of CARS, Los Angeles transportation officials lowered the speed limit on Canoga between Dumetz Road and Mulholland from 30 m.p.h. to 25 m.p.h.

During that campaign, neighborhood leaders confronted city officials with results of a poll of 73 area families. Three-fourths of those surveyed had witnessed recent traffic accidents near their homes; two-thirds had suffered property damage, including uprooted trees, shrubs and mailboxes, as a result of car accidents. But Koontz and other neighbors said the reduction in the speed limit has not stopped speeding on the street.

“I lie in bed at night and I hear cars going 80, and I am not exaggerating,” said Marilyn Vail, another supporter of the cul-de-sac proposal.

Vail said most accidents on the street are caused by commuters who use it as a shortcut from Mulholland to Ventura Boulevard. Local residents, they said, drive more slowly and carefully. “The people who live here are not the people who cause the accidents,” she said.

Koontz believes that she has the support of the area residents, but to be sure, this weekend she is circulating a petition to 200 homes in the neighborhood asking for opinions on the cul-de-sac proposal.

But Los Angeles Police Officer Tim Wells, who patrols Canoga Avenue, said the speed limit reduction has been effective. He said fewer people are cited for speeding now than in previous years, and police radar has shown that the average speed on the street has dropped.

While Wells admits that traffic on Canoga Avenue has increased over past years, he said many of the cars come from housing developments just south of Mulholland, in areas next to Canoga Avenue. He said those residents have a right to use the street.

Los Angeles firefighters oppose turning the street into a cul-de-sac because it is their primary access route to housing tracts south of Mulholland.

“Anything that delays our response time means that fires are getting bigger, and that people who need emergency services wouldn’t get it,” said Los Angeles City Fire Department Capt. John Holloway. “It is certainly the biggest street around” for access to “a number of residences and small streets.”

But Koontz said the barricade at the end of Canoga could be an iron gate that firefighters could open with a remote control.

Vail called a barrier “a necessary thing to preserve life.”