Sound and Fury Mark Pleas for Freeway Walls

Along the San Fernando Valley’s freeways, the clamor for sound walls is getting louder.

Dozens of neighborhoods are pressuring and pleading for the block walls that overnight can turn a rumbling residential area into sylvan silence.

On the theory that the walls are allocated at least partly on the basis of political clout, some groups are seeking to generate as much heat and noise as possible as they push and pull for a wall.

“We’re convinced that political pressure plays some role,” said Richard Tyler, a Sherman Oaks resident who heads a group pushing for a sound wall on the west side of the San Diego Freeway south of Ventura Boulevard.

“If we had a state legislator or a top Caltrans official living here, we’d have a wall by now.”

The state Department of Transportation, bombarded with requests and demands for the walls, insists it plays no favorites.

Caltrans has compiled a list of 220 neighborhoods in the state that qualify for sound walls.

To get on the list, noise measured in a back yard, patio or balcony must average 67 decibels--about the same as loud talking or a relatively quiet vacuum cleaner--for 10 minutes.

Once a neighborhood gets on the list by meeting that minimum standard, it is ranked by a formula that takes into account the noise level, the cost of building a particular wall, the projected noise decrease and the number of homes affected.

Priority Policy

A Caltrans spokesman in Sacramento said the agency builds walls on the statewide priority list “without regard to county or city, to the political weight of local legislators or to the wealth and influence of the affected neighborhoods.”

But at the present spending rate, the locations on the list will not be finished for at least 25 years, Caltrans officials say.

“People who live next to noisy freeways don’t like to hear that,” said Caltrans engineer William Minter, who is the self-described “keeper of the list” in Southern California.

“They all suffer from noise and they all want walls,” said Minter, whose duties include overseeing noise measurements and explaining Caltrans’ sound wall allocation formula to sometimes hostile community groups. “I wish I could promise them all walls.”

Unlike established freeways, new or newly widened freeways routinely get sound walls because federal noise standards prohibit a significant worsening of the environment.

That’s little solace to communities where freeway noise keeps rising as a result of increasing traffic volume, rather than new construction.

After years of taking measurements in Tyler’s affluent neighborhood, Minter recently announced to a community meeting that a sound reading taken at 5 a.m. was above the minimum--the first time the neighborhood had met the standard.

But smiles turned to frowns when he told them that after cost, projected noise reduction and the number of homes affected were factored in, they were ranked 208th in the state, and would have to wait about 25 years for a sound wall.

“I thought I was bringing them good news to tell them they were finally on the list,” said Minter, “but they were quite unfriendly once they learned how long the wait was.”

“We were outraged,” said Tyler. “What he was telling us was that some of the older residents of this area would not be alive when the wall is built.”

Residents complained to Minter about sleepless nights, about diesel fumes wafting through kitchens, about unusable back yards and about noisy truck gears grinding as drivers jockey their rigs up the Sepulveda Pass.

In an effort to find a still noisier time of the day, Minter has agreed to re-test the area at 8 p.m. on a week day.

Minter said there is a “very slight possibility the neighborhood’s ranking will climb a little” on the priority list as a result of the night-time measurement.

No Change in Rank

More likely the 8 p.m. reading will be lower, he said, but it won’t lower the area’s ranking, because the rank is based on the worst condition.

Minter and community leaders rule out taking readings during peak commuting hours, saying that growing congestion slows traffic and lowers the noise level.

In Minter’s view, the increased agitation for sound walls stems from widespread publicity about gridlock and increased traffic, by the gradual increase in speeds on freeways as the 55 m.p.h. speed limit is increasingly disregarded and by the construction of sound walls on new or widened freeways, which whets the appetites of others under siege from freeway noise.

“Whenever a new wall is built,” he said, “my phone starts ringing with calls from nearby people who want a wall too.”

And the appetite for sound walls is increasing at a time when funds for the walls are not going up.

Since Caltrans began building walls on existing freeways in 1973, the annual spending on the walls has ranged from a high of $90 million under former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. to zero in the first years of Gov. George Deukmejian’s administration.

Other Concerns

In contrast to their predecessors, Deukmejian’s appointees to the California Transportation Commission have placed a higher priority on projects that relieve congestion or improve safety and a lower priority on landscaping and sound wall construction.

In recent years, sound wall spending has ranged from $6 million to $9 million a year.

A $1-billion bond measure narrowly defeated by state voters in the June 7 primary would have raised sound wall spending to $15 million a year.

Now, a bill that would raise the level to $15 million a year has passed the Senate and is awaiting an Aug. 3 hearing before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

Because of widespread budget cuts, the legislation faces an “uncertain future,” said Lynda Roper, legislative aide to Assemblyman Tom Bane (D-Tarzana).

Despite the insistence of Caltrans officials that they adhere strictly to the priority list, there have been a handful of sound walls built without regard to rank.

In 1985, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) and two other legislators succeeded in earmarking federal offshore oil revenues for sound walls in their districts.

Some Jobs Completed

As a result, a sound wall is nearing completion on the San Diego Freeway between Roscoe Boulevard and Plummer Street--an area that ranked about 200th on the priority list.

Another of the three sound walls built with federal oil funds was not even on the state priority list.

Katz, chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, said he secured funds for the $4.4-million project because his job is “looking out for my constituents.”

Jim Kelley, who has lived since 1949 adjacent to the 405 Freeway just north of Victory Boulevard, grumbled in a recent interview, “We should have got our wall before those guys up the road did.”

Kelley’s neighborhood is ranked 136th, and faces a wait of at least 10 years, according to Caltrans estimates.

Minter said that he “gets a lot of questions about Katz’s wall, and it is not an easy thing to explain.”

He tells skeptical community groups that the wall in Katz’s district was not built with state gas tax money, and therefore its construction will not make their wait any longer.

It’s a subtlety lost on many.

A Job for Militants

“To me, it’s evidence that the priority list is not inviolate,” said Tyler, who heads the 405 Freeway group south of Ventura Boulevard.

“To me, it means we have to get more militant.”

In Santa Fe Springs, the city became so discouraged by the long wait that it paid for a sound wall under a provision of state law that requires Caltrans to reimburse a city once the project reaches the top of the priority list.

Minter said that similar efforts are being organized by city officials in Norwalk and Long Beach.

In Toluca Lake, a group of residents disheartened by the long wait is seeking to form an assessment district to pay for their own sound wall on the north side of the Ventura Freeway between Clybourn Street and Cahuenga Boulevard.

But in two years of organizing, said Richard E. Llewellyn II, the group has been slowed by a “painfully slow city government, although I still think we’re going to put this thing together.”

Llewellyn said that while most of his 225 neighbors have signed non-binding petitions favoring the assessment district, the group has not been able to secure firm commitments because the per-home cost has not yet been determined.

The proposed assessment district must receive the Los Angeles City Council’s final approval. The council usually approves assessment districts unless a majority of property owners protest at a public hearing.

Formula for District

No assessment district has ever been created in the city for sound-wall construction, said Gil Farias of the city Public Works Department. Farias has drawn up a proposed assessment formula for the Toluca Lake group that is based on distance from the freeway and lot size.

If the effort fails, Llewellyn said he will probably move because “the noise takes too much of the pleasure out of living here.”

Kelley, in an interview conducted next to a Caltrans noise meter that registered 68.6 decibels, opined that after 30 years of freeway noise, the din becomes “sort of like kissing a cow, it doesn’t get good, but you do get used to it.”

But at 74, he is retired from driving a big rig truck and planning to move in the next few years.

Might his next home be next to a freeway?

His smile turning to a scowl, he shot back: “Are you crazy? No Way. Never.”