Fast Repairs : Beverly Glen Project Paves Way for Future

As cars whizzed nearby on a newly reopened roadway, city and county officials said Monday that a Sherman Oaks road project may hold the secret to speedier street repairs throughout Los Angeles in the future.

Officials said lessons learned during a $1.8-million storm drain and repaving project along a hilly section of Beverly Glen Boulevard will be applied to other road projects.

The busy cross-mountain roadway was reopened to traffic late Friday after workmen finished the drain installation and repaving project three weeks ahead of schedule.

When the project was launched June 20, some feared the work could take up to six months. There were predictions of gridlock for the estimated 25,000 commuters who use Beverly Glen Boulevard each day and warnings that 675 families who live next to the boulevard would be isolated by closed-off streets.

Those predictions failed to materialize.

Elaborate traffic-control procedures, unprecedented coordination between the city and the county and an aggressive incentive program for the project’s main contractor were credited with speeding up construction and eliminating potential problems.

Commuters were directed onto alternate routes by billboards, flyers and traffic officers. Temporary parking bans were placed on some nearby streets to provide extra traffic lanes for the displaced Beverly Glen motorists.

Planning Praised

Private security guards operated round-the-clock roadblocks, admitting homeowners who had been issued individual secret code numbers and windshield decals.

The extensive planning was praised by City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents the Sherman Oaks area. He conducted a symbolic ribbon cutting at Beverly Glen and Valley Vista boulevards on Monday morning.

“That paved the way for an unprecedented model program,” Yaroslavsky said. “This is really a great day.”

He said the city’s repaving job and the county’s drain installation originally were scheduled to be done separately, each requiring the closure of Beverly Glen for up to three months. In combining the projects, officials also rescheduled the work for the summertime, when there would be less traffic between the San Fernando Valley and UCLA.

County officials said the storm drain contractor received an $18,000 bonus for finishing the $1.4-million installation early. Had he taken longer than two months, he would have faced a $3,000 per day penalty, they said.

“This is one of the high points of my career,” said John Engeman, who has designed flood control projects for the county’s Department of Public Works for 18 years. “This is one of the smoothest projects I’ve ever seen.”

Engeman said his agency will consider use of secret access codes and guarded roadblocks on future projects, “even though it makes contract administration more difficult.”

Tom Conner, principal transportation engineer for the city’s Department of Transportation, said that the use of guards speeded up the project by giving construction crews elbow room needed to work faster.

The final word on the project came Monday from a nearby homeowner. It was not a word that street-repair crews are used to hearing.

“Thank you,” said Longview Valley Road resident Ruth Weiss. “It was really a delightful experience.”