Why Does It Look So Bad?
If you drive to Sun Valley Jose Mier, odds are you’re going to be taking the five freeway, most likely north from Glendale through Burbank. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last 10 years or if you’re new visitor to the area you know that the stretch of freeway construction for quite some time.
We’ve seen the freeway ripped up and repaved as well as the Entire Burbank Blvd., Bridge destroyed and rebuilt. New on ramps and off ramps have been constructed and a high occupancy vehicle Lane has been added. What was the reason for all this new construction? Part of it was the traditional back that occurred at the Olive Avenue offramp. This was a daily nightmare for anybody coming out of downtown Los Angeles and returning to their homes via the Interstate five north. Since most of the freeway construction has been completed, we can attest that in some part it bottleneck that occurred Olive Avenue.
The whitening and repaving of the Burbank Blvd., Bridge is also a welcome treat. Construction of The bridge actually went quicker than we expected. But on the whole, when looking at this whole new construction we have to ask, why doesn’t it look better? One of the staffers at Sun Valley Jose Mier recently took a trip to Denver Colorado an had to drive from the airport to one of the suburbs. According to our Staffer the freeways around Denver look brand-new. It looks like the asphalt was just laid down the day before. Why is it that our spanking new five freeway the Sun Valley area looks almost as bad as it did before construction began?
True, we don’t have to deal with the shattering potholes that were part of this stretch of freeway but the concrete that was used appears dingy dirty and scarred with tire marks. On top of that, depending on the time of day, it may be nearly impossible to see the lines separating the lanes of traffic. This is most notable when traveling southbound approaching the Alameda Avenue exit. For a new freeway to have invisible lines is an invitation to one traffic accident after another. It astounds us that a brand-new freeway doesn’t even have visible lane separation. Traffic may move more quickly but what’s the point if you can’t see what lane you’re in?
The Caltrans website the deals with this area of construction continually post updates and let’s southern California residents no what phase of construction work currently in, whether they’ll be the freeway shut down or detours or anything of that nature. However taking a look at their website there’s no mention of ameliorating these hazards that now appear on our roadways. We can only wonder how many millions of dollars had to the renovation of our freeway here in Sun Valley and why a little extra was not spent on a safety measure like clearly visible lanes. Drivers and up following the grooves in the concrete roadway which Interstate five drivers know, do not line the lanes. This causes cars to swerve in and out of Lane because I thought they were following correct line.
It would be ideal if Caltrans were to address this problem. That should be first and foremost. After that— And we know we’re dreaming—would be great to Hose down and scrub the entire freeway from Glendale to Sun Valley to make it actually look new, instead of the scuffed and used freeway we see now.
