Landscaping of Ramps Delayed

State officials have reaffirmed their promise to landscape ramps around the Artesia Freeway, but they may not get around to it until 2003.

The city and Caltrans signed a three-year cooperative agreement in 1994 to provide some eye-soothing landscaping along the freeway from Stanton to Knott avenues, city Public Works Director Donald K. Jensen said.

City officials at that time agreed to kick in $20,000 to the $400,000 effort because the freeway ramps are considered to be the “gateway” to the city’s tourist corridor.

Then the state decided to widen the freeway, adding a carpool lane and improving the onramps and offramps from the Orange Freeway interchange to the Los Angeles County line.

That decision delayed the landscaping project.

The problem now is that the 1994 agreement runs out in June, Jensen said at this week’s City Council meeting. And the state asked that it be extended through 2003.

“I know this is bureaucracy, but can’t we put in a clause that they have to do it sooner?” Councilman Jack W. Mauller asked.

Jensen said that would be difficult. After some grumbling the council voted unanimously to comply with the state request.

But Caltrans spokesman Albert Miranda said Tuesday that the promised landscape may not be postponed for quite that far into the next century.

“The widening project should be completed right around 2000,” said Miranda, adding that the landscaping would likely be done promptly thereafter.