Caltrans Turns Deaf Ear to Freeway Noise

* Homeowners living adjacent to the [Simi Valley] Freeway have about had it with the noise pollution emanating from the exorbitant number of cars and trucks flowing through our valley.

Caltrans has continually stonewalled a committee of homeowners by offering every describable reason for not giving homeowners the relief needed by supplying sound walls. I have written to Gov. Pete Wilson, but he just turned my letter over to Caltrans. That is like asking the fox to watch the chicken house. Sen. Cathie Wright’s office sets up meetings with Caltrans. This entails “holding our coats” while we battle it out with Caltrans. Sen. Wright herself has not entered into ameliorating this problem.

In our last meeting, one Caltrans official made a very stupid statement, saying that most of our noise is caused by the influx of new residents. In other words, we must be inundated by new residents who own those huge 20- and 24-wheel semis that are rolling through our valley. With statements like that, you can readily see what we are up against.

From every indication, it seems that we in Simi Valley will not be able to receive sound walls until the year 2008 at the earliest. By that time, some of us will have met our maker--or, if much younger, will have been institutionalized in an insane asylum.

Well, folks, so much for our duly elected officials who are the first to vote for their “perks” and pay raises (usually after midnight), but couldn’t care less for the constituents who put them in office.

JACK GOODMAN

Simi Valley