The community asked and your Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council delivered. The long-awaited Vineyard Porter Ranch Drive crossing is in operation this week after several years of discussions, design, planning and construction.

This intersection is part of the Safety and Traffic mitigation plan that was initially discussed with Shapell in 2016 by PRNC Land Use Committee Chair, David Balen, and progressed through the efforts of the Public Safety & Traffic Committee early 2017 onwards till all approvals obtained and construction today is complete. Public Safety Committee Chair, Asaad Alnajjar, spoke on behalf of PRNC and the community at the Board of Public Works on its last meeting September 25, 2020 urging all city entities to expedite the process explaining the Traffic Safety mitigation needs, addressing speeding and addressing the tree mitigation plan and allow the delivery of this intersection to Porter Ranch.

This intersection is a multi-purpose mini project designed to address the excessive downhill speeding along Porter Ranch Drive, North of Rinaldi and to allow safe vehicular and pedestrian crossing between Porter Ranch Town Center and the Vineyard. The Traffic Lane configuration, traffic study and new median configuration was designed and discussed with the preservation of the existing tree canopies in mind and including careful traffic planning for the lights timing cycle to allow smart calculation of the vehicular volume as well as with adequate pedestrian crossing time and adjusting to synchronize the traffic lights accordingly.

Special thanks go to the Shapell Team for their ongoing efforts for a beautiful safe Porter Ranch and to previous CD 12 Chief of Staff Nicole Bernson for her contributions to kicking off the initial process efficiently and also to the previous Councilman Greig Smith for moving along the project in early 2019. Special thanks to the Board of Public Works for the smooth approval of BPW-2020-0580 and for listening to the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council’s needs. Also, special thanks to recently retired LADOT Traffic Engineer Mr. Ken Firoozmand whom worked hard for many months to get all the LADOT plans approved promptly and thanks and appreciation to General Manager Adel Hagekhalil and the Urban Forestry Division staff in Street Services “StreetsLA” for their excellent planning and delivery.

Final thanks go and to all the City of Los Angeles engineers and staff and to the Porter Ranch community members whom contributed to making this dream a reality.