Transportation officials are planning a whistle-stop tour through the North County region this week to discuss plans to improve Highway 14.  In addition to Thursday’s visit to Lancaster City Hall and a stop Tuesday in Palmdale, the Metro outreach team is coming to Santa Clarita on Saturday morning.  The idea behind the work is to improve safety by alleviating some of the gridlock commuters experience during rush hour on the road that connects one of the nation’s most heavily trafficked freeways, Interstate 5, in Sylmar with Interstate 395 in the Mojave Desert.  The current round of improvement for Highway 14 is one of several being looked at for the corridor, but this project specifically is looking at the stretch from Newhall Avenue to Angeles Forest Highway.  Using Caltrans data, Metro planners have put together several options intended to increase capacity and improve the level of service on the roads.  “The purpose of this is really to get public feedback and to get community input on, kind of the scope and the breadth of the study we put forward, and then we can start to really talk about details and start to talk about solutions,” said Anthony Crump, executive officer for community projects at Metro. “But this is the beginning of that process. It’s not the end of the process, and it’s a process that will continue for a little while, but we’re excited to kick things off.”  Metro officials also acknowledged community concerns have been circulated regarding state laws, mentioning Senate Bill 743, which requires multimodal transportation options be evaluated for such projects.  “It just means that the breadth of options that we look at is slightly expanded to include multimodal options as well,” said Robert Machuca, Metro deputy executive officer for community projects, adding that the community’s feedback will be helpful in assessing the demand for those types of transportation elements.  He said where possible, the lane additions will be made on the problem areas, or areas where the level of service is most problematic, as opposed to a traditional lane expansion.  “One of the alternatives that we have is the ability to reduce the merging issues that we do have along the corridor, and it’s one of the alternatives that we have with regards to closing the gaps,” Manchuca added. “So it’s where lanes are moving from three lanes to two lanes, we’re looking at filling in those gaps.”  That’s one of a broad range of alternatives to be discussed, he said.  Some of the studied alternatives, which would be paid for by local taxpayer revenue generated by Measures R and N, prioritized looking at the southbound traffic.  A 2021 Caltrans report looked at three projects for a buildout scenario on Highway 14.   On the southbound side, the agency looked at adding a lane on Highway 14 from “Newhall Avenue Undercrossing (PM 27.0)” to the “Via Princessa Undercrossing (PM 30.772),” which would be nearly 4 miles; and from Sand Canyon Road (PM 33.423) to Agua Dulce Canyon Road (PM 40.034), which would be a little over 6.5 miles.   The north side, from the “Newhall Avenue Undercrossing” to Golden Valley Road, would receive a lane, a distance of about 2.675 miles, according to the preliminary plans.   Saturday’s meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon at The Centre, 20880 Centre Pointe Parkway. The public input period is expected to last until Dec. 1.  More information on some of the other alternatives being looked at and discussed for the project is available on a web page Metro created for the North Los Angeles County Safety & Mobility Improvements Project: metro.net/projects/14safety.  The post Metro holding meeting Saturday on Highway 14 project  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.