In order to prevent or at least record the continuing car-bus crashes along the Valley Orange Line, the MTA has decided to install cameras at 12 intersections.
Yet one accident prone street will not be included, according to today’s LA Times: “But the list of selected crossings in the San Fernando Valley did not include Kester Avenue in Van Nuys, where two of the seven crashes — including the most recent one — occurred.”
Kester is uniquely dangerous. It is one of the narrowest “Main” streets in the Valley. The Busway on this dilapidated road is hemmed in on four sides by warehouses and industrial buildings, thus obscuring the visibility of automobiles to see oncoming buses. Just south of the Busway are three businesses (auto repair, a liquor store and a recording studio) with front entrance parking lots and cars that continually pull out in reverse–creating a traffic risk for cars proceeding northbound on Kester.
Socially, the street is one of the largest gathering spots for the “trabajador por día” who cross back and forth along Kester, as trucks stop to pull them up for $10 an hour gigs. At night, the street is poorly lit, and north of Erwin, there are pedestrians (who often jaywalk) pushing baby strollers and grocery carts.
This is a poor street in both maintenance and social status. No wonder Kester is forgotten.
Here in Van Nuys 
I just moved Kester from the middle of nowhere in Canada. Don’t ask. We’re between the busway and Victory and while I like the street, it’s damn hard to pull on to. There are two new buildings going up right beside ours and apparently this gives builders the right to park wherever the hell they feel like, blocking any view of the oncoming traffic.
Anyway, as far as the busway being dangerous, I seem to recall a TRAFFIC LIGHT being there. What is going on when running a red light and getting hit is someone elses fault? In fact I’m going wait on Delano, and when I see anyone run the light, I’ll pull out and hit them myself! That’ll learn ’em.
(PS: Nice to see another local blogger. Mine is more about Van Nuys from a newcomers perspective.)
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Kester was always the way I drove to avoid the north/south mess on Sepulveda. Yes it is not as wide as Van Nuys Blvd. but it gets you across the valley faster with less lights. I agree the intersection with the Orangeline is dangerous so perhaps this is the intersection that could run a test using rail guards dropping down like a real rail line.
I agree with Spanky that the stretch of Ventura is a travesty of super annoying hip commercialism.
and Douglas I miss driving north of Saticoy to shop at Fedco…gee I really miss that store.
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If you were out at the intersection taking pictures yesterday, I think I saw you. 35mm on a tripod?
I use Kester a lot to avoid the delivery truck snarls on Oxnard and sneak in the back way to Costco/Staples. I live over on Vesper and it provides and excellent alternative. Busy? Yes! Tricky? Oh , yes, You really got to watch those left-hand turns,etc. Still, I like it a lot. On a whim I took it all the way to beyond Saticoy the other day to return something to a business up there and was a part of the Valley I haven’t seen before.
That said, red light cameras are fine for what they do, but their effect is always after the fact. Sure, you will re-educate a few people about running red lights, but they do nothing to prevent further accidents at the intersection. Since the day they started testing on the Orange Line I have been very careful to treat it like I would a rail crossing. Slow down, look to the left and right, even if the light is green and obey the red lights religiously.
Nice to see another blogger in Van Nuys. Keep up the good work.
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OK, we’ll have Zev and all the rest get on it immediately and turn it into a nice, well-designed comfort zone for you, with the requisite McStarbucks, McCondo complexes, and a good litle “authentic” McMexican place you can discover first before the L.A. Times and Weakly join in.
Does every single corner of this city have to be CityWalk for you?
You know what –you’d really love Orlando.
No, I don’t live on that part of Kester, but I drive down it quite regularly. And I like it. I enjoy it. I like the liquor store, which I’ve been to.
Next door is not a recording studio – it houses affordable rehearsal rooms where – OK, everyone, get out your KCRW membership cards – local bands of all persuasions can reherse. I’ve played there.
I like that part of Kester because it’s not CityWalk, like the rest of this city is quickly becoming.
Don’t worry, Andrew. This entire Valley will look like that stretch of Ventura between Noble and Van Nuys within about five years.
Orlando is coming to you.
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You’re right it is authentic, but I take it you don’t live on it either.
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I hear what you’re sayin’ about that stretch of Kester, but i deeply dig the street and I have for years.
It’s old, it’s badly designed, it’s dangerous, but it’s what things used to feel like before everything was moron-malled and cell foned into banal, bland, G-rated stupidity.
Yes, it’s an obstacle course, densely populated by newly, er, arrived immigrants, stray mariachi musicians, first-time tweakers and those sorry Alzheimer’s victims who’ve wandered away from the two-dozen warhouses nearby.
But accept it. Celebrate it.
Why must everything be Beverly Boulevard? Look how they’ve turned Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks into a completely characterless “consumer zone.” Disgusting, repulsive. And, you’ll probably cheer this, civically correct, designed with the SUV/Hummer in mind, and family-friendly.
That part of Kester is beautiful, man. Appreciate that scene.
Just drive carefully. Be aware. Don’t use the hand-held idiot phone in the car.
But don’t start some pseudo-political campaign calling for a Kester cleanup and redesign.
Must everything be spoonfed into submission?
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What is so appealing about that particular liquor store? It’s very popular and in addition to the backing out, there are people continually making left turns to get in, causing people going southbound to zoom to the right to go around. This happens at several streets surrounding the busline crossway. I’m rather astounded that there isn’t a plan to put cameras there since that busway crossing has the worst visibility of any I can remember.
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