California ? Even in Los Angeles, where celebrities dress their pets in designer clothes, a proposal for a $455,000 animal lane on a bridge over Interstate 405, the San Diego Freeway, has riled residents who say scarce transportation dollars should not be used to help deer and bobcats while humans remain gridlocked in traffic.

The cost could balloon to $1.4 million if environmentalists can persuade the city to extend the wildlife path, which would be part of an overpass for vehicles and pedestrians, beyond the freeway, officials said.

The plan has split residents of wealthy west side enclaves, where the impulse to be environmentally correct is clashing with frustration over the tortoise-like pace on area roadways.

Even some activists who have long supported green causes are ridiculing the idea of a special path on the Skirball Center Drive bridge so coyotes and opossums can commute across the Sepulveda Pass.

“What are they going to do, have Doctor Dolittle standing there directing animals to use the bridge?” scoffed Ernest Frankel, a member of the Mountaingate Community Association, a residents group.