Ventura Freeway’s Rose Avenue Ramps Should Be Finished in October

Dear Street Smart:

When is the Rose Avenue/Ventura Freeway on-and-off ramp reconstruction scheduled to begin, and how long will it take to complete? Since these are extremely necessary ramps, will the current ones still be accessible during the construction process?

Mary Barnes

Oxnard

Reconstruction of the on-and-off ramps is expected to begin in August, with completion set for October, said Bob Weithofer, Oxnard’s traffic design engineer. Although the work will involve adding extra turn and through lanes on some of the ramps, all will remain open during construction, Weithofer said.

Meanwhile, a complete reconstruction of the Rose Avenue and Ventura Freeway interchange will probably take place in the next two to three years. The work will include adding new on-and-off ramps and widening of the four-lane Rose Avenue bridge to six lanes.

Dear Street Smart:

The problem I have is in Simi Valley, in the Wood Ranch area. If you’re westbound on Madera Road at the junction of Country Club Drive East, the signals for the westbound lanes of Madera change to red when there’s no traffic trying to get out of Country Club East onto Madera. All this does is slow the traffic down on Madera, and I wonder what the problem is here?

Mark Williams

Thousand Oaks

Welcome to Southern California, where life in the fast lane is not what it used to be. Street Smart could go on for hours on this subject, but obviously you’re in a hurry, so let’s cut to the chase.

Bill Golubics, Simi Valley’s traffic engineer, said that under normal operating conditions, the traffic lights on Country Club Drive East are electronically activated when a vehicle approaches within 150 feet of the intersection. The Madera Road traffic lights are triggered when a vehicle is within 300 feet.

Golubics said the problem may be occurring when a vehicle on Country Club Drive East makes a right turn on red onto Madera Road.

“The car may be gone, but (the electronic sensors) still think there is a car waiting on the side street,” he said.

The result is a red light on Madera Road.

But don’t slam on your brakes just yet. Golubics said that the lights can be synchronized to avoid this problem, and he assures Street Smart that someone is already working on it.

Dear Street Smart:

I’m inquiring about a Street Smart column that quoted Chris Stephens, an official with the Ventura County Transportation Commission, saying that the Conejo Grade is the steepest stretch of freeway in the state. I think going to Bakersfield over the Grapevine--on the Golden State Freeway--is at least as steep and longer. Who’s right and who’s wrong?

Lloyd Dubowy

Ventura

Sometimes in life there are no easy answers. I’m afraid this is one of those times.

Technically, a 2.4-mile stretch of U.S. 101 along the Cuesta Grade in San Luis Obispo County is the steepest freeway climb in the state, said Jim Drago, a spokesman in Caltrans’ Sacramento office. This stretch of freeway has an unbelievable, hang-on-for-your-life 7.1% slope. A little steeper and you’d be getting a refresher course on the laws of gravity.

But don’t be too hard on Chris Stephens. The Conejo Grade, also part of the Ventura Freeway, is a very close second. A 1.5-mile section rates a slippery 7.0% slope.

Some of you have probably seen that sign in the westbound lanes, near the top of Conejo Grade that says 8% slope. However, Margie Tiritilli, another Caltrans official, assures Street Smart that the sign is incorrect and that there are plans to replace it next month.

Also, Drago said it’s important to note that Caltrans measures the degree of a freeway’s rise or descent in 1.5-mile segments, so it’s possible that there are smaller stretches of freeway with steeper slopes than the Cuesta Grade.

“But for our counting purposes, the Cuesta Grade is the steepest,” he said.

The Grapevine, a 5.1-mile section of the Golden State Freeway, has a 5.9% slope. Drago did not know where the Grapevine fell in the state’s rankings.

Dear Street Smart:

My concern is the four-way stop at Erbes Road and Avenida de los Arboles. Traffic is so busy it’s hard to get across the intersection, especially in the afternoon. The city says it has the money to put in traffic lights. So why don’t they put them in?

Steve Lacey

Thousand Oaks

You’ve heard the old saw: Money can’t buy love or forgiveness. Well, now you can add traffic lights to the list.

Yes, the money for your lights has already been collected through developer fees, according to Jeff Knowles, a city traffic engineer. But it could be two years before your lights are installed because the city is busy with a series of traffic signal projects along Thousand Oaks Boulevard, he said.

“It’s not just a question of money,” Knowles said. “It takes time to prepare plans for each project.”

Knowles said projects are prioritized according to need, noting that there are other intersections along Erbes Road where peak traffic is just as bad or worse than it is at Avenida de Los Arboles.

But there is no question that your intersection needs traffic lights. An average of 1,400 vehicles pass through the intersection between 7 and 8:30 a.m. weekdays, while 1,900 vehicles use the crossing between 5 and 6 p.m., Knowles said.

By the way, traffic lights are not cheap. It costs the city of Thousand Oaks about $120,000 to put up lights at a four-way intersection, not to mention several more thousand dollars a year to maintain them.