Car-Pool Lanes Planned for Moorpark, Simi Valley Routes : Commuting: Caltrans says the two freeways will each have space reserved for drivers who ride-share. Funding is uncertain.

Caltrans officials Tuesday unveiled an ambitious plan to expand car-pool lanes on freeways throughout Southern California, but it will be at least 10 years before Ventura County sees its first lanes reserved for people who ride with a partner.

In Ventura County, the lanes would be added to the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways, both slated for widening beginning in 2004. The new lanes would be set aside for buses and vehicles carrying two or more people, officials said.

At a briefing in downtown Los Angeles, officials focused primarily on a $6.2-billion plan to add 400 miles of car-pool lanes to virtually every freeway in Los Angeles County.

There is, however, no assurance that the entire amount will be available to pay for it.

In Los Angeles County, Caltrans wants to fund the lanes with money provided largely by Proposition C--a transportation tax approved by voters in that county in 1990.

That same year, Ventura County voters rejected a half-cent sales tax increase for transportation projects. As a result, Ventura County must rely almost entirely on state funds for new freeway lanes.

Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, said neither her agency nor the county’s Air Pollution Control District has approved any plan to restrict new freeway lanes to car poolers.

Gherardi pointed out that car-pool lanes encourage people to ride together so they can travel faster than cars in other lanes. But that incentive may not exist in Ventura County, where freeways are far less congested than those in Los Angeles.

“In this county, generally speaking, the traffic is moving at a high rate of speed,” Gherardi said. “I would question whether there’s a need right now” for car-pool lanes in Ventura County.

But she added: “I don’t think anybody on our commission has any objections to Caltrans studying the issue. It would be very shortsighted not to consider car-pool lanes.”

Lew Bedolla, Caltrans deputy director for District 7, which includes Ventura and Los Angeles counties, said he believes that pressure to curb car-related air pollution will force the county to reserve its new freeway lanes for car poolers.

He acknowledged, however, that this plan has not been approved by the Ventura County commission. “We’ll have to work this out,” Bedolla said.

Simi Valley Councilman Bill Davis, a member of the commission, said he does not believe one fast-moving car-pool lane, running beside three lanes of stop-and-go traffic, will do much to reduce air pollution.

“I don’t want them, I can tell you that,” Davis said of the proposed car-pool lanes. State transportation officials do not plan to put car-pool lanes on Ventura County’s busiest highway, the Ventura Freeway.

Caltrans officials said the freeway’s recent widening through the San Fernando Valley used all available land, leaving none for car-pool lanes.

Although more space exists on the Ventura County stretch of the freeway, Gherardi said the state would not abruptly begin a car-pool lane at the county line.

Jerry B. Baxter, director of Caltrans District 7, said that by pressing for car-pool lanes, his agency is focusing on “moving people instead of automobiles.”

He said the proposed car-pool lanes are far less expensive than new freeways because Caltrans will use land it already owns. The agency will narrow existing lanes through restriping and use median areas to make room for the new car-pool corridors.

California Department of Transportation policy prohibits the conversion of any existing freeway lanes to car-pool lanes.

The current timeline calls for adding lanes to the Simi Valley Freeway in two phases. The first phase would begin in 2004, running from the Los Angeles County line to Tapo Canyon Road. Widening of the remainder of the freeway, between Tapo Canyon and the Moorpark Freeway, would not begin until about 2016.

The Moorpark Freeway widening is tentatively set to begin in 2006.

However, if the Ventura County transportation tax is revived and approved by voters, the projects could begin much sooner, county officials said.