Road Cleared for 6 Priority Highway Projects

When most people hear the words Ventura County, they don’t immediately think of gridlock. But tell that to the poor unfortunates stuck at rush hour on the Santa Clara River Bridge portion of the Ventura Freeway linking Oxnard and Ventura. Or those creeping along the sections of the Ventura Freeway where it intersects with California 34 or the Moorpark Freeway.

These are among Ventura County’s most heavily congested and troublesome roadways. They are also among six priority highway improvement projects that are finally moving forward, with construction set to begin on two of the projects within 18 months.

Transportation officials say these long-overdue projects, which will cost more than $130 million, will help ease congestion throughout the county.

At least, eventually.

The massive traffic jam across the Santa Clara River Bridge between Vineyard Avenue and Johnson Drive will continue for at least three years.

In May 2002, a $79-million construction project to expand the bridge’s capacity from the current six lanes to 12 will begin.

“Those northbound lanes have so much congestion now because there are three things going on at once,” said Tony Velasquez, an engineer with the California Department of Transportation. “There is the lane of traffic coming from [California 1] that is trying to merge. Then there is through traffic from the 101 [Ventura Freeway] that is just trying to move forward. And then there is local traffic that is trying to get on at Vineyard.”

He said the combination squeezes drivers from both sides and creates a bottleneck, sometimes bringing vehicles to a standstill.

The new bridge will ease this problem not only by doubling the number of lanes, but by rerouting the interchange, so northbound cars merge, via an underpass, from California 1 onto the Ventura Freeway on the right side of the highway, keeping all merging traffic to the right.

40-Year Wait Is About to End

City officials in Oxnard are pleased with the project, saying it will dramatically reduce congestion on city streets.

“We have been waiting for this project for 40 years,” said Joe Genovese, traffic engineer for Oxnard. “What happens is people get off the freeway and drive through neighborhoods to bypass congestion. We want to be more pedestrian-oriented, more like a city street than a freeway.”

Before the work can begin, however, a Caltrans project in the heart of Oxnard must reroute vehicles between East Hueneme Road and the Ventura Freeway.

At least 250 big rig trucks from the port now roll daily through the streets of Oxnard and Port Hueneme on their way to the freeway.

The $36-million project, scheduled to begin in September and be completed three years later, includes extending Rice Avenue nearly one mile from Pacific Coast Highway to Hueneme Road and building an interchange at Pacific Coast Highway and Pleasant Valley Road.

The most important Caltrans project in Camarillo is a $29-million expansion of the Ventura Freeway and California 34 interchange.

Set to begin in May 2001, the project is meant to handle projected increases in traffic between the freeway and Cal State Channel Islands.

Vehicles now exit the Ventura Freeway at Carmen Drive and proceed nearly a mile along Ventura Boulevard, which runs through Old Town Camarillo, before reaching California 34.

“[After construction] they won’t have to use surface streets to get to Lewis Road, and that will allow traffic to flow more smoothly through the whole Old Town area,” said Tom Fox, traffic engineer for Camarillo.

The plans call for modifying and increasing onramps and offramps at Lewis Road and Daily Drive, building noise buffers for residents on Lomita Street, replacing and expanding the bridge crossing at Arneill Road and the freeway, and widening the Ventura Freeway around the interchange.

When the project is completed, all northbound traffic will enter and exit from Daily Drive, while all southbound traffic will enter and exit from Ventura Boulevard.

“Now there would be a significant delay if you wanted to go from the Metrolink station to 101 northbound because you have to go all the way to Carmen,” Fox said. “After the reconstruction it will only be a half-block drive to Daily.”

In April 2003, the state and the county will work together to widen Lewis Road south to the university. The road will expand from one to two lanes in each direction as it approaches the campus.

The parking lot at the Metrolink station will be doubled to accommodate about 600 cars carrying Metrolink riders and students who park at the station and catch a bus to the university.

“Fortunately, the project is moving forward before the conditions are too severe,” Fox said. “That is just good advance planning. The public only sees today’s conditions and they are not aware of how congested it could be when the campus expands in a few years.”

California 23 Will Get Wider

Another project, scheduled to begin in fall 2004, will help ease congestion from projected growth in the east county. Eight miles of California 23 between the Ventura Freeway and California 118 will be widened to accommodate projected growth in Thousand Oaks and Moorpark, as well as parts of unincorporated Ventura County.

“After the Northridge earthquake, people rediscovered that the 23 [Moorpark Freeway] connected those two highways and it picked up traffic,” said John Scott, senior transportation engineer for Caltrans.

In 1996, between 21,000 and 43,000 vehicles used that segment of the freeway daily, and Caltrans projections had estimated that by 2016 there could be as many as 50,000 vehicles a day on the road, Scott said.

To handle the projected increase, eight miles of the Moorpark Freeway will be widened from two to three lanes in each direction. The construction will occur in the median, leaving room for later expansion.

“We’ve pushed for that segment to be widened and the project moved up the priority list because it affects our city streets and intersections,” said Roy Myers, transportation analyst for Thousand Oaks.

He said some drivers take city streets to bypass congestion on the Moorpark Freeway in the morning. “It’s pretty much bumper-to-bumper from Olson Road to the 101 and one additional lane [on the Moorpark Freeway], at least for the interim, is really needed.”

The project calling for a realignment of Donlon Road at California 118 in Somis is the least expensive, costing about $4.4 million. That project, set to begin in August 2001 and conclude a little more than a year later, will pull Donlon Road westward less than a quarter of a mile to connect through traffic directly with California 34.

Donlon Road will not, however, be straight, according to Abdi Saghafi, Caltrans project manager, because the road needs to curve to avoid sensitive wetland areas.

The plan includes construction of small sections, or pockets, of road on both the eastbound and westbound California 118 to help drivers transition to California 34 or Donlon Road.

“The pockets, which will be a tenth-of-a-mile each, will give some storage space to trucks and reduce the delay and congestion, especially during rush hour,” Saghafi said.

Butch Britt, director of public works, said more than 30,000 vehicles daily use that intersection, and for their safety and comfort it needs to be realigned.

“There haven’t been many accidents, but there are some very close calls, and I’ve always felt there’s a high potential for some bad accidents,” he said. “When I make a left turn onto Donlon, I’m concerned the whole time I’m doing it.”

There will be a public hearing in April to present the environmental report on this project.

2 Lanes to Be Added to California 118

Another east county project calls for widening California 118 between Tapo Canyon Road and the Los Angeles County line. There are now three lanes in each direction. Two more, one in each direction, will be created out of the median space.

The project, which involves about five miles of road, will begin in February 2004 and end a little more than a year later.

“We are looking forward to our freeway having more capacity because the closer you get to L.A. the higher the traffic volumes,” said Bill Golubics, Simi Valley traffic engineer. “We have been seeing a lot of through traffic, probably half the traffic is not beginning or ending in Simi Valley.”

The final project, which will not be completed for at least 10 years, involves a pedestrian walkway and a vehicle crossing in La Conchita and Mussel Shoals area.

The first part of the $40-million project is a pedestrian crossing, which could either be built over or under the road to help residents and hotel guests get from the north side of the street to the beach.

“People were walking in the drainage channel under the 101, which is a liability for Caltrans, so they closed it off,” said Joan Wood, project manager for Caltrans.

Now, people run across the Ventura Freeway to reach the beach.

The remainder of the plan involves constructing a ramp to allow Mussel Shoal residents safe northbound access to the Ventura Freeway. Drivers now must cross lanes of speeding traffic, putting themselves and other drivers in danger.

Sanford Porter, co-owner of the Cliff House Inn and Shoals Restaurant--the only commercial site in Mussel Shoals--said the area can be tricky for people who aren’t familiar with the roads.

“It is an intersection that needs attention, because when speeds increased from 55 to 65 it became much more dangerous,” Porter said.