Moorpark Choking on Freeway Exodus : Caltrans Says Relief Is 5 Years Away for City in the Middle

Driving from Simi Valley to Thousand Oaks during rush hour can be aggravating enough, but try standing for hours on a street corner in Moorpark, which lies halfway between.

“It’s dangerous . . . Those commuters are only worried about getting to work,” mutters Faye Beaver, a Moorpark crossing-guard supervisor. As she speaks, a small, slate-blue car hurtles through the school crosswalk at Moorpark Road near Roberts Avenue at about 60 m.p.h.

The Simi Valley and Moorpark-Thousand Oaks freeways end in Moorpark, dumping fast-moving traffic from throughout Ventura County onto residential roads that double as state highways. As Moorpark’s population swells--the number of people in the area has grown 230% since 1980--its roads are choked by increasing numbers of 18-wheelers, gasoline tankers and harried commuters.

Most drivers are headed elsewhere and many are speeding.

While salvation isn’t imminent, it is on the drawing boards--about five years and several government approvals away.

Plans Move Forward

The California Department of Transportation says plans to connect California 23 (the Thousand Oaks-Moorpark Freeway) and California 118 (the Simi Valley Freeway) in Moorpark are moving forward and that state and federal approval for the proposed route is expected by spring.

Once that happens, Caltrans can proceed with engineering plans and purchase additional right of way. The state agency already owns 70% of the needed land. Construction is to begin in 1990 and end in 1993, and the freeway will run along Los Angeles Avenue about 200 feet from the nearest homes, said Jack Hallin, Caltrans chief of project development for Ventura County.

The 2.2 mile, $40 million freeway connector is one of the biggest public works projects under way in Ventura County, officials say.

It is also sorely needed and long overdue, according to elected officials, area residents and planners.

Traffic accidents on the Moorpark surface streets that serve as de facto highways are almost double the state average, according to Caltrans. About one-fifth of the vehicles are heavy and medium-size trucks, and city planners estimate that 80% of the traffic barrels through Moorpark on the way to points elsewhere.

“We desperately need the connection,” says Norm Blanchard, executive director of the Ventura County Assn. of Governments.

Hallin agrees. “Something has to be done to get the traffic off . . . the avenues,” the Caltrans official said. “Moorpark is still growing and will continue to grow. There has to be some relief.”

The problem occurs because California 23, which heads north from Thousand Oaks at U.S. 101, ends abruptly in southern Moorpark and becomes New Los Angeles Avenue. At the same time, California 118, which runs through Simi Valley, grinds to a halt at College View Avenue in eastern Moorpark and becomes Los Angeles Avenue.

This forces through traffic to wend its way for more than three miles through commercial and residential areas along Los Angeles Avenue, New Los Angeles Avenue, Moorpark Road and Moorpark Avenue. At times, those roads are winding, two-lane paths.

During rush hour, this creates “astronomical congestion,” according to Tricia Price, Ventura County’s district manager for Commuter Computer, which matches up passengers with car pools.

Fantastic Traffic Jams

“The delays are almost intolerable. It can be about a half-hour delay for a mile to two-mile stretch. Five years ago it took five minutes,” Price said.

During peak hours, it sometimes seems that only the black hawks circling in the Moorpark sky travel unencumbered. Before rush hour, vehicles regularly whiz along curving agricultural roads at 60 m.p.h, twice the speed limit.

Moorpark city planners agree that traffic is their top problem, and county leaders call the proposed linkup their top highway priority. Moorpark has experienced phenomenal growth since it incorporated in 1983, jumping from 10,000 to 20,000 residents today. By the year 2000, the population is expected to double again.

At the same time, nearby cities like Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks also are growing rapidly, which puts pressure on local thoroughfares and turns freeways into parking lots twice a day. Many feel that construction of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near the Tierra Rejada exit of California 23 will only exacerbate those problems.

To compound matters, Moorpark is still evolving from an agricultural area into a suburb. Big trucks travel the little roads hauling fertilizer and yellow farm tractors. Those stuck in highway traffic can view undulating emerald hills and grazing cows.

Many of the city’s predominantly white, middle-class homeowners moved here to get away from urban angst. Now, they find it springing up all around them.

“It does get awful frustrating,” said Mary Hubbard, a legal secretary who drives to Beverly Hills each day from Moorpark. On rainy days, her round-trip commute approaches four hours. “Heaven forbid if you’re on the roads at 5:30 p.m. or 6. It’s bumper-to-bumper, with everybody getting off work in Thousand Oaks,” she said.

While everyone seems to agree that a freeway connection is needed, some homeowners in the Campus Park and College Park tracts near Moorpark College were horrified to learn that Caltrans plans to build a freeway half a block from their homes.

The proposed route would extend California 23 north from the intersection of New Los Angeles Avenue, through about six acres of wetlands and up to Los Angeles Avenue just east of Princeton Avenue in the College Park area. The freeway would then swing east along Los Angeles Avenue and hook up with the existing California 118 just east of College View Avenue.

A small but vocal group of homeowners say their quality of life will deteriorate if the freeway is built along the proposed route. They say it will cause aesthetic, noise and air pollution problems and lower the value of up to 1,600 homes in their area. They also claim the freeway would cut them off from the rest of Moorpark and damage local retail businesses.

Alternative Route Pushed

In a letter signed by 1,100 local residents, the group earlier this fall asked Caltrans to consider an alternative route that would cut south into ecologically sensitive wetlands and the Simi Arroyo instead of traveling along Los Angeles Avenue.

But Caltrans declined, noting that the southern route would cost $10 million more, eat up four more acres of wetlands and make future freeway expansion more difficult because of its remote location.

Caltrans officials also say that studying a southerly alternative would push the entire project back two years and might jeopardize state and federal funding. The freeway connector is on a list of state projects to be built in the next five years and most elected officials support the proposed route.

Both California 23 and 118 received the green light from the California Highway Commission in 1964. About seven miles of California 23 had been completed by 1971; the California 118 link to Simi Valley was completed in 1975. But plans to finish and connect the freeways stopped that year when Caltrans ran out of money.

It was not until last year that the connector for the two highways was again included in the State Transportation Improvement Program and elected officials as well as civic leaders today say they want to make sure the freeway is built.

What kind of freeway does $40 million buy?

Caltrans plans call for a four-lane highway with an exchange at New Los Angeles Avenue and Collins Drive, an undercrossing at Los Angeles Avenue, two two-lane bridges over the Arroyo Simi and the Southern Pacific Railroad, and an interchange at either Princeton Avenue or Condor Drive.

The price also includes seven-foot sound walls for residential areas (at $1 million per mile), right-of-way land, room for an additional two freeway lanes as needed, engineering and environmental reports and mitigation measures that the agency is required by law to take.

For instance, the freeway path might affect a potential habitat for the last Bell’s vireo, an endangered species of bird last seen in the area in June, 1985. Caltrans biologists visited the wetlands last summer, searching for it in vain, but will continue to comb the area until construction starts.

Additionally, Caltrans must create six acres of new wetlands to replace the federally protected wetland that will be paved over for the freeway, and plant 300 oak trees to replace 150 that lie in the construction path.

Traffic Could Triple

Caltrans officials and city and county planners say a four-lane connection will be enough to handle traffic until the year 2010. But reports compiled by the Ventura County planning department also estimate that traffic along the western extension of California 118 will more than triple by 2010 and that traffic along the northern extension of California 23 will almost double.

Already, residents say it can take up to 25 minutes to drive down the existing California 23 in the morning as traffic pours south into Thousand Oaks and heads east into Los Angeles. Longtime residents recall when that drive took 10 minutes.

“They’re building, building, building,” laments Hubbard, the legal secretary who commutes from Moorpark to Beverly Hills each weekday and says traffic has at least doubled in the past five years.

“It’s time they do something, but it should have been done a long time ago. Traffic is bad. It’s real bad.”