Ventura Corridor Transportation Findings Go in Opposite Directions

A 19-month study of transportation needs along the Ventura Freeway west of Los Angeles has yielded conflicting conclusions about whether two controversial road extensions should be built through ecologically sensitive areas in Calabasas and Agoura.

In the Ventura Corridor Area Transportation Study, released this month by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, a community advisory committee calls planned extensions of Calabasas Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard “politically and environmentally sensitive” and recommends that they be considered only as last resorts.

But the two roads are identified in the same report by county road planners as necessary alternate routes to the Ventura Freeway. After conducting a computer study of traffic patterns, county Public Works engineers said in the report that existing highways “cannot provide adequate local and regional circulation” for future development. Alternate routes are needed both north and south of the freeway, the report said.

Thousand Oaks Boulevard is north of the freeway. It ends in Agoura Hills, then resumes more than three miles east at Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas. The path of the county’s planned extension would go through the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

South of the freeway, Calabasas Road ends about a mile and a half east of Las Virgenes Road. County highway plans would extend it across that distance, through land that another developer, the Baldwin Co., has agreed to turn over to a state parks agency for wildlife preservation. Both roads would traverse land designated by the county as a “significant ecological area.”

“When implementation of these roads is proposed, consideration should be given to alternative routes, alignments and/or elimination of this portion of the road system, and the effect of these roads on the environment,” the advisory committee said.

Jean A. Granucci, a spokeswoman for Public Works, acknowledged that the committee’s report will be the primary place policy-makers look for community opinion on the roads.

But the Public Works portion of the study shows that the extensions of Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Calabasas Road along with other improvements would relieve the Ventura Freeway of an estimated 16,000 to 23,000 daily traffic trips. Moreover, Public Works has maintained that one or several alternate routes are needed in case the freeway is blocked by a catastrophe.

The study did not address funding for either road extension, although private developers could be required to build large portions of them. Opponents of the two roads, such as committee member and Calabasas conservationist David M. Brown, contend that the county would be making a mistake by allowing large developments to be built in order to fund roads.

North of the freeway, Public Works wants the county to require a Sunnyvale developer to build about a mile of Thousand Oaks Boulevard on rugged land proposed for 1,816 dwelling units where 112 are allowed. The proposal, known as Malibu Terrace, is scheduled to be heard Feb. 21 by the county Regional Planning Commission.

South of the freeway, the Baldwin Co. is proposing 550 units where 138 are allowed. Baldwin recently agreed to turn over part of its land to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in a move that a Baldwin official said could make it more difficult for the county to require Calabasas Road as part of that project. The Planning Commission is expected to hear the matter in the next several months.

The contrast between the Public Works advisory committee’s resistance to the roads and the Public Works staff’s support of them is likely to play a role in both commission hearings.

“If there’s an easy resolution of the tension between those two standards, I don’t know of one,” said Bob Burns, Baldwin vice president and a committee member.