Panel Backs Project to Connect 2 Freeways : Transportation: State officials recommend that $55 million be spent to close a 2.2-mile gap between the Simi Valley and Moorpark thoroughfares.

A long-awaited freeway link between the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways was virtually ensured Wednesday as state Department of Transportation officials recommended that $55 million be released for its construction.

The state Transportation Commission sent the project on for further review today as it met in Sacramento to determine the five-year timetable for highway projects around the state.

The freeway link is expected to sail through the commission, said Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, in a telephone interview from Sacramento.

The commission, made up of public officials appointed by local governments, prioritizes county projects.

The freeway link is the biggest on a list of highway construction projects in Ventura County.

It involves the construction of a four-lane freeway that will close a 2.2-mile gap where the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways end in Moorpark.

Plans for the freeway link have been complete for some time, and local Caltrans officials awaited word on financing.

“It’s a No. 1 priority as far as Ventura County is concerned,” said Bill Charbonneau, who heads the Caltrans project development branch for Ventura County. “The project’s ready to go.”

Charbonneau said Caltrans is scheduled to solicit bids on the project as soon as possible.

A contract will be awarded within two months, although construction is unlikely to begin until early 1991.

Funding for the freeway link was delayed until the passage of Proposition 111 in June, when voters agreed to raise gas taxes to finance a variety of transportation projects statewide.

The project has been on the transportation department’s program of highway projects for nearly seven years.

In that time, the original $41.4-million cost of the project has grown by $13.7 million.

Caltrans staff has also recommended a $3.3-million increase in a $9.5-million project to complete the widening of California 126 between Santa Paula and Fillmore to four lanes.

Caltrans staff also put three other projects in Ventura County on a timetable.

They include widening and interchange improvements on the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard from Johnson Drive to Vineyard Avenue; reconstruction of an interchange on California 1 and Pleasant Valley Road near Oxnard; and an interchange improvement on the Ventura Freeway at Seaward Avenue in Ventura.

But the release of funds to build the link between the Moorpark and Simi Valley freeways was considered the major achievement Wednesday by Ventura County officials.

Moorpark residents have been waiting for a route that would ease traffic problems since it incorporated more than seven years ago, said Moorpark Councilman Clint Harper, a longtime critic of traffic congestion in the city.

Motorists and truck drivers who have to travel between the two freeways must use roads that wind along three miles of surface streets in Moorpark.

“The connector will obviously go a long way to solving surface street congestion we have in Moorpark,” Harper said. “It’s a positive thing for Moorpark as well as for eastern Ventura County.”

Other MAJOR PROJECTS: A3

A LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS: A32