Commuters Anger Road’s Residents : Thousand Oaks: Parents call the narrow thoroughfare “The Other Conejo Grade” and fear for their children.

A group of angry Thousand Oaks neighbors is fighting to keep a scenic stretch of Potrero Road from becoming another Ventura Freeway.

Residents such as Michele Bellerue say their houses are deceptively peaceful at midday, with hawks soaring above the national park across the street and even quail scurrying on the road.

But on weekday mornings, the scene changes. The roadway in front of her residence becomes a busy commuter route used by truckers and motorists alike, Bellerue said.

Locals have begun calling the narrow two-lane thoroughfare “The Other Conejo Grade,” a reference to the steep Ventura Freeway grade. West Potrero Road snakes through the rolling hills southwest of Thousand Oaks down a windy, cactus-covered incline to Camarillo.

Although city officials say an alternate road will be built soon, neighbors who have watched the traffic worsen over the years say they don’t believe it.

“It’s like a speedway,” said Bellerue, 40, who has a 2-year-old son. Eighteen children live and play along a two-block stretch of road, Bellerue said, adding, “There are serious accidents waiting to happen to these children.”

At one point, Bellerue’s garage door sported a banner reading: “No More Trucks. No More Speeders. Cul-de-sac Now.” Her signs now urge motorists to slow to 25 m.p.h.

Speed limits along Potrero Road range from 25 to 55 m.p.h. Traffic officials from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol do not consider the roadway a major safety problem, but acknowledge that drivers regularly ignore the 25 m.p.h. limit near the residences.

Complaints about the road are common at City Hall. For more than a dozen years, parents have cautioned children against riding bicycles and have kept pets locked up, said Councilman Bob Lewis, who used to own the residence Bellerue now lives in.

Lewis said he asked the city to install a stop sign at Pinehill Avenue and West Potrero Road shortly before he moved there 14 years ago. As a planning commissioner, Lewis heard repeated complaints about the road from neighbors.

“We just taught our children they were not allowed to step off the curb,” Lewis said. “And we had a dog . . . trained not to cross the curb without permission.”

Today, an average of 1,696 cars a day travel the road, said Roy Myers, assistant civil engineer for the city. Traffic surges in the summer when it is used as a shortcut by beach-going surfers.

Myers said 93% of the vehicles are passenger cars and small trucks whose drivers use the country road to commute to and from Camarillo, Oxnard and Point Mugu. About 3% are heavy trucks with three or more axles.

The country road is also used by motorists and bikers headed for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said Dan McDermott, a CHP officer who works at the Conejo Inspection Facility and lives on the road.

Lewis contends that it is used by truckers trying to evade the weigh station on the Conejo Grade, a claim disputed by CHP officials. He cited an accident two years ago involving an ammonia truck that overturned and closed the road for hours.

“You’re getting truckers who are getting overloaded, and they’re going the back way,” Lewis said.

Thousand Oaks officials consider the trucks enough of a problem that they are trying to get them banned on Potrero Road.

If the city succeeds, signs would be posted banning large trucks from using Potrero Road as it winds from Westlake Boulevard in the east through unincorporated farmland in the west.

Trucks making deliveries in the area, however, would be allowed to pass, city officials said.

Council members have also indicated that they want to help finance a project that would make Potrero Road a cul-de-sac and detour traffic onto Lynn Road, north of Potrero, Public Works Director John Clements said.

Clements said he plans to recommend that the city contribute half of the $1 million needed for the project, to be repaid by the developer of the massive Dos Vientos housing development at Lynn and Potrero roads.

“That’ll ensure the road gets built,” Clements said. “They’ve lived with the problem for 14 years, and they’d like a certain date when it’s going to be done.”

Chuck Cohen, an attorney for Courtly Homes, one of two Dos Vientos developers, said the company agreed to close off Potrero Road when it begins building the first of 2,350 residences.

Cohen, however, added, “We didn’t promise them the road would be built until the project was approved.” The first housing tracts were approved last year, he said, and the annexation of the land into the city wasn’t completed until later.

Courtly Homes has scheduled construction on the detour to begin in April. But given the economic downturn in the housing market, there are no assurances that it will begin on time, Clements said.

Neighbors say they do not intend to wait another year for the promise to be kept because of fears the work will never materialize.

“We’ve been promised before and we’ve had schedules before,” resident Marty Spadaro said.

Resident Rene Rodriguez, 42, said a boy suffered a broken arm when he was hit on Potrero Road two years ago in an accident witnessed by his then 11-year-old daughter. Rodriguez said he is convinced the traffic is getting worse. Recently, a van parked in front of a residence was sideswiped by a hit-and-run motorist.

Since then, Rodriguez has begun warning pedestrians and bicyclists passing by his house to avoid the road.

“They ride bicycles. They don’t know about the danger,” Rodriguez said. “I tell them, ‘Get off that road! It’s dangerous.’ ”