Officials Fault County Plan to Ease Congestion

A proposal intended to ease congestion on Ventura County roadways would cause more problems than it would solve, city and county officials said Tuesday.

The county Transportation Commission, which proposed the plan, is required by state law to adopt traffic policies by Dec. 6 so the county and its 10 cities can receive $7.5 million in gasoline taxes available under Proposition 111.

The plan calls for the commission to evaluate each year the effect that proposed developments countywide would have on traffic and set limits for the number of vehicles on the road.

“That is the biggest bunch of baloney I’ve ever heard,” Councilman Bill Davis said. “You’re talking about . . . giving a governmental body that is not within our city the ability to tell us we can’t build something because they don’t feel we can mitigate the traffic.”

Under the proposal, if traffic is too heavy on a road in Thousand Oaks, the city would have to come up with a plan to reduce the number of vehicles to an acceptable level. Should the city fail to comply, it risks losing its share of gas taxes.

But the commission’s proposal would allow more traffic than cities and the county now allow, said Art Goulet, director of the county’s Department of Public Works.

State transportation officials grade the volume of peak-hour traffic, with A being the lightest traffic and F the heaviest.

The county and most of its 10 cities now use level C as the maximum level of allowable traffic, Goulet said. Under the congestion management plan, the maximum traffic level would be D.

Goulet said the traffic plan applies only to future developments that would require the county or cities to amend their zoning regulations, while excluding large projects allowed under current zoning policies.

“To do that is kind of closing your eyes to reality,” he said.

Goulet was scheduled to speak on the traffic plan during the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. The board, however, decided to delay its hearing on the issue until Nov. 26.

At a meeting Monday night, Simi Valley City Council members attacked provisions of the traffic plan that would take away their share of gas tax revenues if they approve a project that increases traffic.

Mayor Greg Stratton said the traffic plan does not make it clear whose responsibility it is to mitigate traffic congestion on county freeways, adding that commuters from different areas use the section of the Simi Valley Freeway that runs through his city.

“Obviously, the freeway is a countywide problem,” he said.

Officials from other cities also have voiced concerns about the traffic plan.

Moorpark City Councilman Scott Montgomery said that at the very least the Transportation Commission should give the public more time to comment on the plan and should assess its effects on the environment before it adopts the new regulations.

Otherwise, the county and 10 cities should band together and sue the commission, he said.

Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Transportation Commission, said her staff will recommend that the commission ask state officials to clarify how the freeway issue will be resolved.

Gherardi said the commission’s plan is not intended to usurp the county or a city’s right to develop. She said the plan is simply intended to provide incentives for cities to apply more stringent traffic controls on developers so that the cities do not end up having to pay for needed improvements.

She stressed that the maximum traffic level proposed in the congestion management plan is not intended to replace local policy.

“It is merely to provide a safety net in case a city or the county cannot meet its own standards,” she said. “If we don’t do that, we will be withholding revenue . . . and that’s not our intention.”

Goulet suggested that an environmental impact report might be needed to evaluate exactly what effect the commission’s proposed traffic levels would have on the region.

But Gherardi said her staff does not believe that an environmental impact report, which could cost more than $100,000, is needed.

She said her staff will forward recommendations made by the county and its cities to the Transportation Commission, which will ultimately decide what changes will be made.