RINCON POINT : Work Under Way on Freeway Guardrail
Caltrans workers are building a two-mile guardrail along an ocean-side stretch of the Ventura Freeway where a number of cars have careened from the highway into the water below.
Work on the $140,000 guardrail, which begins where the freeway meets the ocean, south of Bates Road at the Ventura County line, was approved after California Department of Transportation officials realized that the unguarded roadway had been the site of many accidents, said Caltrans engineer Jay Steele.
A number of vehicles have jumped the concrete embankment and gone off the highway along the Rincon, where the rail is being built, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Brad Prows. But Prows said driver error and not the road has caused the accidents. “In and of itself, this road is no more dangerous than any other,” he said. “This will be one extra measure to help prevent accidents.”
The construction project is being financed by tax revenues from Proposition 111, the gasoline surcharge, Steele said.
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