Residents Say Santa Rosa Road Improvements Could Add Traffic

Santa Rosa Valley residents are complaining that a county plan to improve safety on Santa Rosa Road, a narrow and rugged route connecting Camarillo to Thousand Oaks, may backfire by encouraging more commuters to travel the already congested route.

The Board of Supervisors has initiated a $2.5-million project designed to improve safety on one of the more dangerous stretches of Santa Rosa Road, where at least three people have died in automobile accidents in recent years.

The project, expected to begin later this year, will include leveling a two-mile section of the two-lane road between Gerry Road and Penelope Place, adding paved shoulders and putting in turn lanes at key intersections.

Although residents concede the improvements will increase safety, they worry that a wider, smoother Santa Rosa Road will attract more commuters and encourage them to go faster.

“You have cars moving 60 to 70 miles an hour down that road,” said Joe Lovretovich, president of the Santa Rosa Community Assn., which represents 18 homeowners’ associations. “It’s extremely dangerous.

“We’re all in favor of making the road safer but we don’t want to make it faster.

“If widening it and taking the dips out of it encourages people to go faster, that kind of defeats the purpose” of the improvements, Lovretovich said.

Residents also are concerned that the current improvement project is only a prelude to widening the entire 5.7-mile road between Camarillo and Thousand Oaks to four lanes, as is called for in the county’s General Plan.

“To widen the road will simply attract more traffic,” resident Jerry Hagel said.

“It’s like water flowing down a hillside,” he said. Motorists take “the path of least resistance.”

With more than 10,000 motorists driving on it every day, Santa Rosa Road is already one of the most heavily traveled roads in unincorporated areas of the county, according to an assistant traffic engineer for the county.

Hagel and Lovretovich expressed concerns about the road when they were members of the Santa Rosa Valley Advisory Committee, which met from last year to about a month ago.

County Supervisor Vicky Howard, who organized the committee, said concerns over the entire road being widened to four lanes are unwarranted at this point because the county can’t afford the $24 million that the project would cost.

But Howard said she is trying to get a flashing yellow signal installed in front of Santa Rosa Elementary School by this fall to help slow traffic on the road.

And she asked the California Highway Patrol to beef up enforcement of the road’s 55 m.p.h. speed limit.

“We got complaints from people that they never saw any enforcement out there,” Howard said.

CHP Sgt. Ted Brummett said, “I know we’ve had several concerns from residents about speeding,” but added that budget constraints limit the number of officers who can patrol the route.

Public attention focused on Santa Rosa Road after a bizarre and tragic traffic accident there last fall.

Camarillo building contractor David Min, 44, was killed in a crash near Gerry Road on Sept. 19, five years after his wife and 14-year-old son died from injuries suffered in an accident less than a mile west on the same road.

The Santa Rosa Valley residents who live in the upscale housing developments nestled in the hills off the road are aware of the dangers.

Many have horror stories of a family member or friend who has been in an accident on the road.

Lynda Guthimiller said a neighbor’s brother was almost killed in a crash there.

And just two months ago, a friend of her teen-age son was driving home one afternoon from Guthimiller’s home when a motorist pulled out of a side street and smashed into the boy’s car. The boy was not injured.

Nighttime is the worst, Guthimiller said.

“Young teen-agers play chicken in the road,” passing each other in the opposing lane until they get scared.

And “at nighttime it’s hard to tell where the dips are,” Guthimiller said.

Guthimiller, president of the Barbara Drive Homeowners Assn., agrees that the county’s plans to add turn lanes and smooth out the road’s dips will make the route safer.

But what she and other residents would really like to see on Santa Rosa Road is fewer commuters going at slower speeds.

“We’ve even spoken about getting a tollgate,” Guthimiller said.

Howard said she has heard the suggestion to charge tolls along a section of the road, which she said is being tried on one route in Orange County.

But Howard said there is legislation pending in the Assembly that would outlaw toll roads.