Impasse Over Route Stalls Storm Repairs to Oceanfront Bike Path

Months after portions of Ventura’s oceanfront bike path sloughed into the raging surf, state and local bureaucrats remain locked in an impasse over how to restore the bikeway.

The five-mile-long Omer L. Rains Trail, which was battered by February’s intense storms, is still open and used by hundreds of cyclists and walkers every day.

But cyclists must slow to a near stop when they approach the Ventura River estuary, where orange caution cones and concrete barriers detour them around the 100-foot danger zone and through a parking lot owned by the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

That temporary and unsightly fix remains the only solution in sight as authorities at state and local agencies continue to debate whether the path should be moved inland or repaired and shored up to prevent future erosion.

To date, the fairgrounds, which also owns the bike path property, has no plan to submit to the California Coastal Commission for approval. And while fairgrounds officials say discussions among the concerned agencies are ongoing, no studies are under way to repair the path.

“We’ve had a damaged pier since 1986 and we finally resolved that,” said Steve Treanor, superintendent of the Channel Coast District for State Parks and Recreation, which maintains the bike route under an easement from the fairgrounds. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this took five years to resolve as well.”

Treanor said state Parks and Recreation may stop maintaining the path if the fairgrounds continues to insist that the bike path be rebuilt where it lies to save parking spaces.

“We would have to abandon our easement,” he said, because seawalls or other construction needed to protect the path in the same location would violate state rules guarding the coastline.

But Treanor said he doubted that the fairgrounds would ever close the popular path.

“The people wouldn’t allow it,” he said. “They would have to pay hell for that.”

Although the decision appears clear-cut on either repairing or moving the path, the matter is complicated by the dynamic forces of the ocean, by state laws that protect the coastline and by the fairgrounds’ refusal to sacrifice parking spaces to a rerouted path.

In addition, if the bike path is allowed to erode further, the ocean would then start taking bites out of the fairgrounds 3-year-old parking lot.

The state’s budget crisis, which threatens funding for state and local projects, further complicates the already complex problem.

“Even if we had a solution, there’s no money,” Treanor said. “But I think I could raise the money, possibly through private donations with an agreement for repayment when the budget money comes through.”

The dispute over the location of the bike path dates at least to the mid-1980s.

The city of Ventura sought permission from the California Coastal Commission in 1986 to pave, widen and add gutters to an existing bike path built on fill material in 1981.

At the time, staff members of both the Coastal Commission and State Parks told the fairgrounds and the city of Ventura that the path and the proposed adjacent parking lot should be set back another 100 to 200 feet to prevent erosion, commission staff members said.

Ultimately, the commission agreed to the plan calling for the path and parking lot in their present locations.

“But the improvements to the bike path had to be considered temporary and no shoreline improvements were allowed,” said Virginia Gardner Johnson, a Coastal Commission analyst.

The commission’s decision was based on the California Coastal Act of 1972 that prohibits seawalls and other protection devices to guard new developments.

In addition to being unattractive and altering the natural shoreline, seawalls and other protection devices are of limited value because they are in constant need of repair, and they simply deflect the ocean’s energy and subsequent erosion to another location, officials said.

But the fairgrounds wanted to get the maximum number of parking spaces and moved forward on the advice of an engineering report that said it could take up to 50 years for the ocean to erode the path, said Michael Paluszak, general manager of the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

“Would we have proceeded if we had been told that the path would be washed away in three years?” he asked. “Well, hindsight is 20/20. We’re now looking at why coastal protection cannot be part of a long-term solution.”

Paluszak said fairgrounds officials are most frustrated by a futile attempt in November to win approval from the Coastal Commission to add riprap to the shoreline in front of the bike path to prevent erosion.

The commission stuck to the 1986 permit’s original conditions that forbid protection devices.

“We felt helpless,” Paluszak said. “We were watching part of the amenities we offer to the public wash out to sea and we’re in a position to do nothing about it.”

Treanor and the Coastal Commission say the problem could be easily solved by permanently rerouting the path through the fairgrounds’ parking lot.

But that would cost at least 23 parking spaces that the fairgrounds cannot afford to give up when existing parking is already inadequate for the Ventura County Fair and other events held at the property, Paluszak said.

“Our goal all along has been to rebuild it where it exists,” he said.

In an effort to find a resolution, the city of Ventura paid for an engineer’s report issued in April that suggested that the bike path be protected from erosion with one of three structural measures.

The report said the best protection would be either a seawall to deflect waves, which would cost about $480,000, or a type of reinforcement made up of large quarry rocks for about $240,000. A tiered wall of steps for about $150,000 could also protect the path, the report said.

An alternative to a permanent structure is simply to add cobblestones to the area, but that process would have to be repeated annually at a cost of about $120,000.

The city of Ventura, which has only an advisory role in the process, wants more studies done to find the best solution, said Steve Chase, environmental coordinator and assistant to the city manager.

“The hard question is whether we want to put in a series of steps that would act to prevent wave roll-up onto the bike path and would also provide surfer access to the area,” Chase said. “But if we put in the steps and save the multimillion-dollar bike path and parking lot and street, then where would the other impacts (on the coastline) be?”

The Friends of the Ventura River, an environmental group, want the path rerouted without further delays or studies.

“The Friends strongly suggest that the city forgo further studies aimed at arresting the natural shoreline processes, and begin to seriously plan for the permanent relocation of the vulnerable portion of the bicycle path away from the shoreline,” said Charles D. Price, club president.

And bicyclists want whatever is the best and quickest solution.

“We don’t have any objection to relocating the path,” said Dan Love, president of the 170-member Oxnard-Ventura Bicycle Club. “It’s part of the bicentennial bike trail that runs from the Canadian border to the Mexican border and we would like to see it repaired so it can continue.”

As long as the wrangling continues, he said, “we the bicycling public and the taxpayers are the losers.”