Road’s Speed Limit Variations Are Not Intended to Trap

Dear Street Smart:

Simi Valley is changing some of its speed limits along main roads like Alamo Street and Cochran Street. We’re going to have varying speed limits along one street.

How can they post different speeds on one roadway when a state law was passed to do away with speed traps? I would think they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in court.

Teresa Jordan

Simi Valley

Dear Reader:

If a traffic officer stops you on a stretch where the speed limit just dropped from 45 to 40 m.p.h., we wouldn’t recommend the speed trap argument.

Under state law, a speed trap occurs when police use radar to enforce a speed limit that is not justified by a scientific traffic study. The speed limits that were recently revised in Simi Valley are supported by such studies, says Bill Golubics, the city’s traffic engineer.

Furthermore, different speed limits on one road are common and quite acceptable, as long as the changes are at least half a mile apart, he says.

Although many people believe speed limits are posted to keep drivers from moving too fast, they actually are based on the pace most drivers already maintain along that stretch. These are the speeds that show up in those scientific traffic surveys, mentioned earlier.

In Simi Valley, for example, the speed limit along Los Angeles Avenue, between Sycamore Drive and Erringer Road, is being raised from 45 to 50 m.p.h. Along this stretch, there are railroad tracks on one side and no driveways on the other side, so drivers tend to pick up the pace.

But just west of Erringer, the speed limit drops to 40 m.p.h. This is a busy commercial area with lots of driveways and cross streets, putting motorists on guard and causing them to slow down, Golubics says.

Dear Street Smart:

At a time when budget cuts are affecting emergency services, I have a question about why money is being spent on a road project in Oxnard.

I’m referring to the total replacement of Victoria Avenue from Channel Islands Boulevard to Wooley Road.

This street was not in bad shape.

We certainly didn’t need to have a perfectly good concrete roadbed torn out of a four-lane divided road.

Bruce Barnes

Oxnard

Dear Reader:

You believe Victoria Avenue did not need a make-over. Oxnard street officials disagree.

“The roadway, in our opinion, was in bad shape and needed to be replaced,” says Bob Weithofer, the city’s design engineering manager.

He says the cracks in the pavement were more than skin deep.

“We needed to replace it because the blemishes were not surface blemishes,” Weithofer says. “They extended through the entire depth of the roadway.

“Eventually, we would have had to spend a lot of money on chuck-hole repairs and asphalt patching just to keep it drivable.”

The first phase of this project, involving the northbound lanes, was just finished. Reconstruction of the southbound lanes should be done before the end of the year.

Dear Street Smart:

I’m concerned about the pavement on the Ventura Freeway, just east of the Kanan Road overpass near Thousand Oaks.

This pavement is cracked, creating potholes. The surface is different than that along most of the freeway. I don’t understand why.

This condition has been there for years, and these potholes have not been filled.

Keith Gadbury

Thousand Oaks

Dear Reader:

You’re probably referring to the freeway pavement on the bridge that crosses Medea Creek.

The rocks that were used to make the freeway’s concrete pavement began causing cracks a few years ago because of a chemical reaction with water.

To solve the problem and create a smoother road surface, Caltrans coated most of the freeway with asphalt about five years ago. But the asphalt could not be applied to freeway bridges because the coating is too heavy, says Dave Servaes, Ventura region manager for Caltrans.

“Bridges are designed for a certain amount of weight,” he says. “If you fill up the weight capacity by putting an asphalt overlay on it, then you can’t put traffic there.”

Caltrans periodically patches up problems on these uncoated bridges. If you believe the Medea Creek bridge has cracks and potholes that the agency has missed, Servaes urges you to give him a call at 654-4651.

Dear Street Smart:

I have one more question about the Rose Avenue-Ventura Freeway interchange improvements in Oxnard, discussed in last week’s column.

Will Rose Avenue continue to have a two-lane overpass at the freeway until 1995, when it becomes a six-lane bridge?

Richard Baker

Oxnard

Dear Reader:

We’ll try again to clarify the timetable for this complex project.

This year, just south of the overpass, the city will widen Rose Avenue from two to four lanes. It will create new right-turn lanes onto the freeway and install new traffic signals.

But, says Samia Maximous, Oxnard’s traffic and transportation manager, the expansion of the overpass itself--from two to six lanes--will not begin until 1995. The project will then take up to two years to complete.

In the meantime, city officials hope this year’s interim improvements will help ease the present bottleneck on the bridge.

Street Smart Alert:

If you use any of the Simi Valley Freeway on-ramps or off-ramps between 1st Street and Rocky Peak Road, you may have taken a detour sometime over the next three weeks.

Caltrans is doing “chip seal” work on the ramps, applying a new surface that will give your tires a better grip on the road in wet weather, says Gary Ethier, a Caltrans engineer.

The $230,000 project also will require some asphalt paving and striping on the ramps. As a rule, the work will not be done during rush-hour periods. And Ethier vows that Caltrans will not close two consecutive ramps at the same time, so your detour should be a relatively short one.