Upgrade of Moorpark Freeway Ramp Delayed : Safety: Cars lined up at Olsen exit pose rush-hour hazard. Thousand Oaks and the state differ over whose job it is.

Transportation officials from Thousand Oaks and the state, squabbling over who will do the work, have postponed plans to improve a Moorpark Freeway ramp that is often backed up with cars during afternoon rush hours.

The line of cars sometimes stretches back onto the freeway, creating a safety hazard that many commuters want eliminated.

“If I ever happen to be in a wreck up there because Thousand Oaks balked about fixing the problem, I’d own Thousand Oaks next year,” said Claude W. Brown, a Simi Valley resident who uses the ramp to get home from work each day. “They know what the problem is, and they know how to fix it.”

Thousand Oaks has designed a project to relieve the Olsen ramp backup, said John Clement, the city’s public works director.

But Clement said Thursday that he is concerned about cost and liability issues and does not want to put Thousand Oaks crews to work on a state-owned freeway ramp.

“Caltrans wanted me to have city employees work on state property,” he said. “I was not excited about that. I fully expected Caltrans would undertake the necessary work. I don’t have the budget to work on someone else’s property.”

Meanwhile, Caltrans had expected Thousand Oaks to do the ramp work.

“We gave them a permit to do it,” said Ali Peykanu, Ventura area engineer for Caltrans. “What’s there to worry about?”

Caltrans has not assigned its own crews to begin ramp improvements because that part of the project needs to be linked with work on Olsen Road, which belongs to Thousand Oaks.

“Our maintenance people will be happy to do their part of it,” Peykanu said. “But it has to be coordinated (with the city’s work). They have to be out there the same time and the same day.”

Each driver using the exit today must brake for a stop sign at the end of the ramp before turning onto Olsen. A long line of cars often forms behind the stop sign at rush hours.

Last summer, Thousand Oaks traffic experts determined that they could end this backup by removing the stop sign and creating a continuous right-turn lane that would allow cars to move smoothly onto Olsen without stopping.

Because the project involved a freeway ramp, Caltrans needed to approve the design. The state agency gave its OK, but the project has been stalled by the disagreement over who will carry out the work.

For now, the two sides have agreed to keep the project on hold until the new Simi Valley-Moorpark freeway connector opens in about two weeks.

Thousand Oaks officials believe that many drivers who now leave the freeway at Olsen are using it to connect to the Simi Valley Freeway via Madera Road. When the freeways are linked, this surface route will no longer be needed and the backup will disappear, they say.

“I really don’t think we’re going to need the (Olsen Road) project,” Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo said. “My philosophy has always been that when you have a drastic change like the opening of that freeway, you have to look at a new priority list of where you’re going to spend your dollars.”

But several commuters who live in Simi Valley’s Wood Ranch community said the new connector won’t give them a shorter route home and will not relieve the backup on the Olsen ramp.

“I don’t think that’s going to make any difference,” said David Sehnem, who uses the Moorpark Freeway to get to and from his job in Canoga Park. “I really do hope I’m wrong . . . but I just don’t think so.”

David Burde, a Wood Ranch resident who works in Westlake Village, said he hopes Caltrans and Thousand Oaks agree to proceed with the ramp improvements before an accident occurs.

“Once it gets dark earlier, and it gets into the rainy season, I think it’s going to be more dangerous,” he said. “If they’re going to do anything, it would be good to get it done.”