Simi Valley Withdraws Lawsuit Aimed at Extending Roadway : Traffic: Freeway connector is relieving congestion, making an alternate route to Thousand Oaks unnecessary.

The cities of Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks will enter the new year without the threat of litigation straining their relations, after this week’s resolution of the longstanding dispute over the proposed extension of Sunset Hills Boulevard.

Simi Valley officials determined this week that the recently opened connector between the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways has sufficiently relieved traffic congestion that they no longer need an alternative route to Thousand Oaks through the Sunset Hills neighborhood.

That conclusion, outlined in a traffic study, persuaded Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton to drop a lawsuit aimed at forcing Thousand Oaks to build a roadway linking the two cities through Sunset Hills. Thousand Oaks officials had scratched the proposed connector road from their long-range planning maps last year, prompting Simi Valley’s lawsuit.

“All we did was erase a line drawn on a piece of paper,” Thousand Oaks City Atty. Mark Sellers said. “It is entirely within our city’s control whether we want to spend public dollars to construct a road.”

In the suit, Simi Valley asked for $2 million to pay for road widening and other improvements that the city would need to reduce congestion on local streets if Thousand Oaks refused to extend Sunset Hills Boulevard. The two-mile extension would have taken Sunset Hills Boulevard past Bard Reservoir and linked it with 1st Street near Simi Valley’s Wood Ranch community.

Since the freeway connector has apparently solved most congestion problems, officials decided against pursuing the litigation.

“I was pleasantly surprised to find that the freeway connector relieved traffic (congestion) more than I had thought it would,” Simi Valley Councilman Bill Davis said. “We feel we can do our build-out of the city without any problems.”

Simi Valley City Hall was closed Thursday for the holidays, and traffic engineers were unavailable to discuss the specifics of the traffic study, which looked at how many cars used the freeway connector instead of surface streets. The local streets of most concern to Simi Valley council members were Tierra Rejada and Madera roads.

Thousand Oaks officials shared their neighbors’ pleasure at the amicable resolution to the Sunset Hills dispute. And they said they were not surprised by the traffic study’s conclusions.

“We knew that when the freeway connector went up, people would take it . . . no one wanted to drive through Simi Valley streets,” Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo said.

Dropping the lawsuit, Schillo added, should warm the relationship between Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks officials. The Sunset Hills issue had “always strained” official business between the two cities, he said, adding “it was one of those bothersome things.”

With the Sunset Hills case closed, Thousand Oaks’ transportation gurus will turn their attention to another traffic issue: the backed-up connection between the Moorpark and Ventura freeways.

Schillo plans to lobby the California Department of Transportation to work on resolving congestion at that connection, especially for commuters switching to the Moorpark Freeway from the northbound lanes of the Ventura Freeway.

The Ventura County Transportation Commission will take up the issue early next year, Schillo said.