FILLMORE : $10-Million Road Project Approved

One of Ventura County’s most dangerous stretches of highway will be widened and a two-lane bridge near Fillmore replaced under a $10-million project approved Wednesday by the California Transportation Commission.

The state will begin work in December on the five-mile segment of California 126, running from the east Fillmore grade crossing to just east of Powell Road. In addition, the state Department of Transportation will replace an aging bridge with a two-span concrete bridge, built to the latest seismic safety standards.

The narrow, two-lane road has been the scene of numerous head-on accidents--most recently on Wednesday--as motorists try to pass other cars or simply drift across the median strip.

The road-widening project, under way for seven years, will eventually create a continuous, four-lane highway from the Ventura Freeway to the Golden State Freeway near Santa Clarita.

“We’ve been concerned that because of the earthquake, this would be put off, but Caltrans found the money,” Fillmore City Councilman Roger Campbell said.

When the latest stretch is completed in June, 1996, only seven miles of two-lane road will remain, Campbell said.

In the accident Wednesday, on a stretch of California 126 just west of the Los Angeles County line, a Santa Maria truck driver was critically injured when he was struck by a pickup truck as he stood outside his disabled rig, police and family members said.

The pickup, driven by Hassan Mechamal, 21, of Fillmore, veered across the narrow stretch of California 126 about 1 p.m. and pinned Larry Cosand, 26, to his tractor-trailer, the California Highway Patrol reported.

Cosand underwent surgery late Wednesday at Santa Paula Memorial Hospital, said his father, Floyd D. Cosand of Anaheim.

An investigation of the accident was continuing, authorities said.