Moorpark Caught in a Traffic Jam : Roads: Surface street congestion is up more than 30% since completion of freeway connector last year.

Debbie Rodgers-Teasley does not need a traffic study to tell her that the number of cars and trucks running through Moorpark has surged in the last year. She just has to look out her office window.

“It’s constant,” said Rodgers-Teasley, a real estate agent and president of the Moorpark Chamber of Commerce. “On any given day at any given time, you’ll find a line of trucks heading down (California) 118 through Moorpark. If you don’t see them, you feel them roaring by.”

She’s not the only one to notice the increase.

Since Caltrans completed the Simi Valley-Moorpark freeway connector last year, traffic on Moorpark’s surface streets has increased by more than 30%, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Ed Tumbleson of the Moorpark station. The biggest jump is in the number of trucks.

Surveys show that traffic is up more than 10,000 cars and trucks a day on stretches of California 118 in Moorpark.

A 1992 survey by Larry Hail, a civil engineer working for a developer, counted an average of 27,000 vehicles a day along the highway between Moorpark Avenue and Spring Road. Another Hail survey in January showed an average of about 37,000 vehicles a day.

Local residents had hoped that the new connector would bring some relief from the constant drone of big rigs driving through town. County transportation officials had predicted relief.

When the 2.2-mile freeway connector was completed, California 118 was also straightened through Moorpark, making it much easier and quicker to travel to Ventura or Oxnard.

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Now many drivers from Simi Valley take that route as an alternate to driving to Thousand Oaks and down the Conejo Grade. Truckers especially take advantage of the route because it avoids mandatory inspection stations at the top of the grade.

“We’ve always had a problem with truckers trying to sneak by the inspection station at the Conejo Grade,” Tumbleson said. “The difference now is that the (bypass) route is even easier, and truckers are telling each other that this is the way to go to avoid hassles.”

Although Tumbleson said the increase has not caused an increase in accidents, he said he sees potential for problems.

In random truck inspections by the California Highway Patrol outside of Moorpark, officers found that more than 60% of the big rigs had serious safety violations, Tumbleson said.

“When you add the amount of traffic, plus the high rate of speed, plus the conditions of some of these trucks, all mixed in the middle of a town, there’s going to be trouble,” he said.

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The city has pushed state legislation that would allow sheriff’s deputies to operate inspection stations outside of town to reduce traffic and improve safety. But so far nothing has come from the effort. Deputies can now stop trucks only for traffic violations in town. Only then are they allowed to make safety inspections.

The CHP has said that it is spread too thin to do more inspections. Eleven officers now cover the Conejo Grade inspection station and random safety inspections on California 118 and California 126.

“If we ever got the people to put out there on a regular basis, we would do it,” said Lt. Bill Inglis of the CHP’s Conejo Inspection Station. “I don’t want to indict all the truckers that use the 118, but we know a lot use the route to bypass the scales. We’re all concerned about that.”

A lot of truckers use the route because it is quick and convenient, said trucker Amos Almeida of S & P Milling Co. in Oxnard.

“Most of the boys from out of the area know about the 118 as a straight shot to Ventura or Oxnard from the Valley,” he said. “But gosh, it is dangerous. You got a two-lane road and a lot of impatient cars wanting to pass you. I know some drivers are using the route to avoid the scales, but I would say there aren’t that many of them doing that.”

City leaders say that reducing traffic on the 118 is one of their top priorities, but they offer few solutions.

Mayor Paul Lawrason said there are benefits to having so many vehicles traveling through town. Fast-food restaurants and shops catering to motorists have helped the city increase its sales tax by nearly 10%, Lawrason said.

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“Traffic has been a perennial problem, but it is not all bad,” he said.

And Moorpark has thrived with heavy traffic for much longer than most people know. According to the Ventura County Almanac, 672 cars passed through town in a single hour one July day in 1923.

“I suppose that is just a graphic illustration of how we’ve always been a hub for Ventura County,” Councilman Scott Montgomery said.

Montgomery said plans to complete a freeway that would completely bypass Moorpark’s surface streets are being laid out by Caltrans, but construction is decades away.

“I don’t think we’ll see that in my lifetime,” he said.