VENTURA : City to Study Safety Measures for School

Responding to complaints over speeding near Juanamaria School, a Ventura city committee has ordered city traffic engineers to investigate posting speed limits and installing a stop light near the elementary campus.

Resident Billie Olmstead told council members on the committee that she had gathered nearly 400 signatures on a petition calling for increased traffic safety measures in the neighborhood.

Olmstead began the petition drive after a 12-year-old neighborhood boy was killed in a bicycling accident near the school last month. The accident was not related to the area’s speeding problems--authorities said the boy swerved into a passing car, which was moving below the speed limit. But Olmstead said the incident seemed an opportunity to get the community to focus on traffic problems that have long troubled her.

Friday, the council committee agreed. City staff members say they will begin studying the intersection at Petit Avenue and Telegraph Road to determine whether it warrants a traffic signal. They will also look into the possibility of posting a “school zone” sign on westbound Telegraph Avenue, and erecting speed limit signs on Petit Avenue.

Residents have also requested a four-way stop sign at Petit Avenue and Balboa Street, which now has one stop sign on Balboa Street. But city engineers say the law allows them to post a stop sign on Petit Avenue only if both streets generate about the same amount of traffic.

Currently, 70% of the traffic is on Petit Avenue, so it would be illegal to make cars on that street come to a stop at the intersection, officials said.