Officials Propose That City Build Highway Sound Wall for Neighborhood : Thousand Oaks: The mayor and a councilman say funds are available for work along a noisy Moorpark Freeway segment.

Trying to fix a freeway noise problem that has plagued a Thousand Oaks neighborhood for a quarter of a century, Mayor Jaime Zukowski and Councilman Andy Fox are proposing that the city build a sound wall rather than waiting for Caltrans to do it.

Residents of the Conejo Oaks neighborhood just off the Moorpark Freeway near Paige Lane have been begging the California Department of Transportation to build a sound wall for them since 1971.

Caltrans has periodically measured noise levels in the neighborhood and found that they exceeded safe limits. Also, Conejo Oaks was built before the freeway, one of the agency’s criteria for sound wall construction.

But Caltrans has limited funds and there are hundreds of other projects throughout California considered more crucial than silencing traffic in the Conejo Oaks neighborhood. City officials estimate it could be 20 years before Caltrans gets to the project.

In the meantime, to avoid freeway noise, residents say they avoid barbecues, keep their windows shut and go inside for visits with one another.

Although the entire Moorpark Freeway corridor is noisy, about 50 houses in the Conejo Oaks neighborhood are in the area that receives the most noise, largely because of the height of the freeway and the way it curves over Paige Lane.

Aware of the problem, the city obtained state grants and put aside funds for the sound wall in the 1980s. That fund has increased to $890,000. To install sound walls along the length of the Moorpark Freeway in Thousand Oaks would cost about $5 million, officials estimate.

But now Fox and Zukowski are suggesting that the city use the money that is available to build a 2,000-foot-long segment of the wall along the noisiest strip--from the end of La Jolla Drive to La Granada Drive. Officials estimate the 14-foot-high wall would cost about $600,000, and they said the city would ask Caltrans to reimburse it for the cost.

“That money has been sitting there for years,” Fox said. “All it has done is gain interest. To sit and wait and hold onto the money doesn’t make sense.”

The City Council had earlier directed city staff members to include the Moorpark Freeway sound wall project in the city’s Capital Improvement Program. But after Fox and Zukowski met last week with Carole Gill and former Supervisor Madge Schaefer--both longtime residents of Conejo Oaks--they decided the matter was too urgent to delay.

“I think it is time now that we address this long-standing need,” Zukowski said. “This is an expensive proposition but noise is a real health consideration.”

Gill moved to her El Segundo Street home in 1975, long before the Moorpark Freeway connected to the Simi Valley Freeway and boosted traffic levels significantly.

She has watched--and listened--as noise levels have increased since then. At first it was pleasant, only an occasional car going by, she said, adding that her children took riding lessons in the back yard.

Later, she said, she had to buy a bullhorn so the children could hear the trainer’s instructions over the increasing noise, which continued to get worse.

Her husband, a special effects expert, hooked up a headphone system so the children could continue their lessons. Eventually, the couple gave up and sent the children to a nearby equestrian center.

“After 20 years of fighting, this is really great,” Gill said. “We’re thrilled.”

Schaefer--who said she was awakened at 5 a.m. Friday by the freeway noise, even though her home is two blocks away--said she was pleased by the reaction from council members.

“Jaime understands that this is a health problem for us,” Schaefer said.

“‘And Andy’s reaction, bless his heart, was ‘Why haven’t we done this?’ We’re very grateful. I don’t think we have ever been this close.”

Fox, however, had a few cautionary words.

“This wall is still a long way from being built,” he said. “We aren’t going to start laying brick tomorrow. But it is time for the council to at least start moving on it.”