Council to Weigh Plans to Ease Traffic on Beachmont Street

After months of traffic studies and cost analyses, the Ventura City Council is poised to consider plans Monday to relieve congestion on a public street that often gets clogged by boaters using a nearby unloading ramp.

City officials since last fall have been vexed about what to do--if anything--with Beachmont Street, where big trucks rumble by dragging huge motorboats on their way to Ventura Harbor.

Owners of the pricey, harbor-front homes call the rumbling rigs a nuisance and say they have caused a few cracks in the walls of some residences. Vocal property owners want the city to restrict traffic along Beachmont Street or install center dividers to ease traffic.

Boaters, meanwhile, say the homeowners are greatly exaggerating disturbances or damage claims purportedly caused by the trailers.

In any event, city officials expect another lengthy public hearing Monday evening during which both sides will state their cases. Scores of speakers crowded City Hall for hours at hearings last fall.

Community Services Director Everett Millais recommends that the city spend $100,000 to build two raised center medians that would restrict left turns in front of the boat-launch ramp and at the corner of Beachmont Street and Harbor Boulevard.

Millais also suggests that the council begin looking at a city ordinance that would prohibit certain types of vehicles along specified streets throughout the city.

Two raised medians would reduce much of the traffic along Beachmont Street by diverting vehicles to other, less-traveled roads, the report concludes.

“It is estimated that 200 of the 300 vehicles per day that currently make that turn [from Beachmont Street left onto Harbor Boulevard] will instead use Seaview Avenue,” Millais wrote in his report to the council.

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The issue has divided the Ventura Keys community. Beachmont Street residents are urging the council to implement changes in traffic flow while nearby mobile home park residents are lobbying for no changes to the current pattern so traffic will not be rerouted by their homes.

City Hall has received about two dozen letters as well as a petition with about 300 signatures opposing any closure to Beachmont Street traffic.

“Tourists find Ventura streets to be incomprehensible now,” one letter writer stated. “Whatever you do, don’t finish off their nervous breakdowns with some Mickey Mouse route system.”

Councilman Gary Tuttle said the entire issue has been blown out of proportion.

A few wealthy residents, he said, have been successful in pushing the Beachmont Street traffic issue this far. But, he said, there are far more pressing concerns before the City Council.

“I’ve looked at it for hours,” Tuttle said Friday. “I’m to the point where I think the City Council and staff have spent too much time on this issue.

“It’s not one of our most busy streets,” he said. “We’re spending a lot of time on a street that priority-wise isn’t that big a deal.”

For the record, Tuttle said he supports building the two raised medians.

“I’m tired of it,” he said. “It’s time to move on. I support the recommendation, and then I’m done with it.”