‘Downtown’ Oxnard Freeway Sign Has to Stretch Point

Dear Street Smart:

I drive on the Ventura Freeway quite often.

Recently, I noticed that in Oxnard they have erected a new sign just before the Rose Avenue offramp that reads simply “Downtown,” with a small white arrow directing traffic off onto Rose Avenue.

I’ve been living here for years, and I know where downtown is. And it isn’t off Rose Avenue, unless you consider Wal-Mart to be the city’s downtown. What gives?

Robert Thompson

Oxnard

Dear Reader:

The sign to which you refer was indeed put up within the past few months to help guide newcomers to the city to its downtown area.

“The shortest route for traffic northbound on the freeway would be Rose Avenue to 3rd or 5th streets,” said Joe Genovese, Oxnard’s top traffic official.

“There are other ways to get there, but those are the shortest ways,” he said.

To make it even more clear to drivers visiting Oxnard for the first time, he plans to direct his staff to put up other signs along Rose to continue alerting motorists to the historic downtown.

“I’m going to make sure we have the follow-up signs,” he said.

Dear Street Smart:

I just read the response in the Street Smart column of June 3 about the flood control project on Santa Clara Road.

I can’t believe the county would admit and the paper would print that the delays they had were because of problems with the weather, when they scheduled a project such as that during the rainy season.

Wouldn’t you think they would take weather conditions into consideration and allow for the delays?

We had less rain this year than we normally get and they claim the weather caused a three- to four-month delay in the project. That’s just really unbelievable.

Randy Knight

Camarillo

Dear Reader:

The eight-month flood control project along Santa Clara Road was delayed numerous times not only by intermittent storms, which watered down the soil and made work stoppages inevitable, but also by higher-than-expected ground-water tables, said Butch Britt of Ventura County Public Works.

“The weather was lighter than last year, yes, but there was water that got in and saturated the excavation,” Britt said. “That was caused by the weather and the high ground-water table.”

Britt said his crews did their best to anticipate how long the $2-million project would take, but that they are not always precise.

Those weather delays “were anticipated to some extent, but there was more water than we expected,” he said. “We can’t be 100% all the time.”

Dear Street Smart:

I find the signage on the Ventura Freeway northbound offramp at Santa Clara Road and Rice Avenue in Oxnard very misleading. It indicates three lanes around the bend: one left, one straight and one right.

In truth, the offramp opens into four lanes--not three lanes--with two center lanes straight ahead, which is confusing to new motorists in the area scrambling to find the lane of their choice.

The diagram on the sign needs to reflect the situation more accurately around the bend so that motorists can anticipate the lane divisions.

Pat McNamara

Camarillo

Dear Reader:

You are partly correct, but also partly mistaken.

The sign depicting the lanes is confusing to people exiting the Ventura Freeway at Rice Avenue for the first time, admits Joe Genovese, the city traffic engineer.

“We’re going to look into getting some new signage there,” he said. “But it may take us a month to get the new signs up.”

But of the four lanes that drivers can choose from when exiting the freeway, the two left lanes are left-turn only, the No. 3 lane is for going straight and the right-hand lane is for right turns only, Genovese pointed out.

“We know that it’s kind of a difficult situation because of the street curves and the way the number of lanes changes,” Genovese said. “You can’t always anticipate it because of the curvature in the road.”

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