In Search of the Missing Link

Plans for a scenic bike trail connecting Ojai with the coast have hit a snag-- namely the ugly stretch of industrial land that lies between the beach and the mountains.

Last year, the city bought six miles of railroad tracks to connect the Ojai trail with the beach bike path. After a year of negotiating with local landowners, engineers say they are down to the last puzzle piece--a 1,500-foot stretch between Stanley Avenue and Shell Road.

“This is the last missing link,” said Rick Raives, a city engineer overseeing the project.

The simplest route for this final stretch follows the tracks, snaking through an industrial yard cluttered with pipes and cranes. But the yard’s owner, a firm called OST Inc., worries that high-speed bikers and roller-bladers could collide with industrial equipment, and children would be tempted to climb aboard company cranes and pipe racks.

“Our truck got hit by a train when the trains were still running. You can imagine what will happen if bikers or skaters get hit by a truck,” said OST owner Dennis Zermino, bumping across the property in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. “Usually trucks win.”

City officials say they are willing to look at other routes, but to date, proposed alternatives have been deemed too dangerous or too expensive.

The most direct alternative would carry cyclists along the edge of the Ojai Freeway, right through the oil fields. City officials say this is out of the question because it is unsafe.

So they are considering another alternative--winding the trail over a barranca, along the base of a hill lined with eucalyptus trees and behind the Avenue School.

But this easternmost route would move away from the railroad tracks that the city owns through the OST property. It is also 700 feet longer and would require the city to build a 40-foot bridge to cross the barranca, ratcheting up costs for the already underfunded project, Raives says.

In potentially increasing costs, the city has been talking to the Ventura Unified School District about acquiring some of the Avenue School’s land.

The project is estimated to cost $4 million, of which the city already has $2.5 million in hand.

“We don’t mind working with the property owner,” Raives said. “But they are saying move it over here, not on our property, and you pay for it.”

When Zermino surveys his family property and the adjacent land his company leases from the Ranger and Tobey families, he sees hundreds of accidents waiting to happen.

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The OST yard is filled with what he calls “attractive nuisances”--or something that might be fun to climb on. Indeed, to the eyes of a child, the OST industrial yard is like a larger-than-life playground, with towering industrial jungle gyms and mountains of secret tunnels.

He knows because his little brother once fell off a crane boom, and his kids have swung from the suspended oil pipe bridge that traverses the yard.

“Look at those pipes; they could roll off and kill a kid,” he said as he drove by a pile of pipes. He pointed to the bridge. A pumping unit. An oil well. A pond. Overhead pipes. “If we build this [the path], someone could get us sued.”

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He has reason to worry. A trespasser a few years back fell in a ditch, broke his leg and sued the company. Company insurance paid.

In Zermino’s mind, the trail would only increase the pool of potential trespassers.

Suzanne Tobey, who owns a large tract of the land that OST leases, also worries about liability if visitors veer off the narrow strip of city-owned land that cuts through her property.

“If anyone gets hurt, who’s going to get sued? Me,” said Tobey, adding that she is terrified that a child will be injured. “I realize they [the city] own the property, but they are telling me I have to cover the liability.”

Raives said that if the trail goes through, the city will do its best to keep people off industrial equipment by building wire fences along both sides of the trail, and putting up large warning signs near all the dangerous crossing areas.

Despite the complications, Raives is optimistic that the city will meet is spring 1998 goal for completing the trail.

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FYI

Interested people, in-line skaters and bicyclists are invited to come out to the OST Inc. property today and take a stroll along the abandoned railroad tracks, as well as explore other possibilities. The group will gather at 11 a.m. at the OST offices at 2951 N. Ventura Ave.

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Bike Path Options

Along the Ojai Freeway

Along Southern Pacific railroad track

A zigzag route around industrial park