Boxer Thanked for Efforts on Transport Hub

City officials held a gathering at the Civic Arts Plaza on Tuesday afternoon to thank U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer for securing $1.2 million in federal grants to help pay for a transportation center designed to encourage the use of mass transit.

But citing the absence of Councilman Andy Fox, the City Council later postponed a hearing on the proposed location of the center--a 20-acre site near the southwest corner of the Ventura Freeway and Rancho Road.

“Thanks to Sen. Boxer, we are getting a step closer to the completion of this project,” Mayor Judy Lazar said. “It will be a first for our city and a move in the right direction.”

The so-called multimodal transportation hub, which is expected to cost about $3.5 million, is designed to facilitate transfers among different types of transportation. It will include stops for a number of private and public bus services, as well as a taxi station, ticket sales counters, bicycle lockers and a ride-share parking lot.

City transportation officials estimate that about 1,400 people will use the center each day.

After looking over plans for the center, Boxer discussed the project with city officials. She also answered transportation questions from a group of fifth-graders from White Oak School in Westlake Village.

“I think this is a great project, and I think it will work,” said the California Democrat. Similar transit hubs have been effective in other parts of California, she said.

Boxer said she envisioned a future in which workers would travel to the center by bus and then board their employers’ electric-powered vehicles that would take them to their workplaces. The center, she said, would mean less congestion on the freeways and cleaner air.

But some were skeptical that the transportation center would suit the city’s public transportation needs.

Councilwoman Linda Parks said the city should first consider whether the transit hub is the best way to encourage Thousand Oaks residents to leave their cars behind.

“Do people want it?” she asked before the meeting. “I don’t see a need [for it]. I’d like the funds to increase our [existing] transit system.”

Parks also expressed concerns about the impact that the transit center would have on the area’s residents.

About a dozen of them anxiously waited to address the council Tuesday night.

“It will be a disruption of the entire community,” Vincent Milazzo said outside the council chambers. “They are going to have a place that no one is going to use in an area that is environmentally sensitive.”

Boxer said she was aware that there was no unanimity on the City Council regarding the transit hub. But she said there was enough local support for the project to persuade her to fight to secure the money.

The $1.2 million in discretionary funds from the 1995 and 1996 transportation bills are specifically tied to building a transit hub and cannot be used for other projects, Boxer said.

Don Nelson, director of the city’s Public Works Department, said the final cost of the project would depend on the price of buying the land. The site being considered by the council, which is owned by Calvary Community Church, is valued at about $1.8 million.

In addition to the federal grants, the city has secured $1.3 million in city and state funds for the project, Nelson said. The city would complete the project with money from its air quality impact fees and the Ventura County Transportation Commission’s Congestion Management Air Quality funds, he added.

The council rescheduled the public hearing on the transit center to Dec. 17.