If You Buy This, We’ll Throw in the Brooklyn Bridge

Eureka! All your traffic troubles are solved.

After mulling his long-suffering readers’ freeway complaints about the hell of modern motoring in Ventura County, Street Smart has finally hit on the ultimate solution. Are you ready for this?

Customized Roads.

Smooth, well-lit, crisply engineered and built to order, Street Smart Brand Customized Roads will go where you want, when you want, and exactly how you want.

Tailored perfectly to each motorist’s needs, a Customized Road can deliver you quickly and slickly from A to B in no time, forever erasing the curses of gridlock, frayed nerves, lawsuits and transportation bonds.

What? Well, yes, you will have to toss the laws of physics, economy, ecology, gravity and plain old common sense straight out the window. But just listen to the advantages:

Speed demons can cruise their very own drag strips, air out their turbochargers and grind their Pirellis bald in a high-velocity run from point to point with nary a Chippie in sight!

Off to work? Take your own personalized commuter route. Only 5 miles long from suburbia to the salt mines, with a 100 mph speed limit and zero traffic. Homeward bound? Drive it backward!

Got kids? Avoid nasty afternoon rush-hour traffic on specialized Soccer Mom and Baseball Pop routes. Stop at school, the athletic field, trumpet lessons, the grocery store, and the movie theater without a single stop sign or jam. Then you can race home with finished errands and happy tots in just 10 minutes flat!

And that, to paraphrase Mr. Lincoln, just might please some of the people all of the time.

But to paraphrase Mr. Ice T, “[Stuff] ain’t like that!”

Roads are never perfect, ever under construction. They are designed by humans for humans, whose fickle needs change yearly and cost dearly.

Just remember Street Smart’s Zen mantra: A perfect life acknowledges that life is imperfect.

Dear Street Smart:

Since the earthquake, the roadway on the transition from the northbound 405 to the westbound 118 onramp, has been uneven at the bridge joints.

This problem appears to be getting worse all the time, and it causes a considerable jolt when you hit the uneven sections. Why don’t they place something at these joints to even out the road or fix the transition ramp?

Jon Safranek

Simi Valley

Dear Reader:

Street Smart’s molars still smart remembering how that vicious little steel-edged bridge joint on a high-speed curve used to rattle his morning commute.

Unfortunately, Caltrans offers only advice, no promise of a fix.

“This condition is not uncommon and it is safe for motorists to traverse,” writes Caltrans spokeswoman Patricia Reid.

“Unfortunately, any remedies would be very costly and, due to budget restraints, it is not possible to correct the problem at this time,” she reports. “Engineers will continue to monitor this location and will continue to seek remedies. Motorists are advised to be aware of the bump and to use extra caution and proceed slowly when they drive over it.”

Street Smart notes that most commuters “proceed” at about Mach 8 when they drive over it, which counts as “slowly” only on Chewbacca’s planet. So much for that advice.

Instead, Street Smart urges: even if you don’t slow down, definitely use extra caution around OTHER COMMUTERS. Because one day, one of them will blow out a tire, and you don’t want to be too close to that mess--or to the mushroom cloud of lawsuits billowing up from the ensuing wreck.

Dear Street Smart:

Most people ignore the lane markings from the northbound Rice Avenue onramp to the southbound Ventura Freeway in Oxnard.

There is a solid white line to indicate the shoulder, but it is commonly used as a right-turn lane for entering the ramp.

If you try to turn from the actual right-turn lane, people cut you off. Also, the onramp starts as two lanes, then immediately narrows to one. Why is it two lanes, since there doesn’t seem to be any way that two vehicles can enter at once?

I suggest that either the right shoulder be more clearly marked so people don’t drive on it, or that it be turned into a right-turn lane. I prefer the latter.

Bill Souder

Simi Valley

Dear Reader:

Caltrans feels your pain.

Two lanes are needed “to increase the storage capacity of the ramp,” says Reid. That means more cars can stack up waiting to enter the freeway without blocking through traffic on Rice.

Reid says the highway crews will make the shoulder more visible by restriping the edge line and installing diagonal striping to block off the shoulder area.

Dear Street Smart:

The traffic flow has outgrown the design of the intersection of Los Angeles Avenue (California 118) and Santa Clara Avenue. The increase of truck traffic continues to magnify the problem.

The delay of traffic flow there is extremely irritating, and I am surprised that I have never seen an accident at this location.

A provision should be made to establish left-turn lanes, right-turn lanes, and through-traffic lanes. This is similar to the intersection of Santa Clara and Central Avenues, but to a lesser degree.

I sure do hope that plans have been made to ease this problem, even if you do not see fit to totally solve the problem.

W. S. Fritzinger

Camarillo

Dear Reader:

County highways honcho Butch Britt says that his engineers already have hunkered over the drawing board with Caltrans, revamping Santa Clara Avenue from Central (where a timed signal light is finally being installed this month) all the way to Mesa School.

The 118 intersection may be stretched to four lanes wide on Santa Clara, with a dual left-turn lane for eastbound traffic and one or two right-turn lanes for westbound traffic, he says. When this will happen, he can’t quite say.

But have we mentioned that Street Smart Customized Roads are already prefab and awaiting delivery upon your orders?

Peeved? Baffled? Miffed? Or merely perplexed? Street Smart answers your most probing questions about the joys and horrors of driving around Ventura County. Write to: Street Smart, c/o Mack Reed, Los Angeles Times, 2659 Townsgate Road, #240, Westlake Village, CA 91361. Include a simple sketch if needed to help explain. E-mail us at Mack.Reed@latimes.com or call our Sound Off line, 653-7546. In any case, include your full name, address, and day and evening phone numbers. Street Smart cannot answer anonymous queries, and might edit your letter.