Moorpark Has a Bigger Problem Than Its Trucks

Some people just don’t like living without something to complain about. I lived in Moorpark for 20 years and for the most part I loved it.

I lived on the west end of Everett Street, which overlooks part of California 23 leading to Walnut Canyon. As a boy I remember sitting on the porch of my house counting the cars as they drove by and saying to my mother, “When I grow up I’m going to have one of those cars.” When another car passed about 10 or 15 minutes later, I would say the same thing again. When a truck would rumble by, I loved the brrrrrrrrr sound it made as it downshifted to slow down.

As I slept in my bedroom I could hear the hourly chime of the bells at the Methodist church on 3rd Street, and I could definitely hear the train as it rumbled by. My friends and I flew our kites where the library and City Hall are now, a grassy vacant lot save for a rusted-out skeleton of a vehicle in which we explored the streets, boulevards and flight paths of our imaginations.

Then something happened. I was in fourth grade and the teacher introduced a new student. Well, the new student must have brought along a lot of friends because Moorpark became quite the booming town. Peach Hill was developed. Soon the hills deeper in that part of town were filled with “new students.” It has not stopped.

I drive into town once in a while and I am in awe of the amount of traffic. Every way you turn, there is traffic. The person who just moved in from the San Fernando Valley to get away from congestion complains louder than the people who have lived in Moorpark for many years.

Development. It’s all around you, folks. Please don’t be foolish enough to believe that large trucks are solely responsible for the traffic. Banning them would only result in the use of smaller trucks, and that would mean more trips and even more traffic.

Moorpark needs to stop growing. It needed this a long time ago, but somehow it is only concerned with collecting fees from developers. For those looking for a small, safe town: You would have liked Moorpark 20 years ago. Now it’s filled with people who complain about trucks but not the cars in their own driveways.

I may return to Moorpark someday . . . buy a house on the hill, and maybe some group or coalition or friends of whatever will leave me something to complain about. Until then, leave the trucks alone. They are not the problem.