Somis Traffic Problems

Thank you for publishing “Somis Bypass Would Reroute a Problem” (April 4) by John Kerkhoff.

As a Somis resident, I see his proposed bypass as a neat and creative solution to a nasty problem: what to do with transportation infrastructure when urban sprawl starts to impact important and extremely productive agricultural land. I can only hope that Caltrans and Ventura County government leaders will give Mr. Kerkhoff’s ideas the thoughtful study they deserve.

I was also interested to note a letter from Debra Tash appearing opposite Mr. Kerkhoff’s article. Ms. Tash apparently wants the intersection at Highways 118 and 34 to be expanded instead of considering the bypass road. Her letter contained the same old tried and untrue methods of building Southern California’s highways: expansion, more traffic, urban sprawl and congestion (then we get to start all over again, with bigger roads).

What’s amazing to me is that Ms. Tash has the temerity to suggest that expanding the 118 / 34 intersection into a five- or six-lane monstrosity will not lead to widening Highway 34 from two lanes to four. Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, apparently wants us to believe the same pulp wash.

How naive do they think people are? If the fate of the town of Somis were left to Ms. Tash and Ms. Gherardi, Somis would be gone in a flash.

Thank you, John Kerkhoff, for creative solutions to the same old bureaucratic, uncreative and mindless drivel.

BRETT TIBBITTS

Somis

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Re “Plans for California 34,” Ventura County letters, April 4.

The widening of Highway 34 through Somis is not a rumor, as letter writer Debra Tash would have you believe. The only issue that might be in question is when.

As far back as 1991, Caltrans’ route concept report for the 34 proposed four-laning from Oxnard to California 118 (through Somis). As recently as 1998, the Ventura County Transportation Commission (of which Ginger Gherardi is executive director) mentions the widening of Highway 34. Indeed, on pages A3-2 and A3-3 of VCTC’s 1998 Congestion Management Report it states: “Ultimately, the road will be widened to four lanes over its entire length.

As Ms. Tash well knows, as she was present at the community-sponsored meeting in Somis last October, a Caltrans representative said that it is nothing for Caltrans to wipe out 60 or 80 homes or buildings at a time in order to build its roads. With remarks like that it is no wonder the small community of Somis correctly perceives that it could very well be in jeopardy.

BARBARA KERKHOFF

Somis