Residents Hope to Wall Off Traffic Noise

For residents of the Buenaventura Gardens Condominiums, views of 14-foot-high brick walls would be better than the noise they face now.

Traffic from the Ventura Freeway and California 126 feed onto the East Main Street offramp behind their complex, bringing big-rig truck horns, screeching brakes and a general noisiness that residents would rather do without.

“At night there’s a constant roar and clang as the trucks go over the bumps,” said Bob Schaeffer, manager of the condos.

Relief might be around the bend, though, if county officials approve the wall, one of 35 projects on a just-completed sound-wall wish list.

The requests--part of a project to buffer the county’s residential neighborhoods from neighboring freeways--were submitted by each city in the county. In September, sound experts will test each site’s noise levels, and by January the county should have a list of where and when walls will be built.

A state fund for sound-wall construction would pay for the walls. The whole project should take 10 to 15 years, officials said.