Pact Reached on Truck Link to Port of Hueneme

The Oxnard Harbor District has struck an agreement with the county and two area cities that clears the way for construction of a $44.6-million project that will create a new truck corridor linking the Ventura Freeway and the Port of Hueneme.

As part of the agreement, the district will contribute $2 million toward the long-awaited interchange and roadway extension project, a joint venture with Oxnard, Port Hueneme and the county. Construction is slated to start this fall, with completion set for 2003.

After more than a decade of discussion, plans call for extending Rice Avenue one mile to East Hueneme Road, providing a more direct route for truckers commuting between the port and the freeway. The project also includes construction of a new interchange at Pleasant Valley Road and California 1.

The county Transportation Commission approved the joint agreement at its Friday meeting, said Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the commission. The plan is still subject to approval by the two cities and the county.

Gherardi said specific language in the agreement still needs to be fine-tuned, but added that she did not anticipate any glitches. She said each of the cities and the county are expected to give their final approval within a few weeks.

“It’s just basically feel-good language to make everybody happy,” she said of the final wording in the contractual arrangement. “We want to get this project done.”

Without the agreement, Gherardi said, the project or portions of it could be delayed by several months. “It is a question of whether we would have the interchange and the road to it completed at the same time,” she said.

Oxnard Harbor District Executive Director Bill Buenger said before the commission’s meeting Friday that all parties involved realize the importance of the project and look forward to its completion.

“There was always a desire to get this done,” he said. “It’s just the devil is in the details.”

The project is intended to help ease growing truck traffic on Oxnard and Port Hueneme streets. More than 250 big rigs a day rumble through the two cities en route to and from the port--clogging Victoria Avenue, Ventura Road and Oxnard Boulevard.

The one-mile Rice Avenue extension, plus new interchanges at both Pacific Coast Highway and the Ventura Freeway, would create a new corridor to absorb increasing truck traffic as the port expands its operations, officials said.

Once the truck corridor is completed, officials expect to push new restrictions on truck traffic on city streets. Big rigs bound for the port would have to take the new route or be subject to possible fines.

Much of the roadway project will be paid with state and federal funds. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), a leading advocate for the new truck corridor, has helped secure more than $25 million in federal money for the project.

The harbor district’s portion of the construction costs will be made in three payments, with an initial $25,000 allocation in July, $700,000 in September and a final payment of $1.2 million in September 2001.

Meanwhile, as part of their joint arrangement with the harbor district, Oxnard and Port Hueneme have agreed to speed construction permits and zoning clearances for the project. The cities have also agreed to limit access from future residential development onto the Rice Avenue extension.