Moorpark Officials Upset by County OK to Relocate Road

Upset about plans for moving Moorpark Road through the Tierra Rejada Greenbelt, city leaders said the county Board of Supervisors ignored their complaints when it amended the General Plan to allow relocation of the road.

The approval earlier this week removed the last barricade blocking the project, in the works since 1993.

Opponents of the road’s relocation wanted improvements, such as wider shoulders and traffic lights, made to the existing Moorpark Road, while supporters said moving the road would cost less and reduce accidents.

“This might solve a county circulation problem, but moving the road over a greenbelt takes away agricultural land and opens the area for future growth,” Moorpark Councilman John Wozniak said.

Moorpark Road has several bends, makes a 90-degree turn and has no real shoulder, said Burt Britt, deputy director of public works for the county’s transportation department.

Traffic along the two-lane road has tripled since 1983 and increases every year, he added.

The plan is to straighten the road and connect it with Tierra Rejada Road about half a mile west from where it now ends.

Moorpark’s alternative plan, Britt said, would have cost nearly $2 million more, and the county, not Moorpark, was paying for the project.

“Taxpayers are paying for this and it makes no difference,” Wozniak said. “The cheap way doesn’t mean it’s the best way.”

Relocating the road is an issue of safety, said Michael Wesner, a county planning commissioner who represents Moorpark and Simi Valley.

According to a county report, the narrow road has one of the highest accident rates in Ventura County.

Wesner said many of those wrecks are serious, and many have been fatal.

“I’m not talking fender benders but major collisions,” he said. “The number [of accidents] supports the county’s position in the environmental report that this was an unsafe road.”