City to Seek Funds for Bike Paths, Sidewalks

The city plans to apply for $800,000 in Caltrans grants to build bike paths and sidewalks around schools.

The City Council voted unanimously Monday to apply for the grants, as well as to accept $45,000 in Caltrans money to build bike lanes on Santa Clara Street.

The $800,000 would come from the California Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School program and would go toward improving rundown sidewalks on Lynn Drive between Loma Vista Road and Loma Vista School and on Darling Road between Saticoy and Jazmin avenues.

It would also pay for sidewalks around E.P. Foster, Pierpont and Junipero Serra elementary schools.

The city also wants to improve bike and pedestrian paths on a busy section of Telegraph Road between Hill Road and Hoover Avenue. Students of Buena High School, Balboa Middle School and Mound Elementary School take the route, where an asphalt berm separates a bike path from cars. About $200,000 of the Caltrans money would go toward building sidewalks and improved bike lanes on both sides of the road.

The city and the Ventura Unified School District would each contribute $46,000 toward the project.

The Santa Clara Street bike path project would improve the east-west bike route on that street as part of a citywide system of bike paths, officials said. Once that system is completed, they said, an estimated 43,000 recreational bicyclists and 4,300 bike commuters could use the city’s bike paths.

Councilwoman Donna DePaola, who lives on Santa Clara Street, abstained from voting on the Santa Clara Street bike path funds.