Creek Road residents stall traffic meeting
by C.A. Gilman

More than 125 people packed themselves into city chambers Thursday night at a special City Council meeting to review a traffic circulation study prepared by Austin-Foust & Associates, Inc.
This public workshop was to be the first of many dealing with solutions to the traffic and circulation problems besetting Ojai. The city hadn't anticipated the crowd of neighbors from Creek Road and Casitas Springs. Although both areas are outside of the city's jurisdiction, their residents were alarmed that they would be impacted by any decisions that the city made.
Both Ojai and Ventura County had paid for the $30,000 study that looked at traffic circulation improvements from north of Casitas Springs to Upper Ojai. The county had asked the City Council to review the results of the project before they took it to their agencies.
City Manager Dan Singer facilitated the discussion and continually stated that the study contained only ideas and examples for implementing traffic management solutions. Despite his assurances, there was much anger from a number of people within the audience that their neighborhoods would be affected.
Austin Foust is a traffic and engineering firm in Santa Ana that has worked with communities across the state on similar projects. Joe Foust, a principal with the firm, reported on a study that gave primarily engineering answers to traffic and circulation problems. It didn't address other solutions such as mass transit, pedestrian-bicycle options or employment.
One of the project's solutions included a traffic light at Creek Road and Route 33/150 to alleviate peak hour traffic in the morning and afternoon. The 23,000 cars a day that travel Ojai and Ventura avenues are twice the roads' capacity. Because Creek Road and Santa Ana Road have only 2,000 cars per day, they were looked at as alternative routes for the three­ to four-hour peak traffic times.
Foust said he was surprised to find that the traffic on Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays was the same as traffic on Saturdays, and the traffic on Sundays was just a little less.
There was major outcry to this proposal; neighbors citing increased risk of accidents on this already accident-prone road. Creek Road is a rural byway that circumvents the major artery through downtown Ojai. It provides few pull-over areas to allow cars to pass. There are also no sidewalks nor streetlights.
The county has continually stood behind Creek Road by not allowing anything to interfere with its rural, quiet nature.
Foust's study offered other solutions such as free right-lanes to enable a continual flow of traffic, such as at Baldwin Road for cars going northbound. Another was for squeezing in dual left-turn lanes, offering a test case that could be implemented at El Roblar Drive and Maricopa Highway.
Other possibilities included roundabouts at the "Y," El Roblar Drive and Maricopa Highway, and at Montgomery Street intersections; traffic signal coordination and surveillance systems; message systems to warn motorists when the traffic is heavy; street lighting to increase safety; and one-way directions north on Ojai Avenue and south on Matilija Street.
Richard Keith said, "This is an opportunity to encourage business in this community and for people to work locally." He offers financial incentives for his employees to walk or bike to work.
Another person suggested bike trail extensions, increased trolley service and more pedestrian facilities.
Michael Braden said, "We need a paradigm shift in how we can travel without using our vehicles, such as increased mass transit such as they have in Europe."
City Council member Dave Bury said, "This is about finding creative ideas, not only engineering ideas. This problem isn't going to go away. There are 780,000 people in the county today. Although Ojai is only growing by three-tenths of 1 percent per year, the county has a 3 percent growth rate, which adds an additional 20,000 people a year to the services and roads in this area. Tonight our little local issue became a regional issue and we need to look at it this way."
According to Singer, the next steps will be to review the improvement questionnaires that had been distributed earlier to those attending, and to bring the information gathered at the workshop back to the back to the City Council with the traffic mitigation fee issue. He said, "There has to be a connection between assessing a traffic mitigation fee and implementing an improvement plan - this is a state law. The traffic mitigation fee is similar to the flood mitigation fee that is assessed on any new development. These fees go into a central fund that allows the city to provide flood run-off solutions. No one person is responsible." There is already a reciprocal traffic mitigation fee program that the county has adopted. The county has to spend those funds in Ojai.
At the same time the city is reviewing their policies, the county will be doing the same with their various agencies.
Singer added, "This is one piece of a larger puzzle. Another question we need to look at is what kind of employment opportunities do we want to see here so that people won't have to drive. How do we want to behave and change?
There is a high likelihood that most of the circulations items (in the study) won't even be tasted; but even if we take away 15 to 30 percent of the ideas it was worthwhile. The meeting accomplished its purpose to get options out in the community and to start looking at alternative solutions."
Those who came to Thursday night's meeting included residents of Ojai and surrounding townships; members of the Ojai City Council; Cindy Cantle of County Supervisor Steve Bennett's office; Butch Brett, deputy director of Public Works Agency and director of Ventura County Transportation Department; Gary Kervorkian of Caltrans; members of the MAC and Highway 33 Commission; Oak View Civic Council; Ojai Unified School District; Ojai Fire Department; Ojai city staff; City Engineer Glenn Hawks; the Citizens to Preserve the Ojai; the Ventura County Environmental Commission; the Transportation Committee for Sustainable Ojai; etc.

© 2002 The Ojai Valley News

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