Traffic on Rice Avenue in Oxnard typically moves in fits and starts over the Highway 101 overpass as it heads north for Santa Clara Avenue. And that's at lunch hour. By 5 p.m., northbound traffic on Rice usually backs up to Gonzales Road. Motorists on Highway 101 clog the northbound exit ramp, spilling onto the freeway. Then they jockey for position to reach Santa Clara Avenue, Auto Center Drive or Ventura Boulevard.
By 2024, stop-and-go traffic will reduce the overpass and its nearby intersections to unbearable conditions, studies show. With that problem looming, however, city officials have patiently chipped away since 1997 at condemning properties and raising money to build a new overpass.
Improving the major connector to Highway 101 would help motorists, the city of Oxnard, and the movement of goods from the Port of Hueneme. But the city is $25 million short on funding, transportation dollars are scarce, and costs for materials and services keep going up.
"The interchange doesn't adequately serve current traffic and won't meet the needs of future traffic projections," Cynthia Daniels, project manager with the city's transportation planning program, said recently. "It's not a good situation."
The project calls for expanding the overpass to eight lanes from its current two-lane configuration and adding bike lanes and sidewalks. Plans also call for new southbound and northbound onramps and offramps.
"It's going to be a great improvement," said Kerry Forsythe, deputy director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission.
Since 2004, the city has used eminent domain laws to acquire properties around the interchange and relocate businesses and residents to make way for the construction. Under the law, the city must declare such properties "necessary" for the public interest and compensate owners at fair market rates.
The city has budgeted $16.7 million to cover more than 90 property transactions -- including acquisitions of easements, businesses, mobile homes and houses -- and relocation costs for residents and businesses.
So far, the city has paid $5.8 million to nine property owners or businesses for various condemnation costs, according to records compiled by the City Attorney's Office.
Some owners have settled
The city also has spent $91,200 to acquire 11 mobile home trailers, which tenants owned at the Owl Mobile Home Park.
The total number of settled transactions was not available, however, because the city does not keep a consolidated list, Daniels said.
No case has gone to trial yet. Some parties have reached mutual agreements with the city, Daniels said.
Also, the Oxnard City Council is not required to approve every individual expenditure, Daniels said. The council approved a lump sum in its annual budget to cover such transactions, she said.
"We have not had a single court trial," Daniels said. "We have settled every single case before we go to trial, and we're satisfied we've been able to come to amicable terms."
Building the new overpass is rooted in a years-old plan to move the route of Highway 1 from Oxnard Boulevard to Rice, Forsythe said.
To aid that vision, the state built a new interchange at Rice and Pleasant Valley Road, south of the freeway. The interchange opened in 2003, funneling traffic from Pacific Coast Highway onto Rice.
Highway rerouting will aid city
Moving the Highway 1 route over to Rice would divert about 30 percent of the traffic off Oxnard Boulevard, Councilman Dean Maulhardt said recently. It would also give the city more authority over Oxnard Boulevard, which runs through the downtown.
Decisions concerning parking, traffic lights and driveways now must go through the state, Maulhardt said. Moving the highway route would give the city more leeway to encourage and approve new business opportunities along the boulevard, Maulhardt said.
Officials with the Oxnard Harbor District, which owns and operates the Port of Hueneme, say a new interchange also would make it easier for trucks to exit northbound Highway 101 onto Rice Avenue.
"You can't turn an 18-wheeler on that corner very well," William Buenger, the district's executive director, said of the current offramp.
With a new overpass, more trucks would use Rice Avenue to reach the port. In fact, the project was recommended in a late-1990s study, Buenger said.
Construction costs increasing
The project, however, faces critical financial hurdles. Costs of labor and materials for construction keep rising. Construction costs are now estimated at $33.7 million, up from $19.2 million in 2002.
Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, helped Oxnard get $2.6 million in federal funding for the interchange, but the city still faces a $25 million shortfall for the project. That will grow to $28 million by next year and $29.7 million by 2007, according to a report presented in November to Maulhardt and Councilman Andres Herrera, members of a city project subcommittee.
Construction costs are expected to increase 4 percent to 8 percent annually after that, the report says.
Improving the interchange is part of a larger Ventura County Transportation Commission plan to widen Highway 101, but there's no available money now, Forsythe said. A proposed half-cent countywide sales tax would have helped finance the improvements, Forsythe said, but voters rejected the idea in November 2004.
The city is considering several options to raise more money, including state and federal funding, property assessments, higher developer fees, bonds or a local sales tax.
"I don't want to remove any option off the table or put anything specific on the table," Maulhardt said. "I want to make sure we keep all our options alive."
Visit http://www.venturacountystar.com/ for more local news.
