$1.9 Million Set Aside for Interchange

Moving to expand one of the city’s most crowded intersections, the City Council has authorized a $1.9-million upgrade of the Moorpark Road-Ventura Freeway interchange.

Many of the freeway interchanges in Thousand Oaks need expansion, and city leaders plan to improve several in the next five years.

Council members voted unanimously Tuesday to proceed with the Moorpark Road project, one of several outlined last year as part of the city’s capital improvement budget. It will be done as a cooperative agreement with the California Department of Transportation, and the money to pay for it will come from gas taxes, development fees and traffic safety funds.

“It’s critical that it be done,” City Manager Grant Brimhall said.

But Brimhall and several council members stressed that such a potentially disruptive construction plan--which includes expansion of the freeway ramps at the intersection and of Moorpark Road itself under the freeway overpass--should not be done in haste. They asked city officials to include as much input as possible from nearby businesses and residents.

Mayor Judy Lazar said Thousand Oaks should use the expansion of the Borchard Road-Ventura Freeway interchange as an example of how not to make such improvements. That project led to protests from residents and businesses, who said the detours were set up by city officials without enough input from those who were affected and could have been done better.

Public Works Director Don Nelson said there would be an extensive public outreach effort to inform everyone affected by the construction. He pointed out that city officials are doing that for a planned upgrade of the Hampshire Road-Ventura Freeway interchange.

Bids for construction of the improvements are set to go out by summer.