It is a dilemma that anyone who has traveled from one end of the county to the other has faced. What route is best? The choices are limited. There is either the 101 or the 118, and neither choice is particularly appealing.

Even with the widening of the 101 at the Santa Clara Bridge, traffic on the freeway can be nightmarish. Regardless of the time of day or day of the week, the 101 is at best a crapshoot. The 118 is no better, and, with only two lanes, there are times that it feels like it takes a lifetime just to go from Moorpark to Santa Clara Avenue.

Although there is little to recommend either route, at least there are efforts to do something about the 101. The 118 is destined to remain a small, two-lane rural road clogged with impatient commuters, heavy trucks, farm equipment and the occasional poor, lost soul who made the wrong choice.

We owe the folks from Save Our Somis for this aggravating circumstance. Thanks to a lawsuit filed by the Somis group, the county Planning Commission decided to jettison a section in the general plan that calls for the state highway to expand to four lanes. The good Somis folks believe keeping the roadway to two lanes will preserve its rural character.

The County Planning Commission isn't the final word on the matter, and in the end the decision will rest with the Board of Supervisors. Any hope that sanity and common sense will prevail there is closer to fantasy than reality. In December, the board approved a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the Somis group over the widening of the road. Besides, they reasoned, why waste money fighting a lawsuit when the California Department of Transportation along with the county Transportation Commission are the ultimate deciders?

The Somis group presents some interesting supporting arguments in support of preserving the rural character of the roadway. The group contends that keeping the roadway to two lanes "avoids the impact on biological resources and keeps the county from taking additional ag land."

Frankly, these last two arguments make a lot more sense than preserving the rural character of the 118. At present, the rural character of the roadway consists of miles-long traffic jams with cars and trucks and tractors spewing carbon monoxide and other noxious pollutants into the air. That kind of rural character can be found on the 101 or any of the major thoroughfares in the county's cities, and absolutely no one is advocating preserving that.

Even when the traffic isn't bumper-to-bumper, the heavy traffic flow is unlike any rural road I've ever been on. I guess to the Somis group nothing says rural like a steady stream of fully loaded semis belching diesel fumes and clogging the road to avoid the scales on the 101.

I'm assuming the biological resources that would be impacted are the crops grown in the space where the road would be expanded. That, along with the potential loss of ag land, is a good argument. There is no denying that the loss of agricultural land and the potential crops grown on it would be significant.

As regrettable as that loss might be, the fact is we are losing valuable agricultural land throughout the county and for far less overall benefit and in far greater chunks than what would result with the expansion of the 118 corridor.

No one can blame the Somis folks for fighting to preserve their way of life. Somis is a beautiful area. At the same time, the expansion of the 118 doesn't in any way mean that the rural atmosphere they enjoy will be utterly destroyed. It may be altered somewhat, but it is inconceivable that it will even come close to being wiped out. Yet, that is what they would have us believe.

We can blame the county, and specifically the Board of Supervisors, for not having the courage to do what's best for our county. By caving in to the threat of a lawsuit, by shirking their responsibility to take a stand in the best interests of the whole county, by sloughing off their responsibility to other agencies, the only interests the supervisors are serving are their own political hides.

There are times, far too many, when traffic from one end of the county to the other is intolerable. With only two major roadways to handle this traffic, congestion and all sorts of other problems, including dangerous accidents, are inevitable. In the balancing act of determining what is best for the county, the notion of rural character must take a back seat.

Joe R. Howry is editor of The Star. He can be reached by phone at 437-0200 and by e-mail at jhowry@VenturaCountyStar.com.