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Rice-101 plan may be funded in '08
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More from County NewsThe long wait for a new highway interchange at Rice Avenue and Highway 101 is one step closer, according to local transportation officials.
At a Ventura County Transportation Commission meeting Friday, Peter De Haan, director of transportation programming, legislation and grants for the commission, said the $75 million project had an "extremely good chance" of being funded by next summer.
Money for the project would come from a pool of about $2 billion in bond money that is earmarked for trade corridors, De Haan said.
A new interchange at Rice Avenue would allow for a rerouting of Pacific Coast Highway, which would skirt downtown Oxnard and provide a more direct route into and out of the Port of Hueneme. Half of the money would come from the bond with the other half coming from local sources, including the city of Oxnard, De Haan said.
The rerouting would allow the city to take back control of Oxnard Boulevard, which is part of the PCH.
The fate of the project has been part of an expansive discussion and debate on dozens of big-ticket projects across California.
Darrin Kettle, the new executive director of the transportation commission, said he's optimistic because the project meets the basic criteria established by the California Transportation Commission and, almost as importantly, it's ready to go.
"In our case, the key thing is that it's clearly a freight movement enhancement that's ready to go," said Kettle, who was involved in several state meetings in late November to prioritize trade-corridor projects in Southern California.
"A lot of these other projects will be lucky if they're ready to go by 2012; by that time we'll have had a year and a half or two years' use (of the interchange)," he said.
In April, the California Transportation Commission will vote on the list of projects and the Legislature will then have to approve funding for the work during its budget process sometime in July.
If everything goes well, the work could begin in fall 2008, Kettle said.
Posted by THX1138 on December 8, 2007 at 8:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sadly highway improvements have little to with inconvenience and more to do with $$. And, much of the tax we pay [fuel tax] goes to other [higher priority] projects in other counties. As mentioned, w/o the Port, the Rice project would be lower on the "to do" list.
I'd bet the Wagon Wheel Project was motivated by the housing development off of Vineyard and not the daily grid-lock. All those new residence will add to an already crowded highway.
There are ways [relatively inexpensive] to ease the 101 traffic issue through Camarillo and Oxnard, but Sacramento considers us as a low priority...
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