Connector Is Welcomed by Officials, Commuters

A day after the 27-mile-long Century Freeway opened, a smaller but equally eagerly anticipated link between the Moorpark and Simi Valley freeways opened Friday, promising to reduce city street traffic and eliminate a bottleneck for many commuters between Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Area residents joined civic leaders and construction workers to witness the first trips down the $39.5-million connector, a 2.2-mile stretch of highway conceived more than two decades ago.

“This is going to lift the burden of really heavy commuter traffic from our streets,” Moorpark Mayor Paul Lawrason said. “It means better access for everyone.”

Until now, to get from the end of the Moorpark Freeway to the beginning of the Simi Valley Freeway, motorists had to follow a winding, 3.4-mile course along New Los Angeles Avenue, Spring Road and Los Angeles Avenue.

The California Department of Transportation estimated that 23,000 vehicles per day had been using the narrow, two-lane route. The agency predicted the figure would more than triple by 2010.

“Moorpark’s slogan is, ‘Where the freeway ends and the city begins,’ but now they should change it to ‘Where the freeway bends,’ ” joked Jerry B. Baxter, a district director of Caltrans.

Baxter was joined by a crowd of several hundred for the brief celebration in the eastbound lanes of the freeway connector--the westbound side was opened to traffic last week.

Spectators nibbled croissants under a festive blue and white striped canopy and peered over the sides of the connector’s twin bridges, which soar as high as 100 feet over the Arroyo Simi channel.

A project manager for C.A. Rasmussen, one of the contractors who built the link, proudly pointed out the grooved concrete roadway. ‘It’s a beauty,” Lew Delucia said. “It’s the biggest project we’ve ever taken on.”

The first cars to roll down the virgin stretch of concrete included a variety of vintage automobiles with wheezy horns and a solar-powered car that resembled a flattened pyramid on wheels.

“It’s pretty neat to be standing in the middle of a freeway,” said Lisa Estill, 13, as she snapped photos for Moorpark’s Chaparral Middle School yearbook. “My mom has to drive me to softball practice every day and this is going to make it a lot easier.”

Planners predict the freeway connector will lure some Thousand Oaks commuters away from the clogged Ventura Freeway with the promise of quicker access into the heart of Los Angeles County by way of the Simi Valley Freeway.

Thousand Oaks City Councilman Frank Schillo said some of his constituents who live along the Moorpark Freeway are concerned about increased highway noise. But, he said, others are grateful for the added convenience.

“I’m getting mixed signals from my constituents, but we’re all hoping that it will turn out to be a good thing.”

Dominic Coleman, 13, said the link will work to his advantage by pulling cars off surface streets. “My parents never let me ride my bike from Moorpark to Simi because they said all the traffic made it too dangerous,” he said. “Now they said I can.”

Lois Williams, 69, of Thousand Oaks said she was “thrilled to death” over the opening of the new link. “We have children in the Valley and in Simi, and driving the roads is miserable,” she said.

“I can’t believe it’s finally happening,” she said. “We’ve waited for this since 1967.”