Potholes Make for Rough Riding Around the County

KerBLAM!

Grrrr, pothole. Another of Ventura County’s rich, deep and harrowingly diverse specimens of road rot.

If it was deep enough, the next sound you heard was probably the clanging racket of your oil pan, kingpins and lug nuts all dropping off at once. Followed none too shortly by the sickening whine of a tow-truck winch and the chilling beep of a mechanic’s cash register.

Potholes are easy to make. Just lay asphalt. Add rainwater. And pound firmly with millions of two-ton vehicles for a few months.

Removing potholes--with the limited money, staffing, material, time (and sometimes concern) available to city, county and state road crews, is another matter.

Dear Street Smart:

I am writing in regard to the condition of Hueneme Road, between Saviers Road and Edison Drive. The roadway in both directions has numerous potholes and uneven surfaces that put my 4X4 to the test every day.

The railroad crossing closest to Saviers is so bad that it could make the treads fall off a tank. This used to be a nice stretch of the road, but with all the increased truck traffic there now, the road is in very bad shape and in need of some major work.

Is this section of the road in line for any type of repaving?

Wayde J. Heldibridle

Port Hueneme

Dear Reader:

Caution: Buck-passing ahead. Be glad you own a 4X4 . . . and consider slipping into something that might survive until the road actually gets fixed, say, a Bradley armored fighting vehicle.

Oxnard’s street department plans to patch the Hueneme Road potholes within the month, said Raymond Williams, Oxnard street maintenance supervisor.

But a full repaving job won’t happen unless and until developers actually build homes or businesses alongside the road.

“The General Plan calls for that to be widened to two lanes in either direction,” Williams says. “But until those properties get developed, it’s not going to happen. It’s put off on the developers to pay for it.”

The railroad--in this case the Ventura County Railway Co.--is responsible for the condition of the road for up to a foot on either side of the rails.

Patching would have been pointless during the recent heavy rains, says Sonny Mahon, the railway’s maintenance supervisor. Even in dry weather, asphalt patches stick to potholes for a month or two before cars grind them to gravel. To make matters worse, that railroad crossing often floods in heavy rains, which further help potholes multiply, he says.

So patching must wait until the rainy season ends, he said. Oh, and the railroad is waiting for the developers too.

Dear Street Smart:

The city of Ventura has made many capital improvements in the Kimball/Telegraph roads area to keep up with development in the east end.

My concern is over the condition of Blackburn Road east of Kimball. Between the Kimball bridge over California 126 and Saticoy, Blackburn Road is in very poor condition. It seems the city is out every few weeks patching potholes, and is still unable to keep up with the rapidly deteriorating pavement.

And overlaying an extra couple of feet on the shoulders would really improve the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists using this popular road. When is this section of roadway due for repaving?

Timothy R. Clark

Ventura.

Dear Reader:

Again, alas, relief is far off.

Ventura traffic engineer Nazir Lalani says Blackburn won’t be repaved until the city replaces a huge water main, some time within the year. Only when that is done, will Blackburn get new blacktop, he said.

But Lalani likes the idea of laying down shoulders for walkers and bikers.

“We would definitely try to do what we can in the shoulder area,” he says. “We definitely would like to improve it. But we have limited funds to spend on resurfacing streets.” Meanwhile, the city is trying to persuade SCAT to change its bus routes to follow Blackburn Road and spare some potential riders the dangerous walk.

You readers may scoff when governments complain of poverty, but Lalani says the city is only able to do $2 million a year in road work--about half what it should be shelling out annually to repair its roads.

Lalani says that’s all the gas-tax money the U.S. government is doling out to cities these days. And he said Ventura would spend its own money on roads, but the bulk of it is kind of tied up keeping police, firefighters and the rest of the city staff on the job.

Dear Street Smart:

The stretch of California 33 between Oak View and California 150 to the north is terrible.

We’re not talking about one or two potholes, but long stretches of ruts.

In the past year, several poor attempts have been made to resurface portions of this stretch, but these only appear to be temporary. A few months ago, a recently paved stretch had to be scraped off to eliminate all the bumps and ruts caused by the repaving.

The repairs (poor choice of words) have eliminated most of the roadway striping, making travel at night particularly dangerous. Who is responsible for the poor repair efforts that have been made? And when will the section of roadway be repaired?

Chris Perkins

Ojai

Dear Reader:

Second things first: On Jan. 27, Caltrans plans to have a private firm start repairs on the road because the state agency is swamped with weather-related road washouts and drainage snafus.

As for the first question, Caltrans did indeed do the work. But its maintenance workers are not the reason the road is starting to look like 100-year-old buggy ruts.

Caltrans might have bought a lousy batch of asphalt from a supplier, says David Servaes, Caltrans region manager for Ventura County.

In simple terms, the sand and gravel in the asphalt mix sank, the thick oil floated to the top, and the cars quickly turned California 33 into one long, nasty washboard.

Caltrans shaved off the oily bumps and roughened the road to eliminate the dangerously slick surface, so it was only a matter of time, rain and abuse before traffic chewed up the weakened road again, he said.

“I’m only speculating” that the asphalt was bad, he said with grim determination. “I can’t prove it. If I could, I’d be taking other steps.”

NEXT WEEK: Ridiculous intersections. We have plenty of letters on these, and we look forward to solving your other roadway problems.

Miffed? Baffled? Peeved? Or merely perplexed? Street Smart can answer your most probing questions about the joys and horrors of driving around Ventura County. Write to: Street Smart, c/o Mack Reed, Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition, 1445 Los Angeles Ave., Room 208, Simi Valley 93065. Include a simple sketch if needed to help explain your question. Or call our Sound Off line, 653-7546. In either case, include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Street Smart cannot answer anonymous queries, and might edit your letter.