Tortuous freeway construction finally comes to an end

Almost $40 million later—worth it?



IMPROVEMENTS—Caltrans installed an attractive sound wall along the 101 Freeway in Thousand Oaks.

IMPROVEMENTS—Caltrans installed an attractive sound wall along the 101 Freeway in Thousand Oaks.

It took nearly a year longer than anticipated, but Ventura County’s largest freeway improvement in recent history is finally coming to an end. The construction took 32 months.

Caltrans, along with the City of Thousand Oaks and Ventura County Transportation Commission, will host a dedication ceremony Nov. 1 to mark the completion of the Route 101-23 Interchange Improvement Project, a nearly $40-million effort to ease congestion at one of the region’s most notorious bottlenecks.

Earlier this month, crews removed barriers on the 101 Freeway approaching the 23 interchange, freeing up an additional lane in both directions, the last major piece of a costly and time-consuming puzzle.

“All lanes are open and it seems to be flowing,” said project manager Mike Tohidian, a senior engineer with the City of T.O. “We feel it’s a big improvement and hope the drivers feel like it is too.”

Crews added a travel lane in each direction approaching the 101-23 junction, restriped offramps and interchange lanes to make them two lanes, not one, and constructed soundwalls on both sides of the 101.

“The 101 is our backbone, our main street through Ventura County, and it’s nice to see the traffic flowing better and safer—that’s a huge deal, of course,” VCTC director Darren Kettle said.

The project was made possible only after the City of Thousand Oaks agreed in 2011 to loan the state as much as $15.7 million from its general fund reserves to get the job started.

“That’s sort of the last in a series of projects that was started back in 2004 and included the work (widening) on the 23,” Kettle said. “Had we not got the loan from the city, that project would have been delayed another three years.”

Among the final items crossed off the project’s checklist: completion of a soundwall on the southbound side of the 101 at Hampshire Road that needed to be redesigned mid-construction and the restriping of sections of the northbound 101 to help ease confusion regarding exit-only lanes.

The latter was done in response to complaints from drivers about the stretch of the 101 between Moorpark and Lynn roads where traffic from the 23 southbound connects, Tohidian said.

“The ‘elephant feet striping’ was kind of short, so now drivers get more advance notice to merge,” he said, referring to the extension of the wide broken lines indicating exit-only lanes.

Additional signs were installed to alert drivers entering the 101 that they need to get over one lane to avoid having to exit at Lynn.

Even after next week’s dedication, Caltrans will continue working to install an irrigation system and repave the Hampshire Road on- and off-ramps, department spokesperson Yessica Jovel said.

Total cost

The final cost won’t be known until project contractors turn in their last claims and Caltrans has evaluated and settled them, Jovel said. The expected $37.5-million price tag falls slightly under the original $40-million estimate.

While the project was completed under budget, it was not completed on time. The original project schedule of two years stretched to nearly three in large part due to the soundwall redesign.

Work was delayed late last year when engineers discovered the wall intended for the south side of the 101 near Hampshire Road could not be built as originally designed.

The soundwall redesign increased the anticipated cost of the expansion from $33.6 million to more than $37 million in December, forcing the cash-strapped transportation agency to come up with an additional $4 million.

Another matter is the issue of repayment to the City of Thousand Oaks, which is still waiting for about $13 million, the amount actually used out of the almost $16 million the city made available in the form of a loan.

The money will come from the state, whose transportation commission approved the repayment in June.

The payment to Thousand Oaks will come after all final claims have been settled.


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