MOORPARK : Project to Add Bike Lanes to Freeway
A $120,000 project to add bike lanes along a two-mile stretch of the Moorpark Freeway is scheduled for completion by the summer, a Caltrans spokesman said Monday.
The lanes, which will be painted on the freeway shoulders between Olsen and Tierra Rejada roads, will join only a few other similar lanes in Ventura County.
Freeway bike lane projects are rarely approved because they can be dangerous, officials for the state Department of Transportation said.
Traffic officials and residents questioned the safety of a bike lane along the Ventura Freeway near La Conchita when a cyclist was struck by a car and killed earlier this year.
But Caltrans traffic designer Alec Mardirossian said the Moorpark Freeway bike lane would be safer than the route bicyclists now travel between Moorpark and Thousand Oaks.
Cyclists pedal up a steep, winding section of Moorpark Road called the Norwegian Grade. Blind curves make the trek particularly dangerous for bicyclists, Mardirossian said.
“It is clear that the alternate route is just not safe,” Mardirossian said. “The new lanes will provide a safer alternative.”
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