Bridge Over 101 Freeway Is Dedicated

They didn’t stop traffic. They didn’t even bother to slow down and cut a ribbon.

Instead, a bus loaded with city and state officials inched across the new freeway overpass Thursday in Camarillo, pushing through a wide yellow tape held on either end by maintenance workers.

The occasion was the official dedication of the multimillion-dollar Carmen Drive bridge spanning the Ventura Freeway at one of the city’s busiest intersections. The ceremonial bus tour culminated a morning ceremony in Constitution Park, a wide village green next door to City Hall.

“I can remember the 101 when it was two lanes,” City Councilman Stanley J. Daily said. “There were no bridges anywhere. This one now serves a greater purpose and a greater need.”

The bridge cost almost $5 million to build, with an additional $9 million in future improvements to the Carmen Drive interchange planned in the next two years.

Phase 2 of the project will consist of a reconfigured Ventura Boulevard and wider approaches to the intersections.

Plans for both segments of the improvement have been in the works for more than a dozen years, with local property owners being assessed a portion of the overall construction costs.

Earlier this week, the City Council agreed to allow one developer--Ventura Farms, which built the nearby factory outlet--to delay for one year a $444,400 payment to the city interest-free because it does not have the money.

But none of that makes any difference to Emily Ayala, who drives a Camarillo Area Transit bus around town every day.

“The way the traffic was before, you always had to wait awhile to get across the bridge,” she said Thursday, before driving the local dignitaries across the overpass. “Now the traffic is going the right way.”

Still Ayala does not look forward to more construction in the area.

“The construction of this bridge was too much,” she said. “It was real slow.”