Guest opinion
Trucks degrade local quality of life
By Mayor Patrick Hunter Special to the Acorn

Mayor Patrick Hunter

The city of Moorpark is blessed with attractive and safe neighborhoods, parks and recreational opportunities, quality schools and, most importantly, residents with a strong sense of community. These and many other qualities make the city of Moorpark the ideal place to live, work and raise a family.

There is, however, an Achilles heel that threatens the quality of life in our city: an inability to eliminate commercial truck traffic on Los Angeles Avenue.

Because Los Angeles Avenue is controlled by the state of California, the city of Moorpark is absolutely powerless to govern any aspect of the highway including speed limits, traffic restrictions and parking prohibitions.

On an average day, more than 4,000 trucks invade our city by way of Los Angeles Avenue. While a small number of these trucks serve local businesses, the overwhelming majority is engaged in either intrastate or interstate commerce.

The extraordinarily high number of commercial trucks that traverse this highway presents a significant safety hazard to the thousands of Moorpark residents who use Los Angeles Avenue to get to church, school and shopping centers.

Los Angeles Avenue was not designed, engineered, nor constructed to accommodate intrastate and interstate commercial truck traffic. The roadbed was not constructed to withstand the weight of these modern, heavy commercial vehicles. With no center medians or shoulders, Los Angeles Avenue is extremely unforgiving to driver inattention or error.

Less than eight miles to the south lies US 101. This comparatively modern freeway was designed to accommodate both intrastate and interstate truck traffic. While the majority of Los Angeles Avenue is just two narrow travel lanes, US 101 can accommodate up to eight lanes of highspeed traffic safely.

While some commercial truck operators seek to avoid the steep grade through the Conejo Pass, others elect to use Los Angeles Avenue as a way to avoid the inspection station on US 101. While the California Highway Patrol manages an inspection station west of our city, commercial truck drivers are well aware this inspection station is operated on a limited basis and cannot accommodate the high volume of traffic.

Large commercial trucks on Los Angeles Avenue have also created a negative impact on Moorpark's local economy.

A growing number of Moorpark residents express concern with traveling to the shopping centers on Los Angeles Avenue. What was once a safe, short trip to the grocery store has evolved into a nightmare for many motorists and pedestrians forced to contend with large trucks.

To avoid this frightening experience, many residents now travel to neighboring cities to shop. As a result, Moorpark experiences sales tax leakage, the chronic problem of local residents shopping and paying sales tax in neighboring communities. Studies estimate that more than $1 million dollars in sales tax escapes Moorpark annually. The increasing volume of commercial truck traffic has only exacerbated this problem.

Sales tax revenue helps provide such basic municipal services as public safety, street and park maintenance, and library services. Because sales tax represents the second largest revenue source for our city, it is critical that we make every attempt to retain it. The elimination of intrastate and interstate commercial truck traffic on Los Angeles Avenue will return shoppers to our city and help keep local sales tax local.

There is a solution that will end the degradation of Los Angeles Avenue and the threat to our community's quality of life.

The solution is legislative action that will permanently remove the state highway designation from Los Angeles Avenue. This action will return interstate and intrastate commercial truck traffic to roads and highways designed and constructed to accommodate it.

Let us regain control of our city by taking control of its major thoroughfare. I ask our state and federal representatives to initiate legislation that will remove the commercial truck traffic from Los Angeles Avenue and return a sense of normalcy to the city of Moorpark.