From Dust to Dust: In Between, Repairs Are in Order

“EVERYTHING FALLS APART.”

Street Smart, when not answering specific road questions, loves to make generalizations like this.

All of them (!) are arguable, but we feel 110% confident in saying that in the end, ENTROPY RULES.

First of all, the fact is, we’re all going to die.

Not next week or next year, but definitely in the next millennium, this column will be dust.

So will its author, its author’s long-suffering car and all of its loyal readers--except for those whose dust is shot into space on a funeral rocket and burns up on reentry, delighting sky gazers and possibly spurring cults to contemplate rash acts guaranteed to trigger media feeding frenzies and bad movies of the week. But that’s another physics lesson entirely.

Until then, challenging lives full of joys and sorrows, great and small, await us all. So let’s not start Monday morning in a funk.

But things ARE falling apart as you read this.

That coat-hanger holding your bumper on? It’ll rust.

That nifty aluminum sealant powder you poured into your car radiator to stop a leak? It’ll blow out. We’ve tried it.

Those slick rally stripes on your lowered Civic? They’ll crack, peel and fall off. And you’ll look about as cool in 10 years as the guy driving the modified Ford Econoline with the Molly Hatchett warrior airbrushed on its rusting flanks.

And that gloss-black bulletproof 10-cylinder 4-wheel drive Hummer you drive so commandingly down to the corner Gelson’s? There’ll come a day when its motor sputters and dies. Even if it’s already changed hands 23 times.

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Dear Street Smart:

Would you be so kind as to investigate why that portion of Newbury Road from Michael Drive to Conejo Valley High School has been so neglected for so long?

The street was widened and improved significantly from the school east to Ventu Park Road some years ago. But the western end is a mess of floods, bumps, dips, cracks, holes and so on.

Mike Kelley, Newbury Park

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Dear Reader:

We would like to say the road has buckled from the stress of thousands of apple-cheeked high school students trudging happily home under the weight of brightly colored knapsacks full of rich, heavy books, over which they pore every night while studiously doing the homework that earns them straight A’s and the admiration of their parents and peers.

But the Easter Bunny’s a fake, Santa Claus is vacationing at a Vegas craps table and kids like that don’t exist in large numbers outside of Archie comic books. Sorry to bust anyone’s bubble.

Newbury Road has been waiting for repairs because its western end is tied to a $4.5-million road-building project. The plan is to install new storm drains, catch basins and a four-lane road linking Borchard Road to Newbury Road, with looping new onramps and offramps for the Ventura Freeway, says Jeff Knowles, Thousand Oaks traffic engineer.

But two projects are ahead of that one: The Hampshire Road ramps for the Ventura Freeway will be rebuilt starting next month; and a large project to rebuild the freeway’s interchange at Moorpark Road will follow, Knowles says.

The Newbury Road work “is not a dream project,” he says, declining to name a firm date yet. “It’s in the discussion and drawing phase.”

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Dear Street Smart:

Haven’t those road repair guys at work on Kanan Dume Road had enough time to clear the so-called “landslide damage?” The road’s been closed southbound from Mulholland Highway for months.

We suspect the repair folks are using the “landslide” as an excuse so that they can work on the widening and upgrade jobs without the bother of traffic. Sure, it’s easier on them, but what about those of us that want to use that nice route to Pacific Coast Highway?

Hiding behind the “landslide repair” is more palatable to the public than just admitting that the repair folks don’t want to be bothered by the traffic--or am I just too suspicious? Seems to me they could have cleared a landslide the size of Mt. Wilson by now. When is it going to open?

David Strona, Newbury Park

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Dear Reader:

Sadly, your suspicions and your arch little quotation marks are misplaced.

A real landslide wiped out a good chunk of Kanan Dume just south of the tunnel, leaving it closed to all but local traffic.

The city of Malibu--already reeling from the cost of rebuilding after six federally declared natural disasters in three years (three fires, two mudslides and an earthquake, if anyone’s counting)--lacks the money to pay for it.

Malibu Public Works Director John Clement says he will ask his City Council tonight to reject all the contractors’ bids as too costly, and to consider an alternative. The full repair job--depending on the cost of dirt to fill in the landslide’s bite mark--is estimated to cost $1.5 million, he says.

Clement says he is negotiating with one neighboring landowner (now living in Germany) for permission to cut a two-lane detour onto the man’s property, 150 feet west of its current route, to get the road reopened, at an as-yet undetermined cost.

Clement adds glumly, “It’s frustrating.”

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Dear Street Smart:

Typically, double-wide lines warn traffic to merge left when freeway lanes turn into exit lanes. Why is the 101 [Ventura Freeway]’s junction with the Moorpark Freeway?

Northbound and southbound traffic on the 101 both lose the right lane when they merge with the 23. yet the ramps’ right lanes lack a double-wide line. Also, the overhead sign for the northbound 23 exit from the northbound 101 does not warn that the right lane is for the 23 only. There is only a “THROUGH TRAFFIC MERGE LEFT” sign.

Fortunately, most drivers are familiar with the junction. But there have been a few times that a driver has crossed in front of me at the last minute to avoid ending up in Moorpark or Fillmore.

It seems the line painters also made a mistake on the southbound 23 between New Los Angeles Avenue and Tierra Rejada Road. The extra right lane that exists for only 1.1 miles is not marked with double-wide lines, and just ends at the Tierra Rejada overpass.

Robert P. Morris, Westlake Village

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Dear Reader:

Caltrans promises to re-stripe the connectors you mention on the 101 and the 23, and to modify the signs to match the striping.

Caltrans spokeswoman Pat Reid says the existing striping on southbound 23 is appropriate because the right lane is not a “must exit” lane to Tierra Rejada, but simply terminates beyond the exit.

Squeak, grease. Thanks for writing.