Contentious gas tax will soon fund road work

Moorpark to see crews begin later this year



SMOOTHER—Senate Bill 1, which raised taxes on gas and vehicle registration fees in California to pay for highway repairs and other transportation-related costs, will contribute more than $8 million toward repaving the streets of Moorpark.

SMOOTHER—Senate Bill 1, which raised taxes on gas and vehicle registration fees in California to pay for highway repairs and other transportation-related costs, will contribute more than $8 million toward repaving the streets of Moorpark.

Several run-down streets in Moorpark will get a face-lift this year thanks to funding from the state’s new gas tax.

Signed into law in April 2017, Senate Bill 1 raised vehicle registration fees, increased the gas tax by 12 cents per gallon and boosted the diesel fuel tax by 20 cents a gallon.

The controversial bill is expected to fund $54 billion in road improvements and highway repairs throughout the state during the next 10 years. But California voters unhappy about the added costs at the pump may vote to repeal the gas tax this November.

A recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll found that half of registered voters in California are in favor of repealing the 2017 law. The same poll found that just 38 percent of voters supported the new taxes and fees.

Despite grumblings about the tax, local governments are already funding projects that will improve the longevity of roads and highways in Ventura County.

The Ventura County Transportation Commission estimates the bill will bring $147 million to the county during the next 10 years, of which Moorpark will receive $8.4 million. The money from the bill can be used only to repair and maintain local streets in Moorpark.

“Typically Moorpark was able to do a road project once every two or three years with the gas tax funds,” said Sean Corrigan, the city’s engineer and public works director. “Now we should be able to do a road project every year. It should really make a big improvement in our streets.”

First on the city’s list: rehabilitating residential streets near Moorpark College. The City Council unanimously approved the project in October 2017, several years after the streets were temporarily preserved by filling cracks in the pavement.

Using the bill’s first year funding total of $250,000, the city plans to fill cracks in the streets, repair areas damaged by trash trucks and slurry seal the streets with an asphalt and sand mix, according to Corrigan. These street improvements are expected to begin in late-2018.

In the 2018-19 fiscal year, an additional $611,000 will be received from the state to support road repair in Moorpark.

Corrigan said that funding will be used to repair sidewalks, landscaping, street lighting and roadways in the downtown area between Spring Road and Moorpark Avenue and north of Los Angeles Avenue and south of Wicks Road.

“It’s roughly a rectangle,” Corrigan said of the targeted area.

The City Council at its April 18 meeting unanimously approved the second project, which, like the first, is expected to have a useful life of about seven years.

In addition to funding repairs in the city, SB 1 will also finance state highway projects that include work on Los Angeles Avenue and on the 23 and 118 freeways.

State officials earmarked $2.8 million in SB 1 revenues to resurface sections of the 23 Freeway between Moorpark and Thousand Oaks. Work is in the pre-construction phase, according to California’s SB 1 website.

Corrigan said a $200-million plan would widen the 118 Freeway from Tierra Rejada Road in Moorpark to Tapo Canyon Road in Simi Valley.

“Right now the project is on hold because there is no funding for it,” Corrigan said. “The top priority with the Ventura County Transportation Commission is the 101 widening.”

This $750-million project will add lanes to the 101 Freeway between Thousand Oaks and Ventura, state routes 23 and 33, over the next decade.