Growth and Highways
* Re “Pact Reached on Truck Link to Port of Hueneme,” June 4.
One important fact and its ominous ramifications was omitted from this article. This project is bisecting virgin farmland of our fast-disappearing Oxnard plain. One mile of an estimated 125 feet of right-of-way will destroy approximately 15 acres of farmland and isolate parcels from each other thereby hastening the deterioration of our agriculture industry.
Unfortunately, the synergy between transportation agencies’ need to build roads and the eventual development that follows is what squeezed the orange out of Orange County and is in the process of eliminating the green of Ventura County. The transportation agencies, not professional planners, are directing our county’s growth patterns. That is not “smart growth” control but is exactly how Southern California sprawl is spread.
Ventura County already has four times the length of highways and freeways per capita as Los Angeles County. We just don’t have the same number of people, yet. How long before we look like and have the quality of life of Los Angeles, Orange or San Bernardino counties?
JOHN F. KERKHOFF
Somis
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