$35 MILLION DESIGNATED TO IMPROVE CSU CAMPUS ENTRY.

Byline: David Greenberg Daily News Staff Writer

Some $35 million will be spent on road improvements over the next four years to upgrade access to California State University, Channel Islands.

With $28 million secured in state highway funds to widen Lewis Road south of Pleasant Valley Road and construct interchanges onto the Ventura Freeway, a study to widen a gap between the freeway and Pleasant Valley Road is expected to be approved Friday.

``The widening of Lewis Road will be needed with the development of the university,'' said Chris Stephens, highway programs director for the Ventura County Transportation Commission. ``Without the widening, we have congestion. Other than delays, it has air-quality impacts and safety impacts.''

The university is expected to have 2,000 full- and part-time students enrolled when it opens in August 1999.

Enrollment will increase to 5,000 students in three to five years when the university breaks away from its current status as CSUN's satellite campus to become its own entity and the 23rd university in the CSU system.

Some road improvements have been in the planning stages long before the state decided to locate the campus on the grounds of the former Camarillo State Hospital.

In 1992, the state committed approximately $24 million to build freeway ramps that connect the freeway with Lewis Road so motorists would not have to continue using side streets to make the connection.

``That project is needed whether there is a university or not,'' Stephens said. ``That interchange was never completed when the highway was built.''

The California Department of Transportation estimates the county will need an additional $4 million to complete the project.

Commissioners hope to net the remaining money from state highway funding in early 1999 so it can move forward with plans to begin construction in late 2000 and complete it 18 months to two years later.

In a separate allotment, the commission gave the county $4 million to widen a 2-1/2-mile stretch of Lewis Road from two to four lanes south of Pleasant Valley Road.

Construction will begin within two years and be complete a year later, according to Butch Britt, deputy director of the county Public Works Agency, which will widen the road.

``There will be detours,'' he said. ``There will be every attempt to accommodate the public.''

The widening of a 2,000-foot stretch from Pleasant Valley Road north to the freeway from two to four lanes will require an environmental study, which the commission is expected to approve Friday.

The project might require acquisition of property, which would add to the estimated $3 million cost.

A new bridge over the Union Pacific Railroad will be needed, Britt said, because the existing one is not wide enough to handle four lanes.

Camarillo Public Works engineers also would have to rework flood-control channels on the east side of Lewis Road.

``It is not a slam dunk,'' Britt said. ``This is going to be an expensive project.''

He estimated that widening a flat 2,000-foot stretch of road likely would cost no more than $1 million.