A pair of bills authored by Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, that will have a direct impact on Ventura County residents passed the Senate Transportation Committee on Tuesday.
One of those bills would allow an extension in the length of bike racks on the front of Gold Coast Transit buses to accommodate three bikes instead of two. The other piece of legislation would allow the Ventura Port District to contract for dredging services in a more timely and cost-efficient manner.
Assembly Bill 482 would make way for the Ventura Port District to utilize contractors for inner harbor dredging that have been selected through a competitive bidding process for an annual federal dredging project off the coast of Ventura County.
Assembly Bill 2488 would extend the allowable length of folding bike racks on public buses owned and operated by Gold Coast Transit. The additional length would extend the length limit by 4 inches to accommodate three-bike racks.
“Both these bills are common sense. Extending the bike racks addresses one of the many needs of transit dependent people in the county,” Williams said. “And for the Ventura Port, it’s not the dredging in the Ventura Harbor itself that is the burden of the cost; it’s the mobilization cost of equipment that can greatly escalate the expense for these maintenance dredging projects. This bill would essentially allow for one mobilization process instead of two on projects allowing the local harbor district to use more efficient equipment and drastically cut costs.”
Both bills are headed before the full Senate for a vote.
— James Joyce is a field representative of Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara.