Happy new year! What do you mean, I just wished you happy new year? This is a different new year. Happy US government fiscal new year! Welcome to FY22. May it bring us a new budget, a raised debt ceiling, and infrastructure bill, and lots of highway upgrades and improvements at the Federal and State levels.
That said: The September bunch of headlines seems a bit lighter. Part of this is because road construction and planning was a bit on hold as budgets were being worked out, and due to the immense fires in the state. There also wasn’t a CTC meeting in September, so there wasn’t quite as much news. I also think more and more papers are going behind paywalls, making it harder to find information. As always, if you see a highway related headline, please send it my way.
Next week will bring something to these pages that hasn’t been seen since March 2020: a live theatre review. Our theatregoing, in a post-COVID environment, starts next week with My Fair Lady at the Dolby/Broadway In Hollywood. A return to normalcy? A dangerous event? We shall see, but my other hobby is returning. We’re taking it slow at first, but as they say, “Wouldn’t it be loverly?” to be back to normal. You know what you have to do: 💉, and here’s how to do it.
And with that, here are the headlines for September. My plan is to get the highway page update out sometime in mid-November, with a final update for 2021 right at the start of 2022.
Key
[Ħ Historical information | ＄ Paywalls, ＄＄ really obnoxious paywalls, and ∅ other annoying restrictions. I’m no longer going to list the paper names, as I’m including them in the headlines now. Note: For ＄ paywalls, sometimes the only way is incognito mode, grabbing the text before the paywall shows, and pasting into an editor. ]
Highway Headlines
- 101 Freeway In Encino To Be Named After Astronaut Sally Ride (KABC-AM). Part of the 101-Freeway in the San Fernando Valley will be named after late astronaut Sally Ride. Last week, the state legislature passed a resolution, naming the 101 in Encino the Dr. Sally Ride Memorial Highway. It honors the first American woman to go to space. Encino is Ride’s hometown. She died of cancer in 2012, at the age of 61.
- East Bay scores big in state funding (The Bay Link Blog). The California Transportation Commission allocated more than $1.4 billion for projects to repair and improve transportation infrastructure throughout the state. Senate Bill (SB) 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, accounted for more than half of the investment – $884 million. In the Bay Area, Alameda County and Contra Costa received millions from the August allocation:
- State Route 192 Resurfacing Project Through Montecito Begins Tuesday September 7 (The Santa Barbara Independent). A project to resurface State Route 192 in both directions from Cold Springs Rd. to 0.9 miles west of Nidever Rd. will begin on Tuesday September 7. Travelers will encounter one-way reversing traffic control Monday through Thursday from 8 am to 5 pm and Fridays from 8 am to 2 pm.
- Pedestrian Safety Project Nearing Completion in Bishop (Eastern Sierra News). The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 9 Pedestrian Safety Project will soon wrap up construction in Inyo County. The project, which began construction earlier this year, is upgrading four high-traffic crosswalks in three communities with new safety instruments. To date, crews have installed an Accessible Pedestrian System in Lone Pine at the intersection of Whitney Portal Road and U.S. 395 and a Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon at the intersection of W. Crocker Avenue and U.S. 395 in Big Pine.
- Diverging Diamond Interchange to Open at Enrico Fermi Drive and SR 11, September 9 (SANDAG). On Thursday, September 9, SANDAG and Caltrans crews will open the new diverging diamond interchange, located at the intersection of Enrico Fermi Drive and State Route 11 (SR 11), fully to the public. The diverging diamond interchange is the first of its kind in the San Diego region and the first in California to cater to freight. The interchange allows travelers turning left onto westbound SR 11 to continue without stopping at a signal light. This helps reduce congestion and improves overall traffic flow, particularly for freight transporting goods along this corridor.
