California Highway Headlines for June 2015

In contrast to previous months, June has been a busy busy month for articles. Here are the ones that I caught related to California Highways:

• Caltrans alters project that will restore road to Yosemite . The California Department of Transportation announced a new strategy for phase one of the State Route 140 Ferguson Project. The estimated $133 million project is set to provide a direct route to enter Yosemite National Park and create a 750-foot covered structure on the road between Mariposa and El Portal on Highway 140, which was damaged in a 2006 rock slide. Since Caltrans started the project in March, crews have removed about 63,000 tons of rock and debris.
• Opponents of 710 Freeway extension offer alternatives to tunneling. It was designed to speed motorists from Long Beach to Pasadena through the heart of Los Angeles County. But for decades, transportation officials struggled to find a politically acceptable way to fill a 4.5-mile break in the 710 Freeway without paving over every home and business in between. In 2013, officials narrowed options to five rail and roadway plans, the most ambitious of which would bore a $5.6-billion tunnel between Alhambra and South Pasadena. But on Thursday, a community group submitted yet another set of ideas intended to turn the conversation away from tunnels and highways.
• Caltrans downplays latest Bay Bridge rod failure. Another steel rod anchoring the foundation of the new Bay Bridge eastern span tower failed a critical strength test, Caltrans officials acknowledged Wednesday, and two sources close to the bridge project told The Chronicle it made a popping noise, suggesting a crack. Caltrans officials downplayed the failure, stressing that 99 percent of the 407 rods that underwent testing passed, and said that the cause will need to be determined by further tests in a materials lab. But the failure of a second rod leaves the possibility that more rods could eventually fail.
• Study finds 405 traffic flowing better over pass. The new study was commissioned by Metro from Systems Metric Group and is the first to compare traffic flow on the 405 before and after the Sepulveda Pass project that added a northbound carpool lane, rebuilt and widened bridges and on/off ramps and made other key improvements. The study is posted below along with a summary by Metro staff.
• Getting around on 215 Freeway just got easier with car pool lane opening. Getting around on the 215 Freeway between San Bernardino and Riverside just got easier with the opening of the more than 7 miles of car pool lane. “The general public will not know how much effort went into this prior to construction and during construction but they certainly will notice the mobility improvements that they’re driving on today and will be driving on into the future,” said Malcolm Dougherty, director of Caltrans, at Wednesday’s opening event.
• Bay Bridge bolt tests confirm strength, Caltrans says. Testing of the long bolts that anchor the Bay Bridge main tower to its foundation showed that nearly every one of the more than 400 tested were sound and can withstand a major earthquake, Caltrans said Wednesday. Over the past several weeks Caltrans completed pull testing on 408 tower anchor bolts that could be reached among the 424 total. In the pull test, a powerful jack pulled the 26-foot-long rods with the force of a major quake to verify integrity.
• Caltrans Proposed Speed Increase Adds Insult to the Fatality and Injuries Suffered on Third and Fourth Streets. At the June 2 meeting of the City Council, Caltrans will add insult to actual injuries and to the recent death of a pedestrian on Fourth Street, when it reports on the results of its recently completed Engineering and Traffic Surveys of State Highways 75 and 282 in Coronado. Quoting from the city staff’s report that is part of the City Council’s agenda for the meeting, “The survey recommends a five-mph increase in the speed limit of SR75 east of Orange Avenue.” All other segments of the state highways in Coronado are recommended to remain the same.
• 4 stretches of freeways tally most big rig crashes per mile annually. When a tanker truck carrying 8,800 gallons of gasoline exploded in flames four years ago under an overpass on the 60 Freeway, the effects of the blast were felt for days across the region’s highway system. The 60, a major truck route, was shut down in both directions between the 710 and 605 freeways. Motorists, who make more than 225,000 trips a day on the east-west artery, were forced onto Montebello streets and surrounding highways, such as the 10, 210, 605, 105 and 5 freeways.
• What a steel! Parts of the old Bay Bridge will go to artists. Old bridges don’t have to die. They can be reborn as public art. At least such will be the creative afterlife for about 480 tons of fog-gray steel girders and rods and rivets and other extremities from the original eastern span of the Bay Bridge — the once-maligned structure now valued by artists for its retro and historic design elements.
• San Francisco Bay Bridge steel to become public art. The Bay Bridge has connected Oakland and San Francisco and been part of the Bay Area skyline for almost 80 years. Now, nearly two years after a new span has opened, the old one is coming down. The parts, however, aren’t headed for the landfill. Instead, artists will have a chance to use some of the 480 tons of gray steel girders, rods and rivets to make public projects for parks, trails, parking lots and bus shelters.
• Computer Glitch Delaying Doyle Drive Project Fixed, Completion Date Still Uncertain. The computer glitch in the safety system that forced the cancellation of the opening of the new Doyle Drive tunnels last week has been fixed. “There are deluge systems for fire suppression. There are carbon monoxide sensors. Linear heat detectors,” said Molly Graham of the Presidio Parkway Project. When they flipped the switch last month, Graham said, “They weren’t functioning as they are designed to.”
• Corrosive salty water threatens 120 Bay Bridge anchor rods. About a quarter of the steel rods that anchor the tower of the new Bay Bridge to its foundation are in sleeves flooded with corrosive salty water — a critical threat that the head of Caltrans said Thursday must be addressed to avoid compromising the span’s integrity. During an emergency teleconference, a three-member panel charged with overseeing the $6.4 billion project — composed of the heads of Caltrans, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the state transportation commission — were told that 120 sleeves encasing high-strength rods designed to keep the tower from being damaged in a major earthquake continually flood with salty water.
• In the age of cellphones, how much do we need highway call boxes?. That device buzzing in your back pocket killed pay phones. Now roadside call boxes are in its crosshairs. The bright yellow boxes enjoyed a heyday in the early 1990s, when stranded Orange County motorists logged 8,400 calls per month. But since then usage has plunged 98 percent, to about 205 calls in a month, according to a 2015 Orange County Transportation Authority report. Motorists are more apt to dial 911 or 511 on a cellphone.
• Stuck in gridlock: Why 405 expansion didn’t reduce rush hour delay. A recent study commissioned by Metro crowed that drivers on the Sepulveda Pass section of the 405 freeway, one of the most congested stretches in the nation, are benefiting from a shorter rush hour after a five-year expansion project. But the $1.1 billion project didn’t reduce commute times during rush hour – they have increased by about a minute, according to a previous study.
• National Trust Joins ‘Beyond the 710’ in Fight Against Proposed Tunnel. The National Trust is joining the Beyond the 710 coalition to call on Caltrans, Metro of Los Angeles, and other key decision makers to embrace a progressive, forward-thinking model for transportation planning that is suitable for the 21st century needs of the Los Angeles metro area. The Historic Communities of the 710 encompasses several historic neighborhoods and communities in the San Gabriel Valley, including Glendale, Sierra Madre, Pasadena, South Pasadena, La Cañada Flintridge, Alhambra, and the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles. The National Trust has decades of experience working for better transportation solutions in Southern California. As early as 1989, the Trust named South Pasadena, Pasadena and El Sereno to its annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, shining a national media spotlight on the devastating threat a highway project posed to area historic communities. And in 1999, the Trust’s legal advocacy helped secure an injunction that stopped the proposal to build a surface route that would have demolished hundreds of historic homes and cultural sites.
• Elevated Truckways Could Bring Relief to L.A. Freeways. Last Friday began like a typical one in Los Angeles—in the early morning, traffic zipped on the 10 eastbound, en route to downtown. But then a large construction truck crashed into the center divider at 5:30 a.m. in Mid-city, prompting a Sigalert and causing hours of delays in both directions. While we shake our heads at cars stopped on the freeway because of empty gas tanks or fender-benders on Sunset Boulevard, truck crashes are really a bigger cause of countywide gridlock. Thankfully, the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency encompassing six counties, is studying their effect and what can be done to lessen their impact on commutes, according to the L.A. Times.
• O.C.’s proposed ‘Lexus lanes’ may see more Toyotas. Critics deride the express lanes planned for the I-405 expansion as “Lexus lanes” – a chunk of scarce road reserved for the well-heeled. But they may turn out to be more like Toyota lanes. The incomes of those who use toll lanes appears to vary with how the pay lanes are structured. Drivers who use toll roads in Orange County do seem to have higher-than-average incomes. On the 16-mile stretch of the 73 toll road, motorists reported an average household income of $109,380, according to a 2010 survey of Fastrak accountholders, the most recent available.
• What’s the ‘Corona Squeeze’? It’s coming to the 91 Freeway. As if traffic weren’t treacherous enough on the 91 freeway, construction will soon narrow the traffic lanes from 12 feet to 10.5 feet. Riverside County Transportation Commission officials are trying to get the word out about the temporary lane-narrowing before it begins Monday evening, June 1. Lanes will be narrowed in both directions between Highway 71 and Corona’s Main Street exit.
• Caltrans Proposed Raising Speed Limit on Coronado. Homeowners are taking on Caltrans in a speed limit debate involving two dangerous streets marking the main entrance and exit to and from Coronado. Caltrans plans to increase the speed limit from 25 mph to 30 mph along several city blocks of 3rd and 4th streets which run west of the San Diego Bay Bridge and east of Orange Avenue as part of State Route 75. Upset homeowners showed up at Coronado’s Monday night city council meeting to voice their concern. “This whole notion of increasing the speed is absurd” said Quelene Slattery, a Coronado homeowner.
• Caltrans Makes Next 405 Freeway Expansion Official . On May 15, Ryan Chamberlain, District 12 director for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) signed the Record of Decision sealing the selection of an improvement project for the I-405 Freeway through Orange County. Caltrans has chosen an alternative that adds a general purpose lane to the 405 in each direction from Euclid Street in Fountain Valley to the I-605 interchange. It also adds a toll lane in each direction between State Highway 73 and eastbound State Highway 22 in Westminster. It also will take the existing carpool lane in each direction and add it to the tolled Express Lane.
• 710 Freeway Project Celebrated as Decades-Long Debate Continues. A Southern California city celebrated a proposed tunnel on Wednesday that would complete the Long Beach (710) Freeway, despite critics continuing to push against its construction in a decades-long debate over how to “close the gap.” The 710 Freeway currently ends in a populated Alhambra neighborhood, but a pair of proposed 4-mile tunnels would connect it to both the Foothill (210) and Ventura (134) freeways in Pasadena.
• 710 Day in Alhambra stops traffic, draws crowd. More than 100 people rallied Wednesday evening on Fremont Avenue to say over half a century of wishy-washy inaction needs to stop and a 710 Freeway tunnel must be built posthaste. Generations of children in Alhambra and neighboring cities grew up breathing polluted air because of the 710 Freeway gap, said Alhambra Councilwoman Barbara Messina. She attributed an increase in youth suffering from upper respiratory problems to a transportation dispute that has divided the San Gabriel Valley for nearly six decades.
• Planned path under Highway 29 for bicyclists, pedestrians. Each day, hundreds of pedestrians and cyclists avoid Highway 29’s First Street overpass and take a sunken dirt route to get across — or in this case, under — the freeway. It’s a spooky passageway through blackberry brambles, the north edge of Napa Creek and a dark, graffiti-marked mid-section filled with the roar of Highway 29 traffic overhead. This informal path removes cyclists and pedestrians from the intimidating flow of vehicles entering and exiting First Street at the freeway, but the footing on the alternative route is rough and often slippery.
• Stretch of 101 may be named after deputy . The office of freshman California Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin sits just up the street from a roadside memorial for a deputy who lost his life in the line of duty seven months ago in Camarillo. Signs, trinkets and flowers line the chain-link fence that runs parallel to the stretch of freeway where Dep. Eugene Kostiuchenko was struck and killed by a drunk driver while walking back to his patrol car after a routine traffi c stop./li>
• Caltrans begins work on highway 29 improvement project. Caltrans launched their project to improve safety and shorten travel times in St Helena and Napa County, according to Caltrans officials. Caltrans and its project partners, including the Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency, Napa County, the city of St. Helena and the Napa Valley Wine Train, broke ground on the project Tuesday and expect to complete it by early 2017, agency officials said.
• Menlo Park becomes sponsor of Highway 101-Willow Road interchange project. By making itself an official project sponsor, Menlo Park hopes to find and secure the $65 million needed to construct a new Highway 101 interchange at Willow Road. The City Council last week approved that designation so that plans can proceed to “tear down the existing bridge and interchange and rebuild a new structure and new ramps — basically an entire new interchange,” Transportation Manager Nicole Nagaya said.
• I-8 Jewish Travel: CalTrans District 11. No, Wadie P. Deddeh isn’t Jewish. He’s an Iraqi Christian, whose success in San Diego County rising from a professor at Southwestern Community College to a state Assemblyman and eventually to a state Senator was an inspiration to numerous refugees from Iraq who felt, rightly, that San Diego County was a place where people could rise on the basis of merit. Today, San Diego County ranks only behind Detroit as a U.S. population center for Iraqi Christians, also known as Chaldeans. During his political career, Deddeh counted many friends in the Jewish community, including his long time chief of staff Love Sachs, and he also had Jewish adversaries. In 1992, Deddeh fought and lost a bruising Democratic primary for a congressional seat against Bob Filner, who went on to serve 10 terms before being elected as San Diegos 35th mayor. The year following his mayoral election, Filner resigned amid charges of sexual harassment. The Deddeh family meanwhile continued to cover its name in honor, with the former legislator’s son, Peter Deddeh, serving on the San Diego County Superior Court bench.
• Oceanside repeats its message to Caltrans, ‘no flyovers’. Oceanside is making sure its community voice is heard regarding Caltrans’s plans to rebuild the Interstate 5/ state Route 78 interchange that spills traffic into a residential neighborhood. Mayor Jim Wood invited Caltrans to make a presentation on the interchange on Wednesday so community and city council concerns could be aired.
• Caltrans Yosemite Junction Improvement Draws Concern. Tuolumne County transportation officials are proposing their own construction project preference to Caltrans proposed plans for improving safety and congestion problems at Yosemite Junction. Caltrans has proposed two options; one involving a stop light and the other a roundabout. Both would include adding additional lanes in both directions on Highway 108. The Tuolumne County Transportation Council (TCTC) at its Wednesday meeting approved sending a letter to Caltrans voicing concerns on both ideas. TCTC Executive Director Darin Grossi says, as stated in the letter, “We are concerned about travel going westbound on Highway 108…you have limited site distance coming down the hill into the intersection. If you’re driving a heavy vehicle, particularly a truck, if you have to stop for a red light, that’s going to be problematic.” Caltrans has also included in all its plans to cut the bank back for better sight distance but that is a costly fix, according to Grossi.
• Closing the 710 freeway gap. We’re doing a series this week about the perilous state of the infrastructure in this country. The power grid, water supply, roads — all stuff an economy pretty much has to have to function. However, all that stuff in this country keeps breaking or doesn’t get built. One example of this is right near Marketplace headquarters in Los Angeles. A 4 1/2-mile stretch of infrastructure that, so far, has not been built and has had people fighting over it for about 59 years.
• Memorial for Wilbert Williams Calls on Caltrans to Fix SoMa’s Freeway Ramps . One year ago yesterday, 62-year-old Wilbert Williams was sleeping in a tent next to a Highway 80 off-ramp at Fifth and Harrison Streets at about 1 a.m. when he was run over and killed by a drunk SUV driver who veered off the road.
• 280-880 interchange project near Valley Fair shopping center almost done. For decades, San Jose’s Interstate 280-880 interchange has been a white-knuckle ride no matter what direction motorists were headed. Driving northbound 280 toward north 880? That was a confusing, dangerous mess because the far-right exit lane took drivers south to Santa Cruz while the lane to the left wove north toward Oakland.
• Improvements to Ortega Highway Interchange Nearly Complete. With improvements to San Juan Capistrano’s Ortega Highway interchange nearly done, commuters can look forward to a smoother, safer, and more efficient journey. Work on the Interstate 5 (I-5)/Ortega Highway Interchange Improvement Project is 80 percent complete, and the project is expected to wrap up in the coming months.
• Officials studying toll lanes: Auxiliary, carpool lanes also proposed for Highway 101 . The heavy congestion and pitiful merges that mar Highway 101 has spawned an idea to add toll lanes to solve the problem although many local officials oppose it. Bad traffic has prompted the City/County Association of Governments to move forward with securing $16.5 million in grants to study the feasibility of adding auxiliary, carpool and toll lanes to ease traffic on Highway 101. The C/CAG board approved two resolutions Thursday, June 11 to apply for Measure A highway funds to study adding auxiliary lanes from Oyster Point in South San Francisco north to San Francisco and carpool/toll lanes from Whipple Avenue in Redwood City to the Interstate 380 interchange.
• Roadshow: Changes coming to ‘horrendous’ Highway 237 express lane. Caltrans and the Valley Transportation Authority will change the striping into the express lane on west 237 between Zanker Road and North First Street. About 4,100 feet of double solid white stripes will be replaced by dashed striping, which indicates new entry and exit points and allows carpoolers earlier access into the express lane. And it will allow commuters to exit the express lane at the North First offramp, which has been prohibited by the double solid white stripe. The 237 express lane ends near Lawrence Expressway.
• Malibu Finally Has A Plan To Fix Deadly Stretch Of PCH. In just 2015 alone, there have been four deaths along a curvy and dangerous stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Now Malibu’s City Council is finally considering a plan to make the popular highway safer. This 22-mile stretch of PCH is so hazardous that three people died on it in June, and there was another death in February where where a woman was killed in a highly-publicized crash involving Caitlyn Jenner. Every month, there are a dozen or so crashes on this portion of PCH, according to City News Service.
• Peninsula interchange rehab project revived: San Mateo, Caltrans to study new ramps off Highway 101. After ditching previous efforts due to the high cost of securing properties through eminent domain, San Mateo and Caltrans officials are forging ahead with multi-million dollar projects aimed at improving safety and traffic flow at the city’s key intersections to Highway 101 at Poplar and Peninsula avenues. The city is hosting a community meeting Thursday to educate the public on the early stages of the U.S. 101/Peninsula Avenue Interchange project — which could cost nearly $71 million and potentially take several commercial as well as residential properties through eminent domain.
• Mayor: If Caltrans stalls, consider county road along 25. Mayor Ignacio Velazquez is fed up with the long-running standstill regarding a planned Highway 25 widening. He’s at the point where he’s willing to consider a locally built alternative if Caltrans doesn’t find a way to get the project moving soon.
• History of a Highway: Marin’s 101 was first established in 1909. “Someday, someone should write a book about Highway 101 in Marin,” says local historian Barry Spitz. “No aspect of the county’s infrastructure plays a bigger role in our daily lives.” According to Spitz’s Marin, a History, the original “State Highway,” as it was designated in Marin in 1909, was a collection of Miwok trails and county roads that started at the ferry terminal in Sausalito and traveled a westerly course around Richardson Bay.
• Council of Governments Sides with Supporting 710 Tunnel. Chalk one up for the 710 Freeway tunnel proponents, who won a key vote last Thursday from the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (SGVCOG). The 31-member governing board weighed in on the controversial topic by voting 16-7 to support a tunnel, much of which would run under South Pasadena, to close a 6.1-mile gap with a tunnel.
• Ominous new cracks found on Bay Bridge rods. Tiny cracks found on some of the rods on the new Bay Bridge tower potentially endanger the rest of the more than 400 remaining fasteners that secure the tower to the foundation in an earthquake, Caltrans officials said Tuesday. They also acknowledged that one of four high-strength tower anchor rods they have examined apparently snapped after it was exposed to water and became brittle. That was the same headache that cost the agency $45 million to fix in 2013 when 32 rods on seismic stabilizers failed after sitting in water.
• Additional Commuter Lane, Bike Path On Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Could Be In Place By 2017. Plans to add an additional commuter lane and a bike-pedestrian path on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge are moving forward. The $74 million improvement project would be fully funded with Bay Area Toll Authority toll funds. “I think it’s pretty exciting for those people who ride bikes. But it’s also pretty exciting for people stuck in traffic everyday,” said Randy Rentschler with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
• Design options released for congested Crenshaw Boulevard-405 Freeway interchange. Caltrans is seeking public reaction to an environmental analysis prepared for the pending reconstruction of the chronically congested Crenshaw Boulevard and 182nd Street interchange at the 405 Freeway that’s scheduled to start in July 2018. The complex, four-year-long project is expected to cost $60.5 million to $85.2 million for its design and construction depending on which of three alternatives is selected, said Eduardo Aguilar, senior environmental planner for the state Department of Transportation.
• Hwy 85 cities review toll-lane alternatives. As the Highway 85 express-lane project moves forward, jurisdictions along the corridor plan to take stock of alternatives. The Los Altos City Council June 9 supported establishing a working group to explore other options for the corridor.
• Golden Gate Bridge, ferry and cable car rides increase fares on July 1, 2015. Visitors to San Francisco may want to bring a few extra dollars for sightseeing and getting around, as fare increases kick in on July 1, 2015 for some of the most popular attractions: the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito ferry and a cable car ride. For motorists with FasTrack electronic toll collection devices on the windshield, the Golden Gate Bridge roundtrip toll rises to $6.25 from $6.00 as of Wednesday. Many rental cars and ride share vehicles have FasTrack systems installed. For pay-by-plate motorists, the extra quarter means an increase to $7.25. Carpool of three or more get a deal from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., with a fare of $4.25 as of Wednesday.
• Caltrans allocates $561 million to 125 transportation projects . In an effort to rebuild and maintain California’s infrastructure, the California Transportation Commission has allocated $561 million to 125 transportation projects. The project awards include $20.8 million to widen Highway 99 in the Visalia area from four lanes to six. The projects will include $34,000 to install traffic signals at the intersection of Thorne and Clinton avenues in Fresno.
• Southern California transit planners are laying rail, squeezing more out of freeways. Gridlock is nothing new for Southern California drivers. With some of the nation’s longest commute times, we’ve grown accustomed to idling in traffic. But local transportation planners are working to give commuters more alternatives to driving and to make the region’s freeways more efficient. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or Metro, is spending $14 billion on expanding rail lines, widening freeways, buying new buses and other major capital investments. Officials call it the nation’s largest public works project.
• Commuting Drives Highway Policies . At 4:35 a.m. each weekday, Stan Paul drives out of his Southern California suburb with 10 passengers in a van, headed to his job as an undergraduate counselor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Some 80 miles and 90 minutes later, the vanpoolers finally arrive to start their workday. On the return trip, Los Angeles’ infamously snarled traffic often stretches their afternoon commute to three hours. Since Paul joined in 2001, he has spent roughly 1½ years aboard the vanpool and traveled far enough to complete a round trip to the moon.