California Highway Headlines for July 2016

July. The hot summer. While you are hopefully staying cool, here are some headlines related to California Highways that I noticed:

• Getting the roundabout from the state. Sometime next year or a little bit later, the intersection of Valley Center Road & Hwy 76 will get be converted into a roundabout. The total cost of the project will be $17.5 million, which includes approximately $9 million in construction capital and $3.5 million in right-of-way capital. According to the Cal Trans website the goal of the project is “Reduce the number and severity of accidents at SR-76 and Valley Center Road and realign the curves just east of the intersection.” Design of the preferred alternative is tentatively scheduled for completion in 2016, with construction to be done in 2017.
• VTA scales back toll lane plans. A controversial plan to construct toll lanes in the Highway 85 median could be abandoned, after city leaders made clear that the undeveloped strip of land dividing the congested highway ought to be reserved for transit rather than solo drivers in the increasingly crowded Santa Clara Valley. In June, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) board of directors agreed to put a half-cent sales tax measure on the November ballot. If passed, the tax would generate $6.5 billion over 30 years, and would help to pay for myriad transportation projects throughout the region.
• Supervisors approve land exchange with Caltrans for 76 widening . The widening of State Route 76 from two lanes to four between South Mission Road and Interstate 15 requires the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to acquire land from the County of San Diego, but the county was willing to sell land and grant easements to Caltrans in exchange for cash and Caltrans remnant parcels. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 June 22, with Greg Cox in Sacramento, to approve the sale of 6.94 acres of county-owned land and the granting of 2.98 acres of easements in exchange for $143,599 in cash and three Caltrans remnant parcels valued at $155,800. The Caltrans remnant parcels total 112,415 square feet, or 2.58 acres.

• $100 million allocated for highway and rail improvements in North County. The California Transportation Commission voted June 30 to allocate $103.7 million to the San Diego region to extend carpool lanes on Interstate 5 (I-5) and add a second track to a portion of the coastal rail line in North San Diego County. The funding will enable the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to begin construction on a $700 million package of projects.
• Golden Gate Bridge reconfigures its reconfiguration of lanes to Marin. Attention Marin commuters who drive into San Francisco: Another Golden Gate Bridge lane configuration change is set to begin Tuesday. The result will be less time with four lanes going northbound over the span in the afternoon. Just last month — noting an early afternoon northbound “commute surge” — bridge officials created four lanes northbound from 4 to 5 p.m. Tuesday though Friday, leaving two lanes southbound during those periods. Previously, there had been four lanes northbound from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.
• Design contract to replace aging Monte Rio bridge expected . The steel and concrete structure that spans the Russian River at Monte Rio gives the appearance of enduring strength and reliability — its thick, squat supports conveying steadfast immovability despite decades of use and the force of the river that runs underneath. But the 1934 bridge is, in fact, nearing the end of its life, and county officials are gearing up to decide how to replace it, as soon as can be feasibly done.
• How to remake the L.A. freeway for a new era? A daring proposal from architect Michael Maltzan. Can you picture a freeway that’s good for the environment? That collects storm water? That produces clean energy instead of pollution, quiet instead of noise? That stitches a neighborhood together instead of slicing it apart? I wrote a series of essays last year raising some of these questions — and in a broader sense wondering how we might reconceive the Los Angeles freeway, the aging product of 20th century infrastructural logic, for the 21st. This year — which happens to mark the 60th anniversary of the interstate highway system — we’re taking that inquiry an important step further, publishing two design proposals that dramatically remake stretches of L.A. County freeway.
• Officials Celebrate Progress Of Marin-Sonoma Narrows Project. Officials with Caltrans, the Sonoma County Transportation Authority and the Transportation Authority of Marin held a dual event Wednesday to celebrate the completion of parts of the Marin-Sonoma Narrows project and the start of another phase.
• Caltrans tweaking meters on 78. Motorists can expect a little longer wait at on-ramps along state Route 78 during weekday rush hours, but it’s a wait that officials say will help create better traffic flow on the congested corridor. Starting this summer, the California Department of Transportation, or CalTrans, is extending the hours of traffic meters on 22 on-ramps along the busy freeway, where pockets of gridlock are consistently ranked among the worst in the county.
• In Hayes Valley, old freeway site is now architectural showcase. Visit any prosperous American city today and you see boxy cartons filled with new housing above shops that are devoid of conviction or flair — the formulaic spawn of dutiful planning and the bottom line. (sub required)
• California’s most famous freeway fixer, Myers Inc., is bankrupt. C.C. Myers Inc., one of California’s highest-profile freeway builders, has filed for bankruptcy, ending a storied chapter in local construction. The Rancho Cordova company, no longer associated with founder C.C. Myers, fell into financial difficulty in recent years. It became overleveraged as state highway repair and construction contracts dried up
• Dublin, Livermore plan for new joint $79 million road expansion project. Dublin and Livermore are set to begin a major first step in the estimated $79 million road expansion project that would create another thoroughfare between the two cities to accommodate the construction boom. The Dublin City Council is expected to select an engineering firm by September that will study the proposed road between Dublin Boulevard in Dublin to North Canyons Parkway in Livermore. The study of this 1.5-mile road on mostly county land aims to help settle the discrepancies between the two cities. For example, Livermore’s general plan calls for a four-lane road while Dublin wants a six-lane road.
• Work begins on new segment of Marin-Sonoma Narrows. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the Marin-Sonoma Narrows is slowly but surely widening from two to three lanes. Work on yet another segment in the Highway 101 Narrows corridor has started, with the goal of adding a carpool lane in each direction and rebuilding the San Antonio Creek Bridge to widen it and lift it out of the flood plain.
• Crews removing fourth of fifth 504-foot section of old Bay Bridge span. Caltrans is removing the fourth of five 504-foot sections of the old eastern span of the Bay Bridge Wednesday and Thursday, Caltrans officials said. Work lowering the 504-foot truss started at about 6:30 a.m. and will take two days with crews working 12 to 14 hours per day. The section will be lowered onto barges and hauled away.
• Border highway gets $49.3M from feds. A state highway to a new border crossing aimed at reducing road congestion between the United States and Mexico has received $49.3 million in federal funding for its final leg. The San Diego Association of Governments announced on Thursday that the agency and Caltrans are expecting to receive money from the Department of Transportation to build a one-mile portion of state Route 11 in Otay Mesa. The funding will also go toward building southbound connectors for state Routes 905, 125 and 11.
• Improvements Continue in I-5 South County. Crews have hit some significant milestones over the last month on the I-5 South County Improvements Project, a $230 million effort that extends the carpool lane from San Juan Capistrano to San Clemente and reconstructs the Avenida Pico interchange. The new deck on the recently constructed bridge over Avenida Pico has been poured, and crews have lowered the temporary structure supporting the concrete bridge as the concrete cured. The temporary structure, known as falsework, will be moved to the east side of the interchange once work starts there.
• Highway 29 improvements north of Napa will serve new winery, along with hotel and restaurant . Wondering what all the heavy equipment is in the middle of Highway 29 at the Napa city line lately? Workers in the median of Highway 29 just north of Napa are installing a left-turn lane and other improvements associated with the planned Ashes & Diamonds winery. They should be at work possibly into August, officials said.
• State Route 371 left turn lane project to begin Monday, July 11 . Beginning next Monday, July 11, the California Department of Transportation will start working on a left turn lane project on a section of State Route Hwy 371. The project will be affecting the section of roadway along SR 371 two-tenths of one mile west of Bahrman Road and just west of Bailiff Road in the unincorporated community of Anza. The $520,000 project, which was awarded to All American Asphalt, is expected to end by the beginning of September 2016.
• Napa participates in scrutiny of proposed Highway 37 toll road. Highway 37 drivers might within as soon as six years pay a toll to create a new version of this major, regional road that could handle more traffic and survive predicted sea level rise. Napa Valley Transportation Authority is part of a group discussing the future of Highway 37 and toll road talk is heating up. The highway links Interstate 80 in Solano County with Highway 101 in Marin County and skirts the southwest tip of Napa County.
• Vandals’ ‘senseless act’ damages newest Route 66 mural. The newest mural along Main Street dedicated during last month’s Monumental Mid Summer Desert Festival is expected to receive a face-lift in the near future after vandals damaged its standing wooden portion last week, authorities said Wednesday. The mural is painted on the eastside portion of the Barstow Office Supply building owned by Fred and Sandy Baca, located at 613 E. Main St. It features painted wooden figures of notable celebrities who have passed through Barstow along Route 66. Sandy Baca said she noticed the mural had been damaged while driving home from church on June 26.
• LA’s First Big Roundabout Coming This Year. The area where the Riverside Bridge, Figueroa, and San Fernando meet will soon have a unique feature that sets it apart from the rest of the city: a traffic roundabout. Scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, it’s set to be the city’s first, says Eastsider LA. The roundabout will measure 100 feet wide and will direct traffic in four directions without using traditional traffic signals. (There will be “flashing lights” at four designated pedestrian crossings around the circle.) The center will be landscaped and feature a granite statue. Medians will line the streets that intersect at the traffic circle.
• Imagine if the 2 Freeway ended in a brilliantly colored, eco-smart park. There are two ways you can look at the long spur of the 2 Freeway as it runs south from the 5 Freeway and descends into Silver Lake and Echo Park. You can see it as the abandoned beginning of a long-planned connection between the 5 and the 101, shaking your fist at the frustrating gaps that remain in the L.A. freeway network. Or you can argue that because Los Angeles is simply no longer in the freeway-building business — meaning that gap is virtually certain never to be filled — the mile-long stretch of road is better understood as the potential platform for a new kind of green space in a park-starved city.
• Road to Yosemite might take longer. The most direct route from San Joaquin County into Yosemite National Park might be a little more difficult to traverse until some time in 2017 as the California Department of Transportation works on the James E. Roberts Memorial Bridge. The bridge, on Highway 120 at Don Pedro Reservoir, is along the stretch of road that is both Highway 120 and Highway 49 before Highway 120 breaks off toward Yosemite.
• The 2 Freeway Is Colorful And Eco-Minded In This Cool Concept Design. Christopher Hawthorne, L.A. Times architecture critic, invited a couple design firms to reimagine the L.A. freeway. He presented on Thursday a concept by Michael Maltzan Architecture; in the renderings, the Arroyo Seco Bridge (which is part of the 134 freeway) has been transformed into a kind of eco-friendly tunnel with crass-hatched walls, hanging vegetation, and solar panels laid out on the roof. Today, Hawthorne has introduced a new concept by Chris Reed of Stoss Landscape Urbanism. Reed refigured the tail-end of the 2 freeway as a sustainable public space, something akin to the High Line in New York City.
• Southern California gets a big, fat $0 from Feds for freight, road improvements. Southern California transportation agencies were shocked Monday to learn they were getting zero dollars from the federal Department of Transportation in the first round of a newly approved freight-movement grant program. Instead, the DOT gave out $759 million for 18 projects from Seattle to Louisiana but nothing for projects located within the six Southern California counties.
• New funds for next step in widening of Narrows highway. For as long as most North Bay drivers can remember, the two-lane Marin-Sonoma Narrows has been an intractable choke point on Highway 101 and a dashboard-pounding frustration to anyone hoping for traffic relief anytime soon. Even the start of the widening project in 2010 to add a third lane in both directions between Novato and Petaluma has offered little solace. The work is being done in multiple phases, but not sequentially, so that a widened stretch still feeds into narrower segments.
• Caltrans turning Interstate 80 into a ‘smart highway’. In hopes of easing the Bay Area’s most jammed freeway, Caltrans will begin unveiling its Interstate 80 “smart highway” project within a few days, phasing in 20 miles’ worth of electronic improvements from the Carquinez Bridge to the Bay Bridge. The $79 million SMART Corridor project is the most intensive one in the state, with advanced metering lights and lane-closure warnings and even variable speed-limit signs that can be lowered to 55 mph, or 30 mph, or whatever conditions warrant.
• http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/napa-county-plans-million-in-road-improvements-in-four-year/article_14d1d7e6-26e8-5ee4-95b2-ca52db074b4a.html. Napa County has $32 million in road and mass transit spending targeted over the coming four years, with the city of Napa’s California Boulevard roundabouts as the big-ticket item. “Traffic congestion on main arterials, such as Highway 29 and Silverado Trail, has become a critical issue for workers, residents and the economic vitality of the region,” said a new Metropolitan Transportation Commission draft report laying out proposed regional road projects.
• Marin IJ Editorial: Local push needed to fix Interstate 580 mess. Marin officials shouldn’t have difficulty making a strong case for obtaining regional transportation funds for building a new freeway offramp from northbound Highway 101 onto Interstate 580. Evidence of the need for a better way for traffic to reach eastbound I-580 are the miles of nightly traffic congestion that stacks up cars on Highway 101 and turns Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and streets in East San Rafael into gridlock.
• ‘Novato Narrows’ finally widening. There may have been a time — maybe — when the stretch of Highway 101 between Marin and Sonoma Counties wasn’t the cause of headache, anger, gridlock and dismay. But it’s unlikely that anyone commuting through that corridor today can remember anything but the agony of the “Novato Narrows.” At long last, there may be some relief in sight.
• ‘Beyond the 710’ has best plan to end Pasadena’s freeway stalemate: Terry Tornek. Last month marked the first anniversary of the public release of Beyond the 710, a proposal to resolve the nearly 50-year stalemate over the north end of the 710 freeway. The proposal (www.beyondthe710.org) could solve the problems of the current 710 configuration, improve connectivity for all the affected communities and provide exciting opportunities to better use newly freed-up land. While there are still obstacles to implementing a vision for the 710 that works for everyone, we can celebrate that the Metro board of directors has taken a major step forward by voting to place the proposed sales tax ballot measure on the November ballot with a provision that makes clear the funds generated by the new measure will not fund a tunnel that would plow through and decimate our communities.
• Good News for No 710 Tunnel Advocates at Key Meeting. The Metro Board meeting of June 23 was very interesting and important for the No 710 Tunnel advocates. The Board was to consider the wording and provisions of the Proposed Transportation Ballot Measure for the November 6, 2016 election. This has been called Measure R-2, but will probably be renamed measure M. This measure will raise the Sales Tax in Los Angeles County by ½ percent to 9 ½ % with no ending date. The Measure must be passed by 2/3 of the voters in Los Angeles County.
• Historic Klamath bridge slated for replacement. A historic but deteriorating 85 year old bridge crossing the Klamath River on State Highway 263 is proposed for demolition and replacement in the near future, according to Caltrans documents. Most north county residents are familiar with the concrete structure, which is located at the junction of 263 and the Klamath River Highway.
• Angeles Crest: The Creation of L.A.’s Highway Into the Heavens. oday, a motorist can traverse 66 miles of some of the most difficult terrain in the U.S. in under two hours, through country that once provoked complaints from no less a mountaineer than John Muir. “In the mountains of San Gabriel,” Muir wrote, “Mother Nature is most ruggedly, thornily savage.” And yet the Angeles Crest Highway soars through those same mountains almost effortlessly. Its grade never exceeds 6.5 percent. Few of its curves turn a radius tighter than 300 feet. Within five minutes, it achieves commanding views of Los Angeles. Within 30, pine flats. The ease of the drive belies the difficulty of the highway’s construction, which began in 1929 and continued for 27 years under the direction of the California Department of Highways (now Caltrans) and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (now the Federal Highway Administration). During the Depression, homeless men performed much of the back-breaking work. Later, convicts from San Quentin and Chino took up the shovels and pickaxes and were even permitted to handle dynamite. “Good living conditions and a feeling of accomplishment make the assignments to this highway camp coveted by the prisoners,” engineer John Ritter reported in California Highways and Public Works. “There are no fences, no iron bars and no firearms in evidence, but even so attempted escapes by any of the inmates have been very infrequent.”
• Bids for Golden Gate Bridge suicide barrier come in way over projections. A potential major stumbling block has developed for the Golden Gate Bridge suicide barrier project now that a low bid for the work has come in almost double the construction cost estimate. The bridge district opened two bids for the work at its board meeting Tuesday. The low bid came in at $142 million from the Oakland-based Shimmick/Danny’s Joint Venture. The Pennsylvania-based American Bridge Co. submitted its bid at $174 million.
• Roadshow: Fremont’s Mission Boulevard inspires wave of rants. I can’t believe you gave such a flip answer to Patti Hughes about the problems on Mission Boulevard in Fremont. I’m sure a sympathetic “I feel your pain” was what she was hoping for. Twenty-five minutes to travel two blocks is outrageous and stress-inducing. And traffic is bad every day, not just Wednesday through Friday. To tell you the truth, traffic everywhere in Fremont has gotten horrible over the last year or so. Everyone I know talks about it.
• Officials try to untangle commute on Hwy. 101 on Peninsula. Any way you drive it — north or south, morning or evening — the commute on Highway 101 on the Peninsula is barely tolerable and has been getting worse as the economy, especially the tech industry, gets better. Transit is little relief with Caltrain packed and BART extending only as far as Millbrae. Even the much-maligned commuter shuttle buses crawl through traffic. But a shuffling of federal funds, once committed to a series of projects that are languishing, promises to speed the 101 commute by adding express lanes — carpool lanes that single drivers can also use for a price — through San Mateo County to the San Francisco city line. Caltrans still needs to approve the idea.
• San Mateo Bridge lanes closing for nighttime repairs. Two westbound lanes on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge will be closed during nighttime hours Thursday through Saturday so Caltrans can make repairs to a hole just east of the high-rise section. On Thursday and Friday, one lane will be closed at 7 p.m., the second at 10 p.m., and remain closed until 5 the next morning. On Saturday, lanes will be closed from 7 p.m. until 9 a.m. Sunday.
• Richmond-San Rafael third lane plan goes to Caltrans; work could start in October. A final design to open a third eastbound lane on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to ease traffic went to Caltrans Wednesday, clearing the way for a projected December 2017 opening. In the coming years the bridge will undergo major changes with the addition of a third vehicle travel lane on its lower deck and a bike lane on top. The two projects have a $74 million price tag.
• Golden Gate Bridge suicide net still planned despite high bids. Golden Gate Bridge officials still plan to install a steel net to deter suicides, despite bids that came in at about twice the expected price.
• Carquinez, Zampa bridge work taking place. The California Department of Transportation is conducting resurfacing work on the Carquinez and Zampa bridges between Vallejo and Crockett through next week with closures intermittently affecting both eastbound and westbound traffic.
• Long ago passed by, tiny town of Amboy carries on. The owner of Southern California’s Juan Pollo chicken empire insists that it’s his calling to sell the most plucked-and-roasted birds on the planet. His purchase of the site of the nation’s first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino was also preordained, he says; so was the museum he built there to commemorate the tasty slice of Americana that Ray Kroc founded. But this far-out spot was perhaps fate’s grandest design: In 2005, Okura paid $425,000 cash for a clutch of orphaned buildings in the middle of the Mojave Desert’s hellish summer inferno, a long-forgotten, gas-and-burger pit stop somewhere out there between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
• Draft environmental report says American Canyon project would add to ‘unacceptable traffic operations’. The long-awaited draft environmental impact report for Watson Ranch shows serious potential impacts from the residential and commercial project. A “notice of availability” for the report said the project’s “probable environmental effects” include “significant and unavoidable impacts with respect to: air quality and greenhouse gas emissions, noise, and transportation and traffic.”
• 101 carpool lane funds sought: Metropolitan Transportation Commission seeks federal dollars to ease congestion on main highway. A Highway 101 carpool study jeopardized by a lack of state funding should move forward as regional transportation officials are seeking federal dollars to fill in the gap. Express lanes are being eyed to ease the commute on the San Mateo County stretch of the increasingly clogged highway but a drop in state gas tax revenue forced the California Transportation Commission to pull about $9.6 million that was set aside for the study back in May.
• Pittsburg: Highway 4 cameras to turn on this week. In this effort to make Highway 4 safer for drivers rolling through the city, the wheels of government turned unusually quickly. Only two months after the police chief drafted a report asking for $100,000 to buy cameras trained on Highway 4 to help prevent, investigate and prosecute freeway shootings that have plagued the East Bay in recent months, 14 cameras have been installed. Police Capt. Ron Raman expects them all to be activated early this week.
• Jammed stretch of I-80 gets smart traffic technology. Long-dormant metering lights at the end of the Interstate 80 on-ramps between the Carquinez Bridge and the Bay Bridge sparked to life this week, signaling the start of California’s first full-fledged smart highway project, which relies on gadgetry to speed traffic. The metering lights, installed two years ago, were roused from their slumber before dawn on Tuesday, although the first of them won’t be operational until early next week. In the weeks to come, those mysterious dark electronic signs that hang over the Bay Area’s busiest freeway will also come alive.
• Celebration Marks Completion of Highway 4 Widening Projects. A community celebration and ribbon cutting Wednesday morning marked the completion of the Highway 4 Widening Projects, a six-year-long collaborative endeavor by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA), the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the California Transportation Commission and the Federal Highway Administration.
• Long-awaited Novato freeway soundwall nears completion. The last concrete blocks are about to be added to a $2.5 million Novato soundwall aimed at diminishing the roar of freeway traffic for nearby residents. Construction of the 1,250-foot-long Marin-Sonoma Narrows Orange Avenue Soundwall off Highway 101, overseen by the California Department of Transportation, started in February. The 14-foot, 14-inch wall that runs along the freeway from the De Long Avenue offramp to Kentwood Court is expected to be finished in mid-August, said Steve Williams, a Caltrans spokesman.
• Transportation money should go to fix 92 now. You know it, your relatives and friends who drive to visit know it, and pretty much everyone you know around here knows it. Traffic congestion is awful on Highway 101 and State Route 92 — particularly where the two meet. And any time there is outside money to be allocated in San Mateo County for transportation improvements, there is cause to cheer. This could be considered the case with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission seeking $8.9 million in federal transportation funds to study express lanes on Highway 101 from Whipple Road to San Francisco after the California Transportation Commission pulled about $9.6 million set aside for the study two months ago. The reason for the money getting pulled was a decrease in the state’s gasoline tax and, in response, a number of critical projects in San Mateo County also had funding pulled for that very same reason.
• High-Tech Intervention Aims to Smooth I-80 Traffic Flow in California. Caltrans, the Alameda County Transportation Commission and the Contra Costa Transportation Authority this month will begin the sequenced introduction of a series of high-tech efforts to ease congestion, improve safety and boost travel-time reliability along Interstate 80 between the Bay Bridge and the Carquinez Bridge. Collectively known as the I-80 SMART Corridor project, the $79 million suite of enhancements includes a sophisticated network of adaptive ramp meters and electronic information signs that adjust in real time to changing conditions along one of the Bay Area’s most heavily traveled — and most notoriously congested — freeway corridors. The system integrates data not just from I-80 but also from San Pablo Avenue and other adjacent arterials.
• Barstow soon will get new Route 66 signs. Barstow, California, soon will have classic car-themed Route 66 signs installed. The city council this week approved a $42,860 contract with Turner Signs and Graphics for the new signs. Councilors also approved a $111,360 budget for the overall sign project
• Here’s the Worst Freeway Commute in America. Of course America’s worst freeway commute is in Los Angeles. A new Auto Insurance Center analysis of data — from the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard, the INRIX 2015 Traffic Scorecard and the U.S. Energy Information Association — looked at the stats for 471 U.S. cities and named the winners when it comes to the nation’s “Most Packed Roadways.”
• See L.A. Through the Eyes of a Newcomer with This 1960s Map – Los Angeles Magazine (h/t Derrick Garbell). This quirky yet graphically engaging map of our fair city in 1960 reflects the hopeful spirit of the coming Age of Camelot but still contains dashes of old, post-war Los Angeles. Cartographer Norman Garbush had created terrific maps back East, especially for New York City, and he seemed to be looking to expand to the West Coast.
• I-80 SMART Corridor system to be fully activated within two months. The I-80 SMART Corridor system will be fully activated within two months, according to Caltrans, which began phasing in the high-tech network earlier this month. On Tuesday, Caltrans will activate the ramp meters along the corridor for the morning commute.
• Roadshow: ‘Novato Narrows’ on 101 will remain narrow for some time. Q This may not qualify as an area of interest to you, though you let people ramble on about the horror of calling freeways “The 101,” when we all know that such usage is illegal, immoral, fattening and wicked. And you regularly discuss routes to Los Angeles. But Highway 101 north from Novato is a construction horror show: Four lanes into three into two, then three, then two, then three lanes, with sporadic construction. It should be obvious that the four lanes of 101 in San Rafael should continue to Santa Rosa, to relieve the misery of 101 through Novato and Petaluma. What is the status of 101 from Novato to Santa Rosa and will construction ever be done?
• One Of The 6th Street Bridge’s Arches Will Live On In A Park. While demolition began on the 6th Street Bridge in February, a portion of the bridge will find a new home in a park, Eastsider LA reports. One of the bridge’s iconic arches will be set aside and then placed into “8 acres of landscaping below the new viaduct,” according to a post on the Sixth Street Viaduct Replacement Project’s Facebook page.
• Nation’s Worst Freeway is 26-Mile Swath Through Los Angeles: Report. Think your daily commute is the absolute worst? If it includes this Southern California stretch of freeway, the data proves you right: the portion of the U.S. 101 between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Vignes Street is the country’s most jampacked roadway, according to an analysis by the Auto Insurance Center, a news and information website.
• LA’s 101 Freeway Is America’s ‘Highway from Hell’. This might not even register as news for many, but now it’s official: The 101 freeway is America’s “Highway from Hell.” A new report by Auto Insurance Center (via the Daily News) analyzed commutes in 471 urban areas to find the 10 worst commutes in the U.S. and put the 101 in the top slot.
• Bay Bridge corridor: $40M suite of programs to provide short-term traffic relief. With buses, BART, ferries and travel lanes all clogged along the Bay Bridge corridor, Bay Area transportation officials are hoping a $40 million suite of programs, approved Wednesday, can offer commuters some short-term relief. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s plan focuses on solutions that can begin serving commuters within the next several years — everything from double-decker buses and designated carpool pickup areas, to more ferry service and bus and high-occupany vehicle-only lanes approaching the bridge, to better HOV enforcement technology and more commuter parking lots.
• Final construction cost of Winters Bridge project tops $12M. The Solano County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the notice of completion for the historic Winters Bridge replacement project at a final construction cost of $12.16 million. The original bridge, with its concrete spans extending 123 feet and with a total length of 447 feet across Putah Creek, was built in 1907-08. A community picnic and dedication occurred April 1, 1908, attracting about 3,000 people, according to news accounts of the day.
• L.A. Freeways Ranked From Mildly Soul-Sucking to Totally Unbearable. Los Angeles, we did it! We have successfully achieved the highly coveted, incredibly difficult to accomplish distinction of The Worst Traffic in The United States of America. If you weren’t already aware of our current standing in the traffic department, it’s probably because you were very busy spending a record-breaking, mind-numbing 81 hours in your car last year. But hey, you finally got to listen to Hamilton all the way through, so it’s cool, right? Of course it’s not. It’s terrible. So, in celebration of receiving this high honor, we’ve ranked L.A.’s freeways in order from kind of annoying to absolutely atrocious.
• Last Chance Grade: Millions more for repairs . The latest on Last Chance Grade (LCG) is that Caltrans is going to start new repairs on LCG, spending up to $10 million to repair some of the same repairs recently completed. Repairs that were completed in November of 2011 plus new walls/repairs just below where the November 2011 walls were completed are on the schedule again.
• Gribblenation is Calling it Quits. Y’all – it’s a sad day. Gribblenation.com is no more. Things have obviously changed in the years since we launched the site in 2001. Back then, there was no Facebook, no Wikipedia, IRC was a thing, and the only texts people sent were on AIM. The world has changed in the intervening 15 years to the point that Adam and I agreed that it isn’t economical anymore to continue to maintain a static site when things change so quickly. [Gribblenation was a major compendium road geek site. It remains at gribblenation.net, but that is going away at the end of 2016.]