Another half-month has passed, and so it is time for more headlines:
- O.C. Projects Receive $123.6 Million in State Funds. The California Transportation Commission (CTC) allocated $123.6 million in funding to Orange County projects that will help improve freeway conditions and increase road safety for drivers and pedestrians.
- Water board halts Orange County tollway project. Local water quality regulators Wednesday night halted a $200-million tollway project in Orange County when they denied a discharge permit for the controversial proposal. On a 3 to 2 vote, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board declined to issue a permit to the Transportation Corridor Agencies in Irvine, the operator of 51 miles of toll roads in Orange County.
- New carpool lanes open Saturday on I-880 at Brokaw Road. Bill Richter figures he’ll shave 25 minutes off his usual 50-minute commute from West San Jose to Cisco’s Milpitas office next week, when new carpool lanes open on a 4-mile stretch of Interstate 880 from Highway 237 in Milpitas to the 101 interchange in San Jose. The new lanes will open at 6 a.m. Saturday and be available for the Monday commute. That’s relief for Richter, a motorcyclist who went back to driving solo during the 15 months it took to install the diamond lanes, redesign the Brokaw Road ramps and rip out the old freeway pavement — all with white concrete barriers narrowing traffic lanes.
- Old homes in way of new road plans at Lake Tahoe. Miller, 60, is one of about 75 property owners whose homes might have to be bulldozed if a plan goes through to reroute Highway 50 around a perpetually gridlocked stretch on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border where the Heavenly ski resort and popular casinos are located. The plan by the Tahoe Transportation District would turn a 1.1-mile section of the current highway, from Pioneer Trail in California to Lake Parkway in Nevada, into a local “main street.”
- Plan to Add Toll Lane to the 405. The I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project cost taxpayers $1 billion and will feature a 10-mile car pool lane but the problem is, despite all the money that has already been poured in, the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority could be asking drivers to pay to use the car pool lanes.
- I-405 widening plan public meeting set for next month in Long Beach. The public will have a chance to comment this month on a highly-criticized plan to widen the 405 Freeway that now calls on Long Beach and Caltrans to pay for some improvements to local intersections.
- OCTA Seeks Public Comment on Environmental Impact Report for I-405 Improvement Project. The I-405 Improvement Project Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Report / Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) was released on Friday, June 28, and is available for public reveiw and comment through Monday, Aug. 12.