Christmas comes a bit early this year for north county commuters
as Caltrans plans to open two new lanes on Highway 101 later this
week.
Caltrans spokesperson Bob Haus announced Monday that contractor
O.C. Jones was far enough along on the 7.6-mile widening project
south of Windsor to open the new lanes on Sunday, Dec. 6. The new
additions to the freeway are both carpool lanes and will bring the
total lane count to three in each direction.
“That’s the schedule anyway,” said Haus, who cautioned plans
might change in the coming days. “The weather is expected to be
clear.”
While the lanes will open nearly a year before what was
originally scheduled, the project is far from complete. Haus said
O.C. Jones changed its plans early on, opting to finish the project
in stages. This allowed for the lanes to be opened much earlier
than first expected. The contractor still needs to repave all six
lanes and complete work on the numerous on- and off-ramps. The
entire project isn’t scheduled to be finished until Jan. 2011.
Future construction will require O.C. Jones to close lanes in
the coming months, closures Haus said will be done at night before
the early morning commute. “It’ll happen between 10 p.m. and 5
a.m.,” he said.
Public Information Officer John Sloat said the California
Highway Patrol will meet with Caltrans at a later date to discuss
the 55 MPH speed limit in the construction zone. He doesn’t expect
it to be changed until construction is completed.
“We want to keep the construction workers safe, but we’ll need
to meet with Caltrans to determine if we’ll be keeping the 55 MPH
speed limit for sure,” he said. “It’s the safest thing to do.”
The CHP has maintained a regular presence along the jobsite
since construction began. Sloat said the CHP officers seen parked
along the stretch of freeway are paid for by the construction
company and are not part of the regular shift. “Their instructions
are to sit there and just observe the construction zone,” he
said.
The sight of a CHP car alone is enough to slow traffic to safer
speeds, according to Sloat. “There was a study done a few years ago
that showed the average person driving down the road slowed down
and obeyed the rules for the next five miles,” he said.
He expects that the opening of the new lanes will help with
traffic flow but warned that drivers must continue to be careful in
the construction area. “The challenge is going to be on the drivers
to stay within the rules,” he said. “People still need to be
cautious because the on- and off-ramps are still under
construction.”
He said those ramps are the source of most of the complaints
received by the CHP. In recent months these ramps have constantly
changed, altering what is normally a familiar corridor for
commuters to something entirely new.
Safe entry onto the freeway requires teamwork of sorts between
motorists. Sloat said drivers already on the freeway have the
right-of-way, but urged them to be courteous to those merging to
help keep everyone safe. “Those merging in must do it safely,” he
said. “You can’t impede traffic [by stopping on the on-ramp] but
you can’t cut people off, either.”
The widening project between Steele Lane and downtown Windsor is
the latest in a series of efforts to relieve congestion on Highway
101 throughout Sonoma County and to extend carpool lanes from
Windsor to the Highway 1 exit in southern Marin County. Haus said
work will begin soon on another big widening project stretching
from Rohnert Park Expressway south to Petaluma. Yet another project
will widen the freeway from Petaluma through to northern Novato
where the freeway now bottlenecks from three lanes to two.
