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<H1>BAY AREA</H1>
<H2>Highway planners fear Caltrans' liking for rural projects</H2></DIV>
<P class=byline><A href="mailto:mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com">Michael
Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer</A></P>
<P class=date>Thursday, February 15, 2007</P>
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<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>When Californian voters overwhelmingly backed
Proposition 1B -- which promised congestion relief in its proponents'
campaign ads -- many of them probably weren't thinking of busting through
backups in such places as the Trinity Mountains, Willits and Angels Camp.
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>But highway projects in those rural areas are
competing with such Bay Area projects as a fourth bore of the Caldecott
Tunnel, carpool lanes on Interstate 580 and the Cordelia interchange for
the first big batch of transportation bond money from the $20 billion bond
measure, which voters approved in November. </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>The first $4.5 billion in bond money is
earmarked for projects that will make traffic flow better on highways. On
Friday, the California Transportation Commission's staff will release a
recommended list of such projects that it has culled from the 147 plans --
worth $11.3 billion -- nominated by county and regional transportation
agencies and Caltrans. </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>On Tuesday, the commission will hold a
hearing, and it will decide at its monthly meeting Feb. 28 in Irvine.
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>With the decision near, Bay Area
transportation officials and politicians are arguing that it doesn't make
sense to complete freeways or highway improvement projects in rural
regions at the expense of urban congestion-relief projects.
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>"The priority should be congestion, which was
the promise made by sponsors of the bond to voters,'' said Jim Wunderman,
executive director of the Bay Area Council, which represents businesses in
the region. </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>Bay Area transportation leaders put together a
package of projects totaling $2 billion that focuses on relieving
congestion by completing the region's network of carpool lanes and
improving heavily traveled routes leading in and out of the Bay Area --
including Highway 101, Interstate 580 and the Interstate 80/Interstate
680/Highway 12 junction in Cordelia. </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>Prop. 1B allots 40 percent of the $4.5 billion
in congestion-relief funding -- $1.8 billion -- to Northern California,
which reaches as far south as Fresno inland and Monterey on the coast. And
because Caltrans studies estimate that about 85 percent of traffic
congestion in the northern part of the state is in the Bay Area,
transportation officials say the region should be in line to get at least
$1.5 billion. </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>But they fear that Caltrans, which has
submitted a list of recommendations to the Transportation Commission, will
persuade the agency to use much of the big infusion of funds -- the first
in at least four decades -- on rural highways instead of urban gridlock.
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>"I fret that Caltrans, which did not get its
freeways built in the '60s and '70s -- the freeway era, cannot resist the
pull to complete the rural freeways,'' said Randy Rentschler, spokesman
for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area's regional
transportation planning and financing agency. "But the voters did not vote
for a rural freeway completion program when they voted for Prop. 1B.''
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>According to the bond measure, the $4.5
million in the Corridor Mobility Improvement Account "shall be used for
performance improvements on the state highway system or major access
routes to the state highway system on the local road system that relive
congestion by expanding capacity, or otherwise improving travel times
within these high-congestion travel corridors.'' </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>John Barna, executive director of the
California Transportation Commission, says that language doesn't exclude
rural counties or highways that don't suffer daily gridlock.
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>Caltrans has recommended $6.4 billion in
projects -- many of them in places that aren't routinely congested. Among
them is $150 million to complete the Highway 101 bypass around Willits in
Mendocino County, where traffic jams are generally limited to the summer
travel season. </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>Other rural projects that have been nominated,
but didn't make Caltrans' list, include $4.4 million toward a bypass on
Highway 4 around Angels Camp (Calaveras County) and $239 million to
improve a curvy and hazardous stretch of Highway 299 at Buckhorn Pass
(Shasta County) east of Weaverville in the Trinity Mountains.
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>"Congestion is not only sitting on the 880 in
the Bay Area going very slowly,'' said Ross Chittenden, Caltrans' project
manager for the bond measure. "It's anything that restricts the free flow
of people, goods and services.'' <BR></STRONG></FONT></P><FONT
face=Arial><STRONG>
<HR>
Bay Area's Prop. 1B wish list </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>Proposition 1B projects in the regional
include: </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- Caldecott Tunnel fourth bore
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- New and expanded carpool lanes on Highways
101 and 4 and Interstates 80, 580 and 680 </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- New San Francisco approach to the Golden
Gate Bridge </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- Truck lanes over the Altamont Pass
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- New Cordelia Junction interchange for
Interstates 80 and 680 and Highway 12 </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- Improving Interstate 880/280 interchange in
San Jose </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- Cordelia truck scale improvements
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- Highway 101 additional lanes, Marsh Road to
Highway 85 </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>-- Highway 101 improvements between Golden
Gate Bridge toll plaza and freeway </STRONG></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>Source: California Transportation Commission
</STRONG></FONT>
<P><I><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>E-mail Michael Cabanatuan at
</STRONG></FONT><A href="mailto:mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com"><FONT
face=Arial><STRONG>mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial><STRONG>.</STRONG></FONT></I><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>
</STRONG></FONT></SPAN></P></DIV><!--/articlecontent -->
<P id=pageno><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>This article appeared on page B - 1
of the San Francisco Chronicle</STRONG></FONT></P><!-- begin google/afc/javascript/placead.tmpl -->
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