Many take advantage of transportation forum to push for
construction of a new highway
Hollister – The quaint, rural town of San Juan Bautista is going to hell with the help of Caltrans, said one woman attending a workshop where officials discussed regional transportation plans.
During the two-hour workshop, which was held in the San Benito County Board of Supervisors chambers, Caltrans District. 5 Deputy Director Rich Krumholz recapped transportation projects in San Benito County, talked about how projects become reality and about an ongoing Caltrans study aimed at determining how to meet the transportation needs of the region.
Several San Juan Bautista residents spoke out against plans to widen Highway 156 and reaffirmed their belief that an entirely new road is needed to get traffic through the county.
“There is a continuing trend of population growth and traffic growth,” he told the group of about 30 residents and local leaders. “Planning transportation is hard. It’s complex. There’s a lot of issues.”
Though Krumholz’s presentation was a broad overview of local transportation issues, when it came time for public comment many of the attendees focused on just one project – plans to widen Highway 156 to four lanes through San Juan Bautista.
Many in the San Juan area fear that turning the stretch of 156 that runs from San Juan Bautista to the outskirts of Hollister into a four-lane highway will be a short-term fix that will destroy the Mission City by bringing too much traffic through the community and forever sullying the prime agricultural land of the San Juan Valley.
“We’re going to hell and we’ll get there through Caltrans,” said Rebecca McGovern, a San Juan resident and local environmentalist. “We are destroying and wasting one of the world’s most important resources – food. That’s what grows here in San Juan and the San Juan Valley and unfortunately it doesn’t grow on pavement.”
Several people at the meeting, including San Benito County Supervisor Anthony Botelho, seem to share McGovern’s concerns. For Botelho and many others, the ideal solution to the problem is scrapping the 156 widening project and building a 3-in-1, which is a new four or six-lane highway that would start near the Don Pacheco Y and connect to Highway 101 near the San Benito/Santa Clara county line.
“We’re always 20 years behind in this county,” San Juan Bautista City Councilman George Dias said. “We’re working on obsolete projects instead of looking at new projects.”
About six people, the majority of those who spoke during the workshop, voiced their favor for a 3-in-1 alternative.
“Don’t bother with 156, don’t bother with 152, don’t bother with 25 – they’re county roads. We need a new road,” said Casa De Fruta owner Joseph Zanger.
Krumholz stood and listened silently to the comments.
The 3-in-1 concept was included in Santa Clara County’s Southern Gateway Study released last year. The Southern Gateway Study, which was drafted to assess future traffic needs in the region, also included alternatives calling for the widening of highways 156, 152 and 25.
The study explored three 3-in-1 scenarios, the most costly being $1.2 billion and the least expensive coming in at $968 million. Botelho said he’s open to whatever variation would work.
“Our focus needs to be on getting traffic from the Pacheco Y to the 101,” he said.
However, not all in attendance were opposed to the Highway 156 widening project.
Scott Fuller, executive director of San Juan Oaks Golf Club, said that his company supported improvements to 156, but was hoping that Caltrans would work with locals to reduce the project’s impact on the area.
“I don’t think we need a superhighway,” he said, adding that he wants the San Juan Valley’s rural character maintained.
Ray Becker, the local representative of developer DMB, that his company opposed at least one 3-in-1 scenario because its construction could not be phased and it would present problems during environmental reviews. He did say, however, that DMB would be open to funding analysis of alternatives in north San Benito County
DMB has plans to build a mini-city just south of the Santa Clara County line near the Pajaro River. Specifics on the project – including the number of homes – are due to come out later this month.
During the workshop, Krumholz unveiled an ongoing Caltrans study, which will analyze the Southern Gateway study’s 3-in-1 scenarios. The study will also analyze widening Highway 152 to six lanes and creating a truck only route.
Though Caltrans will evaluate the 3-in-1 option in the study, which is slated to be finished in February 2007, Krumholz said that it will push forward with widening Highway 156. A draft environmental report for the project is expected this summer.
“In the meantime those projects are going to keep moving along,” he said. “They have to.”
