GILROY
– The news keeps getting better for South Valley commuters
holding their breath for a better commute.
Work crew availability and contractor timeliness, Valley
Transportation Authority officials say, are allowing them to
forecast an even earlier completion date for the U.S. Highway 101
widening project.
GILROY – The news keeps getting better for South Valley commuters holding their breath for a better commute.
Work crew availability and contractor timeliness, Valley Transportation Authority officials say, are allowing them to forecast an even earlier completion date for the U.S. Highway 101 widening project.
The project’s completion date for the Highway 101 southbound lanes was originally slated for September and moved up to late March last fall. This week, VTA officials are projecting an “early March” end date.
“If you look at all of the recent VTA projects, early completion has been emphasized. We were able to meet that goal this time and we’re very happy with that,” said Gilroy Mayor Tom Springer, who serves on the VTA board. “We were even looking at completing this by late February, but we had some weather issues that didn’t allow for that.”
The overall project will increase the northbound and southbound two- and three-lane configurations to four lanes from Cochrane Road in Morgan Hill to Metcalf Road in San Jose. A related project, slated for completion in July 2004, will connect carpool lanes on Highway 101 with those on Route 85 in south San Jose. Coordination between the two projects puts the opening of the northbound Highway 101 lanes at mid-April, the VTA said.
Springer said VTA board members had a running inside joke that the southbound lanes would be finished by the time the Gilroy Costco – a popular warehouse-style supermarket – opens. So far, Costco will squeak by first when it holds its ribbon-cutting ceremony March 1.
Already, Highway 101 drivers are being directed onto new pavement as crews do “finishing” and “shoulder repair” work, said John Pilger, a VTA spokesman. Lane shifts will continue until all the work is completed.
“We’ve been doing various lane shifts. Until everything is done motorists need to look for workers and traffic advisory signs,” Pilger said.
Once completed, the work is expected to cut the morning northbound commute by 12 minutes and the evening southbound trip by nine. More significantly, for drivers who get easily frustrated with the normal stop and go for that area, average speeds will jump from 28 mph to 65 mph northbound and from 35 mph to 65 mph going south.
Springer says the widening project will not only ease the commutes of South Valley workers, it could bring more tourism to the area, too.
“In so many ways, this is a quality of life issue. We’re talking about adding 10 minutes to a person’s life and taking away a whole lot of frustration people feel when they’re stuck in a bottleneck,” Springer said. “Right now, you have people asking themselves, ‘Why should I go down there (to Gilroy) to shop.?'”
When the work is done, Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will determine whether the carpool lanes will be restricted to vehicles with at least two persons inside all day, or whether carpooling is mandatory only during peak traffic hours.
Pilger said VTA is not planning any sort of campaign to encourage more carpooling.
“The incentive is if you carpool, you’ll save time. We’re sort of borrowing from the idea of ‘if you build it, they will come,'” Pilger said. “After this work is done it still will be imperative for drivers to get out of the one-person one-car mindset.”
The Highway 101 widening costs $52.2 million, paid mostly with Measure B funds, approved by voters in 1996.
The carpool lane project for Highway 101 and Route 85 totals $62.1 million. More than half the project is paid for with Measure B funds.
