Gilroy
– Neither the widening of U.S. 101 south of the Monterey Street
exit in Gilroy – including a new 101-25 interchange – nor the
widening of Highway 156 made the cut Wednesday as the California
Transportation Commission awarded the first round of Proposition 1B
money.
Gilroy – Neither the widening of U.S. 101 south of the Monterey Street exit in Gilroy – including a new 101-25 interchange – nor the widening of Highway 156 made the cut Wednesday as the California Transportation Commission awarded the first round of Proposition 1B money.
CTC staff initially proposed awarding $2.7 billion this year and $1.8 billion in 2008. Santa Clara and San Benito County officials previously said they were hopeful that the widening of U.S. 101 would get funding in 2008, but the commission voted Wednesday to award all $4.5 billion this year.
“I’m very disappointed,” said Santa Clara Supervisor Don Gage. “We worked long and hard on the project, but I guess they wanted to give the money down south.”
After an intense two-week lobbying campaign led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the largest chunk of the $4.5 billion earmarked for reducing highway congestion will go to build an 11-mile-long, $730 million car pool lane on Interstate 405. Southern Californians also will get more than $1 billion for car pool lanes on Interstate 5 and other freeways.
Lisa Rheinheimer, executive director of San Benito’s Council of Governments, traveled to Irvine to make the case for the U.S. 101, as did Carolyn Gonot of Santa Clara’s Valley Transportation Authority. Rheinheimer said she’s disappointed by the commission’s decision, but she added, “There are other pots of money.”
Rheinheimer noted that although all of the funds have been awarded, there’s still more bond money available. Proposition 1B, which state voters passed in November, approved the sale of $19.9 billion of bonds to fund state transportation projects. Rheinheimer said VTA and COG will continue looking for other funding sources.
“We’ll turn over any rock that may have money under it,” Rheinheimer said. “It’s so hard for us to get money for our big projects. That’s why our partnership with Santa Clara County is so vitally important – they’ve got a bigger pot.”
For Northern California, lawmakers succeeded in getting more funding to relieve congestion in the San Francisco Bay area – nearly $1.3 billion. The money will go mostly for car pool lanes on interstates 880 and 580, as well as new lanes in the Caldecott Tunnel connecting east bay suburbs to San Francisco.
But for all the popular projects approved, many transportation advocates Wednesday couldn’t help but see the glass as half empty. They noted that twice as many highway projects – more than 100 that regional agencies nominated – went unfunded because there wasn’t enough money in the bond.
“The $4.5 billion was just enough to look impressive but not enough to fix any of the major problems,” said Rod Diridon, executive director of the San Jose-based Mineta Transportation Institute, a federally funded transportation policy group.
San Benito Supervisor Anthony Botelho said he isn’t surprised that Highway 156 didn’t receive funding. He also said that urban counties have traffic problems that are much worse than Santa Clara’s and San Benito’s.
But when Botelho was told that all of the money had been awarded, he said, “Boy, that’s a big letdown. … If I had known this would happen, I would have been out there with a sign that said, ‘Don’t vote for this bond.’ ”
John Barna, the transportation commission’s executive director, cautioned critics to wait and see how the commission does delivering on the projects approved Wednesday before drawing conclusions about the funding mechanism or their effectiveness.
Barna also said he believes many of the projects that didn’t make the cut still have a chance of winning funding under other sections of the bond. The way the bond is funding pressing needs may free up other yearly transportation money to pay for other projects on the list.
Mike Graves, COG’s former legislative analyst, previously warned COG’s board of directors that getting the bond money would be a competitive and political process.
“It’s unfortunate that the county wasn’t ready,” Graves said. “Once the legislature agreed upon the language to do the bonds, the political process had begun. It’s a new game for how they fund highways. They’ve just set it today. You’ve got to bring a lot more to the table than a congested road.”
Aaron C. Davis Associated Press contributed to this report.
