County to fix Petaluma area roads

As Petaluma’s streets remain in a state if disrepair due to a lack of funding, Sonoma County officials are paving major area roads, ensuring that drivers will at least have a smooth ride up to the city limits.

The county’s road work plan for this summer and next includes 170 miles of the 1,379-mile network. It’s part of a five-year, 300-mile effort at a cost of $65 million, the highest level of local funding of any county in the state, according to county officials.

In the south county, paving work is set to begin on Frates Road, Ely Road, Corona Road, Bodega Avenue and Skillman Lane. Next year, county crews will tackle Adobe Road, Lakeville Road, Cannon Lane, D Street, Petaluma Boulevard North and Stony Point Road.

“The county is doing more than it has ever done,” said Supervisor David Rabbitt. “We’ve taken blows and we’ve been criticized, but we’ve stayed on course. Everyone wants to talk about the roads we haven’t paved, instead of the ones that we have paved.”

Four different types of road treatments will be used to resurface roads, most with new asphalt overlay, a high-performance resurface called bonded wearing course or repaired and resurfaced with a chip seal. Skillman Lane is scheduled for the chip seal treatment.

“Improving roads is one of the most tangible ways local government can make a difference in people’s everyday lives,” Supervisor Efren Carrillo said in a statement. “This Board has been relentless in addressing a state legacy issue of underfunded infrastructure, dedicating more than $65 million dollars of local funds over five years to paving.”

The local investment comes as municipalities are grappling with slumping revenues from the gas tax, which has been the traditional road repair funding source. The tax at the pump has not kept pace with inflation and has not been raised in 20 years, despite more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road.

County officials last year attempted to pass a sales tax measure that they said would have gone towards road repair. But the measure was presented as a general tax that could have been spent on any county priority, and voters rejected the tax by a wide margin.

Road repair advocates welcomed the renewed county investment in pavement, but pointed out that the county would need to spend upwards of $50 million annually to upgrade the road network to “very good” condition in 10 years. County supervisors have discussed various tax proposals for the November ballot, but a road-specific tax measure is not likely until 2018, when the countywide Measure M could be extended, officials said.

Craig Harrison, co-founder of Save Our Sonoma Roads, said that the county picked highly trafficked roads for repairs in the next two years, which will help the maximum amount of drivers. But he said there’s still hundreds of miles in the network that will continue to be ignored.

“It’s certainly a good start,” he said. “The amount of roads in bad shape is still pretty high. Supervisor Rabbitt has done a good job of marshaling the available resources. But we think they can do more.”

(Press Democrat Staff Writer Angela Hart contributed to this report. Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)