Petaluma Highway 101 funds secured

Transportation officials are set to receive $15 million from a federal earmark to widen the freeway south of Petaluma.|

Sonoma County transportation officials are in line to receive $15 million to widen Highway 101 south of Petaluma after the state recommended the project for funding from a much-discussed federal earmark.

In clearing a key hurdle, the State Transportation Agency last week approved the funding, which will help officials widen the freeway between the Petaluma River Bridge and the county line, according to Suzanne Smith, executive director of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. She said the federal Department of Transportation will need to administratively sign off on the funding, which will be available Oct. 1.

“As far as we know we are all set, though there has been no fanfare,” she said in an email. “The theory was the feds would honor any requests by the state so long as they met the minimal requirements imposed by the law, i.e. a new project within 50 miles of old earmark location.”

Transportation officials have long eyed the 11-year-old $18.2 million congressional earmark, originally destined for a ferry service at Port Sonoma that never materialized. Earlier this year the funding caused a minor turf war between local agencies as the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system requested $12 million of the funds to rebuild a transit center in San Rafael.

Highway officials argued that the bulk of the money should go to the widening project, which is adding carpool lanes to Highway 101 from Novato to Windsor. The work has largely stalled around Petaluma as funding for the project has gone dry.

Officials in June agreed to divvy up the earmark funds with the bulk going to the highway project and $3.2 million going to SMART. The united approach seems to have helped convince the state to fund the local projects, Smith said.

The money, along with an additional $15 million from refunded bonds and another $1 million from a different earmark, will go toward the $35 million project that will allow officials to open up five miles of carpool lanes from the Petaluma River to the county line. Officials are confident they can find the final $4 million for the project, which could break ground late next year or in 2018.

The widening of the Petaluma River Bridge finished this summer, and work to raise the freeway at the county line is expected to take two more years.

Kathy Miller, a Petaluma councilwoman who is on the SCTA committee tasked with finding funding for the highway project, said it is rewarding to have this key piece in place.

“It’s great,” she said. “We’ve been looking so hard for so long. It’s gratifying to get it done. We can check this off the list and move on to the next big chunk.”

The stretch of four-lane highway through Petaluma from Corona Road to the Petaluma River remains $85 million short. Miller said the best bet to tackle that piece is to convince voters to extend the Measure M sales tax, which has funded much of the highway work.

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)

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