Make Hwy. 101 first priority

Funding for transportation projects is scarce these days, so when a new pool of money is discovered, government agencies become like hungry piranhas in a feeding frenzy.

This is what happened recently when an 11-year-old $20 million earmark recently became available. Congress originally appropriated the money for a Port Sonoma ferry service that never materialized, and now Caltrans is tasked with reallocating the funds to a regional transportation project.

Transportation officials have long discussed using the money, which is now $18.2 million, for various North Bay projects. Late last month, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency and the Golden Gate Bridge district sent a letter to the state appealing for $12 million to rebuild the San Rafael transit center.

That bus terminal is in the way of SMART’s tracks and needs to be relocated when the agency extends the commuter train service to Larkspur, as it says it will do by 2018.

The Sonoma County Transportation Authority, however, says it could use $15 million of the earmark to match $15 million in local funds to widen the stretch of Highway 101 from the Petaluma River Bridge to the county line, a five-mile segment of carpool lanes that would help ease a major bottleneck.

The decision maker in this case should be Supervisor David Rabbitt. As the elected official representing Petaluma and the site of the original earmark, and as a board member of SMART, the SCTA and the Golden Gate Bridge district, Rabbitt has a rare high-altitude perspective that allows him to see all regional transportation projects and make an informed recommendation.

In this case, Rabbitt wrote his own letter to the State Transportation Agency lobbying for $15 million to widen Highway 101. The other $3.2 million, he wrote, could go toward a temporary fix to the San Rafael transit center that would allow SMART to keep its Larkspur extension on track while a costlier permanent solution is achieved.

We agree with Rabbitt that the bulk of the earmark should be used to widen Highway 101. While SMART is an important regional transit project, and extending the service to Larkspur will increase its popularity, there are several sources of funding for public transit agencies.

This is not the case for road and highway funding, which has seen unprecedented shortfalls due to a decline in gas tax revenues, which have traditionally paid for such projects. This earmark might be the only chance for awhile to complete the improvements to this segment of Highway 101.

More than 15 years after work began to widen the freeway from Windsor to Novato, the money has run dry before Petaluma got all of its share. A costlier stretch of highway through Petaluma remains unfunded. That piece must be completed before the badly needed Rainier crosstown connector can be built.

Transportation agencies all have the same ultimate goal: reducing traffic congestion. SMART aims to provide an alternate commute method and take cars off the road. Golden Gate Transit does the same with buses. SCTA is adding carpool lanes to the freeway to encourage ride sharing and improve commute times.

These agencies are strongest when they work together to improve the regional transportation network. Instead of fighting over funds, they should figure out how best to share them.