Gas tax repeal defeated, Petaluma highway project moves forward

The defeat of Prop. 6 means the Highway 101 widening project in Petaluma is fully funded and on track to start next year.|

The last major question mark looming over Petaluma’s Highway 101 widening project has been removed with the election night defeat of Proposition 6, meaning the work can break ground next year as scheduled.

State transportation officials this year awarded Sonoma County $85 million to add carpool lanes to the highway from Corona Road to Lakeville Highway. The funding is from the state gas tax increase passed last year and threatened by a recall effort this election.

But the Prop. 6 repeal failed with 56 percent of voters rejecting the measure in unofficial returns. Now that the funding is secure, transportation officials can turn in earnest toward completing the final Sonoma County segment in the $1.2 billion, two-decade effort to widen the freeway to six lanes from Windsor to Novato.

“I could not be more happy about it,” said Suzanne Smith, executive director of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. “We’re still on track, that’s the good news.”

Officials have kept working on the planning stages of the project, despite the threat of the elimination of funding. Last Monday, the day before the election, the SCTA approved a cooperative agreement with Caltrans for construction of the $103 million project.

The project is slated to go out to bid early next year with construction starting next August. Dirt has already been stockpiled along the existing highway lanes to be used as a new embankment taking the freeway over the SMART train tracks and future extension of Rainier Avenue.

The carpool lanes should be open by the end of 2022, according to the construction schedule.

“It’s really exciting to know that we’ve gotten to the point where we can deliver the final phase of the project,” Smith said.

The final segment will break ground just as another highway project at the Sonoma-Marin county line wraps up, Smith said. Earlier this month, northbound traffic shifted onto a new a new bridge over San Antonio Creek, marking a key stage in the project.

The shift removed the last remaining direct access to Highway 101 from residential properties in the so-called Sonoma-Marin Narrows. Those properties now use a new frontage road that was the old highway lanes. A new bike path along the frontage road slated to open next year will connect to San Antonio Road and a bike path along Olompali State Park, making it possible to cycle through the Narrows from Petaluma to Novato, a long-sought goal of local cyclists.

The defeat of Prop. 6 also has implications for local streets and roads. Sonoma County is expected to receive $12 million from the new gas tax increase to pave county roads, and Petaluma will get a $1 million annual injection to tackle some of the worst city streets in the Bay Area.

“I was really happy. That was one that I was worried about,” Supervisor David Rabbitt said of Prop. 6. “Now we have secured transportation funding that will get us where we need to go.”

The North Bay’s Highway 101 corridor received another election day boosts with Marin County’s passage of Measure AA, an extension of its sales tax for transportation projects. The spending plan includes funding to complete the Sonoma-Marin Narrows widening in Marin County by adding carpool lanes from the county line south to Novato.

The Measure AA money is meant to be combined with revenue from a regional bridge toll increase voters approved in June. That measure faces a court challenge from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, but without an injunction, officials are preparing to collect the higher bridge tolls on Jan. 1 while the case proceeds.

The Marin County project still requires some design work, which is currently underway. Construction is slated to begin in 2020 and should open in 2023.

The project through Petaluma will add sound walls along residential neighborhoods, provide access for the long awaited Rainier crosstown connector and erase a bottleneck that has vexed local motorists.

“I know residents of Petaluma are very eager to get started and get it done,” Smith said. “One of the challenges if you don’t know if you’ve got money, it leaves you in limbo. It’s good to be out of limbo.”

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

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