California Must Stop Expanding Highways 

Tailpipe pollution makes up about half of the greenhouse gas emissions in California, so shifting our travel modes to healthy, sustainable alternatives should be a priority. However, our state’s priorities, as expressed by the way we allocate our transportation dollars, show exactly the opposite. 

This Thursday, the California Transportation Commission is approving projects for funding under the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) and State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP), including two highway widening projects in the Bay Area along US 101 in San Mateo and Santa Clara and State Route 37 in the North Bay. The ClimatePlan coalition, of which Transform is a member, has created an advocacy toolkit for those who want to call into the meeting and oppose these boondoggle projects and suggest sustainable alternatives. 

San Mateo US 101 highway expansion

Caltrans, along with the San Mateo County Transportation Authority (SMCTA) and City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County (C/CAG), is requesting $16.8M to build a managed lane in each direction along the U.S. 101 in the San Mateo 101 Managed Lanes Project North of I-380. Transform has been on the record repeatedly opposing this project, which would worsen air quality for already pollution-burdened residents of South San Francisco. 

San Mateo submitted three projects for the last cycle of Active Transportation Program (ATP) funding. However, it didn’t get funding for any of them because the ATP’s budget had been cut so severely that it was unable to greenlight many excellent projects. We recommend CTC fund the Kelly Avenue Complete Streets Project and other ATP projects in San Mateo instead of the 101 Managed Lanes Project. 

Santa Clara express lane expansion

While Santa Clara’s US 101 Express Lanes Project proposes to convert existing lanes into express lanes, which would help reduce VMT and GHG along the corridor, the project also proposes to add a second express lane in each direction, which would undo any benefits from the converted lanes. This region also saw not a single ATP project funded in the last cycle, despite submitting five applications. To ensure that Santa Clara County continues to make progress toward meeting its GHG reduction targets, we recommend that the US 101 Express Lanes Project be substituted with the Milpitas Citywide Safe Routes to School Improvements Project and the Pruneridge Avenue Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvements Project.

Sonoma County State Route 37 boondoggle 

The ‘interim’ project Caltrans is proposing on State Route 37 would spend $500 million to widen a highway by paving over protected marshland and endangered species habitat. What’s worse, this highway is already regularly flooded during king tides and will likely be underwater due to climate change within two decades. Phase 1 of this project, which the CTC will vote on this month, will waste an additional $12.8 million on building a new bridge and roadway improvements for the interim project. 

In addition to these three projects in the Bay Area, there are a few other bad highway expansions throughout the state that are slated for CTC approval. With your help, we can shift the narrative, replacing climate-killing highway expansions with projects to build bikeway networks and pedestrian amenities, spending California’s transportation dollars efficiently and wisely.

A version of this post originally appeared on the Transform blog.