101: The next phase

<p>The bad economy has had concrete benefits for Sonoma County's highway widening program, which is moving forward with three more big projects.</p><p>Benefiting from a low-cost bond sale last month, the county has secured the money to widen Highway 101 from Santa Rosa to Windsor, from Wilfred Avenue to Rohnert Park Expressway, and then to Pepper Road north of Petaluma. The work could be done within three years.</p><p>The county saved $5.5 million in interest expense in its $46 million bond sale. The factors that worked in its favor were stock market turmoil that sent investors looking for bonds and a Federal Reserve reduction in the interest rate, plus it was the only California agency selling tax-exempt bonds.</p><p>"The timing was excellent for us for selling the bonds," said county Supervisor Mike Kerns of Petaluma, chairman of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. "We are very fortunate."</p><p>Bond revenue will be the county's contribution toward the total $323 million allocated for the projects.</p><p>By selling the bonds, the county can get the money up front to continue the widening program before construction costs escalate.</p><p>"Our goal has always been to widen the freeway from Windsor to the Marin County line," said Suzanne Smith, the transportation authority's executive director. "We will have successfully been able to go from Windsor to just north of Petaluma, plus being able to do $200 million of work in the Narrows. We are well on our way to being 75 percent complete."</p><p>This fall, work will begin on adding a third lane for carpools from Santa Rosa's Steele Lane to Windsor, a 7.6-mile stretch estimated to cost $120 million and be completed in 2010.</p><p>That work will begin even as Caltrans wraps up the $111.5 million widening of the freeway between Highway</p><p>12 and Steele Lane, Santa Rosa's most expensive and disruptive public works project.</p><p>The project is scheduled to be done in the spring of 2009, although Caltrans hopes the lanes can be opened sooner.</p><p>"If they can do it earlier, if we get blessed with a shorter winter, if they can get work done faster, that's something we always shoot for," said Caltrans spokeswoman Alicia Sequiera.</p><p>In spring 2009, widening work is expected to begin between Wilfred Avenue and Rohnert Park Expressway, including a new Wilfred Avenue overpass, for $85 million and from Rohnert Park Expressway to Pepper Road north of Petaluma for $118 million.</p><p>Both those projects are expected to be finished in late 2011.</p><p>Caltrans and Sonoma and Marin counties are pushing ahead with plans to widen the freeway from Pepper Road through the Novato Narrows to Highway 37 in Marin County, an $850 million project. So far, $205 million is available.</p><p>There is still a gap in the widening picture through Petaluma. No funding has been identified for that work or to finish the Narrows, Smith said.</p><p>The projects are being financed through a combination of state bond and gas tax money and federal allocations, Smith said.</p><p>"It is a long time coming," Kerns said. "A lot of factors have contributed to the delays, many of them economic. We had a plan that all projects would be done by 2010. Obviously it will take us longer, but the important thing is to keep sight of the goal and keep moving forward and eventually they will get done."</p><p>The $46 million in bonds sold by Sonoma County on Jan. 24 are backed by revenues from Measure M, the quarter-cent transportation sales tax passed by voters in 2004. The tax raises about $18.5 million a year.</p><p>They were purchased by Goldman Sachs &amp; Co. at an interest rate of 3.74 percent, Smith said.</p><p>The transportation agency had expected to pay 4.5 percent, the interest rate the county's open space district got on its bonds last fall.</p><p>The rate difference is worth $5.5 million over the life of the bonds, which mature in 2024 when the sales tax measure lapses.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or bob.norberg@pressdemocrat.com.</p>