Petaluma approves key Rainier connector report

Petaluma approved a key report on a controversial cross-town connector late Monday as the City Council decided that the benefits of the $88 million project outweighed its environmental impacts.

On a 5-2 vote, the council found that the traffic relief predicted from the Rainier Avenue extension was important enough to merit moving forward with trying to fund the project.

Councilman Dave King said it just makes sense that a city with so few east-west connectors will improve traffic by adding another one.

“I cannot see logically how building a crosstown road would do anything other than improve traffic,” King said.

But Councilwoman Teresa Barrett said she could not support the study because she didn’t believe it provided the traffic relief sought, or at least not enough to justify the cost.

She said to support the traffic relief claimed by the project, “it has to actually be attainable, and if you can’t finance it, it’s no longer feasible.”

To supporters, the Rainier extension represents a crucial and long-overdue effort to reduce traffic congestion and prepare for future growth by providing a new way to cross a city divided by Highway 101, an active rail line and the Petaluma River.

To opponents, the project is an ill-conceived boondoggle that will damage sensitive river habitat, promote growth and merely shift the congestion problem instead of solving it.

“Here we are talking about an EIR and nobody really has a clue for how this is going to be funded,” said Janice Cader-Thompson, a former council member.

The question before the council Monday was not whether to commit to the project, but a more narrow focus of whether to certify that the final environmental impact report on the latest version of the roadway sufficiently catalogued its impacts - and whether those impacts are outweighed by the benefits to the community.

Following several hours of debate, the council voted around 10 p.m. to certify the report, with Barrett and Mayor David Glass voting against it. King and fellow council members Chris Albertson, Mike Healy, Gabe Kearney and Kathy Miller voted for approval.

Healy said he was “quite impressed” with the traffic improvements created by the project and noted that every single impact noted in the report could be mitigated to a less-than-significant level.

Glass, meanwhile, said he took strong issue with the quality of the traffic report, calling it “myopic.”

Petaluma residents have long complained about a lack of east-west connections in the city.

Most crosstown traffic in Petaluma currently funnels to either East Washington Street or Corona Road, creating frequent bottlenecks for drivers. The two roads are approximately 2 miles apart.

The other two connectors are Old Redwood Highway at the city’s northern edge and Lakeville Street at the southern end.

The project, which has been discussed for decades, calls for Rainier Avenue to extend to the southwest from North McDowell Boulevard underneath Highway 101, over the Petaluma River and Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit tracks, and connect to Petaluma Boulevard North just north of Marin Sun Farms.

The four-lane roadway would be almost three-quarters of a mile long, and would contain a median, bicycle lanes and sidewalks.

The connector had been identified as an option by the city and Caltrans as early as 1965 and is included in the city’s 2025 general plan.

Construction could begin as soon as 2017, but that is dependent on Caltrans obtaining funding to pay for the Highway 101 widening through that stretch. The state agency is currently $90 million short.

The city’s goal is to get the project approved before Caltrans moves forward with the widening so that the state will design and build that section of highway in a way that allows the Rainier extension to pass underneath.

Approval of the final environmental report is seen a key to making the project “shovel ready.” The city’s planning commission deadlocked 3-3 in June on whether the report should be forward to the council.

Dave Silva lives just west of the future intersection of the new extension and Petaluma Boulevard North and said he’s disappointed that no one from the city has talking to him about the impacts on his property, where he has lived since 1977.

“No one. No one is going to bear the brunt of this project like our neighbor and ourselves,” Silva said.

Resident David Swaney, who works in the industrial areas near where the connector will pass, said he predicted significant flooding of the roadway and doesn’t see cross-town traffic being improved by the project for very long.

“I think if you approve this, it’s just plain stupid,” Swaney said. “Five years after it’s built it’ll be clogged up again!”

City environmental planner Olivia Ervin downplayed flooding concerns, noting that the roadway has an elevation of 25 feet, 10 feet higher than the typical elevation of the river.

Casting further doubt on the city’s ability to fund the project is a recent setback in Petaluma’s legal effort to gain access to $7 million in bond money earmarked for the project.

The city has challenged the state department of finance’s conclusion that Petaluma cannot use the bond funds because the city did not have an enforceable contract to spend the money on the project.

Before the state’s 2012 dissolution of redevelopment agencies, Petaluma’s redevelopment arm issued ?$11.3 million in bonds, $7 million of which were earmarked for the Rainier project.

But the 4th District Court of Appeal found that nothing in the city’s agreement required the money be spent on the Rainier project.

U.S. District Judge Elena Duarte, writing on behalf of the three-judge panel, ruled that while the ?bond funds were restricted to transportation infrastructure projects, “nothing in the language requires that the Rainier project actually be funded or constructed,” Judge Duarte said.

The city is exploring its legal options, but the ruling shouldn’t have “any obvious immediate effect” on the city’s ability to fund the project, slated to be paid for mostly by future traffic mitigation fees, said City Attorney Eric Danly.

City Manager John Brown noted that the original project - including an interchange with 101 - was estimated to cost $120 million, but the current version of the project drops the interchange and cost “about half” that much.

The $7 million at issue in the case is just 6 percent of the total project, Brown said.

“That is not an impediment to us moving forward,” he said.