‘Big Pave’ on Highway 101 north of Windsor to start in 2016

Sonoma County transportation officials provided an early glimpse Monday of plans for the $67 million repaving project on Highway 101 north of Windsor that aims to provide motorists with a smoother ride.

First announced before a final state funding approval in August, the project, dubbed “The Big Pave,” will kick off in two years and fix 14 miles of pavement stretching from Windsor to Geyserville - what north county Supervisor Mike McGuire called “one of the worst stretches of Highway 101 in the North Bay area.”

McGuire said the construction effort amounted to one of the largest road upgrades in his district in several decades. The region’s residents need to know ahead of time what to expect during the work, he said.

There will be disruptions in the form of intermittent closed off-ramps and residents near the freeway will have to deal with construction noise. But the trade-off will be worth it, officials said. The current cement road - consisting of two lanes in each direction - has deteriorated badly in places with cracks and potholes that produce a bumpy, teeth-rattling ride.

The vast majority of the work will be done at night to minimize any effect on the morning and evening commutes.

“Long term, this project is going to have a positive impact on northern Sonoma County. But short term during the construction project, north county commuters are going to have some temporary impacts,” McGuire said.

After more than a year of lobbying by Sonoma County officials, the state Transportation Commission in August awarded funds for the project, which is expected to kick off in the fall of 2016 and finish by April, 2018.

The work involves cracking the existing concrete road and laying a six-inch-thick layer of asphalt over it, as well as extending some culverts, and overlaying traffic on- and off-ramps.

The new road will have a life span of about 20 years, according to Caltrans project manager Betcy Joseph.

She said it has not yet been determined if work will begin on the north or south end of the 14-mile stretch.

McGuire said highway project is the largest to be advanced in the north county since the early 1960s, when traffic was transitioned off Old Redwood Highway and onto the current Highway 101 corridor.

The funding comes from federal and state gas tax revenue, funneled through the State Highway Operations and Protection Program. The money can’t go for road expansions or to repave ailing county roads, which have deteriorated under a chronic funding shortfall and have an estimated $268 million maintenance backlog.

At a press conference Monday, McGuire, accompanied by state and local transportation officials, took pains to explain the money could not have been used for what is perhaps the region’s top highway priority - the ongoing widening of Highway 101 through the Sonoma-Marin narrows.

That more heavily-traveled stretch of road will cost $250 million to fix a highway chokepoint that backs up commuter traffic. McGuire said a potential transportation bond measure on the 2016 statewide ballot is now considered the best hope to secure funding for that project.

More than $1 billion has been spent on highway improvements south of Windsor over the past decade, including the ongoing highway expansion and interchange projects.

“The focus in large part has been on adding the third lane each in each direction. We still have some work to do on the south end of the county,” said Suzanne Smith, executive director of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. “But this is really an opportunity to shift a little bit further north, and make sure that we’re taking care the entire corridor throughout the county,” she said of the work from Windsor to Geyserville.

City officials in Healdsburg and Cloverdale who are active on transportation issues were also at the press conference Monday.

“This is a very happy day,” said Cloverdale Mayor Carol Russell, who thanked Caltrans and McGuire for his “tenacity and leadership” in helping convince state officials to approve the required funding.

She said by one estimate, bad roads costs the average driver in the Bay Area from $800 to $2,200 annually for things like tires, car repairs and extra fuel costs.

Healdsburg Councilman Tom Chambers said “as a Healdsburg resident I’m thrilled because I’ve been bouncing up and down this road for about 28 years. Not only it is inconvenient, it’s just not safe. It is absolutely the time to have this fixed.”

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com