Roadwork leads to Highway 101 traffic jam in Petaluma

A road construction project on the northern end of Petaluma brought traffic to a standstill on Highway 101 for much of the weekend, trapping infuriated motorists in a bumper-to-bumper morass with no way to leave the highway.

The closure of the Petaluma Boulevard North interchange on Friday night led to a massive back-up on Saturday and again Sunday that stretched all the way to Cotati. It took many southbound motorists nearly an hour to creep eight miles to reach the first open exit, at East Washington Street in central Petaluma.

Some tried to exit the traffic mess by driving the wrong way onto the on-ramp at Pepper Road, north of Petaluma, seeking to reach Stony Point Road.

“A lot of people got citations,” CHP Sgt. Mike Brown said Sunday. “Luckily there were no head-on accidents. But inevitably, one is going to happen if they keep going like that.”

The CHP put out an electronic sign at Steele Lane in Santa Rosa, hoping to give motorists the heads-up to get off at Stony Point Road or Old Redwood Highway. But many didn’t heed the advice. Traffic was backed up for several miles from Petaluma north to West Sierra Avenue in Cotati much of the day on Saturday and Sunday.

“If you hit it without warning, you were stuck,” said Lori Thompson, a customer service agent at Airport Express, who said it took her 40 minutes to get over the Cotati grade on Saturday. The company routed its airport shuttle buses down Stony Point Road over the weekend to make sure passengers reached their flights on time.

The CHP warned motorists who need to drive to or through Petaluma on Sunday to stick to surface streets for the rest of the weekend, bypassing the jam by taking alternate routes like Stony Point Road, Petaluma Hill Road, Old Redwood Highway, McDowell and Petaluma boulevards. The northbound on- and off-ramps were re-opened early Sunday but the southbound side remained closed for construction work.

The southbound on- and off-ramps, which closed Friday night, were scheduled to re-open by 5 a.m. Monday.

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204. On Twitter @megmcconahey.