Thumbs up: On the road again

The Novato Narrows, the 10-mile stretch of Highway 101 between Petaluma and Novato is one of the worst bottlenecks in the Bay Area, with about 90,000 vehicles squeezing through each day. Finding the money to add a third lane in each direction has proven to be one of the region’s biggest challenges. But there’s reason to believe that the final obstacle has been cleared, and work could begin as early as next year. Thumbs up.

The final piece of the funding puzzle comes from an 11-year-old congressional earmark for a ferry between Port Sonoma and San Francisco. Ferry service never got launched, making $18.2 million available for other congestion relief projects. Sonoma and Marin county transportation officials wanted the bulk of the money for the narrows project, and SMART and the Golden Gate Bridge district wanted it for improvements of San Rafael’s transit mall. After a meeting convened by Rohnert Park Councilman Jake Mackenzie, officials from both counties signed letters asking the state to apply $15 million to widen Highway 101 through the narrows.