Highway 101 overpass project at Hearn Avenue to start soon in Santa Rosa. Here’s what’s planned

Work on a long-awaited project intended to improve traffic flow on a key corridor in south Santa Rosa while also enhancing bike and pedestrian facilities so residents can more easily cross over Highway 101 will soon get underway.

The Hearn Avenue interchange project calls for replacing the existing overpass at Hearn and Highway 101 with a wider bridge to accommodate more traffic.

New bike lanes and improvements to the highway ramps also are planned.

The project is expected to ease congestion in the growing region. The area includes some of the city’s busiest retail centers, with hundreds of new housing units planned and under construction.

“This has been a project that the city has been working on for more than 20 years and will improve quality of life for residents in my district,” Council member Eddie Alvarez said.

Santa Rosa, the Sonoma County Transportation Authority and the California Department of Transportation have partnered on the project.

Construction is anticipated to start in spring 2024 and the total cost is about $43.7 million, which is being paid for through a mix of local and state funds.

Traffic on Hearn Avenue has long been a concern for nearby residents and businesses, with traffic backing up on each end of the bridge and forming bottlenecks on Highway 101 at the offramp.

The issue was highlighted by residents during a recent town hall meeting held by Mayor Natalie Rogers and Alvarez, who represents the area in District 1, as a major concern.

Plans to address the bridge and intersection have been in the works for decades and it’s part of a larger project to expand other local roadways to improve traffic flow and safety in south Santa Rosa but the city struggled to get financing for this last piece.

A recent infusion of state transportation dollars helped complete financing and the project is moving forward after construction bids came under budget.

The news was cheered by proponents.

“I’m so excited to get to a groundbreaking, this is a long time coming,” said Council member Chris Rogers, board chair of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority.

Work is expected to be completed in December 2025.

What’s planned

The current bridge features one lane in each direction and a narrow sidewalk on the south side.

The expanded bridge will have four traffic lanes that will help improve traffic flow and provide more room for emergency vehicles to efficiently cross the bridge.

The current configuration doesn’t provide enough space for cars to pull over if an ambulance or fire truck needs to get through, particularly when cars are backed up during rush hour, Rogers said.

A new protected cycle path separated from vehicle traffic by a barrier is planned on the south side of the bridge. A striped bike lane and new sidewalk are planned on the north and officials with the city and transportation authority are studying whether it’s feasible to make it a protected bike lane.

The bike and pedestrian improvements will help residents more safely get across the bridge and connect with existing bike lanes on Hearn from Dutton Avenue to Santa Rosa Avenue, including the SMART multiuse path that runs along the rail tracks.

That will help residents connect with grocery stores, retail and employment on Santa Rosa Avenue.

“Anyone who has gone over Hearn will tell you it’s not a safe crossing” for a variety of reasons, Rogers said. “This is going to make it easier for public safety to get through there and help people connect from where they live to where they work.”

The bridge will be built to comply with new Caltrans design standards that require higher vertical clearance and other improvements and will feature updated railings.

Plans call for widening the southbound highway off-ramp at Hearn to add additional turn lanes at Corby Avenue. The intersection at Hearn and Corby also will be reconfigured to include additional turn lanes.

The changes should make it easier for cars exiting the highway to continue on Corby or turn on Hearn and address backup issues at the off-ramp where long lines of cars exiting the highway often develop, Rogers said.

New curb ramps and crosswalks also are planned at Hearn and Corby.

Project faced funding hurdles

The Hearn Avenue interchange project was first included in long-range planning documents in the 1990s and Santa Rosa began working with Caltrans in 2006 to bring the project to fruition following voter approval of the countywide quarter-cent transportation sales tax in 2004, said Ross Clendenen, spokesperson for the county transportation authority.

Voters in 2020 approved renewing the measure for an additional 20 years.

The city in 2011 updated the interchange on the west side of the bridge and widened Hearn Avenue to Dutton Avenue. In 2014, improvements were made on the east side of the bridge and Santa Rosa Avenue was widened.

The city and its partners completed the environmental analysis for the bridge replacement in the late 2010s and was gearing up to release construction bids in 2019 but work stalled as the partners struggled to complete financing.

Rogers, who was seated as mayor in 2020 when Alvarez was elected to the City Council, said the two spoke about infrastructure needs in south Santa Rosa early on and the project was singled out as one of the top priorities.

But the council had to make tough financial decisions to ensure it penciled out, Rogers said. Though the city applied for several grants, the project wasn’t awarded funding.

The city at the time had two partially funded projects — the Hearn Avenue project and a long-sought project to build a bicycle and pedestrian crossing over Highway 101 near Coddingtown Mall.

“The council had to make a decision last year, do we continue to have two half-funded projects or consolidate and get one of the projects built and then backfill the other project,” he said.

The City Council opted to reshuffle funding from the bicycle and pedestrian bridge project to the Hearn Avenue project. The city has applied for grants to complete the second bridge crossing and officials think it will be more competitive as it prioritizes alternative modes of transportation. The city also has set aside other city funds for that project, Rogers said.

The Hearn Avenue project is being funded by $17.2 million from the countywide transportation sales tax, $17 million from various state funds, including $8.6 awarded by the California Transportation Commission in June, and about $9.5 million from various city funds.

Caltrans in August advertised the project for bids and will award a construction contract in the next two months to the lowest bidder, which came under the engineering estimates, Clendenen said.

The project will help alleviate traffic and improve safety on the highway overpass just as hundreds of new apartments come online or begin construction in the area. There’s an estimated 6,400 housing units within a one-mile radius of the interchange, according to city data.

Plans also are moving forward for a new community center on Hearn Avenue near Dutton Avenue that calls for relocating the Roseland library on Sebastopol Road and Fire Station 8 on Burbank Avenue among other amenities.

Rogers said infrastructure improvements like those planned as part of the project are critical to support housing and other growth in that part of the city.

It will also address what has long been a community divider — the highway — by creating a safer route for residents on each side of Highway 101 to cross over, he said.

“There are so few arteries connecting Roseland and southwest Santa Rosa to the east side of the city so this will be huge improvement,” Alvarez said.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.