PD Editorial: A race against rising seas on Highway 37

An image embedded in a brief Caltrans report on Highway 37 graphically illustrates what climate change is doing do to this vital North Bay transportation link.

In the first frame, captioned today, a man stands on dry land. The second frame is captioned midcentury, and there is water up to the man’s knees. In the final frame, labeled late century, the water is up to his chest.

King tides and storm surges already can flood some low-lying sections of Highway 37, which hugs the edge of San Pablo Bay on a 21-mile path between Novato and Vallejo. UC researchers warn that some stretches will be permanently inundated by 2050.

This shouldn’t be news to thousands of people who rely on Highway 37, the primary link for commuters and cargo traveling between Interstate 80 and Highway 101. They suffered through protracted closures twice in 2019 and once in 2020, with ripple effects felt throughout the Sonoma Valley. Motorists also contend with monumental traffic almost every day.

This is news: Caltrans is reviewing several near-term options to ease congestion between Sears Point and Vallejo, as well as longer-term measures to ensure that the highway doesn’t become a casualty of rising seas.

Caltrans will outline some of the options during a public meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. You can find information about logging in or phoning in on the Caltrans website.

The timing isn’t convenient for commuters. But for those who aren’t idling in rush hour traffic, the meeting offers an opportunity to ask questions and help shape a solution for one of the North Bay’s most urgent transportation challenges.

Potential congestion relief measures include a reversible lane to add capacity during the morning and evening commutes or adding shoulder lanes in each direction. Discussions about alleviating sea level rise have focused on a causeway to elevate the road at a cost of as much as $4 billion.

Climate-related fixes may be funded in part by charging tolls on Highway 37.

An additional element — commuter trains connecting Novato and Suisun City — reportedly will be included in a state rail plan due out in February. SMART would operate the trains on tracks that run alongside Highway 37. There is no timeline for starting service, and startup costs could range from $780 million to $1.3 billion, according to news reports.

A rail line across the collar of the bay would create a new option for traffic-weary commuters as well as a link between SMART and the national Amtrak system. But this is an aspirational idea, and it could cause some practical problems for SMART.

SMART hasn’t completed its promised service to Windsor, Healdsburg and Cloverdale, and it’s expected to ask North Bay voters for an extension of its quarter-cent sales tax. That money can only be spent on the Larkspur-to-Cloverdale rail line, yet critics already latched on to a state-funded feasibility study of expansion to Solano County to attack SMART. Expect more of the same.

SMART is interested in expansion, but it cannot afford to confuse voters who might be led to believe their sales dollars will finance trains to Solano County instead of Cloverdale.

Highway 37 is a linchpin of the North Bay transportation network, carrying about 40,000 vehicles a day. Preparing it to withstand climate change is a race against time, and rising seas have a head start.

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