Readers’ concerns about Marin County issues resonate
Readers often write with future column suggestions. Typically they are ideas addressing Marin issues and pointing out developments that slip beneath the radar.
A trifecta of king tides, wet storms and sea level rise regularly makes the roadway impassable where Highway 101 and the entrance to Marin City join. When flooding occurs at that spot, there’s no other way to access Marin City. It’s similar at Tamalpais Junction where Shoreline Highway meets Miller Avenue. Traffic chaos is made worse by flooding.
High tides are nothing new but ever-rising Richardson Bay waters make their seasonal effects more treacherous each year. Dealing with those highways is a joint responsibility for Caltrans and Marin County officials. Using cloth grocery bags and avoiding plastic straws isn’t going to do it. Even converting to all-electric vehicles is a decade away. Marin needs to make resiliency improvements (admittedly expensive) at both locations now, including raising roadway levels and building sea walls.
I’ve proposed pausing public infrastructure expansions until 2025 including for the SonomaMarin Area Regional Transit train. Given post-pandemic changes on how and where commuters will work, it’s prudent to wait until planners know with certainty the new normal.
Readers point out that my suggested pause included all infrastructure projects. I stand corrected.
There is no realistic prospect that the necessity for six lanes through the Marin-Sonoma Narrows portion of Highway 101 will ever decrease. A sixmile gap of four lanes for that freeway remains and needs to be widened. Caltrans should do just as planned and proceed at full speed.
Marin’s portion of Highway 37 from Novato to Vallejo is at capacity and subject to increased winter flooding from a rising San Francisco Bay. It’s a vital artery for service industry workers living in more affordable Solano County and commuting to well-paid Marin jobs. A Sonoma reader proposes a public transit alternative other than SMART that needs little new expensive infrastructure.
The reader suggests ferry service from Vallejo to Larkspur. Terminals exist at both ends. All that’s needed is one new highspeed ferry. To keep overhead down, have Golden Gate Ferry operate it. One caveat: buses must be repositioned on the Marin end to move commuters from the dock to their jobs.
A Marin property owner writes about Senate Bill 9, the new law enabling owners to divide their lot in two separate parcels and then build two units on each.
“Splitting a lot to accommodate two houses doesn’t result in affordable housing. My Mill Valley duplex lot is 6,000 square feet. Next door a house is on a 3,000-square-foot lot and sells for $1.7 million. Affordable housing is based on location, location, location. A house in Toledo, Ohio sells for $150K. Our land and building costs are too high to make housing ever ‘affordable.’”
A San Rafael resident reports spending five futile hours waiting on California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission’s public comment telephone line. He was “caller 9,769.”
His message is the North Bay/ North Coast 2nd Congressional District “is just fine the way it is … with the loss of the prison population at San Quentin and Pelican Bay (Del Norte County) they can place Rohnert Park — whose population is roughly equal to that of the prisons — into the (2nd District) where it belongs.”
The incarcerated are now counted for redistricting purposes at their pre-conviction home address. A five-hour wait tells Californians how much commissioners value input from those citizens most impacted by their decisions.
The San Geronimo Valley Golf Course is history. A Lagunitas neighbor says letting the land lay fallow won’t result in a park or “natural” site. That requires removing the top three feet of dirt that made the links possible. The substantial cost should be the responsibility of the new owner, The Trust for Public Land, and not county taxpayers.