Freeway connector project needs expert touch
The Transportation Authority of Marin is taking a fresh look at one of Marin's greatest traffic quandaries: moving autos, buses and trucks from Highway 101 onto the eastbound Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
Now is the time to develop a process that gets it right.
Look at some recent efforts to improve Marin infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest task with, at best, a modest list of accomplishments is, after 15 years of trying, addressing the flood menace that perpetually threatens Ross Valley.
The routine task of replacing Larkspur's Bon Air Bridge took years to finish. Imagine, unless a different approach is taken, what commuters will endure to make Highway 37 from Novato to Vallejo via Sears Point two lanes in each direction and free from the inevitability of sea level rise.
Using the Highway 101 connector to Interstate
580 and the Richmond Bridge as the example, let's look at how the process can be improved, and its completion expedited.
The first and the most important issue is setting the project's goals — no vague aims allowed. There are existing traffic counts that define today's traffic volume and the travel time from Highway 101 to the Point San Quentin eastbound entry to the transbay span and vice versa.
Tell us precisely, in driving time, what the project will deliver. Today, it takes 30 to 45 minutes to go 3.5 miles from Corte Madera's Tamalpais Drive onramp on Highway 101 to Point San Quentin (via Sir Francis Drake Boulevard) during peak periods.
Ditto for the trek in San Rafael from Highway 101 eastbound via the Bellam Boulevard onramp to Interstate 580 and then to the foot of the Richmond Bridge at Point San Quentin. The commuting public is entitled to know the promised time to cover this now agonizingly slow trip.
Goals should be set at the front end after a rigorous public hearing process. If the goals achieve consensus, the details should matter little to anyone except adjacent residents and property owners as long as those goals are met upon completion.
From this point, let the professionals do their job and don't second-guess them.
Once consensus is achieved on goals, only then should TAM develop construction plans, obtain estimates of its cost and the timeline. Then firmly settle on a final plan and perform the environmental review, which is often the most delay-producing aspect of American infrastructure projects. Then (and not before) seek funding, followed by construction with a bonus for prompt completion.
If the goals are met, huzzah! The system works. If they fall short of what's promised, faith in the system, already tenuous, further evaporates. Then it's time for a wholesale change of elected and appointed personnel, replacing them with can-do people.
That wasn't the process followed to control Ross Valley flooding. Let's not repeat that mistake with the just-launched 101-580 connector project.
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At the end of last month, Mill Valley experienced an ugly episode that combined antisemitism with foreign policy ignorance. Swastikas were spray-painted on Ukraine flags displayed outside at least two homes in the Molino Avenue and Wildomar neighborhood located above the town's public library.
Why swastikas? The idea of associating the Nazi's emblem with Ukrainian freedom fighters stems from a disinformation campaign authored, in part, by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He's used this lie to justify his unprovoked military invasion of a peaceful neighbor.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is an unlikely Nazi, as he is proudly Jewish. His sin, in Putin's eyes, is that he and most of his countrymen wish to ally with the free nations of the European community and the U.S.
False claims that Zelenskyy is corrupt stem from Russian web-based propaganda designed to appear to come from neutral sources. The yet unapprehended vandals, intent on spreading hate, were themselves duped by Putin's lies.