Cool! Commuters headed to Dumbarton to get relief
Q On north Highway 101 in Menlo Park, traffic in the Willow Road exit lane for the Dumbarton Bridge is regularly at a bumper-to-bumper stop. I often see cars in the right lane of 101 completely stopped with a turn signal on, waiting to merge into the exit-only lane. This then stops the right lane of the freeway.
To put it in the simplest terms: Cool or not?
Kevin Sharp
Menlo Park
A Not cool, but I’m not sure what can be done about this right now. Traffic is a mess here. But a new interchange is in the works: By mid-2016, construction will be underway to turn this into a partial cloverleaf design. That means:
Adding an extra lane to the north and south offramps. The new ramps will have two lanes, which will widen to four at the new intersection.
The four lanes will have two left turns and two right turns. The right turns will go in the eastbound direction.
Installing or modifying ramp meters.
Modifying and realigning frontage roads.
The new overcrossing will be widened to eight lanes, plus bike lanes.
Work will last until early 2018. Cool enough?
Q Is FasTrak tracking me? The transponder beeps occasionally at locations other than bridges or toll areas. In other words, it registers somewhere even when there isn’t a charge involved, such as at Interstate 80 near Red Top Road in American Canyon, I-780 before the Benicia Bridge, I-680 south approaching I580 and Highway 37 at I-80 in Vallejo.
Where does this information go? Big Brother?
Marion Sullivan
A The ozone, perhaps? Fear not, for you are not being charged. A toll tag beeps when an antenna “wakes up” a transponder, then puts it to sleep so it can’t be read again for a short distance. It happens at the San Jose airport. Jeff-the-FasTrak-Man says: “I am not familiar with the antennas located at the sites mentioned. I can say they are not toll system locations (bridge or express lanes), so the tag ID information is not being transmitted to FasTrak’s customer service center for processing a transaction.”
Q Isn’t it illegal to drive on an interstate at a slow speed? I was stuck in a line of cars behind a truck on Magazine Street in Vallejo. Behind the truck was a white Suburban with emergency flashers on. The truck and Suburban hit a top speed of 4 (yes, 4) mph. They proceeded onto the northbound I-80 onramp at 4 mph and tried to merge into the flow of traffic. The line of cars stuck behind these bozos had no room to accelerate and pass; I was terrified of becoming sandwiched between full-speed big rigs and this slow procession. Fortunately, I lived to be able to complain to you. Shouldn’t they have stayed on the surface streets?
Sally Andrew
Danville
A Oh, yes. California does not have a minimum speed limit, but drivers can travel at speeds slower than the flow of traffic only in emergency situations such as a mechanical failure, poor weather, etc. In this situation, it sounds like the vehicles had some issue that precluded them from traveling at freeway speeds, in which case it would have been safer to travel on city streets. The CHP urges drivers to stay on streets if not capable of hitting freeway speeds.