A little history lesson about Highway 85’s development

QWhen Highway 85 opened in 1994, I read that a citizens’ committee had taken over the project from Caltrans because Caltrans was taking too long after decades of delay and growing cost.

The committee saved a lot of money on the Highway 17 flyover overpass by using dirt foundation ramps as much as possible instead of building the elevated concrete ramps that Caltrans wanted. In the end, the committee dissolved itself when the project was complete. Alas, I can’t find anything about it, some 25 years later.

Do you remember anything about this group? I think this Highway 85 committee had some great lessons to learn from.

— Steven Woody, Petaluma

ASome of your points are correct, and some need clarification.

The freeway was first planned in 1965 when Lyndon Johnson was president. But there was no money for the $785 million project until 1984 when Santa Clara County became the first county in California to tax itself to build a state project. The new freeway opened in 1994.

The Santa Clara County Traffic Authority, which existed for 10 years while the tax was in place, was created to team with Caltrans to oversee work. It was composed of nearly two dozen local leaders, such as city council members, supervisors, and public works officials.

It approved cost-saving moves, such as scrapping plans to build an expensive tunnel between 85 and Interstate 280, not building interchanges at Quito Road and Prospect Road, and building half an interchange at Winchester Boulevard. It also approved a truck ban and metering lights.

Some extra costs were approved. Los Gatos and Saratoga wanted to avoid excessive noise and insisted that the freeway be built below grade at an eventual additional cost of $60 million.

But there was one terrible impact of the plans. The center median, a 46to 50-foot-wide strip of dirt with no protective barrier, which was within Caltrans regulations then that no guard rail was required for a median of 45 feet or wider unless there was a high rate of head-on collisions on that freeway. There was no history of such collisions on 85, of course, because the highway had not yet been built.

However, within three years, seven people were killed on Highway 85 in median-related incidents, several by drunk drivers who lost control and sped through the unprotected dirt median, slamming head-on into opposing traffic. Those deaths lead Caltrans to adopt a new policy that added median barriers to 400 miles of highways throughout the state.

Now barriers are installed on high-volume freeways with medians up to 75 feet wide — nearly doubling Caltrans’ previous standard.

The Santa Clara County Traffic Authority disbanded when the work on 85 was complete.

Similar models have been used since then in 23 other counties, including Alameda, San Mateo, Contra Costa, San Francisco and Santa Cruz.