Highway 101 – Enviro Updates

SuzanneMarch 1, 2025March 3, 2025Transportationbicycle paths, bike & pedestrian safetey, Highway 101, Highway 101 bridge, pedestrian, Santa Rosa Junior College

Long-planned Highway 101 bike and pedestrian bridge in Santa Rosa finally moving forward

Paulina Pineda, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The crossing, in the works since the 1990s, will provide a safer route for residents to access commercial, government, employment and health care hubs around Coddingtown Mall and Santa Rosa Junior College.

A long-awaited $40 million bike and pedestrian bridge over Highway 101 in north Santa Rosa is expected to break ground later this year after nearly three decades of planning and efforts to line up funding.

The crossing, stretching across the six-lane highway, will link Elliott and Edwards avenues. It will provide a safer route for residents to access commercial, government, employment and health care hubs around Coddingtown Mall and Santa Rosa Junior College as well as the passenger rail line.

The 14.5-foot-wide, 1,000-foot-long cable-stayed bridge will feature a dedicated footpath and a two-way cycle track.

Santa Rosa leaders and project backers say it will close a significant gap in the local bike network and reduce traffic risks for those who now get around on foot or bike on busy Steele Lane and College Avenue.

SuzanneNovember 24, 2021September 1, 2022Sustainable Living, Transportationbicyclist safety, bike/pedestrian bridge, Highway 101, pedestrian safety

Highway 101 pedestrian, bicycle crossing progressing in 2021

Colin Atagi, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A Highway 101 pedestrian and bicycle crossing, which has been pursued for decades, is closer to reality now that construction is funded and its design is essentially finalized, Santa Rosa officials and bicycle advocates say.

Over the past several months, city officials announced they acquired enough funding to build the $14 million bridge that will link Elliott and Edwards avenues and provide a safe way for non-motorists to cross the freeway.

It’s design has also gone before the city’s Design Review Board and members of the public, including area bicyclists, whose glowing reviews pave the way for construction.

“It’s great for us to feel that positive benefit of bringing this project to the finishing touches, which would be finalizing its design and getting it out to bid,“ Santa Rosa Assistant City Manager Jason Nutt said.

SuzanneJanuary 17, 2020January 24, 2020Climate Change & Energy, Transportationcommuters, Highway 101, SMART, SMART Measure I, trains

Gallaher Homes executive spends $500,000 to derail SMART sales tax citing broken promises

Kevin Fixler, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A stunning infusion of money from an unexpected source has rocked SMART’s campaign to renew the sales tax that subsidizes the commuter rail line running between Sonoma and Marin counties.

Molly Gallaher Flater, daughter of prominent Sonoma County developer Bill Gallaher, contributed more than $500,000 to defeat Measure I — and suggested she would be willing to double the amount to kill the March sales-tax extension the rail agency projects would raise nearly $2.4 billion over 30 years to operate and expand service.

“If I end up spending $1 million to save our community taxpayers from a $2.4 billion mistake then I feel it is worth every penny,” Flater said in a written statement Thursday.

Novato resident Mike Arnold, an economist and longtime critic of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, said he was approached by Gallaher in October about funding a campaign against the tax measure, and met his daughter for the first time this week. When he learned the size of Flater’s donation, his reaction was astonishment.

“How’s falling out of my tree? Are you kidding me?” Arnold said Thursday. “I’d never heard of the Gallahers. They’re running the campaign, I’m just the technical advisor.”

The financial contribution blindsided SMART officials and members of the Yes on Measure I campaign. They expressed dismay Thursday at the prospect a single donor could jeopardize the future of the public transit system’s primary revenue stream for decades to come.

SuzanneApril 19, 2019April 24, 2019Transportationalternative transportation, bicycle infrastructure, bicycle safety, bike/pedestrian bridge, Highway 101, Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa upbeat on finding millions of dollars for long-planned footbridge

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Santa Rosa has yet to secure the millions of dollars needed to build a long-planned bridge for cyclists and pedestrians to cross Highway 101, but that’s not stopping city officials and consultants from pressing ahead with design and location plans for a span they hope to start building in less than two years.

The bridge is touted by the city and its supporters as a necessary connector that will facilitate safer nonautomotive access over the freeway near its high-traffic interchanges at College Avenue and Steele Lane. They serve Coddingtown Mall, the nearby Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit station, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa High School and nearby neighborhoods.

Beyond figuring out how to drum up the estimated $11 million to $13 million needed to build the crossing, Santa Rosa will need to determine whether they want a light, airy design that preserves views for highway motorists — or a more imposing and unique bridge that becomes a new city landmark.

“What’s really great is that this is an amazing opportunity to right some of the planning wrongs” of the past, Adam Sharron, a landscape architect and member of the city’s Design Review Board, said at Thursday’s meeting. Cost permitting, he added, the city’s new crossing could be a statement piece “that is made to be a design, rather than utilitarian bridge.”

The city has a lot of work ahead before it can realize that vision. Initial designs conceived by city staff and consultants called for a bridge that would blend into highway surroundings and preserve far-reaching views for northbound drivers. The City Council is not expected to consider the project until early 2020, said Jason Nutt, the city’s director of transportation and public works.

The bridge has been in the works for more than a decade, and city documents show work slated to begin in January 2021 and finish in July 2022. The city has been able to find money to study potential bridge designs, but “we don’t have funding secured for construction,” Christopher Catbagan, a city engineer, said Thursday.

SuzanneJuly 14, 2016Transportation, WildlifeHighway 101, Highway 12, roadkill, wildlife crossing

Map reveals wildlife roadkill hot spots in Sonoma County

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

In the North Bay, trouble spots include:
• The whole of Highway 101 between Petaluma and the Golden Gate Bridge, and particularly south of the Highway 580 junction, including several stretches where wooded hills rise on either side of the road;
• Highway 12 through the Sonoma Valley, which traverses a wildlife corridor; and
• Three segments of Highway 37 roughly along the shoreline of San Pablo Bay — at the mouth of the Petaluma River, near Highway 121 and Tolay Creek, and near Mare Island, west of the Napa River.
See California Roadkill Observation System.

An opossum, a coyote, a gray fox, a raccoon, a crow and several ground squirrels — all dead — were just a few of the sightings Marlene Radigue reported in recent weeks from a stretch of Highway 12 through the Sonoma Valley, near her home.
A steadfast witness to the deadly encounters between vehicles and wildlife along the roadway, the Glen Ellen woman has spent several years somberly documenting the results, then respectfully moving animal remains to the edge of the road so scavengers can take over without the risk of being killed themselves.It’s sobering work. But it offers hope of change, as well.
Radigue, a textile designer, is part of an effort through UC Davis to identify California highway “hotspots” — areas where deadly collisions between motorists and animals are statistically high — in order to raise awareness about safety risks to both animals and motorists, and guide planning and design decisions toward increasing wildlife crossing opportunities in the state’s complex highway system.
More than a thousand volunteer observers have contributed to the project since its inception in 2009, creating a growing database that’s the basis of an updated report on “wildlife-vehicle conflict zones” released by the UC Davis Road Ecology Center last week.
Read more at: Map reveals roadkill hot spots in Sonoma County | The Press Democrat

SuzanneMay 19, 2014Transportationdredging, Highway 101, Petaluma RiverLeave a comment

Building a better bridge in Petaluma

Matt Brown, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Standing atop a column that will soon support a new bridge over the Petaluma River, Jeffrey Kress reached up, touched the underside of the existing span and felt the vibrations of thousands of motorists zipping along Highway 101 unaware of the work taking place just a few feet below the road.

Constructing a major bridge in the exact footprint of an existing one without disrupting road, rail or river traffic is a highly complicated dance, one that Kress, a senior bridge engineer at Caltrans, and his colleagues have been choreographing for months.

They are overseeing efforts to swap out the 60-year-old twin two-lane spans over the river with a modern, six-lane, $130 million bridge.

via Building a better bridge in Petaluma | The Press Democrat.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Tag: Highway 101