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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
August 5, 2007 Safety first: Fixes are in the works to improve Highway 12 Barry Eberling/McNaughton Newspapers FAIRFIELD - Joanne Robinson is among the many regular drivers on two-lane Highway 12 in eastern Solano County who want a concrete median barrier there to prevent head-on collisions. Robinson drives from Rio Vista to Benicia several times a week to see her daughter. She sees such things as motorists illegally crossing into the lane with oncoming cars to pass slower traffic - and doing so while they're approaching a hill obscuring their view ahead. “ I'm telling you, it's like I pray the whole way,” Robinson said. Changes are coming. Eight fatalities in little more than a year between Rio Vista and Suisun City helped prompt a state Department of Transportation attempt to engineer a safer Highway 12, one without a “Blood Alley” reputation. By fall, workers plan to install a temporary, concrete barrier along the 5 or so miles from Suisun City to Lambie Road. They plan to erect flexible, plastic posts in the median every 24 feet from Lambie Road into Rio Vista, a 12-mile stretch where the road is narrower and the concrete barrier won't fit. Also, next year Caltrans will work on a long-planned $46 million project to add standard shoulders to sections of Highway 12, realign some curves and smooth out many of the dips between hills. But Robinson is skeptical those flexible, plastic posts in the median will solve the illegal passing problems. The posts alert motorists who are falling asleep, she said. She sees a different problem on Highway 12. “ There are people who are reckless and don't follow rules,” Robinson said. If local transportation leaders have their way, the steps Caltrans are taking will only be a start. The transportation agency also want to take a closer look at erecting a permanent concrete median barrier along the entire 18 miles. Median barrier Highway 12 isn't the first local, rural two-lane highway to gain a “Blood Alley” reputation. Twenty-eight people died over five years during the early 1990s in head-on collisions on Highway 37 between Vallejo and Sears Point. Then-state Sen. Mike Thompson in 1995 authorized legislation recommending Caltrans put in the median barrier. That very year, the agency started doing just that, putting an end to head-on collisions there. But during a March news conference, Caltrans Director Will Kempton said the state can't simply slap in a concrete barrier into the median on Highway 12. Sections of the highway are too narrow, he said. That's why the state will instead use flexible plastic posts. Widening the highway so a median barrier would fit could be difficult. Part of Highway 12 goes through an area with vernal pools, a type of wetlands that can be home to fairy shrimp and other creatures protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. Another challenge is the some 30 exits along Highway 12 leading not only to roads, but to private property. A median barrier would prohibit left turns. The question is where to provide gaps, Solano Transportation Authority Executive Director Daryl Halls said. Otherwise, a motorist barred from making a left turn might have to drive several miles and then turn around and drive back to reach an exit. The STA is launching a median barrier study that could be completed by the end of the year. “ We want to resolve the issue of the median barrier, get Caltrans concurrence that it needs to happen, come up with the design of the project, project costs, funding opportunities,” Halls said. Caltrans officials in past years have expressed reluctance to put in a concrete median barrier on Highway 12. They have mentioned such reasons as emergency vehicles being unable to make U-turns and farmers with property on both sides of the highway being unable to cross. But the rash of accidents, along with pressure from the STA and Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, helped bring about the flexible post barriers. Whether a concrete median barrier is the next step remains to be seen. Four-lane highway Then there is the Holy Grail, the ultimate Highway 12 solution mentioned by some drivers: Widen the road to four lanes. John Silva - not the county supervisor by the same name - lives in Trilogy in Rio Vista and is retired from Caltrans, where he worked on landscape maintenance. He is well aware of the Highway 12 safety problem. “ What people are doing is they want to pass several cars at one time,” Silva said. “That's where they get into trouble with oncoming traffic.” He sees a four-lane Highway 12 as the way to go. That's the solution for a two-lane road that has become a thoroughfare, he said. “ This highway can't handle all of this traffic, all of these trucks,” he said. About 13,000 to 18,000 motorists used various rural Highway 12 segments on an average day in 2005, according to the state. Yet parts of the road remain largely the same as several decades ago, when traffic was far lighter. Creating a four-lane Highway 12 also means building a four-lane Rio Vista Bridge, Silva said. “ It doesn't do any good to do the four lanes if you go through the business area in Rio Vista and it goes down to two lanes,” he said. But creating a four-lane Rio Vista Bridge likely means rerouting Highway 12 from downtown Rio Vista. That's because a new bridge is unlikely to be another drawbridge that goes up for Sacramento River boat traffic, causing Highway 12 congestion. Building the long approaches for a higher bridge, such as the Antioch Bridge, would be problematic in the downtown. The STA could explore a four-lane Highway 12 in yet another study done with transportation agencies in Sacramento and San Joaquin counties. This study would look at the future Highway 12 from Interstate 80 to Interstate 5. Also, the agency is launching a study on how to handle the Rio Vista Bridge problem. There might be one unintended result to creating a four-lane Highway 12: Some people predict more lanes would fuel growth in a largely rural part of the county. Rio Vista has homes, but not a lot of jobs, said Nicole Byrd of the San Francisco-based Greenbelt Alliance, which promotes the preservation of open space. A wider road would encourage more people to move there and drive elsewhere to work, she said. “ Then you have a bigger road that's still filled with traffic,” she said. Possible ways to deal with this include having Rio Vista voters lock in growth boundaries and county voters lock in zoning precluding development near the highway in rural sections, she said. “ There are ways, but if it's going to have any teeth, it's going to have to be voter-driven,” Byrd said. Silva thinks the time to start planning for a new highway route around Rio Vista is now. That allows undeveloped land to be set aside for the right-of-way and for Rio Vista to plan what should someday be developed near the rerouted highway, he said. Robinson continues to hope for the concrete median barrier. She sees the day that Highway 12 becomes four lanes as being just too far away. “ Not in my lifetime,” Robinson said with a laugh. Short and long term, local transportation leaders and the state are looking at Highway 12 changes. The biggest change of all would be for the highway to get the reputation as a safe road. ### |
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