MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – South Lake County residents had the chance to ask questions and raise concerns about a planned safety project on Highway 175 during the Middletown Area Town Hall on Thursday night.
Jaime Matteoli, Caltrans’ Lake County project manager who had made a presentation to MATH on the $12.5 million safety project in November, returned to speak to the group about the project’s latest developments.
While there haven’t been a lot of changes to the plans to the project – which will widen the roadway and reduce curves along a 2.5-mile portion of Highway 175 from Putah Creek to Dry Creek – Matteoli said he wanted to hear any new or continuing concerns from community members.
Matteoli said Caltrans identified a need for the project based on data from the years 2007 to 2012, during which that stretch of highway had a fatal collision rate nearly five times the state average.
During that time, there were a total of 13 collisions, of which two were fatal and eight resulted in injuries, he said.
Ten of those 13 crashes involved vehicles running off the road and hitting objects – the most common being trees, with other objects that were struck including utility poles, a ditch and a fence, he said.
“This is important when we talk about trees,” Matteoli said. “Five trees were hit.”
Highway 175 from Middletown to Cobb was not built to current design standards, which require 8-foot-wide shoulders. The shoulder along the highway varies from none at all to a maximum of 4 feet in width, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said standard design also usually includes 20-foot-wide “clear recovery zones” which cannot have fixed objects like trees or utility poles.
The highway safety project will widen the shoulder along the southern side of the highway to a width of 6 feet, and 4 feet on the north side, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said that narrower shoulder width is meant to help reduce the number of trees that will need to be removed in the project area, which remains one of the principal concerns for community members.
Other goals of the project are to widen curves to make them safer and reduce vertical curves to address sight distance issues, according to Matteoli.
Regarding the project’s timeline, Matteoli said the draft environmental impact report was circulated beginning on Nov. 15 and Caltrans held a public house in Middletown on Dec. 1.
He said environmental issues that were out of Caltrans’ control – due to working under the requirements required by the Federal Highway Administration – pushed back the process, meaning that approval of the final environmental document has been delayed from Dec. 15 to May 1.
Likewise the right-of-way acquisitions have been delayed, and rather than having started on Dec. 15, they are now set to start on May 15, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said the project is expected to be designed and ready to build by March 1, 2018, with construction to start by the fall of 2018 rather than the summer of 2018, as had originally been estimated.
He said construction is expected to be done by the winter of 2019, which was the original estimated time for completion.
The project’s total $12.5 million price tag includes $10 million for construction and $2.5 million for right-of-way acquisition and mitigation, Matteoli said.
Addressing the issue of trees, Matteoli said Caltrans’ certified arborists identified hazard trees that had been damaged by the Valley fire in the project area, removing 93 of them. Of those, he said 53 would have had to have been cut anyway due to the project.
Another 218 trees will need to be cut to achieve the project’s safety benefit, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said Caltrans’ new District 1 Director Matt Brady recently came into his office to talk to him about how to mitigate the loss of trees from the project. “He's committed that we do our part to mitigate for the loss of these trees.”
As a result, Caltrans is partnering with the Lake County Parks and Recreation Department to help fund tree planting at Middletown Trailside Park or other locations impacted by the Valley fire Matteoli said.
That tree mitigation is expected to cost between $50,000 and $100,000, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said there are 28 property parcels in the right-of-way, and the project’s alignment was shifted to the south in the area of Napa Avenue to reduce impacts on residences.
Caltrans continues to offer an incentive to property owners, giving an additional 10-percent of the property’s appraised value – for a minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $100,000 per parcel – when sales contracts are signed within 60 days of the first written offer, Matteoli said.
During the question-and-answer period, the issue of increased speeds was raised by community member Marlene Elder, who pointed out that speeds already are high on that stretch of road.
Matteoli said Caltrans acknowledges there will be an increase in speed, but that's a tradeoff for the increased safety. He said that that speed increase is built into the project.
“The safety benefits are tremendous,” he said, adding that changes to the project are unlikely at this point due to the expense and work already done.
Another community member, Kimberly Haynie, suggested a radar speed sign to show people how fast they’re going. Matteoli said it was a good suggestion.
MATH Vice Chair Linda Diehl-Darms asked if Caltrans will monitor the area to see if it does improve safety. Matteoli said yes.
When the speed issue again came up, community member Joan Clay pointed out, “Faster or not, there's going to be a posted speed limit. You can't expect Caltrans to take care of that kind of stuff.”
Matteoli agreed, saying it was an issue of enforcement.
MATH Board Member Gregg Van Oss asked about alternative routes and closures during the project. Matteoli said there should be one-lane traffic control and delays of up to 10 minutes, which he said is still an estimate as the staging plan is still being developed.
In other business, Jeff Lucas updated MATH on the $7.5 million in fire recovery funding allocated to Lake County through the Community Development Block Grant Program.
MATH also unanimously approved bylaw revisions, decided to place the discussion of a Valley fire memorial and projects for this year on the May agenda, and agreed to move forward on developing a “person of the year” award.
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Middletown Area Town Hall discusses Caltrans Highway 175 safety project
- Elizabeth Larson
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