CalTrans: Save Lives Immediately!

BEC has repeatedly suggested over three years that the Butte County Association of Governments, Butte County Supervisors, and CalTrans should prioritize public safety right now instead of waiting for their expensive, unfunded, sprawl inducing Highway 149 expansion and cloverleaf interchanges with Highways 70 and 99. A CalTrans response to our comments and letters trivializes the immediate safety issues in lieu of the massive $83 million project that still faces hurdles with resource agencies and state funding. The current state budget will delay it at least another year to say nothing of the delays that may surface over the failure of CalTrans and Butte County to complete biological mitigation requirements.

According to the Chico News & Review (Blood Alleys, December 16, 2004), based on California Highway Patrol data, fatalities on Highways 70 and 99 in Butte County occur frequently at their junctions with Highway 149. From 1992 through 2004, 52 people have died from accidents on Highway 70 at the 149 junction, and 41 people have died on Highway 99 at the 149 junction.

One of the suggestions in BEC’s alternatives package is that CalTrans signalize both Hwy 149 intersections to clarify driver right-of-way. CalTrans response to signals is that "Traffic signals at both intersections would not be a permanent solution to safety issues…and would change the majority of the accident types from broadside (currently) to rear end collisions." Signals may not be a permanent solution, but they have certainly been used up and down the Highways 70 and 99 corridors to increase intersection safety: Entler/Southgate Lane, Estates Drive, E. Gridley Road, Elverta, Riego, etc. "Driver error," CalTrans states quite obviously, is the cause of most accidents. When BEC suggested lowering the speed limits, which is well know to diminish driver error, CalTrans, negates that suggestion by saying more enforcement would be necessary. In response to BEC’s comment that more CHP (enforcement) are needed, CalTrans declined to respond.

CalTrans continues, responding to BEC’s comments, stating that prioritizing Butte County transit would "…address the needs of some local commuters, but does not address the movement of goods and services, the need for safety improvements at the SR 70/149 and 99/149 intersections and regional traffic." CalTrans neglected to look at all of the alternative suggestions as a possible package and instead disparaged isolated solutions. Their broken record solution remains unfunded, they have failed to satisfy resource agencies requirements thereby further delaying the project, and they refuse to consider safety alternatives that could be implemented now!

If local governments were encouraged or inclined to plan regionally, we might not face such danger on the highways nor the specter of turning Butte County into another Santa Clara or Placer County. With Butte County’s General Plan so outdated, there is no planning occurring locally for the future, let alone regionally. Creative planning for human habitation, employment, transportation, and the native environment can still be done well here. Do we need to replicate Silicon Valley before we see the missed opportunities? Better to ask whether the CalTrans planning model is so superior that every county should emulate it. And the answer to that, increasingly, is no.

To compare other transportation modes to freeways, a freeway lane carries 1,800 cars per hour or less than 2,200 people. A single light rail track can comfortably carry from 8,600 to 16,000 people per hour, equating to four to seven freeway lanes (The Rochester Rail Transit Committee, Inc.). A report by the Institute of Transportation Studies at U.C. Berkeley, The Full Cost of Intercity Transportation, indicates that while internal system costs for transportation place rail highest at $0.233 per user, highways at $0.198, and air at $0.124, when social costs such as air pollution, congestion, noise, and accidents are added to the analysis, rail is the clear winner at $0.0002 with air travel at $0.0043, and highways at $0.0045 (Levinson et al., June 1996). And as transportation advocates know, widening roads classically fuels speed, accidents, sprawl, conversion of farmland and wildlands, and then congestion returns. Will California’s government extricate itself from this destructive bandwagon? Stay tuned and involved.

Affordable Highway Safety Improvements

More modest proposals to protect motorists from the hazards at the intersections and the traffic volume (below) were rejected by CalTrans in favor of the $65,000,000 solution: 4 lanes and 2 clover leaf interchanges.

  • Signalize both intersections at a cost of approximately $250,000 each.
  • Decrease speed from Oroville to 55 mph.
  • Lengthen turn lanes on Hwys 99 and 70.
  • Advocate for more funding for more CHP.
  • Prioritize Butte County Transit by increasing buses during peak commute hours.

From the Winter 2005 issue of Environmental News.