photo credit: Caltrans
Making repairs, one pothole at a time.

Though Californians love to complain about pump prices, there's no denying that the extra revenue is fueling work that's easing bottlenecks, improving road safety, and reacting to rising seas. 

Higher gas and diesel taxes along with increased registration fees have hardly proven popular, though the influx of cash has allowed the state transportation agency, Caltrans, to tackle long-planned and delayed work up and down California--including plenty here in our own backyard.

Perhaps the biggest---eliminating the Novato Narrows chokepoint---a perpetual rush hour jam where 101 shrinks to two lanes between Novato and Petaluma---is well underway, with completion expected in about 18 months. Other, less monumental work is also getting done.

Caltrans spokesperson Matt O'Donnell said repairs to route 101's Richardson Bridge are complete, while other work proceeds. The Rowland Boulevard exit is closed overnight as repairs are made to a bridge over Novato Creek. A connector ramp from 101 to Tiburon Boulevard is also shut for overnight repairs. Meanwhile, Novato's Redwood Boulevard partly reopened following an earlier landslide.

Further north, work is also underway on state Route 12. Caltrans spokesperson Jeff Weiss said the agency has prioritized limiting inconvenience to drivers.

"The idea is, that rather than working a lot at night, and having lots of closures, we'd do these weekend closures and get the job done sooner, rather than later---and one other thing I'd like to mention, some people have called and said, 'hey, y'know, you replaced the pavement out there, it sure seems rough.' That's because we're not finished. It's concrete. We're replacing the slabs. When we're all finished, we come back and grind the whole thing and make it nice and smooth for you," Weiss said.

That is expected in January.

Over on the coast, the agency recently completed its first sea-level rise project, at Gleason Beach, moving state Route 1 off of crumbling cliffs and onto a new causeway.

"We moved highway 1 about 400 feet to the east," said Weiss.

That, Weiss said, should safeguard that section from sea level rise for a century. The construction also spurred environmental restoration, resurrecting wetlands and wresting a creek from a culvert.

"We're sort of working in concert with nature, rather than against it. We're allowing the hillside to erode and moving the road back far enough so we won't have to deal with that for at least another hundred years. It spans a creek called Scottie Creek, we removed the culvert and now this creek can flow unimpeded and we'll see this year if we get some of the first salmon runs and steelhead runs," Weiss said.

There's more on the horizon. Weiss said the agency next month will start a two-and-a-half year process to replace a stop sign with a roundabout at Big Bend, the intersection of state Routes 116 and 121, also known as Arnold Drive.

Funding was recently announced for similar roundabout to the east at state Route 12 and 8th Street east in Schellville. Both are aimed at reducing both congestion and vehicle crashes at the locations.