We can all win on 156
By Richard Morris
Last May, San Benito County’s Board of Supervisors held a
hearing devoted mainly to reviewing Cal Trans’ proposal for
”
improving
”
Highway 156. Following a presentation from Cal Trans and
comments from the public, the Board voted 3-1 to pretty much take
the money
– federal and state, it seems – and run. As about 30 residents
of the county departed the chambers of the board, all they could
hear were echoes of the remarks of two supervisors that more or
less came to this:
”
I’ve heard many of these emotional and well argued disputes
among county residents in my experience as a supervisor. I have
learned that we can’t make everyone happy. Some win, and some have
to lose.
”
We can all win on 156
By Richard Morris
Last May, San Benito County’s Board of Supervisors held a hearing devoted mainly to reviewing Cal Trans’ proposal for “improving” Highway 156. Following a presentation from Cal Trans and comments from the public, the Board voted 3-1 to pretty much take the money – federal and state, it seems – and run. As about 30 residents of the county departed the chambers of the board, all they could hear were echoes of the remarks of two supervisors that more or less came to this:
“I’ve heard many of these emotional and well argued disputes among county residents in my experience as a supervisor. I have learned that we can’t make everyone happy. Some win, and some have to lose.”
Then they voted to ignore the protests of these county residents, all of whom were there to express the wishes of San Juan Bautista, that part of the county’s landscape that serves as the western entry for Highway 156.
Maybe these supervisors are right; maybe politics is all about winning and losing and dividing and conquering – like war. But suppose they are wrong. Maybe politics is about finding solutions so that opposing sides can see themselves as supporting the same outcome. Maybe politics is about uniting citizens, about building a community out of differences, a chorus out of many voices. Maybe it’s about win-win!
I, for one, think it is. And I bet I’m not alone.
I’ll tell you why, at least on this issue, which is: How San Benito County and Cal Trans should improve 156 between San Juan Bautista and the Union Road exit to Hollister?
First, we look at our county’s guiding principles: maintain the county’s rural identity; maintain the character and natural amenities of the county; assure open space, such as farms and grazing rangelands.
Second, as far as consistent with these principles, the transportation system should conform to the logic that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, in this case, a more or less straight line between I-5 and 101, beginning with the existing section of Highway 152 from the east over the Pacheco Pass. Here we have some policy help from the Board of Supervisors with its Resolution passed Sept. 9, 2008. Here are its pertinent provisions:
“Whereas, improvements to Highway 152 to accommodate truck traffic is the most direct and safest route to and from the San Joaquin Valley and the coastal regions of Northern California…
“BE IT RESOLVED, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors strongly supports that Highway 152 be designated as the primary commercial route from the San Joaquin Valley to the coastal regions of Northern California to relieve the future congestion on Highways 156 and 25;
“…the San Benito County Board of Supervisors supports a Highway 152 alignment that begins at a point near the San Felipe Road/Highway 152 intersection and continues in Santa Clara County to a point near the Pajaro River or Bloomfield Road on Highway 25 where it enters San Benito County;
“… the San Benito County Board of Supervisors, in order to accommodate traffic demands into the future supports a six (6) lane Highway 152 realignment with one (1) lane in either direction designated as the preferred regional truck route, and
“… the San Benito County Board of Supervisors will not support any modification of the San Benito County Council of Governments Regional Transportation Plan without the realignment conditions specified in this resolution …”
Third, and equally important as numbers one and two, an improved highway must be safe. All Supervisors agree on this, and recognize that truck traffic is what dangerous speeders simply cannot tolerate! There are many small road entries on to 156 and these also contribute to unsafe conditions.
Fourth, all citizens of the county must be mindful that thoughtful people in San Juan Bautista are convinced that if Cal Trans’ preferred proposal for 156 – the one emphasized at the May 6 meeting of the board – goes forward, it is not they who lose, while everyone else in the County wins. Rather, everyone loses.
Why? Because Cal Trans’ proposal:
– leaves the two-lane road – for “local traffic”
– adds four lanes on a 5-foot raised highway south of the existing road
– assumes that the trucks stay for the full ride all the way to and from 152
– aggravates the Union Road mess because the two and four lanes merge in that area to become two–again
– covers an additional 206 acres of prime, irreplaceable farm land, much of it with asphalt, and thereby creates a significant threat of flooding in San Juan Creek. In total, this ultimately six lanes plus divider space will be wider than the four lanes that Highway I-5 occupies! In San Juan Valley? Unbelievable!
– curbs drainage and transportation for those who farm on both sides of 156
– does nothing to alleviate the dangerous Alameda intersection, or the considerable noise and air pollution issues for San Juan residents, and San Juan school children especially. Talk about safety, this “improvement” will hardly be such, if county children’s health is sacrificed for it!
Now let’s be fair. Just how much pain do the majority of the citizens of the county want the citizens of San Juan to bear to “improve” this highway? I can’t believe that thinking citizens of our county think that this comes even close to meeting the four principles enumerated above.
What Cal Trans proposes and these three supervisors swallowed under a mantra of “Safety No Matter the Costs” amounts to building 206 football fields right there in the middle of the San Juan Valley! This fact alone is enough to give even wide-eyed optimists pause, since it’s obvious that covering farmland with asphalt in a flood zone is risky – like trying to fix the mortgage mess that Wall Street bankers have made.
But more important, this proposal ignores the standout beauty of the San Juan Valley, the county’s principal window to the west that welcomes all who turn away from Highway 101 to enjoy San Benito’s magnificent views of farmland, California’s open oak rangelands, the Gabilan range to the west and the Diablo range on the east.
This is a space truly unique in Northern California, which, if it were not for San Francisco Bay and the Delta, would have been San Jose’d to death long ago. Ten million people live within a couple of hours of San Benito County, their last western landscape still vigorous, open and welcoming. With the vineyards expanding, San Benito’s opportunity for attracting recreational tourism is its hidden gold. And it doesn’t need destructive mining tools to transform this gold to economic gain for all county residents.
There are fundamental deficiencies in Cal Trans’ analysis for its preferred proposal. In the first place no studies have been done to precisely determine normal and peak traffic conditions should the trucks be redirected to a northerly, shorter and straighter route between I-5 and 101. Since the Board of Supervisors has stipulated in its Sept. 9 resolution that Highway 152 is the county’s top transportation priority, it would be reckless to go forward with Cal Trans’ preferred alternative without these studies. This is hardly a small oversight. It goes to the heart of the alleged traffic problem. These studies must be made before further action is taken.
Second, the plan does nothing about the Union Road intersection, more and more in use because of development South of Hollister. So trucks and traffic will still slow to a snail’s pace five days a week or more as they approach that intersection, regardless of direction or number of lanes. And then, what about the merger of the two and four lanes roads? Three lanes down to one? Are you serious? And what about all of the other light signal intersections on Highway 156? With the trucks plus commuters, 156 will have to be re-named “Rear-ender Expressway”! Cal Trans’ preferred alternative reminds me of Alaska’s famed “bridge to nowhere,” which even Congress had the brains to deny.
San Juan voters recommend an alternative solution. We believe that Highway 156 would be significantly safer if the existing two lanes were improved with a center bump strip lined with yellow on both sides, as is being done by Cal Trans more and more with busy two lane roads such as Highways 25 and 129 to Watsonville.
In addition, we believe that a “flyover” structure should be constructed at Union Road. This would take care of the principal congestion cause. We also believe that turning lanes should be added for the smaller roads that enter 156 from the North and South. These three improvements would be much less expensive – in both dollars and land and landscape – than Cal Trans’ proposal to build a new four-lane expressway. And they would be more than adequate to assure safety, and improve late afternoon commuter traffic.
Of course, for these recommendations we are assuming that the trucks are redirected to the north and Santa Clara County on a realigned and rebuilt Highway152, an assumption based on the board’s Sept. 9 resolution, when they spoke for all citizens of our county. At the same time, we would like to point out that in terms of time, these two improvements would be quick to build, compared with a new four-lane expressway. The152/156 flyover proves that. In contrast, compare the grief for county drivers suffering through the on-and-off construction of the Highway 25 bypass.
With all respect for our hard-working supervisors, politics is not about someone winning and someone losing. It’s about finding solutions. It’s about compromise. It’s about finding and building on common ground. Highway 156 improvements need not divide us or our San Juan Valley, or our county. There is another way.
Richard Morris is a retired attorney and San Juan Bautista resident.
