This year, San Benito County is focused on repaving some of the most traveled commuter routes with a focus on safety.
Of course, the list of rural San Benito County roads needing repairs is seemingly endless due to decades of deferred improvements. The vast majority of unincorporated roads covering nearly 500 miles—large and small—need attention.
The current board of supervisors has committed to making road repairs a priority, though, and we are working through the existing project list developed in recent years.
Roadwork has picked up in our county since my successful push to commit tens of millions of discretionary dollars toward repaving projects—a monumental shift for our county. Since then, we’ve seen significantly more progress than we had experienced in previous decades.
We’ve also seen some delays due to a very ambitious project list, and we’ve recognized the need for additional oversight.
This year as board chair for the first time, I appointed a new Roads Ad Hoc Committee composed of myself and Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez to keep in constant consultation with staff to ensure a high level of oversight, efficient use of limited dollars, necessary resources and tangible progress.
We recommended the county focus this construction season’s roughly $10 million in allocated dollars on high-volume arterials in terrible condition that will enhance safety—and then work through the project list from there.
These roads include Shore Road, Frazier Lake Road, San Juan Highway near Anzar High School, Cole Road and Union Road—with an intention to finish the rest of Fairview Road next. Then we can work through other emergency evacuation routes like Salinas Road, San Juan Canyon Road and others in South County—along with other beat-up thoroughfares like Comstock Road and Cienega Road.
Not every road project goes as smoothly as expected. For instance, Cole Road has faced delays due to an unanticipated engineering issue with an embankment caused by a landslide—and necessary design changes—but is now scheduled to start in the coming weeks. Union Road had a similar embankment design challenge arise, but we are pressing forward and hope to start it before the rainy season, or next spring at the latest.
Despite budget challenges like almost all local jurisdictions face these days, the current board is staying committed to road improvements with an emphasis on more expediency. Fortunately due to the board’s recent approval of the Housing Element, the county will have access to more than $11 million that must go toward infrastructure improvements. I fully expect, and will support, the vast majority of those dollars going toward road projects.
We will need every penny considering a mile of fully repaved road costs about $1.5 million these days, and San Juan Canyon Road alone—we are seeking state assistance for this as a fallback—could cost nearly $7 million.
The bottom line is we have a long list of roads to fix, and we will work through them strategically. That said, we are looking to maximize tax dollars in creative ways such as analyzing types of reconstruction necessary for specific roads—bringing costs down for lower-volume roads that don’t take as much of a beating, especially the plethora of smaller residential streets in need of work.
We will get to those roads, too, and locals can expect to see a healthy amount of roadwork this construction season and beyond.
Kollin Kosmicki is San Benito County Supervisor for District 2 and president of the board.
