The planned widening of Highway 25 between San Felipe Road in
Hollister and Highway 101 in Santa Clara County is years away, but
the county now has a better idea of where that expansion will take
place and how much it might cost.
The planned widening of Highway 25 between San Felipe Road in Hollister and Highway 101 in Santa Clara County is years away, but the county now has a better idea of where that expansion will take place and how much it might cost.
The Council of Governments last month endorsed plans for both the expansion of the entire nearly 15-mile stretch and a 3.8-mile four-lane expressway that would run from Hollister northward on the west side of the current Highway 25 before transitioning back to the existing two-lane highway.
After COG asked Caltrans in June 2010 to work to reduce potential impacts the project would have on agriculture, residents and businesses, the state transportation agency modified the roadway plan to cut estimated costs by millions.
By reducing the median width from 62 feet to 46 feet and moving the proposed alignment closer to the existing Route 25, the need for farmland to be acquired for right-of-way was reduced by up to 30 percent, slashing the estimated cost of Phase 1 of the project from $66.2 million to $49.9 million.
Estimates on the entire build-out of the Highway 25 expansion project have been pegged at $300 million, for which there is no funding identified.
“I don’t know there’s much we can do right now for funding,” said Lisa Rheinheimer, executive director of COG. “The state is broke, the federal government hasn’t done anything with the reauthorization of funding, so that kind of puts us in a holding pattern.”
Still, creating a plan for the eventual expansion of the well-traveled roadway means less work will be required when – or if – funding becomes available.
“You have to first do your environmental document and preliminary plans,” Rheinheimer said. “We have one piece done and when money becomes available we can move forward.”
See the full story in the Pinnacle on Friday.
