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February 10, 2005

Pombo lays out plans for freeway

Road would connect Central Valley to Bay Area alleviating Altamont traffic

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, reintroduced legislation on Wednesday that would authorize feasibility studies for connecting Interstate 5 south of Tracy with a realigned and widened Highway 130 in Santa Clara County.

This bill gets the ball rolling on a promising alternative, which will ultimately diminish traffic so commuters can spend less time on the road and more time at home with their families, Pombo said in a statement.

The legislation envisions turning a rural, meandering roadway into a thoroughfare for commuters traveling from the rapidly expanding areas of southern San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties to the job centers of San Jose and otherlocations. The highway could end at Interstate 680 near San Jose, although such details havent been thoroughly examined.

The highway could become the second major east-west passageway for commuters besides the crowded Interstate 580, which is the regions second-worst congested route behind the Bay Bridge, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. About 120,000 drivers cross the Altamont Pass each day, of which about 46,000 are commuting to jobs.

The road would be designated as a highway open only to passenger vehicles, according to the legislation. It would have three lanes in each direction, and possibly a rail system. The highway could contain a combination of high-occupancy vehicle lanes, energy-efficient vehicle lanes or high-occupancy toll lanes.

Pombo is pushing the feasibility study through two directions — the special legislation introduced on Wednesday and the transportation funding bill. It was included in the multi-faceted funding bill last year, but the bill languished in Congress. Since that time, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Don Young, has taken a helicopter ride with Pombo to inspect the congested Central Valley-Bay Area commute.

The trip helped convey to Young what Pombos constituents are dealing with on a daily basis, Pombo spokeswoman Nicole Philbin said.

The legislation and thousands of other requests that are included in the transportation funding bill have been described as pork-barrel by taxpayer advocacy groups. Pombos plan also is drawing the ire of environmentalists who say the solution to long commutes does not lie in more concrete.

Officials should focus on building more high-density, affordable housing in the Bay Area, rather than trying to make it easier for commuters to drive long distances, said Michele Beasley, spokeswoman for the Greenbelt Alliance, a Bay Area advocacy group.

A new highway also would endanger animal habitats and encourage sprawl in the Central Valley, she said.

Environmental issues would be examined as part of the feasibility study, Philbin said.

There is nothing written in stone where the highway would go, she said. It is basically the first step.

There is no estimate on how much the highway would cost, she said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, on Wednesday added her support to the overall funding bill, which would authorize a total of $283.99 billion on transportation projects. Pombos request for the highway study is included in the bill.

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