caltrans

Caltrans rejected roundabout alternative two in the Kings Beach Commercial Core Improvement project, a plan with three lanes, sidewalks and seasonal on-street parking.

In a letter addressed to Placer County Supervisor Bruce Kranz, Caltrans officials said of the four alternatives they favored alternative three, which features four-lanes and traffic lights for Kings Beach's impending face lift.

The letter was sent Oct. 2 in response to a telephone conversation between Supervisor Kranz and Caltrans District Director Jody Jones.

"My letter to Supervisor Kranz was in response to his request asking for Caltrans' technical opinion about the traffic impacts of the alternatives," Jones said. "I am coming at this strictly from a traffic perspective."

The three-lane alternative would create traffic congestion coming through downtown Kings Beach on Highway 28, Jones said.

The gridlock would encourage drivers to find other ways to travel through the town's backstreets, which are frequented by pedestrians, she added.

"The situation is just exacerbated when you have parking," Jones said.

Even though alternative two plans no on-street parking during the peak summer months, Jones said she was doubtful the county would be able to enforce such a rule.

"I don't think that parking is a problem only in the summertime," Jones said, noting peak holiday ski weekends. "It isn't as simple as saying we can block off the parking in the summer and then let people park there in the winter. That's why it's a problem."

Caltrans said it preferred the four-lane alternative because it "minimizes congestion and delays during peak periods and improves pedestrian safety," according to the letter.

Caltrans is willing to accept alternative four, which also offers roundabouts, two travel lanes and a center turning lane, because it does not feature on-highway parking.

The roundabouts and three lanes in alternative four, however, are barely acceptable when it comes to their impacts on traffic congestion, Jones said.

"These impacts, including substantial traffic delays during peak periods and increased 'cut through' traffic on the residential streets, will ultimately be the county's responsibility to address," Jones wrote.

Caltrans still has not finished reviewing 750-pages of public response it received from the county's department of Public Works July 31. Jones said she expected the review to be complete by mid-November.

Supervisor Kranz said he spoke with Caltrans for insight on where the state agency stood with respect to the project.

"Our public works people wanted to get some information from Caltrans so that they could finish off their proposal," Kranz said. "This thing's taken forever and we need to have some information on it."

Public Works Director Ken Grehm said he will be looking into the reasoning behind Caltrans' decision.

"(The letter) did beg a couple of questions as to their thought process," Grehm said. "We kind of thought (Alternatives) 2 and 4 were equal as far as traffic impacts."

Caltrans partnered on the core improvement project with lead agency Placer County, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Federal Highway Administration. All four agencies must sign off on the same alternative to approve the project.

Jones said she will not sign off on alternative two.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is still reviewing public comment as well, said agency spokesman Jeff Cowen. He said TRPA had no response to Caltrans' letter.

"We're still reviewing for our issues," Cowen said. "Once we're done with that, we'll coordinate with everybody."
The California Department of Transportation recently awarded Transportation Planning Grants for the 2007-08 fiscal year.

One group in Humboldt County and two in Mendocino County will receive a total of $421,873 in grant funding, which was applied for and awarded on a competitive basis, according to a Caltrans news release. The California Department of Transportation is reminding motorists to turn on headlights when driving in the rain. Use headlights when using the windshield wipers continuously due to the weather and also when conditions (i.e., fog or darkness) prevent motorists from seeing a person or another vehicle from a distance of 1,000 feet, stated a Caltrans news release. Using headlights helps other drivers see, and is not only a good idea, it's the law, the release stated. The headlight law, California Vehicle Code 24400, went into effect July 1, 2005.

Other tips for safer driving in the rain include reducing speed and allowing more distance between cars.

For more information about driving in inclement weather, phone 707-441-3998 or go t For the latest road condition information for California highways, phone 800-427-7623.

The Transportation Planning Grant program complements the governor's Strategic Growth Plan for transportation, which reduces congestion below today's levels while accommodating future transportation needs from growth in the population and economy, the release stated. The governor's Strategic Growth Plan incorporates GoCalifornia, a plan designed to decrease congestion, improve travel times and increase safety.

Humboldt County Department of Public Works and Redwood Community Action Agency will receive $209,000 for their Healthy Rural Roads II Project. This project will address specific transportation challenges faced by underserved rural populations with service planning and development of a "Healthy Rural Roads Guide."

The Mendocino Council of Governments will receive $120,000 for its Gualala Community Action Plan. This project will seek public input to help develop a downtown streetscape, parking and circulation plan. This plan will be consistent with other local plans, the Gualala Town Plan and the California Coastal Trail Plan.

Round Valley Tribes and Round Valley Indian Health Center will receive $92,873 for their Round Valley Tribes Walk/Bike Paths and Library/Town Center Planning Project. This project will plan for bicycle and walking paths into Covelo, and create a plan for a town center in Covelo to assist economic development and revitalization. The project proponents applied for this grant after meeting with representatives from the Caltrans Office of Community Planning.

Transportation Planning Grants are intended to promote strong and healthy communities, economic growth and protection of the environment. In accepting these grants, these groups agree to be a partner with Caltrans in its common mission to improve mobility and the quality of life in California, according to the release. California Department of Transportation
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California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)

Type Government agency
Founded 1895
Headquarters Sacramento, California

Caltrans headquarters in Sacramento
District 7 Headquarters, Los Angeles, birds-eye view (designed by Thom Mayne (2004))
A typical Caltrans pickup truckThe California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is a government agency in the U.S. state of California. Its mission is to improve mobility across the state. It manages the state highway system and is actively involved with public transportation systems in California.

For administrative purposes, Caltrans has divided the state of California into 12 districts supervised by district offices. Most districts cover multiple counties; District 12 (Orange County) is the only district with one county. The largest districts are District 4 (San Francisco Bay Area) and District 7 (Los Angeles and Ventura counties). As a state agency, its main headquarters are located in Sacramento, which is covered by District 3.

Caltrans has a reputation for being both innovative and stubbornly idiosyncratic. In 1950, it developed the typeface family, FHWA, now used nationwide on road signs (though not its 2004 replacement, Clearview). It pioneered Botts dots as a superior form of lane marking. It has frequently been criticized for proposing and often constructing ugly bridges and has several times been forced to redesign such structures in response to public outcry. It has long experimented with freeway-to-freeway stack interchanges of increasing height and complexity. It was the last state highway department in the United States to number its freeway exits (the Cal-NExUS program), and one of the last to switch from dark green "button copy" signs to bright green reflective signs. In the 1990s, Caltrans aggressively added carpool lanes on freeways to reduce traffic congestion.

Although state highways generally adhere to consistent minimum design standards throughout much of the state, there are some policy and construction differences between the northern and southern district offices. For example, Northern California carpool lanes are always directly adjacent to mainline traffic lanes and are restricted to carpools only during weekday commute hours, while Southern California carpool lanes are always separated from mainline lanes (except at designated entrance/exit areas) and most are restricted at all times.

Over the last several decades Caltrans has supervised extensive seismic retrofitting of structures throughout California, in addition to creating far more stringent design criteria for new construction.

Contents
1 History
1.1 Important projects
2 See also
3 External links
4 References



[edit] History
The earliest predecessor of Caltrans was the Bureau of Highways, which was created by the California Legislature and signed into law by Governor James Budd in 1895.[1] This agency consisted of three commissioners who were charged with analyzing the state road system and making recommendations. After the commissioners submitted their report to the Governor on November 25, 1896, the Legislature replaced the Bureau with the Department of Highways.[2]

Due to the state's weak fiscal condition and corrupt politics, little progress was made until 1907, when the Legislature replaced the Department of Highways with the Department of Engineering, within which there was a Division of Highways.[3] The voters approved a $18 million bond issue for the construction of a state highway system in 1910 and the first Highway Commission was convened in 1911.[4] On August 7, 1912, the Department broke ground on its first construction project, the section of El Camino Real between South San Francisco and Burlingame.[5] 1912 also saw the founding of the Transportation Laboratory and the creation of seven administrative divisions (the ancestors of the 12 district offices that exist today).[6]

In 1913, the Legislature started requiring vehicle registration and allocated the resulting funds to support regular highway maintenance, which began the next year.[7]

In 1921, the Legislature turned the Department of Engineering into the Department of Public Works.[8]

In late 1972, the Legislature approved a reorganization (suggested by a study initiated by Governor Ronald Reagan), in which the Department of Public Works was merged with the Department of Aeronautics to become the Department of Transportation.[9]


[edit] Important projects
Several important projects include Interstate 105, the reconstruction of the CA-91-CA-60-I-215 interchange, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (East Span), and the Devil's Slide tunnel scheduled to be completed in 2011.


[edit] See also
FasTrak
US Department of Transportation
List of roads and highways
List of California-related topics
Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (CalTrans-related controversy)
Caltrans Division of Rail, also known as Amtrak California On-ramp metering lights in Santa Clara County
Caltrans
Article Launched: 10/22/2007 01:37:23 AM PDT


METERING LIGHTS

There are 116 on-ramps in Santa Clara County with metering lights, compared to 114 in the rest of the eight Bay Area counties. More lights are expected to be installed over the next several years.

I-880: Meters from 237 to Montague Expressway could be working late next year.

Hwy. 101: Talks under way to possibly turn on lights south in the afternoon in another year or two from San Mateo County line through San Jose.

Hwy 87: Study to be under way late next year.

Hwy. 101: Activating meters between Gilroy and Morgan Hill awaits construction of new Tennant Avenue overpass. That could be under way in two to three years.

I-280: Study to begin in spring on metering northbound lanes between Sneath and Serra on the Peninsula