End the Botteneck at the Sonoma Marin Narrows

By Cynthia L. Murray

As your Assembly member, I will continue to fight to fully fund the widening of the Narrows and end the bottleneck.

Good transportation requires the appropriate infrastructure. Congestion due to the bottlenecks in on Highway 101 where we do not have continuous car pool lanes cause daily headaches for everyone. We are addressing the problem in San Rafael, where the widening is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008. The passage of the Transportation Sales Tax Measure in 2004 gave us the resources to get the project finished.

Our next freeway priority must be the removal of the bottleneck in the Marin/Sonoma Narrows. We will soon see as many people going north as going south on their commute through the Narrows. We need to provide more incentives for commuters to stop driving alone.

The lead agency on widening the Narrows is Caltrans. As chair of the Policy Advisory Group (PAG) for the Marin/Sonoma Narrows project, I have led the effort to work with Caltrans to add one lane in each direction so that there will be continuous car pool lanes from Sausalito to north of Santa Rosa. The PAG worked with Caltrans to ensure that the Environmental Impact Report due out later this year looked at the right alternatives. It was the PAG's recommendation that the widening make every effort to remain within the existing road right of way to minimize any intrusion into the wetlands around the Narrows. We also recommended minimal service roads and new interchanges, as well as including a separated bike path.

However, with limited resources for the widening, the Narrows will not be finished for many years. We are working with our state and federal representatives to fund the estimated cost of approximately $650 million. The PAG has recommended that existing funds be used to make safety improvements, such as fixing the E. Washington Interchange, until we have enough money to do at least one phase of the widening project.

As your Assembly member, I will work to get the funding to remove this last bottleneck between the two counties. It is a critical component of our transportation system that when completed will allow us to develop express bus service, increase economic vitality, improve public safety and allow greater mobility.