Earlier today, the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee advanced Assembly Bill 697, legislation that would allow for the construction of additional travel lanes on State Route 37 between Vallejo and State Route 121 in Sonoma County despite the project area running through protected habitats and wetlands. 697 would do this by amending legislation created to streamline permitting for clean energy and water infrastructure projects.
“Today, SR 37 has two lanes in each direction except for a 10 mile stretch where it has one lane, cresting a major bottleneck…adding an hour and a half to two-way commutes.,” claimed Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City), who both chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee and is the author of the bill.
Wilson went on to note that most of the people sitting in that traffic are workers making less than $17 per hour. Factoring in the time lost to sitting in traffic, that salary falls to less than $14 per hour. The route sees such congestion that transit agencies refuse to run service on the road as the congestion makes it nigh impossible to stick to a schedule.
The SR 37 widening is pitched as a temporary fix for the area while studies are completed on a larger highway project that may or may not come decades from now. If funding is secured, SR 37 could begin construction in half a decade.
“Are we going to let perfection be the enemy of the good,” queried Committee Chair Diane Papan (D-San Mateo), when closing discussion and offering her support for the legislation.
But for a coalition of environmental groups and native tribes, the legislation is not good. Citing the damage that highway widenings cause the surrounding area and highway expansion’s long-term history of failing to reduce congestion; this coalition opposed not just the legislation but the widening project completely.
One of the ironies of the SR 37 widening is that it has been discussed for decades, and wouldn’t be under construction for another half a decade if funding becomes available, yet due to the impacts of global warming and climate change the project may have a short shelf life.
“The expanded roadway may only be used for ten years before it is permanently underwater,” testified Jeanie Ward-Waller, representing Transform, who is leading the coalition.
The project area of SR 37 runs at water level next to the San Pablo Bay and is regularly underwater during king tides. Given rising sea levels, it is hard to predict the exact timing of when the freeway will be covered in water, but fifteen years is an acceptable guess.
Or as Transform put it in a blog post explaining their opposition in 2022, building the project demonstrates “how to drown $500 million.”
But the opposition to both A.B. 697 and the eventual widening of SR 37 are not blind to the issues created by hours of gridlock, they just question road widening as the solution. Instead the offer two solutions of their own:
First, the region needs to build more affordable housing in Sonoma County to reduce the number of workers driving from the currently more affordable Solano County.
Second, the region needs to invest in increased transit. In the long-term, future rail service is planned between Sacramento and the Bay Area. In the short-term, bus service should be added to the corridor.
