101 Marin-Sonoma Narrows Projects

[Techknow]

Today I drove through the Narrows for a padding trip in the Russian River, and it turns out there has been progress made a few months ago. Time for a bump!

I like to start with what I saw today. Heading north, I went past the Novato Blvd exit, where US 101 drops a lane and then in half a mile another lane. But a mile or two later, the 3rd lane actually came back, except there was cones and it was closed. BUT at the Sonoma County line, the at-grade intersection is actually gone! I don't think I saw any at-grade intersections in the Narrows today in both directions. I think that third lane is present for a mile or so, but it's between 2-lane sections so they aren't really through lanes. The rest of the Narrows is largely the same, either not in construction or the portion in construction to shift the lanes to make it less flood prone.

Here's a photo on the way back, I will get more photos from a friend who took some for me:


According to this project status report, the stretch of road I am talking about is Segment B3. It says it "should be completed in its entirety Fall 2019", well hopefully it happens by the end of the year.

Here's the highway two years back, and if you look at the streetview on the highway itself, you can see the center being painted yellow. I believe the 3rd lane has been painted and open, what Caltrans did was close the right most lane as of the time of this writing (as can be seen above).

[relaxok]

Yep it's... progressing.

The hov lane is striped (+cones as you say) from petaluma to 0.3 mi south of the marin county border (as shown in the progress report), and is supposed to open by EoY.  There appears to still be some work in the northern bit actually.

Really this just postpones the agony though - now the bottleneck will move slightly south but still be there.   It'll be 4+ years before the length of it is open, at the earliest.

[relaxok]

4.5 miles of the northbound portion have opened the 3rd lane - guessing southbound is around the corner

[Techknow]

Thanks for the update. Since this is the closest major highway construction to me, I'm thinking of hiking at the nearby parks and preserves to see if I can get a good view of the freeway

[relaxok]

The southbound 4.5 mi portion of the HOV lane is now open.

The bottleneck at the marin line is still terrible, but also since they just started the central petaluma construction there is another 3-to-2 merge on the other end.  Pretty much makes the work they did so far pointless to open.

[relaxok]

Does anybody have any updates on this project?

It used to be that when you searched google news for it, there'd be some kind of update about it, but there's been literally nothing about it since December.  There's also almost nothing on the caltrans page in the way of updates.

I realize covid changed a lot of plans, but as far as I had heard all the caltrans work was full speed ahead...?

I haven't driven down through it since we've been working from home and I'm north of it, but considering how long this has gone on I hope something has gotten accomplished in the last 9 months.

Maybe Techknow knows? (Ha)

[heynow415]

Does anybody have any updates on this project?

It used to be that when you searched google news for it, there'd be some kind of update about it, but there's been literally nothing about it since December.  There's also almost nothing on the caltrans page in the way of updates.

I realize covid changed a lot of plans, but as far as I had heard all the caltrans work was full speed ahead...?

I haven't driven down through it since we've been working from home and I'm north of it, but considering how long this has gone on I hope something has gotten accomplished in the last 9 months.

Maybe Techknow knows? (Ha)

It's still moving along.  The middle section is now complete (between the Sonoma/Marin line and Lakeville Road/Hwy 116).  Construction is under way to finish the northern gap, adding the third/HOV lane from Lakeville to Petaluma Blvd. North.  The section from the county line south to Novato remains as-is:  frontage roads and the landfill interchange are completed but adding the extra mainline lane in each direction to the Birkenstock building, and then the fourth/HOV southbound lane from Birkenstock to where it picks up at DeLong remain unfunded.  They've been trying to get the final funding package together, some of which is tied up with the RM3 litigation.

[relaxok]

With the central Petaluma portion deep into construction, bids have just gone out for the roughly ~$90 million final portion which is 6 miles in Marin County to the border of Sonoma County.

Work starts in the spring/summer and completion is expected in 2024.

Funding is still technically tied up in legislation but by the time that stuff is settled it'll already be built so the only issue is whether the taxpayers get the money returned.. 

[relaxok]

The widening of US 101 in Petaluma from Lakeville Highway to Old Redwood Highway has been completed - there are now 30 uninterrupted miles of carpool lane from Petaluma to Windsor.

The Marin portion is finally under construction - for the first time since 2011 or 2012 I've seen widening prep work north of Atherton Ave in Novato and south of the Sonoma county line.

Still scheduled to finish by end of 2024.

[FredAkbar]

Where are you seeing that it's still on track for 2024? The articles I've seen (example 1, example 2) say summer 2026.

[FredAkbar]

As an interesting compromise, the Caltrans project page (which seems to have been recently updated) says summer 2025.

[relaxok]

Where are you seeing that it's still on track for 2024? The articles I've seen (example 1, example 2) say summer 2026.

You're correct.  I think Caltrans was saying 2024 for a long time, but everything's been such slow going it's just constantly pushed out into the future. 

I believe the earliest studies were 1999 and 2002 or something, with planning in the years after that - first segment construction actually began in 2011.  It's fairly depressing it's going to have taken something like 25 years from start to finish.