101 Prunedale Bypass to be Deleted?

[don1991]

Looks like General Secretary Newsom's war on cars continues....

Though the Prunedale Bypass (Monterey / San Benito County) was probably a long way off, I see no reason to rescind the alignment other than to make sure it will never get done.  The operational improvements help but at the end of the day, you have a conventional highway going through a town.  Not a good situation.  Getting rid of the Bypass is going to make it difficult to correct the situation in the future.  Why I am not surprised though?

I remember one of the arguments against the Hatton Canyon Freeway (CA-1) south of Monterey was that the money could best be used on the 101 Prunedale Bypass.  I knew that was a lie, of course; the environmentalists had no intention of allowing that route to proceed.

https://catc.ca.gov/-/media/ctc-media/documents/ctc-meetings/2019/2019-12/058-2-3a-a11y.pdf

The rescission is on the meeting agenda.  You can click on the link to read the memo.

[mapman]

The Prunedale Bypass was dead when Caltrans agreed to build the Prunedale Improvement Project in the 2000s, which built interchanges at the existing major at-grade intersections.  Monterey County never had the budget to build it (couldn't provide the matching funds that Caltrans now requests for major improvements) and there is absolutely no political will within the county to build it anymore.

I don't deny that the bypass would have been the best solution to congestion through northern Monterey County.  However, both Caltrans and Monterey County have moved past building it, focusing instead on the myriad of other needed improvements throughout the county, such as the SR 156 widening, Monterey-Salinas commuter improvements and upgrades to the outdated 1960's interchanges in the ever-growing South County.