By Matt Wilson and Khalida Sarwari
Highway 85 snakes its way through one of the most beautiful and desirable places in the world to live. The highway sprawls past expensive homes just beyond the landscape and in front of the green, sun-bathed hills of the West Valley.
As nice as that view of pristine Northern California is, it can quickly be tainted by the familiar snail’s pace of a sea of cars in rush hour.
As traffic grinds to a halt, a glance to the left shows cars in the carpool lane zipping by.
It is in these moments that the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority has a question for you: How much would you pay to bypass this traffic?
The VTA is hoping residents and commuters in Santa Clara County are willing to pay as little as a few cents or as much as $5 to gain access to lanes previously restricted to carpool drivers during peak traffic hours on state Route 85.
VTA is proposing an express lane program that could convert existing carpool lanes along an approximately 24-mile stretch into express lanes that would allow single-occupancy vehicles to join carpool, clean-air vehicles, motorcyclists and transit buses in the relatively faster lane. Today, SR 85 has six lanes, including a carpool lane in each direction.
The project, which is in its environmental review phase, would span between where SR 85 and U.S. Highway 101 meet in Mountain View to Bailey Avenue on U.S. 101 in southern San Jose. The project is a joint venture between VTA and Caltrans.
“Congestion levels are really bad, but there are some particular [portions] that are really bad out here that this project is intended to alleviate,” said John Ristow, VTA’s director of planning and program development.
Traffic already snarls in the early morning and especially evening commute time, and VTA expects it to get far worse. A VTA 2010 study projected out to the year 2035 estimates a 1 percent traffic growth each year.
“All that is based on job growth, population growth, and all the cities’ General Plans and in the county and counties to the north and south of us,” Ristow said.
Approximately 65,000 to 140,000 vehicles per day travel along the planned project corridor, according to the 2010 report.
If the project went forward, then single-occupant vehicles would be able to begin using FasTrak, electronic technology that Bay Area motorists are using on the Bay Area toll bridges. Motorists would find overhead signs alerting drivers of the upcoming express lanes. Signs will also be constructed alerting drivers to the price to enter the approaching lane.
Lessons in traffic economics would then come into play. Express lane prices can and will change quickly during rush hour times, depending on traffic density and speeds. Pricing could be updated every three to six minutes to meet a minimum 45 mph threshold for the express lane. If congestion gets really bad, the express lane could even revert to being a traditional HOV-only lane open to those who already get a free ride in the lane. The toll lanes operate only during regular carpool lane times.
VTA estimates the average price will be somewhere around $1.60. If motorists likes the price as they approach the express lane, they can then enter the express lane’s tolling area. This structure will support an antenna to enable communication with vehicle-mounted transponders, and a transaction indicator beacon to detect users.
State legislation that allows tolled express lanes requires that those funds be used to support operations and maintenance, enforcement and other transportation improvements within the corridor including transit, according to VTA.
The express lanes’ exit will be situated to allow adequate distance to change lanes prior to reaching a particular interchange. A double white line would be painted alongside the express lane to prevent honest drivers from moving in and out of the lane and to prevent weaving issues.
The full cost of the project with a controversial second-lane component is approximately $170 million, according to Ristow.
Funding has already been allocated for environmental clearance and project development, but has not yet been allotted to the construction of the project.
The initial proposal did include a second HOV express lane between SR 87 and Interstate Highway 280; however, VTA is leaning toward scratching that portion of the project. In an internal VTA memo dated May 9, VTA staff indicated that in response to criticism expressed by many West Valley residents, they preferred to go with just the conversion of the existing single carpool lane into a toll lane.
Similar projects exist up and down the state. Bay Area motorists might be familiar with a similar system on Interstate 680 approaching the Sunol Grade in Alameda County. Those lanes are located on a 14-mile stretch of I-680 south between Highway 84 in Pleasanton on the north and Highway 237 in Milpitas on the south.
This is also not VTA’s first foray into these sort of toll lane conversions. The express lanes along SR 237 have been open for two years with time-saving improvements that exceeded expectations, according to Ristow.
Public comment
Even though the project has been in the works since roughly 2007, VTA’s plan was more or less officially unveiled to the public earlier this year as it went into its environmental review phase. The environmental review, Ristow said, meets both federal and state standards with a level of analysis on par with a more familiar CEQA environmental impact report.
Multiple workshops were held in the West Valley earlier this year, and city councils also took up VTA’s offer for presentations. It was during this time that an initial study and environmental document were released for public review and comment. The public comment period ended in February.
Six public agencies and 301 individuals commented on the project, resulting in more than 800 separate comments received, and a final response to all of these comments is anticipated to be completed by VTA in the fall, according to the May 9 memo.
Not everyone is thrilled with the project; concerns have centered on noise, congestion points, air quality, potential health risks and public transportation’s potential future role on SR 85. Los Gatos resident Lee Pennington compared VTA’s project to “putting a finger on a faucet that is dripping.”
“That’s not a long-term solution,” she said.
Residents, especially those living within earshot of the freeway, have called for a complete EIR and have pushed their elected officials to send letters to Caltrans and VTA.
“I’d like to see a full EIR,” said Mary Robertson, a Saratoga resident who’s been one of the more staunch opponents of the project. “There will be additional cars on the road, and certainly the noise will increase. Certainly the air quality will be an issue.”
Richard D’Sa would argue that the evidence of the poor air quality is in his pool. The Saratoga resident said that 20 years ago he would clean his pool no more than once a week, but after noticing black oily spots, he now cleans his pool every day or every other day with whitening chemicals.
“I never used to use that, but seven or so years ago I started using that to keep the pool flow clear,” D’Sa said.
He claims that the spots can’t be from a leakage through the pool floor, because he had his pool resurfaced eight years ago. And, he said, dirt and soot has also settled on his patio furniture as well as on the side paneling of his house.
Los Gatos resident Mirela Radov said while she and her family have learned to live with the noise, she worries that more cars on SR 85 will lead to more pollution, putting the health of her children, and those of others, at greater risk.
“You have tools that you can deal with the noise: you can wear earplugs. But you can’t really clean the air,” she said. “That’s my biggest concern.”
VTA argues that the project could improve pollution by getting cars to move more quickly through the corridor, rather than sitting longer in traffic belching exhaust.
While VTA claims the SR 85 project will maximize space that has already been allotted to motorists in a dense urban corridor with little room for highway expansion, some residents and critics say the project, as of now, does not do enough to solve traffic issues in the long term.
“It seems to me that it’s short-sighted. [Considering] the growth rates for this area, this is a short-term solution,” said Paula Wallis, a Cupertino resident who lives within two miles of SR 85.
That sentiment was echoed by Robertson.
“Their claim is they’re doing this to relieve congestion,” Robertson said. “It’s fiscally irresponsible that they are proposing something that will be obsolete by 2023 and won’t solve the problem because of the choke points.”
She and others say they want VTA to first address and mitigate the existing problems on SR 85, of which choke points and noise are a big part. One possible solution, offered Robertson, is dynamic ramp meters, a device that regulates the flow of traffic entering freeways according to current traffic conditions.
Public transit key?
But the answer to the existing issues on SR 85 is better public transportation, not more roadways, Robertson said.
Robertson pointed to a 2013 report, titled “A New Direction: Our Changing Relationship with Driving and the Implications for America’s Future,” by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, a federation of independent, state-based, citizen-funded organizations that advocate for the public interest. The report concludes that a “driving boom” that was fueled by cheap gas prices and lasted six decades is over and that Americans now are driving fewer miles than they were eight years ago.
The report states that the Millennials, born between 1983 and 2000, are now the largest generation in the U.S and by 2030, they will be the largest group in the peak driving age range of 35 to 54. This group, the report claims, is demanding solutions that are less dependent on driving.
“If that’s the case, then we have a real problem with the way that transportation is actually being looked at and planned for, and I don’t want to see money wasted on a facility and added road that’s not going to alleviate the problem, that is not going to carry a larger group of people, and it’s not what the Millennials are looking for,” Robertson said.
Wallis said she, too, is a strong supporter of mass transportation, because it not only meets the demands of Millennials and students, but it’s also a safer and more efficient mode of traveling for the elderly as well as the thousands of people who work for tech companies up and down the SR 85 corridor and rely on buses to commute to and from work.
“I think it’s going to come eventually. It has to,” she said. “We’re running out of space and we’re growing, and in order to keep Silicon Valley economically viable and growing and booming, we’re going to have to address the transportation issues.”
Both Wallis and Pennington said VTA and Caltrans should look to the mass transit systems of New York City, Chicago and Europe as a model. Pennington suggested that VTA offer a financial incentive or tax break to boost ridership on public transportation.
“I don’t think any city has regretted putting up a subway,” said Wallis, adding that the time for such a project is ripe with the economy starting to pick up again.
“I think all these projects need champions, visionaries, politicians who can see the future and are willing to take on these projects now rather than pushing them to our future generations,” she said. “If we had built light rail 25 years ago, how much better off would we be today?”
Muncipalities respond
Critics are not just limited to residents. City leaders have also chimed in.
Saratoga city officials sent a comment letter to Caltrans in February outlining concerns about the project’s initial study and requested a more in-depth study on possible impacts.
Referring to VTA’s claim in the environmental review that the project will have no significant adverse effects on the environment, Saratoga Mayor Emily Lo and the city council responded that the study “does not contain sufficient information to assure the city and concerned members of the public that this will be the case.”
The letter cites potential noise, traffic, visual and air quality impacts associated with potentially widening the highway. In response to the pleas of residents, Saratoga city officials in May agreed to send another letter, this time addressed to VTA.
Upon Saratoga Councilman Howard Miller’s suggestion, the letter also reiterates that VTA continue to look for ways to fix the freeway’s soundwalls. The councilman said he sees the project as an opportunity to press VTA on reducing noise issues that have resulted from choices that were made in the original design of SR 85.
The city of Cupertino also filed a letter with Caltrans in February citing similar concerns, as well as worries that the project could discourage carpooling and the use of electric vehicles. Cupertino also described the notion of some motorists paying a fee to bypass traffic as “socially inequitable.”
The letter further stated that the initial study “fails to adequately evaluate the project’s environmental impacts” and does not consider alternatives to the toll lane.
A common concern Cupertino pointed out was that federal funding for the project could also require the existing truck weight limit on Highway 85 to be removed, which would create an environmental effect that would need to be analyzed. Trucks weighing in at more than 4.5 tons are not allowed on most of SR 85, a decree that Ristow definitively said will remain in place.
“This project does not change that, nor does the fact that there might be federal money used on this [project] change that. This project and no project in the future that we are involved with will change the truck ban on route 85,” he said.
Noise issues
Noise is high on the list of concerns for many residents residing near the highway. Robertson is one of several residents who have spoken at council meetings about what she sees as a discrepancy in noise studies conducted by the city and VTA. She and her neighbors say they feel strongly that the studies should be done during peak commute hours.
D’Sa moved into his house in 1995. He said he was drawn to the house because it is in a relatively quiet neighborhood and has a creek behind the back yard. That same back yard backs onto the wall just before the SR 85 exit to Prospect Road to De Anza Boulevard. Still, that hasn’t always been an issue, he said, and up until 10 years ago the noise was something he and his family could tolerate.
“I checked into it,” he said. “I said, ‘OK, it’s going to be three lanes. I looked at all the contractual agreements and said, ‘OK, as long as there are no more changes, I can live with that.’ And they said no trucks. They were putting in noise barriers, and they were going to do something on the road to cut down on the noise.”
Despite measures taken by VTA to mitigate the noise, D’Sa said it is still there and louder than ever.
Noise is also an issue in neighboring Los Gatos, where some residents, such as Pennington, who lives less than two blocks away from the freeway, have found their own ways to mitigate the noise.
“I sleep with earplugs every night,” said Pennington. “I have double-pane windows, and I can still hear the freeway. During rush hour it’s a roar, a roar that hardly ever stops even when it’s not rush hour.”
Radov lives in a small complex in the Rinconada Corners area with her husband and two daughters. Because their unit was built just four years ago, it can absorb external noise better than older buildings, she said.
Still, she described the noise level as “significantly high” when they leave their windows open.
“When our windows are closed, the noise level is acceptable,” she said. “When the windows are open then, yes, the level of noise is very different.”
In April, VTA sent the noise analysis results of its 2012 study to each of the three cities. The report contains the locations where the measurements were conducted in those cities, as well as a comparison of existing noise levels with predicted future noise levels from the 1987 final environmental impact statement that was done ahead of the construction of SR 85.
Revenue gathered from the planned toll project would be required to be reinvested into the SR 85 corridor, and Ristow said that if the express lanes project goes forward, then net revenue collected from tolls could be used to better mitigate noise in the form of things like new landscaping, different paving and improved soundwalls.
Performance agreements
An ongoing issue with cities and residents has centered on late 1980s and early 1990s Traffic Authority performance agreements with cities in the corridor that guided the original SR 85 construction. The contracts are worded differently, but many contain language about keeping the highway at six lanes and guide highway design in the median so as not to preclude mass transportation, which some cities and residents have contended was meant for a light rail system.
“The agreement all along is that there would be light rail installed in the middle,” said Los Gatos resident Nicholas Radov. “It would only be a six-lane highway, and they’d put light rail down the middle. But they seem to have just sort of dropped that and gone back on their original commitment they have in writing to do that. The VTA doesn’t think it’s relevant anymore.”
In April, the Los Gatos Town Council held a public hearing on the SR 85 issue and voted unanimously to send a strongly worded letter to VTA reminding the transit agency of the performance agreement.
VTA and Ristow say that those agreements were intended for use while the highway corridor was under construction, not for the future.
“Unfortunately, some people are still taking that as it is supposed to guide future things, when it really was just intended to make sure the Traffic Authority and Caltrans built this thing the way they wanted and everybody agreed,” he said.
On the issue of mass transit and light rail being reserved for the median, VTA counters that since the 1984 sales tax and the establishment of the Traffic Authority, there have been six county and Valley Transportation Plans, 10 Regional Transportation Plans and more than 13 Transportation Improvement Plans. In addition, there have been five transportation sales tax measures in the county, none of which included light rail in the SR 85 median north of SR 87.
VTA states that it has no record of any requests by any of the cities in the SR 85 corridor asking to include or implement light rail along SR 85 north of SR 87. Because light rail was never a part of any official scoping study or countywide or Bay Area plan, VTA and Caltrans were unable to consider light rail as an alternative in the environmental review.
“No city that we can ever find has asked for [light rail] to happen,” Ristow said, who added that the cost to bring light rail to 20 miles of SR 85 at a cost of roughly $100 million a mile would likely be a $2 billion investment.
Even with such a high price tag, Ristow and VTA also say that the proposed SR 85 project does not change the ability to bring light rail to the highway.
“This project does not preclude anything like that in the future, because you can still do something like that even if we implement this whole thing. But light rail or any other mass transportation is not in any long-range plan,” Ristow said. “We could not have even considered light rail as an alternative in the environmental document because light rail has never been studied since the original [mid-1980s] decision to build a freeway or light rail.”
Ristow also said all SR 85 corridor cities would need to update their zoning and General Plans in preparation for the significant density and intensity needed to support hypothetical stations and light rail ridership.
“We build a transportation system based off of where the cities’ plans are and if they are not planning intensity and development there in that area, there is just no way it would pencil out. Ridership wouldn’t be there, investment wouldn’t make sense,” he said.
With light rail being a distant solution, VTA staff is looking to congestion-busting measures in the present.
“The policy decision is, light rail is not a viable alternative right now. What else do you want to do? This [SR 85] project proposes travel benefits to the public out there,” Ristow said.
Still, some residents would just as soon VTA either put the project on hold, or along with that plan, put forth another proposal that considers light rail.
Said Wallis, “I think if they put forward two proposals, one for express lanes and one for light rail, I think more people would support light rail.”
She proposed a plan that puts a slight twist to VTA’s proposed project: convert the carpool lanes into express lanes for the sole purpose of building a mass transit system with money that would be generated through the express lanes project.
“We’re allowing traffic to move faster, at the same time we are raising money by people that use the express lanes,” Wallis said. “Now, that plan I can get behind.”
Even with all the letters sent by local cities, councils like Los Gatos’ have not yet taken formal stands on the project.
Councilman Joe Pirzynski, who also sits on the VTA board of directors, noted that the proposal “is a work in progress, not a work completed. There is not a plan that’s locked and loaded at this time.”
The VTA board could get a look at the project for a vote late this year.
For more information about the SR 85 express lane project similar projects, visit vta.org/projects-and-programs/highway/silicon-valley-express-lanes.
Lane Change: VTA, Caltrans propose adding express lane program
