photo credit: courtesy of California Department of Transportation
Novato Narrows widening project

The long-awaited Novato Narrows widening project opened the north and southbound HOV lanes Monday morning, September 29th. Caltrans reports that crews worked overnight on the weekend to finish striping the high occupancy vehicle, aka HOV lanes.

The third lanes in both directions were unofficially open to mixed traffic prior to Monday, according to Jeff Weiss, spokesperson for Caltrans. He says the public is responding to the new carpool hours.

“We've been getting a lot of negative feedback about the carpool lane. A lot of it. The reason for that is well, it's causing congestion. We’ve increased the span of the carpool lane. Uh in Marin, there wasn't any carpool lanes northbound in the morning,” said Weiss. “Now, there is. Even in the southbound direction where there is a carpool lane - we've expanded the hours. They had started at 6:30. Now they're starting at 5:00 a.m.”

Weiss explains why the carpool hours have been expanded.

“People don’t like it and it’s hard not to blame them,” said Weiss. “We're trying to get data. We don't want to use people as as guinea pigs, but that's how traffic operates. It's like a an amoeba that squeezes here and expands there. And if you don't get the right data, you can't plan for the future.”

The goal, he says, is to motivate commuters to change behavior.

“And this is working somewhat, is show the advantage of the carpool lane. So the carpool lane is probably almost vacant at 5:00 a.m., right?” Weiss said. “But people see that, and it picks up speed later. What that does is people see that, and they will say, ‘Hey, you know, I could take a bus. I could pick up another passenger, and I’d have this big advantage.’”

Weiss says the widening project took over 15 years and it was expensive.

“It's about three quarters of a billion dollars. So you can see why we had to do it over a period of years. We didn't have that money out of hand,” said Weiss. “We're very grateful to the county of Sonoma and the county of Marin for passing transportation taxes. And that money went to fund these projects, and Caltrans matched the funds, the federal government matched some of the funds. That's how projects get built now.”

With a project of this size and duration, KRCB News asked Weiss if there are any Caltrans workers who have been a part of the project from the beginning.

“I think there might be a few people who actually have, and they'll definitely be at the ribbon cutting ceremony,” said Weiss.

“What are they going to do after this? You gonna give them some other project?” reporter Michelle Marques asked.

“Yeah, it will be - I know, they won't know what to do. If you give them a smaller project, they may not appreciate it or they just might, they just might find a smaller project and like it a lot,” said Weiss.

“I do traffic reporting and have done traffic reporting for years and years. Will I have to no longer say, you know, uh ‘Typical slowdowns in the Novato Narrows’? Do you expect that or?” said Marques.

“Yes, yes, you you'll have an extra 5 seconds in your traffic report because you won't have to mention that. That's good. All right. All right you know at first you can say, ‘Hey no slow down at the Novato Narrows, I guess the new lane is working.’” Said Weiss.

Caltrans say overnight work on the Northbound 101 stretch is scheduled every day this week through Saturday, October 4th from 8:30pm to 7am, which will include lane closures.