LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A stretch of Highway 20 along Lake County's Northshore will be the focus of millions of dollars in repair work beginning in 2015 thanks to a state commission's most recent highway repair allocation.
On Thursday, Caltrans reported that the California Transportation Commission has allocated $22 million for the Lake County pavement rehabilitation project, the goal of which is to prevent further deterioration of the highway surface, minimize costly repairs and extend pavement service life.
Statewide, the commission allocated $541 million in this latest round of funding to implement California’s “fix it first” strategy for preserving and maintaining the state's 50,000 lane miles of highways.
“This investment will help preserve California’s existing transportation infrastructure and implement our fix-it-first approach to the highway system,” said California State Transportation Agency Secretary Brian Kelly. “While there is always pressure to expand the state highway system, expansion must remain a second priority to investing in the management, preservation and efficient operation of our existing infrastructure.”
Caltrans District 1 spokesman Phil Frisbie said the road repair money Lake County received is a mix of state and federal funding applied for by Caltrans, and acknowledged that the funding awarded was a sizable amount for Lake County.
For perspective, Lake County received $6.15 million in 2011 for the three-mile repaving project on Highway 53 that extended to the intersection with Highway 29.
The bid process on this latest rehabilitation project will begin this summer and is expected to be awarded this fall. Frisbie said work is anticipated to start in spring 2015.
The project will include 21 “lane miles” – or a little over 10 miles of both lanes of the highway – of sections of Highway 20 from Nice to just east of Clearlake Oaks, Frisbie said.
Frisbie said the rehabilitation project will be a mix of grinding and road base repairs, plus new paving.
One of the areas where work will take place is a stretch of highway near Nice that was ground out a few years ago. “This is finally going to be the permanent repair,” he said.
Some areas of the highway in that area had the top layer ground out and repaved, but that doesn't last very long and more substantial work is needed, Frisbie said.
In many places the road base needs to be repaired and hasn't been in some time. While Frisbie said it's difficult to know when much of that area of Highway 20 last had road base repairs, he said it's conceivable that it has been decades.
Of the overall $541 million allocation announced Thursday, $10 million comes from the remaining Proposition 1B funds, the bond act that voters approved in 2006.
Proposition 1B authorized $4.5 billion to improve performance on the state highway system and California leveraged another $4.6 billion in federal, state and local funds while recapturing cost savings during construction, according to Caltrans' report.
What started as a program of 54 projects programmed at $9.1 billion grew to a program of 99 projects at $11.7 billion, supporting more than 190,000 jobs and providing critical improvements to the state’s transportation system, Caltrans said.
“This administration has made sure every dollar counts when it comes to building California’s transportation infrastructure,” said Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty. “We are repairing aging freeways, making highways and bridges safer, and promoting bicycling and walking – and, those projects support and create jobs.”
As a result of these investments and a focus on maintenance and rehabilitation, Caltrans announced in March that the condition of the pavement on California’s highways is at its healthiest level in more than a decade.
However, with California’s highways carrying nearly 35 million vehicles annually, and maintenance needs far outpacing dependable funding, Caltrans said it is using high-tech strategies, recycling, and innovative treatments to make pavement last longer, to stretch every dollar and to preserve the environment.
With the one-time funds from the 2006 transportation bond and 2009 Recovery Act running out, the California State Transportation Agency is working with stakeholders to develop funding priorities and long-term funding options to address California's infrastructure needs.
Those priorities are highlighted in “California Transportation Infrastructure Priorities: Vision and Interim Recommendations,” a report that offers a vision for California's transportation future.
The report can be found at http://www.calsta.ca.gov/res/docs/pdfs/2013/CTIP%20Vision%20and%20Interim%20Recommendations.pdf .
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