CalTrans representatives met their critics on the Albion Ridge Sept. 19 in a lively discussion of highway safety projects and the Salmon Creek and Albion River bridges.
The session at the Albion Schoolhouse, structured as an ‘open house’ promoting individual discussion but with no public comment scheduled, featured a relatively quiet but determined sit-down protest after project manager and meeting emcee Frank Demling declared that no public forum would take place.
A question and answer session eventually did materialize, mostly focusing on a series of highway safety projects, which were met with skepticism about CalTrans’ methods and concern for the environment.
Starting in 2021, CalTrans plans to widen shoulders to four feet, replace culverts, install edge and replace center rumble strips, and install a guardrail system from just north of the Navarro River bridge to a tenth of a mile south of Navarro Ridge Road, which was the location Sept. 3 of a rollover accident in which two people were hurt when their RV went off the road in an area with no shoulder at all to the highway.
According to a fact sheet provided at the meeting, there were four accidents between 2015 and 2017 in which vehicles ran off the road on that stretch, which has a maximum shoulder width of one foot before giving way to steep coastal bluffs.
The “Fatal collision rate” for that stretch, according to CalTrans, is 17.8 times the state average; the “Fatal plus Injury” rate is 1.8 times higher than the state average and the total collision rate is 1.7 times the state average.
“You guys have zero shoulders out here with no forgiveness,” said Morgan said, “You have a lot of fatalities and a lot of people getting hurt.” Morgan added that increasing shoulder-width from zero to four feet typically reduces accidents by 30 percent.
Most commenters, though, expressed concern instead for the effect the projects would have on the environment and their quality of life.
Annemarie Weibel requested that, in addition to a geotechnical study that had been done for the project, a hydrological study be done as well. Jim Heid said CalTrans only considered 12-foot lanes and four-foot shoulders, and that things like cantilevered guardrails and lower speed limits be considered, rather than widening the road.
A woman responded to the fact that the hillside east of the highway would be cut into to create shoulders.
“That is a horror,” she said. “for those of us who live out here.”
“So that’s more important than saving lives,” Demling responded.
Many questioners challenged whether the three separate safety projects were really one, when it came to cumulative effects on the environment. Demling insisted that the three are funded and timed separately, and that environmental review had been done, separately, for each one. But Albion resident Linda Perkins said the projects should be considered, and described, as one piece.
“We need to know exactly how it’s going to look and how it’s going to impact us,” she said.
Norbert and Stevie Dall, consultants for John Donhakl, owner of Whitesboro Farm, who took CalTrans to court last fall in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a geotechnical study on the foundations of the Albion River Bridge, brought their own map to the meeting, partly to argue that the three safety projects were in reality one.
Demling called their map “misinformation” and at first refused to allow Nortbert Dall to speak
Earlier, Demling had bitterly accused the Dalls, writers of voluminous letters to agencies criticizing many aspects of CalTrans operations, of spreading misinformation and monopolizing public time. He said the Dalls’ main purpose is to represent Donhakl, a non-resident landowner whose main interest, Demling said, is that nothing changes around his property. He said there would be no public forum as long as either of the Dalls intended to speak
“If John Donhakl wants to come here and speak, he’s welcome,” Demling said.
As it worked out, Demling did call on Norbert Dall during the question and answer session — “I’ll give you one question,” he said.
After being scolded by Demling for speechifying, Dall asked when the environmental documents on the Salmon Creek and Albion River bridge projects would be ready. Demling said probably by 2022.
The unruly nature of the exchange, at times punctuated by rhythmic clapping, interruptions, and cries of dismay, prompted Mickey Kitahara, a young Albion dad, to comment “you guys need to step out of your box. Don’t you have children and grandchildren? This is a really dangerous road…cars are getting better, cars are getting smarter, and people are getting dumber.”
Kitahara asked the gathering to “open your minds” to the idea that the most important thing about the safety project is to make the highway safer.
Heid responded that everyone wants safe roads, but that his concern is that “it feels like there’s a lack of site-specific creativity” on CalTrans part. For instance, rumblestrips, he said, “will really change the soundscape of the Navarro Point Preserve.”‘
FIfth District Supervisor Ted Williams backed those demanding extra care from CalTrans around Albion.
“I also understand that the community wants to maintain its character,” Williams said.
