Who:      Caltrans & Local  Community Groups and Residents near the West Portal of the Caldecott Tunnel
What:    Community Meeting to Discuss Construction Issues of Interests between the Parties
When:    Thursday, March 25, 7PM – 9PM
Where:  Kaiser Elementary School,  25 South Hill Court, Oakland

AGENDA

7:00-7:20 PM      Open house

7:20-8:30 PM      Short updates by Caltrans and Tutor-Saliba (prime contractor) on

• Temporary soundwall
• Parking
• Traffic Management
• Noise Management
• Air Quality / Dust Management
• Temporary landscaping (construction phase)
• Public Outreach protocols

8:30-9:00 PM      Q&A

Information displays will be set up for the open house period, during which Caltrans representatives will be available to answer questions of a more technical nature. For further information, feel free to contact

From 7:00 pm – 7:20, there will be an open house where residents can
speak with Caltrans representatives about the project.  Although  a
question and answer period is scheduled for later in the meeting, the
open house will allow residents to ask questions of a more technical
nature, ones that might not be as relavant to the group as a whole.
Short Updates by Caltrans Personell and the Contractor, Tutor-Saliba, on
issues of interest to the west portal residents:  Soundwalls, parking,
traffic, air, noise, dust, public outreach protocols, landscaping.
Question and Answer Period.

The freeway connector between westbound Route 24 and northbound Highway 13 will need to be modified to accommodate traffic arriving from the third and fourth bores of the Caldecott Tunnel. Construction is expected to start in April 2010 and completed in Spring 2011.

The interchange with Highway 13 is fairly close to the west portal of the Caldecott tunnel. By realigning the ramp, Caltrans will provide more space for the traffic coming from the two westbound bores.

Few motorists know it by name, but Kay Street is the overcrossing just west of the Oakland portal of the Caldecott Tunnel that connects Caldecott Lane on the north to Broadway on the south. The road is most often used by motorists during the afternoon commute who are driving southeast on Telegraph Street in Berkeley and heading for the Caldecott Tunnel.

Project Benefits

This project will install a traffic signal at the congestion-prone intersection of Kay Street and Broadway to improve traffic flow. Congestion is currently caused by two streams of traffic vying for the last on-ramp on eastbound Route 24 before the Caldecott Tunnel.

Also, motorists on Broadway wishing to make a left turn on Kay Street towards Berkeley face long delays during the afternoon, as traffic turning from southbound Kay Street has the right of way.

Ghilotti Brothers, Inc. posted the apparent low bid of about $311,000 on November 18, 2009. The contact was awarded on December 23, 2009. Construction should begin by mid-March 2010 and must be finished by June 25, 2010.

A separate portion of the project will modify the intersection of Kay Street and Caldecott Lane, widening the intersection to improve traffic flow.

This project also will enhance bicycle and pedestian flow at the Kay Street/Broadway intersection.

With money to support a settlement reached in January between Caltrans and the Fourth Bore Coalition, state Sen. Loni   Hancock, D-Berkeley, and Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, presented a check for $3 million to Oakland Unified School District officials on April 17 on the baseball field at Chabot Elementary  School .

Specialized air-filtration systems and trees will be installed  at Chabot Elementary School and Claremont Middle School.   These measures will help mitigate  air quality  and noise impacts  from increased traffic caused by the fourth Caldecott Tunnel bore, scheduled to begin construction this summer.

Of the funds, $2 million comes from the state Air Resources Board for upgrades to the ventilation systems of all buildings and classrooms at both schools. An additional $1 million grant was provided by CalFire’s Urban Forestry Program for landscape barriers to mitigate noise expected from increased traffic  expected to occur after construction of the new tunnel bore.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s demand that the Caldecott Improvement Project – also known as the Caldecott Tunnel Fourth Bore Project – move forward, plus the intervention of the legislature’s Democratic leadership, pressured the Caldecott Tunnel Fourth Bore Coalition (FBC), which includes RCPC among its members, into accepting a settlement of its lawsuit over adding the fourth bore to the tunnel.

Although less than what the FBC hoped for from its suit, the settlement terms are an improvement over what Caltrans had offered during extended discussions last year.

As reported in January’s Rockridge News, the Governor, in the name of providing an “economic stimulus,” proposed a retroactive exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for the Caldecott project and 10 other highway projects. He stated flatly that he would not sign an amended budget unless it included those exemptions, effectively holding the State budget hostage.

The Democratic legislative leadership, and particularly Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, strongly opposed this move. Nevertheless, the FBC was told candidly that, given solid Republican support and other legislators’ fear of being blamed for the State’s insolvency, the CEQA exemption was likely to pass. The result would have been to derail and negate the pending lawsuit (the judge had been expected to issue a decision within weeks) and leave the FBC with nothing to show for its years of efforts.

At the suggestion of Senator Steinberg and California League of Conservation Voters President Tom Adams, FBC leaders and legal counsel met with Caltrans to hammer out a settlement.

The most significant result of the settlement was Caltrans’ commitment to spend $2 million for improvements to State Route (SR) 13, the Ashby Avenue and Tunnel Road corridor, including improvements for some intersections and for pedestrian and bicycle travel. These will help offset traffic increases expected with the new fourth bore.

Caltrans also committed to spend up to $250,000 for a study of the entire SR 24 corridor, from I-580 to I-680. It will consider potential transportation improvements, including High Occupancy Vehicle lanes (HOV) and/or toll lanes, BART and other transit service improvements, current and projected noise levels at the Rockridge BART station platform, and reducing other major impacts of the highway including traffic, noise, and air pollution. However, it provides no funds to implement the study’s results.

Fourth Bore Coalition negotiators were unable to prod Caltrans to do much more to alleviate major construction impacts on those living close to the project. Oakland, in its settlement earlier of a threatened suit, got Caltrans to restrict hauling operations to daylight hours and to limit nighttime noise increases; Caltrans adamantly refused to go any further. However, the highway construction agency did commit, reluctantly, to using low-sulfur diesel for off-road construction equipment. This will help reduce the project’s effect on local air quality. Caltrans also committed to keeping dirt-hauling trucks off local streets and to work with the community to minimize impacts from dirt stockpiling at or near the site.

Caltrans also agreed to fund a barrier along the highway’s edge above FROG Park to protect the park from falling debris, and agreed to consider expanding the park by including unused Caltrans right-of-way land. These agreements will not mitigate the expected noise impacts on the park, but provide some protection and compensation. The agency also committed an additional $100,000 for FROG Park or bicycle transit improvements or to provide additional support for the SR 24 corridor study.

Last, but certainly not least, were several commitments made, not by Caltrans, but by Senator Steinberg and the Democratic Legislative leadership, that promised up to $2 million for noise and air quality mitigation efforts at Chabot Elementary and Claremont Middle schools, as long as the school district provided adequate documentation justifying the expenditures.

Steinberg’s office also promised to work with the East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC) and BART to identify State funds for bicycle transit improvements along the corridor. An unnamed legislator also apparently agreed to carry a bill that could lead to Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) land along Claremont Avenue being converted to public recreational use once the current building reaches the end of its useful life.

Neither the settlement itself nor the process was what the FBC had hoped for. Still, all in all, especially given the unpleasant circumstances, the settlement provides a small but significant offset to the many impacts the Caldecott project will have on the Oakland/Berkeley community. Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the outcome is what it says about our dysfunctional California political system, and how it was so willing to sacrifice the environment and our community to satisfy special interests.

After two three-and-a-half hour sessions of oral argument, the Fourth Bore Coalition’s lawsuit challenging Caltrans’ Caldecott Improvement Project has been submitted to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch for a decision. With almost 90 pages of briefing and more than 32,000 pages of administrative documents to read through, that decision could be a while in coming.

The Fourth Bore Coalition (FBC) includes the Rockridge Community Planning Council (RCPC) as well as the FROG Park Committee, East Bay Bicycle Coalition, and several other Oakland/Berkeley community groups. FBC sued Caltrans over its decision, made over a year ago, to add a fourth bore, or tunnel, to the Caldecott
Tunnel connecting Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The suit is not about whether a fourth bore should be built. Rather, the Coalition asked reconsideration of how it would be built, how it should be operated, and what mitigation measures should have been included with the project. In the two hearings, the Coalition was represented by local attorneys Stuart Flashman and Antonio Rossmann. The hearings covered a wide range of issues from noise, lighting, traffic, bicycling and pedestrian safety impacts to whether Caltrans should have looked at having carpool/bus lanes as part of the project.

Judge Roesch listened attentively throughout and asked probing questions of both sides. The Judge seemed particularly skeptical of why Caltrans chose to limit the area it looked at for project impacts and to exclude consideration of impacts on Claremont Middle School and Chabot Elementary School – both located very close to Highway 24 and the traffic coming and going through the tunnel.

Under state law, the judge must issue his decision within 90 days. The case was submitted for decision on November 5.