Highway 101 Widening
John Rinck
of most of the 101 widening through Morgan Hill/South San Jose.
This is, perhaps, the most significant road construction project in the
bay area since 101 was linked through the area back in the mid-80's.
A few questions I'd like to hear opinions on:
1. Do you think people will be more or less likely to want to move to
the ultra-South Bay area (Morgan Hill/Gilroy/Hollister) due to the
widening of the freeway?
2. What kind of "further ahead effect" do you envision for the morning
commute once the road widening is completed? In other words, without
the bottleneck, will traffic just jam up through San Jose sooner than it
does now? What about southbound in the evening? Will the 152 exit in
Gilroy become the next Tully Road exit? What about even further south
where 101 slims down to two lanes?
3. Will there ever be a time when three lanes (I'm disregarding the
temporary carpool lane) from South San Jose to Gilroy will not be
enough?
4. If you commute this way, will you change your commuting time once
the widening is complete?
Here are my opinions:
1. I believe that those that wish to live in the Morgan
Hill/Gilroy/Hollister area already do. However, there might be those
out there who loathe the dreaded "merge" and purposely avoid living down
there because of it. But I don't think we'll see an immediate influx of
people rushing to move down there.
2. Traffic may bottle up a bit sooner through San Jose than it does
now. For 101 things get bad around Story Road. For 85 is around
Almaden. You'll probably see 101 back up to Tully as a regular thing,
but for 85, with those dreaded metering lights, there should be no
discernable difference. If anything, the 101 to 85 ramp will be more
congested than it is now. But folks driving from the Santa Teresa area
north couldn't care less about that.
3. Many of the south bay communities are beginning to become
anti-growth, so three lanes through the area should do just fine for,
perhaps, the next twenty years.
4. I will change my pattern, but mostly for my evening commute down 85
to 101. In the morning I'll still make sure I leave late enough to
avoid the 85/101 metering light. As for the evening, however, and
especially on Friday, I might leave earlier since there should be no
merge nightmares to deal with anymore.
Silas Warner
>
> I'm surprised there aren't any posts concerning the imminent completion
> of most of the 101 widening through Morgan Hill/South San Jose.
>
> This is, perhaps, the most significant road construction project in the
> bay area since 101 was linked through the area back in the mid-80's.
>
> A few questions I'd like to hear opinions on:
>
> 1. Do you think people will be more or less likely to want to move to
> the ultra-South Bay area (Morgan Hill/Gilroy/Hollister) due to the
> widening of the freeway?
>
Yes. More important, developers will be far more likely to cover San
Benito and Monterey Counties with moderate-priced (ultra-cheap for the
South Bay) stucco.
> 2. What kind of "further ahead effect" do you envision for the morning
> commute once the road widening is completed? In other words, without
> the bottleneck, will traffic just jam up through San Jose sooner than it
> does now? What about southbound in the evening? Will the 152 exit in
> Gilroy become the next Tully Road exit? What about even further south
> where 101 slims down to two lanes?
The bottlenect just behind 83 sill move to GIlroy.
>
> 3. Will there ever be a time when three lanes (I'm disregarding the
> temporary carpool lane) from South San Jose to Gilroy will not be
> enough?
>
About four months. After that 101 will be just as congested as ever.
> 4. If you commute this way, will you change your commuting time once
> the widening is complete?
>
I don't, thank God.
Silas Warner
David desJardins
> Yes. More important, developers will be far more likely to cover San
> Benito and Monterey Counties with moderate-priced (ultra-cheap for the
> South Bay) stucco.
> About four months. After that 101 will be just as congested as ever.
If in four months it's just as congested as it is now, why would more
lanes, but exactly the same amount of congestion, affect what builders
and developers do, at all? I would think they would only build/develop
more if there's less congestion and thus those locations are more
attractive for commuters. So it seems your answers lack consistency.
David desJardins
Ian Kluft
>I'm surprised there aren't any posts concerning the imminent completion
>of most of the 101 widening through Morgan Hill/South San Jose.
FYI, more info on the project is here...
http://www.vta.org/highways/us101.htm
>This is, perhaps, the most significant road construction project in the
>bay area since 101 was linked through the area back in the mid-80's.
If you commute that way, I wouldn't be surprised that you'd think so.
But I'd guess people who use I-680 might say the same thing about the
widening just completed there. And I-880 is being widened and improved
in patches from Alameda County to San Jose, with the 4-lane "hourglass"
segment (101 to Montague) due for completion of its widening later this
year. The 880/237 interchange work completed last September was a huge
improvement. And the upgrade of the northern segment of Hwy 87 from
expressway to freeway will be complete at the end of this year, providing
another link between downtown, the airport and the "Golden Triangle"
(101/237/880 area) employers.
Trying to look at this objectively, all the entrances to Silicon Valley
have been chokepoints due to the mountain ranges enclosing the area.
Every improvement to those bottlenecks will be cheered by a lot of people
using those routes. They're all significant. But since they serve
different sets of commuters, it isn't really useful to try to say which
is the most significant.
2003 has for some time been expected to be the big year that many of these
projects would open a lot of bottlenecks. They're "most significant" as
a group of the 1996 Measure A projects finally reaching completion.
>A few questions I'd like to hear opinions on:
>
>1. Do you think people will be more or less likely to want to move to
>the ultra-South Bay area (Morgan Hill/Gilroy/Hollister) due to the
>widening of the freeway?
We usually refer to Morgan Hill to Gilroy as the Coyote Valley,
South County or South Valley.
I don't expectthe 101 widening to make a big difference there until the
economy picks up. There is residential vacancy all over Silicon Valley
right now. So the tendency toward long commutes shouldn't return until
the valley fills up again.
>2. What kind of "further ahead effect" do you envision for the morning
>commute once the road widening is completed? In other words, without
>the bottleneck, will traffic just jam up through San Jose sooner than it
>does now? What about southbound in the evening? Will the 152 exit in
>Gilroy become the next Tully Road exit? What about even further south
>where 101 slims down to two lanes?
Every improvement to the roadways has a combined effect of improving
flow/efficiency in that area, and putting more pressure on other points
further down the line. But it does increase the total carrying capacity
of the roads in the area.
One can guess that when the economy turns around, the transit systems'
vitality should follow, probably a little behind the curve as government
services usually do. So that also adds to the total capacity of the
transportation options available. When employment returns to 1999 levels
somewhere in the next economic upturn, the valley will be much better
able to handle it.
>3. Will there ever be a time when three lanes (I'm disregarding the
>temporary carpool lane) from South San Jose to Gilroy will not be
>enough?
Undoubtedly there will. But at the bottom of an economic downturn it's
hard to say when that will be, except "when things get better". It won't
happen until residential vacancy goes down and the demand allows rents
to start increasing significantly again. In the last two economic
cycles that has driven people to live out of the area.
>4. If you commute this way, will you change your commuting time once
>the widening is complete? [...]
Sorry, I don't commute that way. I live in the Berryessa district of
San Jose and work in Milpitas. Between home and work, I can drive or
ride my bicycle. I don't bike much this time of year - I tried that for
a while and decided it isn't worth it. When I drive, I often don't take
the same route even within the same day, instead optimizing the route each
way for more right turns. And when the Tasman East light rail extension
opens, I'll use that too, probably often in conjunction with a bicycle.
I don't have to get on a freeway if I don't want to, and I-880 is next to
useless until the hourglass-section widening is completed.
Completion of the I-880 widening later this year and the Tasman East
light rail extension in 2004 will each likely change my commute patterns
as they expand my range of choices.
bikerider7
> John Rinck <jri...@xilinx.com> writes:
>
> >This is, perhaps, the most significant road construction project in the
> >bay area since 101 was linked through the area back in the mid-80's.
>
> If you commute that way, I wouldn't be surprised that you'd think so.
>
> But I'd guess people who use I-680 might say the same thing about the
> widening just completed there. And I-880 is being widened and improved
> in patches from Alameda County to San Jose, with the 4-lane "hourglass"
> segment (101 to Montague) due for completion of its widening later this
> year. The 880/237 interchange work completed last September was a huge
> improvement. And the upgrade of the northern segment of Hwy 87 from
> expressway to freeway will be complete at the end of this year, providing
> another link between downtown, the airport and the "Golden Triangle"
> (101/237/880 area) employers.
>
Indeed, with so much money being spent on monster interchanges,
it is hard to say which project is "most significant". A few years ago,
the all-time award might have gone to the 680/24 interchange
which took a decade to build. But that seems passe now that the
VTA plans on widening 101 to a whopping 17 lanes to make room
for the new 101/85 interchange. Not to be outdone, Solano county
wants to build a new 680/80 interchange -- at a cost of an
astounding $1 billion.
John Rinck
congested as the old ones. While the south-south bay is a great place to
live, like I said, most of the people who want to live here probably already
do. As for Hollister, once a breeding ground for new homes and developers,
it has stretched beyond capacity and is state-mandated to cease new building
until their sewage system can catch up. With Gilroy and Morgan Hill, I
don't think either one wants to become the next San Jose (or repeat
Hollister's mistakes), so building more homes might be a tough thing to
accomplish for developers.
And keep in mind that the reason that 101 is such a traffic nightmare has
nothing to do with too many cars. The infamous bottleneck was a stupid
design from the day it opened. The drive through Gilroy and Morgan Hill is
a breeze until you get to the merge. Even at the height of the economic
boom the three lane stretch from Gilroy to Morgan Hill was more than
adequate. All this widening is doing is fixing a blunder that never should
have been made.
Steven J. Dorst
wrote:
I wouldn't say that the VTA is PLANNING the new 85/101 interchange,
they are actually doing it. My company is a minor vendor for one of
the sub-contractors and we have orders in the pipeline for the
interchange project.
Steven J Dorst <sjd...@yahoo.nospam.com> aka N6VMK
Calling from somewhere North of Alcatraz
Remove nospam and one of the dots to reply!!
Ian Kluft
>>it is hard to say which project is "most significant". A few years ago,
>>the all-time award might have gone to the 680/24 interchange
>>which took a decade to build. But that seems passe now that the
>>VTA plans on widening 101 to a whopping 17 lanes to make room
Steven J. Dorst <sjd...@yahoo.com> writes:
>I wouldn't say that the VTA is PLANNING the new 85/101 interchange,
>they are actually doing it. My company is a minor vendor for one of
>the sub-contractors and we have orders in the pipeline for the
>interchange project.
I should point out to everyone that there are two 101/85 interchanges.
It sounds like this it referring to the one in Mountain View. But Hwy 85
begins and ends at US101. Their other junction is in South San Jose.
In the South Bay, people often disambiguate them by referring to them as
"101/85 north" (Mtn View) and "101/85 south" (South SJ), or at least
refer to the city where the interchange is.
Construction on 101/85 south is reportedly well under way, due for
completion in mid-2004. Construction on 101/85 north just got started
and is scheduled to go until mid-2005.
references:
http://www.vta.org/highways/rte85101n.htm
http://www.vta.org/highways/rte101s.htm
Orval Fairbairn
John Rinck <jri...@xilinx.com> wrote:
> I think it will take quite a bit of time for the new lanes to become as
> congested as the old ones. While the south-south bay is a great place to
> live, like I said, most of the people who want to live here probably already
> do. As for Hollister, once a breeding ground for new homes and developers,
> it has stretched beyond capacity and is state-mandated to cease new building
> until their sewage system can catch up. With Gilroy and Morgan Hill, I
> don't think either one wants to become the next San Jose (or repeat
> Hollister's mistakes), so building more homes might be a tough thing to
> accomplish for developers.
>
> And keep in mind that the reason that 101 is such a traffic nightmare has
> nothing to do with too many cars. The infamous bottleneck was a stupid
> design from the day it opened. The drive through Gilroy and Morgan Hill is
> a breeze until you get to the merge. Even at the height of the economic
> boom the three lane stretch from Gilroy to Morgan Hill was more than
> adequate. All this widening is doing is fixing a blunder that never should
> have been made.
You can thank the Sierra Club and Rod Diridon for that one. Sierra Club
fought the SJ/Gilroy 101 Freeway for years, while the death toll on
Monterey Highway climbed. They finally compromised on a 4-lane freeway,
rather than the needed 6-8 lane one.
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