Fix Our Roads Coalition Holds Press Conference in Dublin Highlighting Projects Underway from New SB 1 Funding

The news conference featured a major Bay Area freeway project Caltrans accelerated due to SB 1 funding: a $40.4 million traffic management systems project to improve traffic flow and ease congestion on Interstate 680 which is a major freeway bottleneck. The project includes installing ramp meters, ramp carpool bypass lanes and traffic operations systems along Interstate 680 from Scott Creek Road to Alcosta Boulevard near the cities of Fremont, Pleasanton and Dublin.
 
Speakers and participants included:

• Scott Haggerty, supervisor, Alameda County
• Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose); chair, Senate Transportation and Housing Committee
• Cindy Silva, council member, Walnut Creek
• Malcolm Dougherty, director, California Department of Transportation
• Elsa Ortiz, board president, AC Transit
• John Grubb, chief operating officer, Bay Area Council
• Mark Kyle, director of Government Affairs and Public Relations, Operating Engineers Local 3 
• Lily Mei, mayor, Fremont 
• Newell Arnerich, vice mayor, Danville
• Kriss Worthington, council member, Berkeley
• Marvin Peixoto, council member, Hayward
• Sara Lamnin, council member, Hayward
• Rebecca Saltzman, board president, BART
• Roger Dickinson, executive director, Transportation CA
• Kristin Connelly, president & CEO, East Bay Leadership Council
• Adrienne Ursino, Government Affairs & Communications director, East Bay Economic Development Alliance 

The highlighted East Bay project is just one of the many accelerated fix-it-first projects underway throughout California to improve roadways this year, before SB 1 even takes effect. Caltrans broke ground on 13 pavement projects this summer and is expediting the design of an additional 50 projects that will break ground over the next year. By late October, Caltrans and the California Transportation Commission had advanced more than $5 billion in “fix-it-first” projects for earlier completion because of SB 1 funding.
 
More than $54 billion dollars will be invested in California’s transportation system during the next 10 years with approximately half of these funds going to local cities and counties for improvements to local transportation infrastructure.
 
SB 1, passed in April by the state Legislature, provides approximately $5 billion annually in new funding to make road safety improvements, fill potholes, and repair local streets, freeways, bridges and overpasses. Every single city and county in California will receive funding from SB 1. Every single driver in California will benefit from better commutes and driving on safer, smoother roads.