The process to alleviate traffic on Highway 156 has been moving at about the pace of the traffic on a weekend afternoon. It’s been 10 years since the Highway 156 Corridor Community Advisory Group first met in the Castroville Library to hear ideas from Caltrans and Transportation Agency for Monterey County officials about how to solve one of the most vexing traffic chokepoints in the region. The highway serves as a key artery for moving more than 32,000 vehicles a day and tons of fresh produce in and out of Monterey County.
The advisory group met until 2014 as officials hammered out plans for a four-lane highway to be constructed next to the existing two-lane road.
Currently, the project is estimated to cost $365 million – up from $268 million in 2013 – due to inflation, says Todd Muck, deputy executive director of TAMC. The agency so far has $70 million secured or pledged to build what it’s calling the Monterey Expressway.
“That leaves us with a big funding gap, which is why we’re looking at tolling,” Muck says. Toll roads are not unheard of in the state; there are four in Orange County. A proposed toll amount is yet to be determined, but Muck says locals along Highway 156 could pay less or even be exempt.
Last fall, TAMC’s board authorized a traffic study, and since then, the agency has collected and analyzed a massive amount of data.
Besides population and employment details from four affected counties (Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Santa Clara), the information collected includes data – completely anonymous, Muck assures – from the thousands of bluetooth devices that motorists carry with them. Monitors placed along the highway note when a specific device enters and exits, which gives analysts and idea of how long trips take.
In addition, data purchased from cell phone companies show where phones ping along the way, and even follow where phones are at night and where they go each day.
“If it goes to the same place five days a week it’s probably a work destination,” Muck says. That kind of data becomes useful in forecasting traffic patterns.
Since Monterey is a major tourist destination from the San Jose area, TAMC is using attendance figures from the Monterey Bay Aquarium as a proxy, Muck says.
Muck is set to present on these latest information-gathering efforts – though not the actual findings, which won’t be public and ready for the board until October – at the TAMC board meeting at 9am on Wednesday, Aug. 23. They may vote on setting a toll as early as their Oct. 25 meeting.