TAMC is adapting to expedite the commute to the Monterey Peninsula.

After the Transportation Agency for Monterey County started construction on a project to widen Imjin Parkway in February, Doug Bilse, a traffic engineer at TAMC, noticed a marked change: More drivers were changing their westbound commutes to Highway 68.

As a result – perhaps due to smartphone apps – commuters started getting off the highway in the Toro Park area and cutting through the neighborhood in order to shave off a few minutes, creating hellish conditions for the residents who live there. Suddenly, a quiet residential area had a line of cars, stop-and-go, blocking driveways every morning.

In July, TAMC launched a pilot project to close off Torero Drive, where there’s an unsignaled southbound intersection onto Highway 68. It has improved the situation to a degree, but Bilse said on Oct. 23 at a TAMC board meeting the project is still being tweaked as data comes in.

Potentially, Bilse says, the merge from two lanes to one – which is causing drivers to get off the highway and drive through neighborhoods – could be moved further east, toward Salinas, so that the slowdown happens before drivers have a chance to exit.

Also on Oct. 23, the TAMC board approved spending up to $500,000 generated by Measure X – a countywide ballot measure approved in 2016 – to install adaptive AI signals at nine intersections along Highway 68 to see how that can improve traffic flow. That will come in advance of potentially spending over $200 million to add roundabouts at those intersections. The installation is estimated to take up to a year.

Bilse, a former aerospace engineer, says that in transportation, it’s unfortunately not about solving problems – they can only be mitigated. It’s ultimately about managing traffic: People are always going to go the way they think is fastest, and traffic flows follow accordingly. The job of traffic engineers is to figure out how to move cars as efficiently and safely as possible.

Thousands of people commute to the Monterey Peninsula from the Salinas Valley and elsewhere for work, but the transportation system isn’t designed to manage the numbers of cars people are using to get there.

While Bilse hopes more people will take the leap to do things like taking a vanpool to work, and for employers to allow a more flexible start time to take pressure off rush hour, he says TAMC is not trying disincentive driving, it’s about finding a balance.