In late August, Transform joined with 24 environmental, transportation, and other advocacy organizations to send a letter to California Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire opposing a plan to amend a 2023 law. The law provided special streamlining privileges under California’s endangered species laws to certain clean energy and water infrastructure projects. This year’s amendment would have extended those special streamlining privileges to a project to widen State Route 37 between Vallejo and State Route 121 in Sonoma County, which will have significant impacts on a sensitive salt marsh habitat. 

SR 37 does often experience traffic congestion, but decades of research and lived experience have proven that adding lanes does not solve congestion. And, at its core, the proposal to widen the highway is the wrong solution to a very complicated but completely different problem.

How to drown $500 million

The project to add lanes to SR 37 is described as “interim.” That’s because the $500 million the state proposes spending to add capacity to this highway segment, which is right at sea level and is regularly inundated during king tides, will likely be underwater due to climate change within 15 years. The long-term proposal is to raise the roadbed to accommodate future sea level rise, a much more expensive and involved undertaking.

The irony of building additional lanes that will increase driving, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions, on a roadway that is likely to be submerged by climate change appears to be lost on planners.

Real problems—real solutions

The reason for the congestion on SR 37 is rooted in economics as much as transportation policy. Sonoma County has a dearth of affordable housing, so many of the people who work in its vineyards and tourist industry live in more affordable communities in Solano County. Those workers must drive to their jobs in Sonoma County towns and cities because of a lack of public transportation options.

Widening the highway is an acceptance of an unacceptable status quo, where working-class people are forced into long, expensive commutes.

The solution is two-fold. Sonoma County must build more housing, particularly more affordable housing, so employees have the opportunity to live closer to their places of work. This is a long-term project that won’t be easy, but it’s essential.

The second solution is to provide more frequent and reliable transit options between Solano and Sonoma cities. This could be accomplished fairly quickly. In our letter, we recommend tolling on the existing lanes of SR 37. The revenue this generates could support expanded public transportation. The tolling scheme could be designed to minimize the cost to low-income households and would cost substantially less than $500 million to implement. 

Over the long term, passenger rail is planned for this corridor to connect to the Capitol Corridor service between Sacramento and the Bay Area, which will provide another alternative to driving in the future.

Facing the realities of climate change

Highway expansion should no longer be a default solution to congestion. In congested corridors like Highway 37, widening will only serve to increase driving and ultimately worsen congestion. Choosing to invest in alternative solutions will not be easy; California has entrenched administrative structures and industries built around expanding highways, so change must include just transitions for workers and businesses. 

But, despite the challenge, we must change the way we think about transportation planning. Our freeway mentality has driven us to the brink of climate catastrophe. A future focused on infill housing development, housing affordability, and a broad array of low- and no-carbon transportation options is the only way to move toward a more stable and liveable planet.

Read the full letter.