On southbound Highway 101, just north of RPX, the fast lane merges into the slow lane, proving a challenge for some drivers. Click to enlarge. Road Warrior photo
Driving through the Highway 101 construction zone in Rohnert Park was tough already. Now, its even more tricky and potentially more dangerous.
Last Friday night when Caltrans shifted southbound Highway 101 traffic in Rohnert Park onto the new Wilfred Avenue-Commerce Boulevard overpass, it also realigned the southbound lanes before the Rohnert Park Expressway.
Now, both southbound lanes make a severe jog to the right (tricky maneuver No. 1) about halfway between Wilfred Avenue and RPX, and just past that jog the fast lane merges into the slow lane (tricky maneuver No. 2), which becomes the new fast lane. As the fast lane merges, a new slow lane emerges out of the southbound Wilfred Avenue onramp. And in roughly the same area is the RPX offramp, creating tricky maneuver No. 3 for drivers in either the original fast and slow lanes who now have to cut across the new slow lane to get to the RPX exit.
It all seems so convoluted and confusing for drivers, who need to be even more alert to competing traffic.
Watching southbound traffic Thursday from the RPX overpass, one driver in the fast lane didn’t find room to merge into the slow lane and kept going straight (and out of view under the overpass) as if the fast lane continued.
Asked about the realignment, CHP Lt. Jeff Rhea himself described it as “convoluted” and said that the CHP has “addressed” the matter with Caltrans and that Caltrans, after re-evaluating the realignment, agreed to modify it.
He said Caltrans plans to move the jog in the southbound lanes farther north, closer to Wilfred Avenue, to give drivers more time and room to deal with the lane mergers and RPX offramp.
Caltrans spokesman Robert Haus said the agency was working on making the change but he didn’t know how soon it would occur.
Rhea did note that the realignment is just temporary as Caltrans works to widen 101 to six lanes in Rohnert Park. He said he wasn’t aware of any accidents in the realigned stretch so far.
