A Press Democrat Blog

Road Warrior

Trying to make sense out of getting around

A happy ending at Airport Blvd.

Thursday, at 5:42 by

Whose responsibility is it to maintain the landscaping around highway parcels? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Steve Mosher wrote in to ask about a lot near the Airport Boulevard freeway exchange that was so full of weeds he could barely walk past them on the sidewalk. He said last year mowing crews never visited the parcel, which runs from the Chevron Station to the U.S. 101 southbound on ramp. “This year nothing except for the trees they cut down nearby,”… Read More »

Mailbag: Parking, potholes and posted speed limits

Thursday, at 6:22 by

More about how to avoid traffic tickets You wrote earlier that vehicles must actually leave the block after two hours to avoid tickets in two-hour free parking zones. I would be curious to see a followup on how parking people enforce that – it would seem to require either a prodigious memory on the part of parking officers or careful record keeping in the field to know which cars have moved at least a block and have not returned to… Read More »

Big changes at the Road Warrior

Sunday, at 7:00 by

We’re changing drivers at the Road Warrior blog. After nearly three years of writing the column — and 29 years at The Press Democrat — I’m retiring on Monday and Linda Castrone, editor of The Press Democrat’s Towns section, will take over Tuesday. She’ll do an excellent job. The column has grown tremendously since it debuted April 22, 2010, with more than 1,000 columns, a total of 3 million page views and more than 7,400 published comments from readers. I… Read More »

Mailbag: Crosswalk warning, or a target?

Sunday, at 8:15 by

Here’s a question from a reader: I’ve noticed these signs popping up all over the place in the middle of crosswalks. They are narrow tall signs mounted to the street that say yield to pedestrians. One spot I have noticed them is at the crosswalk at Old Redwood Hwy at Lark Center Drive in front of the Larkfield Shopping Center. These signs are usually out of the way but at this crosswalk they are effectively in the middle of the… Read More »

The worst road in Sonoma County is …

Monday, at 2:50 by

It’s only a mile long, but it’s narrow, cracked, sections of its sides are dropping away and it’s riddled with pothole patches with more potholes unfilled. It’s Keiser Avenue in Rohnert Park, and it’s the worst road in Sonoma County, according to readers who voted in the Road Warrior’s Third Annual Worst Road Contest. A total of 82 roads were singled out by readers as their worst, and although Keiser “won” this year, a drive around the county, particularly in… Read More »

Mailbag: Alerting DMV to problem elderly drivers; carpool lanes; Barnes Road

Friday, at 6:07 by

Here’s a question from a reader: Is there a place to anonymously alert someone about an elderly driver who should no longer be driving? The answer comes from DMV spokeswoman Jessica Gonzalez, who pointed us to the DMV website where there’s a form you can fill out and send in anonymously. CLICK HERE to get the form. She said once the DMV receives the form, a worker will call the elderly driver and, depending on information derived during the conversation,… Read More »

Easy winter allowing tens of thousands of potholes to be fixed

Wednesday, at 7:56 by

Potholes are disappearing by the tens of thousands around Sonoma County, and we owe it to the easy winter. That statement may sound strange, but the little rain so far this winter has allowed county roads crews to catch up on pothole repairs. In fact, in the last six months of 2011, the county patched 48,530 potholes, 54 percent more than the 31,535 potholes that were filled in the last half of 2010. From July 2010 through June 2011, crews… Read More »

How good, bad, ugly is your road? See maps to find out

Monday, at 8:57 by

The Sonoma County roads department has developed color-coded maps showing the conditions — from excellent to failing — of all of the roads it is responsible for. If you live on a county-maintained road, you can find it below in one of these maps. Conditions of roads maintained by Caltrans and cities are not defined. Click on a map to enlarge it. The maps were part of a presentation Tuesday to the county Board of Supervisors seeking to get the… Read More »

When are they fixing my road?

Thursday, at 12:13 by

It’s a common gripe among readers’ emails to the Road Warrior: My road is full of potholes; when is the county going to pave it? For example: –Point Cabrillo Drive, one continuous pothole, has not been paved in 40 years, yet carries traffic to a central tourist attraction — the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse. It runs from Russian Gulch State Park down to Caspar Beach and then up to Highway 1. The road looks worse than many in a Third World… Read More »

Adobe Road plan

Thursday, at 12:27 by

For drivers caught up in today’s closure of Highway 101 in Cotati, there’s some relief coming. By 4 p.m. Thursday, the Sonoma County roads department expects to have reopened Adobe Road, which has been closed intermittently for road work. Construction crews have been working on repaving Adobe Road between Penngrove and Corona Road near Petaluma for a week or so, and the road was supposed to be closed intermittently until 6 p.m. Thursday. But Tom O’Kane, deputy director of the… Read More »