Caltrans is warning that the state budget stalemate may delay dozens of highway projects around the state, including ones in Lake and Mendocino counties.

No Sonoma County project was on a list of affected road work.

In Lake County, a plan to improve Highway 53 from Clearlake to Highway 20 –repaving, wider shoulders, longer turn lanes and a traffic light at Olympic Drive — has been put on hold because of the budget crisis, Caltrans spokesman Phil Frisbie Jr. said. As a result, he said, the $14 million project likely could be delayed a year — now starting in 2012 and finishing in 2013.

In Mendocino County, a $1.6 million project to shore up a damaged retaining wall on Highway 1 at Union Landing also is on hold, he said. Depending on how soon the Sacramento stalemate ends, Frisbie said some aspects of the project could be started this year. Caltrans engineers fear another fierce winter could cause the retaining wall to fail, which would shut Highway 1, he said.

He said Caltrans has suspended new projects so that their funds can be used to keep road work already under way going.