Caltrans Director Cindy McKim, center, is joined by local, county, state and federal officials on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010, for the ribbon cutting ceremony of the Highway 101 widening project from Santa Rosa to Windsor. The ceremony was held at the Standard Structures facility in Windsor, alonside the southbound Shiloh Road onramp. Click photo to enlarge. Road Warrior photo
It’s official: The $120 million project to widen Highway 101 from Santa Rosa to Windsor is complete. Well, sort of.
More than 50 local, county, state, federal and construction officials gathered Tuesday morning for the project’s official ribbon cutting ceremony, held at the Standard Structures plant in Windsor, adjacent to 101.
The speakers, including Caltrans Director Cindy McKim, praised the various government agencies involved in bringing to fruition the widening project, under which the car-pool lanes opened a year ahead of schedule.
Santa Rosa Mayor Susan Gorin gave thanks that highway construction through the city is done at last. She encouraged drivers to car pool, warning that if they don’t, congestion merely will return to 101. She noted it won’t be financially or politically possible to ever widen 101 again.
Despite the ribbon cutting, 101 is not actually complete. Caltrans spokesman Bob Haus said the speed limit likely will remain at 55 mph for a couple of more weeks as subcontractors finish striping the road and installing guardrails. The CHP last month said it wasn’t aggressively ticketing speeders, although at least a couple of days this week a CHP officer was targeting speeders.
With the Santa Rosa-to-Windsor stretch basically done, drivers now await completion of the Wilfred Avenue interchange work in Rohnert Park, due to be finished in 2012, and the Rohnert Park Expressway-to-Pepper Road segment, due to be finished in December 2011. Then there’s the stretch from Pepper Road to Old Redwood Highway, which got delayed by the state budget stalemate. Now, Caltrans officials said construction there could start next spring if the state Transportation Commission approves funding. Further down the road in time will be the Petaluma-to-Novato widening.
