Update from Kate - Seasonal Road Projects are Wrapping Up In Southern Marin

Our Department of Public Works Roads Division works year-round. During the winter, the crews often work overtime to repair winter storm damage. The summer, on the other hand, is the best time of year for ongoing road maintenance, repairs and upgrades, part of their annual work program. While they have been working all over the County, I want to take this opportunity to highlight their work in Southern Marin:

A heavily worn, half-mile stretch of Marin City’s Donahue Street, a major public transportation artery that sees about 240 bus trips per day, got a significant makeover. The work included full repaving, curb and gutter enhancements, utility cover adjustments, and traffic signal upgrades. The $1.165 million project is 90 percent federally funded by a One Bay Area grant, with the remaining 10 percent being covered by the County’s Road and Bridge Rehabilitation fund. This project repaved the intersection of the 101 off-ramp, under the overpass and towards Gate 6. This was a very well-done improvement of an extended intersection that links Marin City and Sausalito, which serves thousands every day.

But we're not quite done yet: at the other end of Donahue, at the top of the hill, there has been significant degradation of the roadway where the buses turn around at the entrance to the GGNRA trail head. Years of heavy use and bad winter weather created unsafe conditions that were temporarily fixed. The reconstruction project is out to bid now, and the work is expected to be completed before the rains come.

Southern Marin is undergoing several paving projects that are expected to wrap up by early November. The Paradise Cay neighborhood streets of St. Thomas Way, Saba Lane, St. Lucia Place and Trinidad Drive were all showing various signs of deterioration. St. Thomas Way and St. Lucia Place are receiving end-to-end repaving, while the other two streets are having sections repaved. Additional accessibility ramps and minor drainage improvements are also being installed. Funding for the $1.125 million project came from the County’s Road and Bridge Rehabilitation fund.

With the wet winter season around the corner, much of the scheduled seasonal paving projects have been completed. DPW is already planning for next summer’s paving projects with the ultimate goal of improving road quality across all County-maintained roads, a priority supported by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. However, with the estimated $190 million cost of maintaining county roads over the next 10 years, funding is always a question and the planning process is a methodical one.

The Board annually commits $8.5 million for road improvements and, whenever possible, provides an extra boost, such as the $2 million infusion during the 2016-2017 fiscal year. A timely increase in funding will be coming soon from the statewide Road Repair and Accountability Act, also referred to as California Senate Bill 1. Enacted by California Governor Brown on April 28, 2017, the bill is expected to add an average of $4.1 million per year for improvements to County-maintained roads in Marin.