How Will Departments of Transportation Evolve Over the Next 50 Years?

[thelakelander]

BY RACHEL DOVEY | NEXT CITY | OCTOBER 30, 2014

Drivers fighting with pedestrians and bicyclists over road space has become a familiar battle over the last decade. But about 130 miles north of San Francisco, in the small city of Willits, there's an infrastructure tangle of a different sort playing out.

Planners began drafting the elevated, four-lane Willits Bypass pre-recession, expecting national driving trends to climb and less urban areas like Mendocino County (Willits is at its heart) to grow. Roughly 10 years later their forecasts haven't materialized, but the $300 million bypass will.

Amid the worst drought record-keepers have ever seen, water has become a galvanizing force for bypass opponents. Willits was placed on a short list of districts likely to actually run out of water earlier this year, and the bypass opposition's resistance — lawsuits, direct actions and dozens of arrests — centers on the six-mile project's northern interchange. Now an arid lot sewn with "wick drains," it used to be a federally protected wetland. Seasonal rains pooled and trickled through valley-wide creeks.

Now, in timing that seems downright ominous, Caltrans' contractors are draining it to support a freeway.

Full article: http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/department-of-transportation-change-building-roads-driving-decreases

[strider]

Good article, Thanks!

[Know Growth]

In this region, 50 years from now, since begin in 1973 (give or take), finally,less and less reference to First Coast Outer Beltway construction.