What the heck!
Who is the MTC? And why are they involved in our freeways in Danville?
(Are they the BUS company?)

And they already have PLANS underway for our freeways......and this is the FIRST that I, as a Danville citizen, even hear about it! After it is already in an "update" stage!

And the "Bay Area Infrastructure Financing Authority, a joint effort between the MTC and the Bay Area Toll Authority, are scheduled to present an UPDATE about the project."

Wake up people! Please object to this infiltration of more BIG GOVERNMENT into our lives and LACK OF REPRESENTATION. Tell me, HOW DO STOP THIS!

Look at this! THREE governmental entities (with PAID Government employees who were never elected by us) working hard to CHANGE our locale for the worse and in tune with someone's grand agenda.

Carpool lanes are a FARCE to begin with. There is no good science that they "work" to any significant degree. Never was. It is all junk science.
To construct extra lanes, they take YEARS of extra traffic jams for us locally with local accidents and deaths and then they give away those lanes to a special interest class of commuters that supposedly get out of their individual cars to ride in more densely packed carpool cars. What a bunch of BS has been going on since the 1970s!

Then they changed from carpool lanes to HOV lanes. GIVING away access to the lanes to SUBSIDIZE the sales of certain car vehicles via "environmental" justifications. All of this GIVE AWAY and SUBSIDIZATION should never have happened. If a certain vehicle is a "good thing", then it should sell on its own merits, not with the addition of special "discriminatory" privileges bestowed upon it by political interest groups.

Then they change freeway lanes to TOLL ROADS, when CA should be building more lanes for everyone on regular tax dollars.

There is nothing of good or benefit to local citizens in this change to TOLL LANES.
Just more money out of the pocket of the rich who want to get in a fast lane (that won't actually be that fast at all).
Just more congestion and traffic-sitting for the rest of us. And more congestion in the right-hand lanes that will slow the access and exit of the freeway at the local Danville exits (and in SR as well).

And we don't have people on the Danville Council who will stop any of this, do we!?!

This will actually do nothing to improve our congested traffic situation on our freeway lanes and city streets around I-680. It is becoming extremely miserable to drive anywhere from SR to WC. Carpool lanes have NOT helped it. Toll lanes won't help it. Don't be fooled (again)!

The problem is we have no actual say and no actual way to stop it!

One thing that Danville could really use is a new lane of Access/Exit Road (is that the right term?) on North I-680 that runs from Sycamore to past El Cerro and separated from the freeway.
Everyone that wants to exit on Diablo Road or El Cerro gets into that right-hand lane that continues up past the El Cerro bridge.
Everyone who want to access 680 at Sycamore or Diablo doesn't really enter the freeway until past the El Cerro bridge (which would have to be widened to accommodate the new lane).
This would still allow Danville citizens to use the freeway to travel from Sycamore to Diablo or El Cerro to do our "common local jumps" (to get to the other side of town, to SRVHS, etc.).

Also the intersection at Sycamore, where the new exit lane from Crow Canyon in San Ramon dumps into Sycamore, needs to allow only right and left turns and to disallow any "through" traffic.

Now that, not Toll Lanes, would be advantageous to Danville.
Why don't we have Council Members (and Planning staff) that can think of and plan for these things!?!

Coming South on 680, the traffic doesn't seem to be bad enough to need this special exit lane.

And the Toll Lanes will reduce traffic how?
Leave them as HOV Lanes.

Toll/HOV lanes, are utterly useless!
in-order to get to them you have to cross 3 lanes, slowing traffic down while doing so. How is that a benefit to anyone?

I commute 680 every day to W.C. for the last 12 years, I've seen more accidents and near misses due to tards trying desperately to get to the carpool lane.

You want to free up traffic? Improve Commuter Safety? Remove the Carpool lane! open all 4 lanes to everyone and not just the 2% of the commuters..

Great! In what is already one of the worst traffic areas on 680 due to local traffic, they are taking away a local lane and giving it to through traffic without any access points for us. How do we stop this?

So it seems that the "free" freeways that were paid for by our gas taxes, etc., will now have the "free" HOV lane COST US MONEY? And even at rush hour? So now we will have to PAY to drive to Walnut Creek, even if we have 2+ in the vehicle? I already rarely shop in Walnut Creek because parking is $2 an hour, so you REALLY don't want us to go there? The non-HOV lanes are already bad enough, and you want all of us who refuse to pay more to be added to the non HOV-lanes?

OK, time for the obligatory reality check.

FD: Who the heck do you think pays for and builds "our freeways in Danville?" Here's you first clue (and you could use some): "I680" stands for "Interstate" 680. As in: it's a federal program. And funding comes from all over the country, not just Danville. Because guess what? If ever podunk town got to dictate the rules for "their" section of freeway to serve solely their own local interests the "Interstate Highway System" wouldn't work really well, would it? Freeways are kind of the archetype of "something that has to be managed at least regionally." And the MTC is the regional agency charged with doing that.

For all of you, do you really think they haven't studied this to a fare-thee-well? Do any of you have any idea how much it costs to repair and maintain a freeway or know how much tax revenue per mile traveled has dropped in real dollars in recent years, due to lack of COLA increases of the gas tax and the lower number of gallons burned per mile by modern fuel-efficient cars? As a result prior funding streams are now inadequate. And the freeway has been built out to the physical limits of the right of way. So there aren't any "easy" solutions anymore.

It's not a conspiracy. This isn't "Agenda 21." It's just a pragmatic response to a practical and predictable problem: too many cars and too little real estate.

This stuff has been in the works for a long time, and anyone with eyes to see what the situation is and enough general knowledge of the real world to understand the limits of financial and practical responses to it isn't surprised.

As usual, the heat of the outrage is inversely proportionate to the degree of understanding of the problem.

.....and let's not forget yet one more agency that has their hands in all of our pockets - that's the CCTA. The Contra Costa Transportation Authority. They want to build HOV on/off ramps at Norris Canyon (or create a new on/offramp at Executive Parkway). Wake up everyone. This is a $100,000,000 project that is in the Environmental Review Phase. The report is due to come out later this year. MTC CCTA; One Bay Area and ABAG (and God knows whatever myriad of public agencies) have not even figured out how the Toll Express Lanes will line up with these proposed HOV Ramps at Norris or Exec Pkwy. Tell all San Ramon Council Members to stop the Ramps! San Ramon, as a City can stop the ramps, but nobody will admit to this. If you thought the HOV Ramps were dead, you thought wrong! Get vocal, get active and demand answers and accountability from your San Ramon Council. And remember, there's an election for the council in the Fall of 2016. Anyone who wants to get re-elected, better wake up! Mayor Clarkson - up for re-election in 2016. Councilmembers O'Loane and Perkins - both up for re-election in 2016. If you don't want these HOV ramps in San Ramon - LET THEM KNOW NOW! If they don't hear anything, they assume the public is OK with it.

Thank you Peter for your reality check. Much needed. I wish the trolls would spend this much time doing something, interacting "directly" with our politicians/town boards (message boards don't count), and being more productive.

Although I don't like the idea of toll roads, I'm not sure of the alternative. The state of infrastructure in this country is headed to an awful place. You can create a neverending list of reasons why, but I think most have been already talked about here. The Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and the lack of increase in the federal gas tax to keep up with COLA has really put our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure in dire straights. These things are not indestructable and need constant sources of revenue to maintain. Throw in population growth, urban sprawl, etc...there is only so much $$ here to spread out. Those that say we are taxed enough already and this should cover it...do some real homework. COLA trickles down to everything in infrastructure (labor to build, cost of every ingredient in things like road paint, bolts, asphalt, metal, not to mention the price of hauling said materials). It is staggering. The easy solution is to raise the gas tax to replenish the HTF. This is a highly unpopular topic and one being debated in Washington daily. Increase in gas tax will in turn raise the cost of doing business and the cost of products/good. The last increase in the federal gas tax, the primary funding source for HTF, was in 1993. This is a vital issue...I cannot stress this enough.

I'm not taking sides on the issue because I don't know the right solution. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents/gallon. I think CA state gas tax is over 65 cents/gallon We are taxed all over the place. I don't agree with taxes on items like soda, or "health" taxes on restaurant tabs because we can't parent our children or make healty living choices (accountability)...but I am OK with paying road/gas/tolls for keeping infrastructure safe...and for items I use every day. I would probably side with raising the federal gas tax as I depend on the interstate system's road/bridges every single day.

I am asking the "not in my backyard" fanatics to calm down, do some research, and not immediately assume that these initiatives are targeted to fill the pockets of special interests. This is a national problem, not just our stretch of road on 680.

I’d rather pay to drive in an express lane than sit in traffic.

Thanks to the liberal agenda, California has the highest gas prices in the nation: $3.44. We pay more than Hawaii: $3.14. The U.S. average is $2.48. In cheap states like South Carolina and Wyoming it’s $2.15. Web Link

California’s road quality is ranked near the bottom. We spend 2 to 3 times as much to maintain our roads than other states. We divert 1/3 of gas tax revenue to various non-road expenditures. Endless environmental lawsuits are one of the reasons smart infrastructure projects like the Caldecott tunnel are delayed for years, adding to the cost.

Liberals passed AB 32 which started this year and will impose billions of dollars in new stealth taxes on gasoline and other fuels. Instead of spending the tax revenue on improving roads, liberals will spend it on the bullet train and other nonsense.

I am not a fan of HOV/carpool lanes because they are not monitored/regulated/patrolled with any regularity or obvious enthusiasm, so their value is essentially zero.
The ONLY advantage I see to a toll lane is that it will no longer be a lane legally restricted to a privileged few because of # passengers/vehicle type. Yes, some will complain that the wealthy will now be the owners of the lane... if ya really want to complain, they could be making the whole road a toll road.

If funding is really the issue, then make it such that ALL users pay something every time. Probably as simple as 1 cent for every vehicle each time they access the freeway would put CalTrans so flush they could actually accept the 2nd lowest bid for jobs and we might all be better off.

Thank you Jim from San Ramon for mentioning the HOV ramps that are under study for either Norris Canyon Rd. or Executive Parkway in the middle of I680 in San Ramon. These HOV ramps, if built, would be a disaster for San Ramon residents living on the West side of 680 from the standpoints of increased freeway noise, visual blight, and increased local traffic. The present HOV lanes on 680 frequently are stop/go/creeping during commute hours, so it is illogical to spend over $102,000,000- (Caltrans estimate from several years ago.) to build huge HOV ramps in the middle of 680 so busses and vans can exit/enter the freeway 2 minutes faster when the HOV lanes already are creeping along at 10mph or stopped during commute hours.

The solution to many funding shortages is quite simple, and I have been soapboxing this for years:
Get aggressive about handing out distracted driving tickets, and make them commensurate with DUI fines. Recently, in some areas these tickets have been raised from a paltry sum to $167, but that is hardly where they should be. Study after study has shown cell phone abusers and other distracted drivers to be as dangerous as any drunk. So make the ticket fit the crime. Start at $1,000, and raise it $200 for each repeat offense. Every time I go to the south bay, which is maybe every three months, I see no less than five of these dopes texting and weaving and gabbing each direction on 680.

Need more CHP and city police for my little scheme? Hire 'em. They will be paid for in short order.

The Chron had an article a couple weeks back about how much of a flop those idiotic google glasses have been. I almost jumped for joy reading that. This added deadly menace to our roadways is the last thing we need.

Derek, I'd really rather just pay taxes than use Law Enforcement as a revenue generator. Linking fine/penalty amounts to funding requirements is a horrible connection to make if you really want law enforcement to be about effectively serving and protecting the community.

If we'd really been thinking about traffic, we wouldn't have given the Iron Horse Trail rail right-of-way up. Light rail down that might have been really nice.

And, for the record, I'm not currently in favor of changing the HOV lane to a tolled express lane.

"If we'd really been thinking about traffic, we wouldn't have given the Iron Horse Trail rail right-of-way up. Light rail down that might have been really nice."

dbrower,
You are so right about that right-of-way! Complete lack of good government planning!

What should be done now is to build a raised BART track along that whole right of way. But, boy howdy, how the neighbors in the area would complain and fight against that!

I was OK with the carpool lanes up to Walnut Creek until they extended the hours from 6 pm to 7 pm, at which time it became obvious, during my homeward commute, that all this did was extend congestion for another hour.
And I'm appalled by what they have done with 680 down in Fremont; if you look at how much road space they have allocated to getting people into and out of the HOV lane, it is hard to imagine that they couldn't have improved traffic flow a whole lot more by just adding more regular lanes. IMHO this is driven more by political correctness (solo cars = bad) than by a genuine desire to generate revenue for road improvements. To be fair, I haven't seen any revenue numbers although I have a hard time seeing the ROI being under 100 years. PS - I love how they have focused on getting people into work then forgotten about how they have to get home...keep an eye on Sigalert for N680 from Mission up to Hwy 84 and it is commonly backed up until 8 pm.

An additional analytical consideration is that, with a simple agency decision and rule change about operational days and times, a Toll Lane could eventually become a 24/7 thing. In other words, a "poor/cheap" single-person vehicle might be forever banned from using that lane, even at 2:00 AM on a Sunday night. Not at first, of course.

Another consideration is that a Toll Lane, with all of its extra signage (and electronic signage), extra spacing, and extra lane separators/barriers (in some designs) becomes a more expensive lane to build and then MAINTAIN, than a regular "freeway" lane. So at what point it bring in enough additional money to even cover its "truly related" costs, before generating any "profit" to be used for regular lanes (construction and maintenance).

In some other Toll Lane projects, the "toll" was to finance and repay for the construction of a brand-new, never before existing lane. Aren't they proposing to just "take over" an existing lane here? Where's the great benefit to all there.
Heck, what's to stop them from making two lanes into "revenue generators" and just leaving one regular lane.

And there is no "representation" by the citizens here! Having public meetings is just a ritual. City Councils are asleep at the wheel or of the wrong ideology or beholden to ABAG or other non-representatory organizations.

FanDanville wrote, "What should be done now is to build a raised BART track along that whole right of way. But, boy howdy, how the neighbors in the area would complain and fight against that!"

To be fair, there was a ballot measure and people voted to give the Iron Horse right of way to the trail, and a bit of what is near it has been built since. I'm not sure full BART would ever have made sense at what BART costs per mile and the noise of raised lines, but light rail might have worked reasonably.

Anyone who goes down 680 past Sunol can fantasize about the lost opportunity, even if you don't do it often.

The I680 corridor from W.C. to Dublin exceeds its capacity during commute hours & the HOV lanes don't help; in fact the HOV lanes presently are stop/go/creeping frequently during commute hours. The I680 congestion will only get worse as more people move into the area, including San Ramon (with all the recently approved new housing). The solution is not more busses or HOV ramps in the middle of 680; that is like placing a Band-Aid over a severed artery (the non-visionary Caltrans people need an awakening).

The solution to I680 gridlock is now operating in Seattle: namely their monorail. (Google "Seattle monorail" for lots of pictures & info.). A monorail runs on a single pre-cast concrete beam held aloft by concrete support columns about every hundred feet. Monorails are very quiet since they have rubber tires rolling on smooth concrete, there are no grade crossings (they're elevated) & most important, a monorail is not impeded by freeway traffic like a bus. A monorail has a very small "footprint" (each column is about 6'x6') so a monorail can be run down the middle of 680 without further widening the freeway. An intangible, but nevertheless hugely important factor for the transit system's acceptance by commuters, is that it rides above the freeway traffic & riders have a view & a sense of speed, unlike a bus creeping along in traffic with all the attendant "bad vibes" that make a bus ride unpalatable to most upscale commuters. What good are busses if nobody really wants to ride on one.

Running BART down the middle of 680 is a very bad idea as this requires major widening of 680 & since BART runs steel wheels on steel rails, it is very noisy, which would be very detrimental for the thousands of residents living along 680.

(Using the Iron Horse Trail for commute rail transit is an obvious solution, but could never get approved thanks to local politicians unable to see the future.)

Resident,
I like what you said above.
However, I have a question about monorail on 680, how would you handle the "bridges" over 680?
If a monorail were to go above the bridges at a height sufficient for trucks to pass underneath, that would seem too high and structurally unsound.
Maybe it would work better down the side of 680, instead of in the middle?

A monorail crossing the "bridges", (existing overpasses) over I680 isn't a "show stopper" & a little creative engineering with some higher conservatively engineered structural steel columns is one solution to elevate the monorail where necessary; or even a small jog around an existing overpass if that would result in a lower monorail elevation in a cost effective way. One of the main plus factors with a monorail is it's small footprint, which lends itself to running down the middle of 680. Routing the monorail down the side of I680 would adversely impact many nearby residents while not helping much regarding increased track elevation at I680 overpasses.

Resident-
Although I applaud the idea of a monorail and the minimal environmental impact from such a system (noise, ground footprint, etc), it is not the solution for 680 for one primary reason...cost. We cannot afford to even maintain our existing infrastructure (hence proposal for carpool/toll lanes)...so the cost to install and maintain a monorail is a pipe dream.

If you Google monorail construction costs, it is crazy....ranging anywhere from 15 to well over 100 million...per mile. This typically does not include the cost for transit stations, annual operational costs, etc. Also, monorail has a much lower operating capactity than other rail systems. There are also some limitations with regards to operating monorails in uneven terrains (hills). There are crazy engineering and construction costs to just consider going by one single overpass or bridge crossing. The overall costs dramatically drop if you put such a system on ground level...and we know how that will go over around here. Bottom line is that we've made this bed (i.e. Iron Horse) and now we need to sleep in it.

This state cannot decide what to do with running a high speed rail line between SF and LA...though the relatively unpopulated central valley...there is no way a monorail (or even light rail) will happen in our lifetime along the 680 corridor. The well-to-do people of this area will never allow it (not in my back yard)...but will complain about the traffic all day long.

It is going to be HOV, carpools, and tolls. We are going to have to get creative with the infrastructure already in place. Reality check.

Almost everything JP mentions and that kind of "can't do" thinking is why we got to the untenable I680 traffic situation that exists between WC & Dublin, and is rapidly getting worse. It is like telling someone with a brain tumor that it is way too costly to provide a cure (monorail) so instead we are going to give you doses of aspirin (busses)that will not cure the problem.

But wait-----even the "non-big picture" thinkers, those lacking vision, will finally be convinced in the future, when I680 develops such bad gridlock, that even the "can't doers" will change their minds and wish a monorail had been chosen "back then" when the cost would have been much less.

"Can't do" reasoning could have killed the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, and BART under the Bay back in the 70's. Just think if back in the 1930's the "can't doers" won out and the Golden Gate bridge had not been built because of the "huge" expense back then; how expensive it would be to have to build that bridge today. Sometimes, one simply has to bight the bullet and make the right choice, not just the easy cheap unworkable choice.

Resident-
I think you completely mis-read JP (IMO). I believe he is saying he would be in favor of an alternative transportation system...but being realistic that it will never happen...at least not with your limited vision of what should put in place.

If this state proposed some sort of bill to raise taxes or passed a bill with the $ going towards building a monorail or other rail system, most would never vote for it. No way, no how. We are talking about billions of dollars here. Personally, I would lean more towards light rail or traditional rail...they are cheaper. No group would move forward a project with a price tag on it like this which would first benefit an area surrounded by generally well-to-do areas such as those along 680 (WC to Dublin)...and that is only about 17 miles long. The ideal situation would be to run a monorail in an underground tunnel from point A to point B. What would be that cost...where do you draw the line on the cost of a project like this? 10 Billion? 5 Billion? What number is OK with you?

I'm not sure where you are coming from on the matter. You seem very close minded in what you actually wish for here. No buses for "upscale" commuters. Give be a break. No BART down the middle of 680 because of noise? Monorail down the side of 680 is no good because it adversely affects residents (but the highway itself does not?). Are you one of those that would be affected by this? Sounds like you are picking and choosing yourself...rather than taking the best and easiest solution. I like your passion for wishing a solution in place...but don't berate others with realistic and logical options...chances are they might be upscale commuters too.

BTW, I think your comparison of traffic congestion to a brain tumor is way off (and a bit off color). A brain tumor in not an inconvenience.

Just another "can't doer" that would only approve the cheap, noisy alternate that few would want or ride.

There's a quote by Mark Twain that goes something like this---"Never argue with a fool, the onlookers won't be able to tell who the fool is."

I commute I680 from San Ramon to Martinez every day and have for the last 30 years. It is so obvious to anyone who drives through W.C that the carpool lanes do nothing but choke traffic. They do not entice people to buy "HOV-lane approved cars". When the carpool lane hours used to end at 6PM, at exactly 6PM, traffic freed up and started flowing again. when they extended the hours to 7PM, traffic now remains choked until 7PM. This change was instantaneous, not gradual.

The carpool/HOV lane actually constricts our 4-lane freeway into a one-lane freeway. There is always a slow driver or truck in the far-right lane where they belong. But now, most big trucks (and some idiot slow drivers) drive one-lane over so they can avoid merging traffic . . . which makes that lane a slow lane too. Since most of us cannot drive in the "fast lane", that leaves only one lane to drive in to get past slow traffic. So the HOV lane makes it so it only takes one slow driver in the second lane from the right to choke traffic.

Another result of the choked traffic is that the only lane open to "regular" drivers does the "inch-worm". . . that is, you speed up and then slow to a stop, speed up and then slow to a stop. And then every once in awhile, you have to slam on your brakes when someone in an HOV vehicle cuts you off to make a dash for the HOV lane.

I went to the presentation of the new toll roads in San Ramon. I was surprised to hear the people there presenting the toll roads as a way to "re-distribute" traffic . . . to allow more people who wanted to pay for driving in that lane in that lane, thereby lessening congestion in the other lanes. What total BS!! It MIGHT do this. But all they have really to do is get rid of the HOV lane, and traffic will redistribute all by itself.

I was also very surprised to hear a Prius owner at the same presentation complaining about the new toll roads. He was objecting to allowing more traffic into "HIS" lane. He claimed that there was already too much traffic in that lane.

It was also very obvious that the people giving the presentation were not really there to hear public opinion, even though that was the premise for the presentation. They were actually there (I believe) because it was required somewhere in our laws. They were there to proudly show us their work, their jobs, what they had been working on for so long. I believe that everyone that took the time to show up for this presentation was there to object to the toll lanes.

But that didn't change anything. It is now nearing completion, at least from San Ramon to W.C. I guess there is more coming from W.C to Martinez.
I drive this section everyday. I know first hand. These government organizations don't really know since they don't actually drive there themselves. They think they know. But they don't. They certainly don't listen.