The SLOCOG meeting was productive. The Board listened to our comments and asked that the new Traffic Study results be presented in March (rather than April). However, we are troubled that the Board had not read yet the existing Caltrans traffic studies while being asked to approve doing a new one by staff. I provided 1 copy of the existing reports and explained where they can download the reports. Tim Gubbins, Caltran Director assured the Board that Caltrans had read it....and that SLOCOG staff were using the existing studies for scoping the new repeat study. To the Boards credit they immediately put the 1 copy I provided to use and asked intelligent questions of Caltrans and staff. All resulting in the timetable being further accelerated. 

I am copying here my comments today:

Jan 9th Comments (v2.0)

We are Jordan Grant’s parents.  We are here to speak for Jordan and the other 65,000 vehicles a day that travel this section of US 101.

We are here to both say thank you and to ask some questions about the Item B-1 Traffic Study scope of work.

First, thank you for listening to our request to act with urgency by getting the planned Traffic Study started immediately. We acknowledge the efforts here and are grateful to the Board and stakeholders for moving quickly in getting this study startedimmediately.

However, we remain concerned that one:

• The Board and stakeholders may not be moving quickly enough to address the risk at the El Campo death trap
And two:

• We are concerned that the Board and stakeholders may not be currently making proper use of the existing and readily available Caltrans body of work on the El Campo and related intersections
We want to have faith. As we heard in last month’s meeting in 2008, after her near deadly accident at El Campo, Leslie Kearney had faith when she was told that a traffic study would be done and then the El Campo death trap could be closed. The traffic study was done and it clearly said it’s safe to close the El Campo death trap with regard to traffic displacement to other intersections. Yet the El Campo death trap was not closed. So please help us here. Why should we have faith now that anything in this process will result in a different outcome?

A quick question: ​​

By a quick showing of hands how many on this Board has both received and read the two Caltran Reports titled:

▪ Project Study Report EA-0Q620k on a section of Route 101 etc north of the Los Berros Road Undercrossing, and
▪ Memorandum by Roger Barnes titled “Traffic Study – Los Berros Road to Traffic Way Median Barrier Project”?

[For the record no Board members raised their hands - indicating none had received or read the existing traffic studies]

I ask as we are not clear on how the proposed Item B-1 Traffic Study scope of work is either the same and/or different than the work already completed by Caltrans – where Caltrans concluded there would be no degradation to the surrounding roads if median closure occurred at these crossings. Could the Board, stakeholders and/or Caltrans explain if there are differences in the Proposed Traffic Study with prior studies performed and explain, if any work is being repeated, why the prior work is being repeated? [End of Today’s Comments]

What you can do to help - please keep forwarding the petition to anyone that you can and share on Facebook and Instagram. We are almost at 23,000 signers and want to keep this issue on the front burner until the death trap is fixed.