Hwy. 101 Corridor

I notice in today's Times Standard, that both the City of Eureka Council and County of Humboldt Supervisors chose alternative 3 of the dEIR for the Hwy. 101 Corridor.

I find this interesting, for even choosing this alternative, it seemed that most agree that the document did not actually give much choice, or alternatives to the public. It was as if Caltrans and a few local representatives came up with these as the final choices and there were no other alternatives.

Since then there have been other alternatives presented that provided for a greater increase in environmental protection through the Green Wheels group, as well as a couple others. Our local governments have stated it is now the decision of HCAOG on what alternative will be approved and this will not be made for maybe a year (Funny how they state the decision is now placed on HCAOG. Isn't HCAOG made of the local government? - sounds like the decision has been made, yes?).

Highway 101 will need a lot of improvement to meet the demand of the future and the increase of traffic from a soon visiting crowd coming from the east over an improved Hwy. 299. It also needs to address commuters that move to the east and are buying property and homes in the Klamath-Trinity Area and commuting to work on the coast.

The pedestrian need is also not addressed in alternative 3 of the document, though HCAOG has addressed this need in the form of a bicycle trail along the bay. This should be included in the Caltrans dEIR and provide for alternative travel methods that will be used in the future.

Below is the dEIR address for reviewing the alternatives and information about the Humboldt Bay Trail HCAOG has put together.

http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist1/d1projects/envdocs.htm

http://www.hcaog.net/

Before any of these projects are approved, I believe that more consideration needs to be placed on alternative transportation and other avenues to meet the demands of the future. Even if the current plans are approved, they will not met future needs because by the time these projects are completed, they will be out of date. The projects need to look further than 20 - 25 years ahead, more like 40 - 50 years ahead the best possible.