Lawsuit against Caldecott fourth bore settled

The San Jose Mercury News ^ | January 23, 2009 | Denis Cuff (Contra Costa Times)

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

A barrier threatening to delay or stop construction of the $420 million fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel between Orinda and Oakland was cleared Friday when Caltrans settled a lawsuit with Oakland and Berkeley neighborhood groups worried about noise and traffic from the project.

Now the Highway 24 project to ease traffic congestion needs one more thing to begin: a state budget settlement to free up voter-approved state bond money for the extra bore.

"This settlement is great news for drivers. We badly need this project to help us with this traffic bottleneck," said Amy Worth, an Orinda city councilwoman on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "Now we need a state budget."

Caltrans hopes to begin construction this summer on the fourth bore, which would add an extra two lanes to the six in the Caldecott Tunnel so four lanes would be open to traffic in each direction at all times.

The settlement was filed Friday in Alameda County Superior Court by attorneys for Caltrans and the Fourth Bore Coalition, an alliance of groups including the North Hills Phoenix Coalition, the Parkwoods Community Association and the East Bay Bicycle Coalition.

The groups argued Caltrans had violated the California Environment Quality Act by not offering adequate measures to mitigate environmental impacts of the project and failing to offer any boost for transportation options along the corridor, such as public transit and riding bicycles to and from BART.

In the settlement, Caltrans offered slightly more help and money to address the concerns, according to people briefed on the agreement.

As part of the settlement, Caltrans will commit $250,000 to study ways to improve transportation along the Highway 24 corridor through measures such as carpool lanes, toll lanes and improved public transit.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Ping.

[muawiyah]

The vision of the last acts of the now totally bankrupt and supine but once great state of California is flashing across my mind ~ they're boring a hole for a highway tunnel.

The state's last penny is going to go into a bore bit.