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Arnold Drive to get traffic circle

 

Funding for two Arnold Drive projects and for a study on a proposed roundabout at the intersection of Arnold Drive and Highway 121 were approved Tuesday by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

The Supes approved a Measure M Cooperative Funding Agreement with the Sonoma County Transit Authority to fund the projects, which include widening Arnold Drive for about a half-mile south of Glen Ellen Market; repaving Arnold Drive south to the Eldridge Bridge; installing a roundabout at Arnold Drive and Agua Caliente Road in front of Hanna Boys Center and funding the study for a roundabout at the Highway 116/121 intersection.

Tom O'Kane, the county's deputy director of Public Works and Transportation, said the Arnold Drive work in Glen Ellen is out to bid currently and the bids should be opened in early

April. According to the Department of Public Works and Transportation website, bids need to be in by 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 6.

O'Kane said $350,000 in Measure M funds will be used for the shoulder work with the county matching the funds. And he thinks construction on that stretch of Arnold Drive could begin sometime in June.

Measure M funds will also be used for the construction of a roundabout at Arnold and Agua Caliente Road.

O'Kane said Hanna Boys Center officials talked with 1st District Supervisor Valerie Brown about having the project pushed up, as Hanna is in the middle of a building project and will be realigning its driveway with Agua Caliente Road.

Hanna will pay for the design of the roundabout and will also donate three corners of the intersection from its own land for rights-of-way.

O'Kane estimated the cost to build the roundabout at somewhere in the $1.25 million range, and said construction could start, pending permit approval, sometime next winter.

"This moved the project up two years," O'Kane said.

Measure M funds, along with Sonoma Valley traffic mitigation funds, will be used in the next fiscal year to pay for the $300,000 roundabout study at Highways 121 and 116.

"This is just to fund the study," O'Kane said. "We don't have any money to build it." But he said Caltrans is the key to completing the project since the roads are both state highways.

"We want to take some positive action," he said. "Let's get it in the hopper."

The study could take a year or more to complete and O'Kane estimates the Schellville roundabout to cost in the neighborhood of $10 million.

According to a memo to the Board of Supervisors, "contact has been made with one of the adjacent property owners who is key to the success of this project. A favorable response has been received from this initial discussion."

Measure M, the official name of which is the Traffic Relief Act for Sonoma County, was passed by voters in November 2004. It provides for a quarter-cent sales tax to be used, among other things, to maintain streets, fix potholes, improve Highway 101, restore and enhance transit and build safe bike and pedestrian routes.