Sacramento Bee- Environmentalists move to block Willits highway bypass

half-century ago, the 400-mile stretch of Highway 101 between San Francisco and the Oregon border was a two-lane roadway that meandered through dozens of small towns. During summer months, it was clogged with logging trucks and vacationers' trailers.

Mile-by-mile, at no small cost, almost all of Highway 101 was upgraded, mostly to freeway, allowing traffic to move more smoothly and rapidly. But a few bottlenecks remained.

One was in Eureka. After much debate, the community chose a freeway route in the early 1970s. The state began to acquire right-of-way, but a new Caltrans director with an anti-freeway bias, Adriana Gianturco, abruptly stopped the project. To this day, therefore, trucks, cars and other highway traffic must navigate Eureka's city streets.

Another bottleneck was through Richardson Grove, a state park of old-growth redwood trees in southern Humboldt County, which became an environmental cause célèbre that's never been resolved, and may never be.

A third was in the small Mendocino County town of Willits, which for decades has sought relief from noisy, odoriferous and dangerous highway traffic on its main street.

In 2007, a six-mile "Willits bypass" to carry vehicles around the eastern edge of the town was on the verge of gaining state financing, but at the last moment, Los Angeles politicians pressured the state Transportation Commission for more money, and the Willits project was put aside.

Finally, however, the project was resuscitated, in no small measure due to the local congressman, Democrat Mike Thompson. In February, he announced that all permits for the bypass had been obtained, despite criticism from environmentalists.

"The mood of the downtown merchants is that they are looking forward to having their Main Street back where they will have more control over the design of the streetscape," Willits city official Alan Fallerri said.

Well, maybe not.

A coalition of environmental groups has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the adequacy of the permitting process, and calling it "a wake-up call for Caltrans, which should be building efficient public transit and maintaining existing roads rather than wasting our money and resources clinging to outdated visions of new freeways."And how would "efficient public transit" and maintaining highways, both commendable goals unto themselves, solve Willits' nightmarish congestion?

They wouldn't. If opponents block the bypass, the bottleneck will remain, summertime truck and auto traffic won't diminish and Willits' main street will continue to reverberate with noise, garnished with diesel exhaust.

Willits got the shaft in 2007 and may be getting it again.It's no wonder ordinary Californians are so cynical about politics.