_{Thumbnail Photo by Akampfer via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons License.}

A month after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1014 into law, the Del Norte Local Transportation Commission’s Tamera Leighton said Caltrans is working on a more visible incentive to get people to slow down on U.S. 199.

During a U.S. 199/197 safety update at Tuesday’s DNLTC meeting, Leighton, the agency’s executive director, said that Caltrans is eager to move forward on the use of traffic bollards to discourage unsafe passing in Gasquet. The regional transportation planning agency will also be conducting outreach in Hiouchi to gauge community opinion on a similar project, she said.

During her update, however, Leighton told commissioners that she and District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard, who represents Gasquet and Hiouchi, are running into roadblocks when it comes to receiving information about collisions in the area from the California Highway Patrol. She characterized it as a misunderstanding and pointed to a recent fatality that occurred on U.S. 199 as an example.

“We don’t really have any information about it,” she said of the collision.

California Highway Patrol Public Information Officer Pete Gonzalez said Thursday that there was a fatality involving a pedestrian that occurred at about 6 p.m. Oct. 26 on U.S. 199 near Middle Fork Gasquet Road and Gasquet Market.

According to an Oct. 30 news release from the CHP, the pedestrian, Dan Michael O’Reilley II, was walking in the southbound lane of the highway when he was struck by a 2006 GMC Sierra that was also traveling southbound. As a result of the collision, O’Reilley sustained fatal injuries, according to the news release.

During the on-scene investigation, emergency responders reduced the northbound and southbound highway lanes to one-way traffic control. The collision is still under investigation, according to the news release.

Gonzalez acknowledged that Howard and representatives of the transportation commission had been asking for information about traffic collisions in Hiouchi and Gasquet as well as in Smith River near the Dollar General store at U.S. 101 and Timbers Boulevard. However, the CHP can’t just provide that information, Gonzalez told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday.

“Unless there is some kind of memorandum of understanding or something that has been documented on paper giving us permission to release certain reports, legally we can’t do that because it’s personal information,” he said. “Especially when you’re talking about a fatal.”

Leighton said that communication with the CHP is something both she and Howard are working on. She noted that while Highway Patrol as a concern about protecting people’s private information, the Transportation Commission is looking for trends.

“We have a history of some trends going unnoticed until we notice them,” she said.

Leighton pointed to the collision rate on U.S. 101 near Timbers Boulevard in Smith River as an example. 

“Until we pulled up the collision rates and pointed them out to Caltrans safety, that trend in collisions there wasn’t really acknowledged,” she said. “There are some changes happening in Smith River that I believe are a direct result of (our) teamwork. They are putting in a left turn lane and a right turn lane in that area. I don’t think the construction has started yet, but it’s going through design phase.”

The Del Norte Local Transportation Commission had presented Caltrans representatives with CHP collision data for the area near the Dollar General store in Smith River in 2021. According to that data, there were seven collisions between June 2015 and December 2020, one of which involved the death of a 37-year-old pedestrian.

In Gasquet and Hiouchi, Leighton noted that Caltrans is eager to move forward on safety improvements there, though AB 1014 doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1. The new law gives Caltrans the authority to reduce speed limits by up to 10 mph on stretches of the state highway system that are risky to pedestrians, cyclists, children, seniors and individuals with disabilities.

AB 1014 also creates a criteria for establishing safety corridors and requires Caltrans to consider local safety concerns when setting speed limits in rural and recreational areas.

Local authorities are also granted the ability to set 20- to 25-mph speed limit “under certain circumstances” and on “specified highways,” according to text AB 1014, though Howard has said since Caltrans owns U.S. 101 and 199, that doesn’t apply to Del Norte. 

On Thursday, Leighton pointed out that reducing the speed limit doesn’t magically make people drive slower. This is where the bollards in Orick and, potentially, Gasquet and Hiouchi will come in.

“It’s a visual indicator that will make people slow down if they don’t see such a wide open road,” she said. “It’s a low-cost safety strategy. It’s not going to make people happy if they run into those. Though they’re flexible, they might do some damage to your vehicle.”

On Tuesday, Leighton told commissioners that there isn’t any data on whether the bollards in Orick have changed motorist behavior, though there are community comments. 

Gasquet also has a strong community communications network, Leighton said mentioning a discussion about safety on U.S. 199 that brought about 30 people to the Flynn Center. This was enough to give Caltrans representatives a good sense about whether the public supports the bollard approach or not.

“We don’t have that sense from Hiouchi,” Leighton said. “Hiouchi doesn’t have a strong community gathering in the same way. We’re going to be doing that in the next six to nine months, convening in Hiouchi talking about this specifically.”

One of the items that appeared on the DNLTC’s consent agenda Tuesday had to do with consulting services from Green Dot Transportation for the Hiouchi Community Transportation Plan. The effort aims to reduce speed and increase safety on U.S. 199 through Hiouchi and includes a stakeholder meeting, a community survey and two more community meetings.

During her update to transportation commissioners, Leighton also mentioned the 197/199 STAA Safe Access project — a $60 million effort to make the road suitable for larger tractor trailers. It involves widening the road and correcting curves at five locations on U.S. 199 and two areas near Ruby Van Deventer County Park on State Route 197. Replacing the 101-year-old Middle Fork Smith River bridge on U.S. 199 is also part of the project.

Caltrans will solicit bids for construction on that project in the next month “or so,” Leighton told commissioners.