Dick Spotswood: Solving Marin freeway mess impossible, but smart moves can help

When still practicing law, I commuted most working days from Mill Valley to my downtown San Francisco office on Golden Gate Transit buses. It was and remains remarkably convenient, affordable and far more comfortable than driving. That made me a transit advocate when I first ran for public office in Marin.

In post-pandemic years, many of those who were daily commuters to The City commenced working from home or relocated their workplace to Marin or Sonoma counties.

Commuting from the suburbs to the center of a big city by train, bus or ferry has long been a feature in metropolitan areas like New York City, Mumbai or Sydney. Public transit is the ideal means of mobility within major population centers. It is far less effective within and between suburbs. That’s as true here in the North Bay as it is within and between London suburbs.

To better understand how Marin residents travel, the Transportation Authority of Marin conducted studies to provide answers. The results are surprising. Urban Carmel, a TAM commissioner and Mill Valley City Council member, recently shared those statistics.

The key comparison is “highway volumes” versus “transit volumes.”  The latter include Golden Gate bus and ferry lines, Marin Transit buses and Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit trains.

“Highway” is defined as peak period trips on Highway 101 between the Sonoma/Marin county line and the Marin/San Francisco county boundary on the Golden Gate Bridge. Also tallied are Interstate 580 trips measured at the Marin/Contra Costa county line on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Auto trips on local Marin roads aren’t included.

Bottomline: Transit trips comprise only about 2.9% of the combined annual auto/transit volume. On highways, vehicles make 97.1% of all trips. I never expected such a wide divide between transit and auto travel. My initial reaction was that those travel numbers tossed a bucket of cold water on us transit proponents.

Other statistics contained in TAM’s report are revealing. “Intra-Marin car trips comprise about 70% of that total. School trips are about 25% of morning peak traffic.” Of intercounty trips, the largest share is to-or-from San Francisco. Trips to-or-from Sonoma and Alameda counties come in second and third place.

On Highway 37 between Novato and Vallejo, traffic volume is 40,000 to 45,000 vehicles per day on the central “two-lane” portion, with higher volumes approaching the freeway segments in Vallejo. Passenger cars comprise 91% to 96% of these totals. Truck traffic ranges between 4% to 9%.

Autos on Highway 101 move most travelers on what’s called the Golden Gate Corridor. Carmel is essentially suggesting that Marin refocus its transportation strategy toward prioritizing a revamp of Highway 101’s two major interchanges, then address local road congestion and facilitate a mode shift for short school trips to carpools, walking or cycling.

Carmel is right. The highest priorities need to address the two worst bottlenecks on Highway 101. The first is in Larkspur at Sir Francis Drake Boulevard leading to the Richmond Bridge. The second is the 101/580 interchange at Bellam Boulevard in San Rafael.

From a political perspective, it’s odd that elected officials from Marin are the loudest when complaining about congestion to and from the Richmond Bridge. Incongruously, most of those commuters are East Bay residents. Officials from Contra Costa, Solano and Alameda counties are largely silent when it comes to demanding Caltrans improve their own constituents’ quality of life.

Transit advocates face a dilemma regarding traffic congestion. The public is looking for “solutions.” The hard-to-accept reality is that there are none.

The best we can reasonably hope for are mitigation measures, including freeway interchange improvements. It’s unreasonable to believe that transit, regardless of how well planned or operated, can be a “solution” to jammed highways. Transit’s role is providing a viable alternative to being trapped in traffic.

My fellow motorists should recall the comic strip character “Pogo” drawn by cartoonist Walt Kelly. Pogo the possum was famed for saying, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.