Message from the Caltrans Director
 The
2010/2011 fiscal year has been full of extraordinary challenges. During
historic winter storms, the Sierra Nevada was buried under near-record
snowfall, clogging highways and throwing down the gauntlet to Caltrans
maintenance forces. In the state’s lower elevations, roads eroded,
leaving residents and businesses stranded until the Department could
repair the damage.
Still, we got the work done. Major highways east of
Sacramento bore the brunt of the winter storms, which dropped some 730
inches of snow, just short of the record 780 inches set in the 1951-52
season. Maintenance workers, 200 of them, struggled to keep passes open
on Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 50, only to see snow begin to
accumulate as soon as it was cleared.
Meanwhile, the winding State Route 1 along California’s scenic central
coast experienced several landslides and road closures that kept
Caltrans maintenance workers busy for months. Caltrans was having one of
its busiest seasons ever along the Big Sur.
Then winter storms caused three disruptions on SR-1 at Rocky, Limekiln, and
Alder creeks. A 150-foot section of the southbound SR-1 at Rocky Creek
collapsed, shutting the roadway between Carmel and Big Sur. Crews
stabilized the area and detoured traffic. A $2.5 million temporary fix
opened the highway to controlled traffic by mid-April, but a permanent
repair will take a year or more and require a new 700-foot roadbed on
either side of the collapse.
The highway was also closed briefly at Limekiln Creek. Then a third
closure occurred in mid-April at Alder Creek. Caltrans was able to open
the Alder Creek portion by June 9, earlier than expected.
Every Caltrans district had challenges. The Bay Area and northern coast
faced a tsunami (a result of an earthquake in Japan) that hit harbors
and shorelines, while the Stockton area patched a weather-caused
sinkhole on Highway 99 and saw 46 feet of snow on SR-88 near Caples
Lake. The Inland Empire suffered some $21 million in damage to SR-330 in
the San Bernardino Mountains, and Orange County struggled with flooding
along the usually sunny Pacific Coast Highway (SR-1) at Huntington
Beach.
Other challenges affected the Department, such as lower than-expected
bond sales for highway projects, and the aftermath of the Great
Recession. Caltrans worked with fewer employees than last year (21,508 versus 22,212), so we
did more with less. Still, Caltrans had more than 700 ongoing construction contracts valued at nearly $11 billion, and Recovery Act and Proposition 1B projects continued to provide jobs at a time that the state economy needed it most.
On a more somber note, I am sad to report that four Caltrans workers
died in service to the public during the year, bringing to 178 the
number of employees who have died on the job since 1924. The number of
fatalities was a sharp increase from previous years, and three of them
came in barely six weeks (during May and June).
In their wake, I called an immediate halt to routine or regularly
scheduled maintenance activities that could be deferred so that staff
could participate in safety stand-down activities. You can read more
about these fatalities and the Department’s attempts to protect workers
in the Safety section of this annual report.
Despite setbacks, the Department continued work on one of its signature
projects, the self-anchored suspension span (SAS), the largest bridge of
its kind in the world at 2,078 feet long and the construction of its
elegant 525-foot tall tower. The full span is scheduled for completion
in 2013 when it will replace the venerable but aging San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Other important construction went on throughout the state. Caltrans
moved forward on bringing Highway 99 up to freeway standards the length
of the Central Valley. The Los Angeles area continued widespread
rehabilitation work on its world-famous freeway system. The Inland
Empire completed part of its I-215 widening project. And the Bay Area
made big progress on its tunneling project at the Caldecott Tunnel, and
at the Presidio Parkway improvement project.
Caltrans also mentored Eureka middle school students who were interested
in engineering careers. The Monument Middle School in Rio Dell won
recognition from the Garrett Morgan Symposium, named for a pioneer in
transportation engineering. The students’ science project was “Algae:
Fuel of the Future.”
North coast forces also completed the Alton Interchange, which has been
a long-time goal for both Caltrans and the community. Caltrans District
9, east of the Sierra Nevada, opened the Manzanar/Independence Project,
which turned 11 miles of U.S. Highway 395 into a four-lane expressway
that is expected to reduce collisions on the high-desert motorway.
In summary, the annual report tells Caltrans’ story over the past fiscal
year. It’s been an inspiring 12 months. Caltrans overcame obstacles,
worked as a good steward of the taxpayers’ money, functioned as the
premier state transportation department in the nation, and served as an
engine of growth for California’s economy. Congratulations and thank you
to all who helped make it possible!
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