Work to fix flood-prone Highway 37 underway with law easing environmental restrictions

By John Ramos

For years, the State of California has been planning a fix for State Route 37, spanning a wetlands area between Vallejo and Marin County. There have been plenty of obstacles in the way, including the fact that much of it is a protected wildlife area. But the rain that moved into the area on Monday was a good reminder of why they’re doing it in the first place.

Things move pretty slowly on Highway 37 as it is, but to make traffic come to a complete stop, all you have to do is add water.

“We are just about to have our first major storm this year, and motorists kind of need to ‘know before they go.'” said Caltrans spokesperson Bart Ney. “So, when we get heavy storms and King Tides at the same time, we lose State Route 37. It floods. So, that happened in 2017. It happened in 2019 for significant periods of time. It happened just last year for about a day, maybe two days.”

As sea level rises and storms intensify, flooding on Highway 37 is becoming a regular occurrence, which is a primary reason why Caltrans is planning a major overhaul, raising portions of the 21-mile stretch between Vallejo and U.S. Highway 101 in Marin County. But the area is home to several protected species, and Ney said that can cause havoc when planning a major multi-year highway project.

“There are different environmental windows where you can work in there because of the species, the flora and the fauna that actually exist out there,” he said. “And so, if you’re trying to create a construction schedule to build something out there, it can be very challenging as you progress across the 21 miles.”

So, Assemblymember Lori Wilson introduced AB 697, which would allow Highway 37 to avoid the environmental restrictions in certain places at certain times. Caltrans would be able to apply for what’s called “incidental take” permits in case any endangered animals are harmed in the process. Governor Newsom just signed AB 697 into law; without it, the shortened work windows would have been ridiculously impractical.

“Based on their life cycle, it would reduce the construction time period to basically about three months out of a 12-month year,” said Wilson. “Which you can imagine if you can only build three months out of a 12-month year, how long that project would take.”

“We effectively couldn’t have done the project without it,” said Ney. “It would have been – nothing’s impossible – it would have been implausible.”

The overall Highway 37 project is huge, lasting for years in eight different phases. But some construction has already begun at the Highway 37 interchange near the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom theme park. But it is the stretch between Vallejo and Sears Point that will have the biggest impact on the daily commute as the road is widened to four lanes.

“And that’s one of the reasons we’re really happy Assembly Bill 697 went through,” said Ney. “Because now we can work year-round.”

Of course, politics is never without some irony. It was just last Monday that Governor Newsom signed another bill, AB 454, establishing permanent protections for migratory birds. The very next day, he signed 697, exempting the Highway 37 project from those restrictions.

For more information about the entire Highway 37 project, visit the Caltrans website.