The intersection is called the Don Pacheco Y. We
’re just asking “Why?” To say we’re puzzled by the late,
illogical and irresponsible Highway 156/Highway 152 flyover
objections raised by San Benito County officials is an
understatement.
The intersection is called the Don Pacheco Y. We’re just asking “Why?”
To say we’re puzzled by the late, illogical and irresponsible Highway 156/Highway 152 flyover objections raised by San Benito County officials is an understatement.
Officials from throughout the region have been shouting for the flyover for years.
That’s because the problem that the $28.4-million flyover will fix, the chronic and dangerous bottleneck at the intersection of highways 152 and 156, has been festering for years. Anyone who has driven that route on a weekend has witnessed the “Good Samaritan” drivers who stop to allow drivers to make a left turn and the resulting back-up that sometimes stretches for 13 miles all the way to Gilroy.
So why did San Benito County officials wait until now – after years of concerted regional efforts to design and then secure funding for this much needed project, no small feat in these lean budget times – to raise these concerns?
But the timing of these objections isn’t the only problem. Folks who’ve been planning the flyover also say the objections are ill-founded.
San Benito County Supervisor Anthony Botelho told reporter Matt King that he’s concerned that “the project … encourages more traffic into our county.”
That’s just not the case, VTA director John Ristow said. Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage agrees. “You’re not going to have anymore people going there than were going there before.”
And even if the flyover does encourage more traffic into Hollister – and we’re not conceding that point – why not take advantage of the opportunity to entice commerce? Drivers need gas and food, and perhaps they can be enticed to visit San Benito County wineries or stop in quaint San Juan Bautista. Instead San Benito County’s supervisors just grouse.
It’s not just irksome that this late-in-the-game, ill-founded objection has been raised, it’s irresponsible. Hopefully, these objections will not raise doubts in transportation officials’ minds about this project – doubts that could jeopardize the hard-won $11.5 million in state funding and nearly $12 million in federal funding.
The objections have the potential to waste years of effort by the region’s officials who’ve worked diligently against long odds to put together a fix to the 152/156 bottleneck. And these objections have the potential to continue the time-wasting, pollution-increasing, gasoline- and diesel-sucking bottleneck that the 152/156 intersection regularly becomes.
Why would anyone risk all of that?
San Benito County officials need to step back, consider the facts and think regionally about the benefits the Highway 156 flyover will bring to their community, to South Valley, and to the hundreds of thousands of motorists who idle away their lives, fuel and the ozone at the Don Pacheco Y.
