Novato Narrows project: Finished in our lifetime?

Photo: Robert Tong

A comment by Ronrico Padroni to a story in the Marin Independent JournaL (Novato Narrows widening planning put on fast track):

Those huge road cuts that you saw going on along the narrows project for the last 3 or 4 years, the majority of that work was installing an enlarged water pipeline in Sonoma County that ends in Novato.

This pipeline project was also funded in part by CalTrans, and also the NMWD and they even took some of our ratepayers money in the MMWD to help pay for it.

I remember driving that stretch of 101 and seeing all the work going on and the huge stacks of blue water pipe being put into place. I knew it was a waterline, but most people thought it was for drainage of the 101 project. The media and public officials kept that project a secret until after it was completed. They had to, otherwise the commuters would have been in an uproar. Especially since the enlargement of the pipeline was taking more SCWA water and feeding it to Novato to foster the continuation of the big population expansion that Novato has been doing since around 2000 (it started with Hamilton).

I find it disgusting that so much money that was earmarked for 101 and other improvement projects has been diverted away from the actual scope of work and going secretly to other projects and non-profit corporations and their lawyers.

In the meantime, the commuters are being strung along and kept in the dark (in traffic) as to why their commute situation is not improving at all but getting worse. 

Officials don't seem to be accountable with our tax dollars. They keep saying that they need more money to finish the Narrows project, but when they get more money, they instead spend it on SMART, new pipelines for Novato, a bike lane on the Richmond bridge and a host of other useless projects that are not going to benefit the North Bay commuters at all. 

Heck, the Narrows project may never be completed in our lifetimes at this rate.

When the Independent Journal does a story on SMART, the comments are always fun.