Dear District Five Resident,

As a parent, I am very familiar with how much of a struggle the first weeks of school can be as children and adults alike readjust to their new routines. And, because the tri-campus is located along the most heavily travelled road in the San Lorenzo Valley, the beginning of school is always accompanied by a few weeks of particularly bad traffic. 

A number of SLV residents have reached out to my office to express concerns about how the delays resulting from Caltrans' sidewalk construction along Highway 9 in Felton will be compounded by the usual congestion that occurs during the transition to school-time traffic patterns. While I encourage everyone to plan for delays, my office has communicated with Caltrans and our County partners to try to minimize wait times to the extent possible. Here’s what’s being done:

• In response to initial feedback and observations, Caltrans has adjusted the location of the temporary lane barricades to reduce the bottleneck of southbound traffic at the Highway 9/Graham Hill Road intersection.
• Caltrans will continue to observe and adjust the timing of the traffic signals at the Highway 9/Graham Hill Road intersection as new school-time traffic patterns emerge and solidify. While adjustments will be made as soon as possible, it may take a little while to fully optimize morning and afternoon light cycles because it often takes several weeks for residents to settle back into their new routines. To help give drivers more advance notice of traffic delays, additional message boards will also be placed in the area.
• As the agency in control of Highway 9, Caltrans will avoid permitting non-urgent work (by their own crews or by utility companies like PG&E) in the area from the start of school through August 14th.
• Additionally, for the start of school Caltrans will employ the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to help with any problems that arise around the Felton construction zone. 
• My office has also made sure that CHP and the Sheriff’s Office know that school will start on August 6th so they can prepare accordingly for potential problems near the school and along roads that are likely to be used as alternative routes.
• Finally, our Public Works Department has been asked to avoid authorizing non-urgent work on the principal County roads in the SLV area for the first week of school.

Delays to road and infrastructure projects can be costly and extend how long they take to complete, and County, Caltrans, and utility crews have to fit a lot of work into the fair-weather seasons, so I appreciate the willingness of our public agencies to recognize that the beginning of school is a particularly stressful time and warrants a little extra flexibility and attention.

In turn, I am sure I speak for all of our public agencies in saying that we appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to improve the local roads and infrastructure.