The long road

The state and stewardship of Chico’s urban forest is such a hot-button issue that when work crews began cutting down large trees and vegetation alongside Highway 32 last month, concerned citizens contacted the CN&R questioning why the trees were being removed. What they were witnessing was the latest act in a melodrama that’s been running much longer than the current urban forest debacle—the widening of the highway to compensate for development east of Highway 99.

Work on the first phase of the four-step project—which eventually will result in the conversion of the roadway from a two-lane undivided highway to four lanes bisected by a median, from Highway 99 east to Yosemite Drive—began June 9, but has been in the works for nearly a decade.

Phase 1—expected to be completed next January—carries a $5.5 million price tag. City senior civil engineer Bob Greenlaw estimates the total cost of the project at about $20 million. The first stage is focused on the stretch of highway from the Park & Ride lots to El Monte Drive, and includes removing and replacing trees and landscaping on the north side of the highway, constructing decorative, precast concrete sound walls, widening the roadway and Dead Horse Slough bridge, opening a second left-turn lane on Forest Avenue, and modifying existing traffic signals.

“This project has been in the development phase, starting with plans and specs, since 2005,” Greenlaw said. “Since then it’s encountered a number of problems, the biggest being a lack of funding.”

Greenlaw explained that, after the City Council approved the widening in 2006, the city’s share of the financial load was expected to come from development impact fees, with secondary funding from redevelopment funds. But a downturn in the economy led to less available money from the first source, and the state dissolved redevelopment agencies in 2011, forcing the city to find other ways to fund the improvements.

The city ultimately was able to secure $3.24 million in state funding from Proposition 1B (a $4.5 billion account earmarked for highway improvements by voters in 2006). The redevelopment agency already had begun selling bonds to fund the work, but since it was dissolved the city needed special permission from the state controller to access the funds. Greenlaw said it took two years for the decision to come and the money to be released.

Greenlaw noted the California Department of Transportation secured the land necessary for the widening when it originally built Highway 32 in the 1960s, with the intention of expanding the road as the city grew. With a number of developments underway or breaking ground—including the Oak Valley subdivision, Meriam Park (which will include a new courthouse complex), and continuing development in California Park—Greenlaw said the improved highway is necessary to prevent future traffic congestion.

He also said citizen concerns, about trees and otherwise, figured prominently in the final plan.

“In speaking with stakeholders, the most prominent concerns we encountered were regarding aesthetics and sound,” he said, noting the trees that have been cut were not old-growth, but landscaping designed and planted by the city in 1992.

To address these concerns, the 8-foot-tall sound wall is higher than what is required by law, and will be constructed to look like it’s made out of wood. Landscaping will be replanted, and the new median will be decorated with large trees (the city is considering valley oaks) protected from traffic by a guardrail. While most highways require a 30-foot “clear recovery zone” along state highways, the project included a design exemption reducing that zone to 17 feet on the south side of the highway to allow some of the larger trees to remain standing.

“Our goal with the finished project is for it to look as good, or even better, than it used to look, and we’ll still have a nice, green corridor as a gateway to Chico,” Greenlaw said. “It might look a little bare now, and it’s going to get a bit noisy and dusty and dirty as we do the work, but when it’s done it should serve the city well for years to come.”