Casino could clog Highway 37

Transportation officials say visitors would worsen traffic

A Highway 37 thick with NASCAR fans this weekend could be a preview of traffic congestion if a proposed casino opens near the road, transportation officials say.

The casino, which would draw thousands of visitors daily, is proposed near one of the busiest sections of Highway 37, at Lakeville Road, and transit officials in Marin and Sonoma counties say it would only worsen traffic.

"Our preliminary finding is that it will have a substantial adverse impact," said Farhad Mansourian, head of Marin's Congestion Management Agency. "We are talking the whole road, from Atherton (Avenue in Novato) and on. It will not just be local."

Mansourian said the issue is still being studied, but based on known information, he foresees problems.

Suzanne Wilford, executive director of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority, said her agency has not conducted studies on the potential traffic issues, but she said a casino would have an effect.

"I don't think you need a study to tell you there will be a traffic impact. That is clear," she said. "And Lakeville is a dangerous road as it is."

But casino backers say concerns of gridlock are unfounded and that they are willing to make improvements to ensure traffic runs smoothly. The Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria, a 560-member tribe of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo descendants, announced in April its plans to build a casino, hotel and reservation on 2,000 acres surrounding the raceway.

Graton Tribal Chairman Greg Sarris said unlike Infineon, the tribe will make traffic improvement its first priority.

"Infineon continues to grow, creates ... noise problems, ignores its commitments to traffic improvement - and local officials give them a slap on the wrist," Sarris wrote in a faxed statement.

Infineon Spokesman John Cardinale said raceway officials have expressed serious concerns about the tribe's casino proposal.

"The project is pretty massive in scope. We're concerned that what they are proposing to bring to Sears Point is going to affect traffic in this area," Cardinale said.

Because there are just two lanes in each direction on Highway 37, even the smallest of accidents can bring traffic to a grinding halt. Infineon Raceway crowds have choked the highway for years on event days, as was the case Saturday with eastbound traffic.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol said westbound traffic was extremely heavy in the afternoon but there were no major incidents. A traffic signal at the intersection of highways 37 and 121 broke down at 2:19 p.m. and it took Caltrans workers more than two hours to get to the scene, he said.

Caltrans figures show Highway 37 at Lakeville Road - the area where the casino is proposed - is already the most used stretch of the highway in Sonoma County.

During its busiest hour, 3,500 cars pass near Highway 37 and Lakeville Road in each direction. By comparison, about 1,150 cars pass one way through a FasTrak lane on the Golden Gate Bridge during its busiest hour.

On its busiest day, 47,500 cars go through Highway 37 and Lakeville Road in each direction, according to Caltrans figures.

Officials at Caltrans, which manages Highway 37, said it is too early to draw any conclusions on traffic impacts from the casino plan.

"It would depend on how the trips were spread throughout the day," said Albert Yee, chief of highway operations. "We don't have that information yet. Right now there are not huge capacity problems, except for event days."

But casino opponents say that will change if the casino is built.

On June 6, members of the grassroots organization Sonoma Citizens to Stop the Casino handed out yellow flyers at the tribe's public meeting in Sonoma.

The center of the flyer featured a Friday "normal" afternoon traffic jam along Highway 37. Above the image, the flyer read "Casino Backers: How Will You Mitigate This?"

At the top of a long list of suggested road improvements needed to handle more volume, Stop the Casino lists widening the 18-mile stretch of Highway 37.

But widening Highway 37 would be difficult because of environmentally sensitive wetlands in the area.

"There is not a lot of room for expansion with the wetlands there," Wilford said.

Caltrans' Yee said widening Highway 37 "would be a major challenge."

Even if proposed, environmentalists say a widening plan would face heavy opposition.

"We would fight any expansion into the wetlands," said Barbara Salzman, president of Marin Audubon.

Sonoma Citizens to Stop the Casino argues that with rush-hour traffic, wine country visitors and car racing fans, Highway 37 is already a crowded and dangerous road.

Mix another 10,000 casino-bound vehicles into the traffic flow, and you've got a congestion nightmare, said Doug Webster, Stop the Casino's media relations director.

"This road is not equipped to handle more traffic," Webster said. "When there are accidents or any road blockage along the road, it's just a zoo."

Graton Rancheria leaders have promised to finance road work deemed necessary for the casino project. The tribe's business partner, Station Casinos Inc., recently opened near Lincoln in Pacer County the Thunder Valley Casino, a project that required more than $30 million worth of road improvements, according to casino spokesman Doug Elmets.

Graton Chairman Sarris said comparing casino traffic with raceway traffic is inaccurate.

"Events like this weekend's will cause infinitely more traffic problems than our casino resort ever will. Our tribe is committed to working with local government to help mitigate these traffic problems," Sarris said.

Sarris has said traffic generated by raceway fans is "one-time" congestion. By contrast, Sarris argues that the roughly 10,000 daily vehicle trips expected at a Sears Point casino would be spread out over 24 hours.

But transportation studies show gamblers tend to arrive in waves, often coinciding their trips with weekday rush hours, according to traffic expert Georges Jacquemart.

"Casino trips will largely overlap with your worst peak hours on Highway 101. Tribes will say most cars arrive at different hours but that's not true," said Jacquemart, who spent the first seven years of his career working for an urban planning firm in Berkeley.

As principal of New York-based urban planning firm Buckhurst Fish & Jacquemart, Inc., Jacquemart has studied traffic impacts on several casino projects in the Connecticut-New York region.

In his research of Foxwoods, the nation's largest casino located near Ledyard, Conn., Jacquemart found the average daily traffic along the resort's main highway increased by 200 percent. Annual traffic accidents along the same stretch of highway increased by 500 percent, Jacquemart said.

Casinos also tout bus shuttles from urban centers as a viable traffic mitigation measure, he said. But the shuttles tend to bring elderly folks who would normally not travel to the casino, according to firm reports.

"Buses don't shift visitors out of their car. All buses do is bring more people to the casino," Jacquemart said.

By Michael Flaherty and Mark Prado