Road Maintenance in Monterey County

Dear Friends & Neighbors,

Monterey County is the 17th largest county in California with 1,257 miles of roads to maintain. Over the years, many of these roads have deteriorated to poor condition. Whenever Monterey County has encountered lean financial years, tough choices must be made. Invariably, road maintenance is among the first programs on the chopping block. This is because it takes many years for roads to deteriorate. While not paving a road just adds to the backlog of repairs needed, only in rare cases must a road be repaired at any single year. It can wait and nothing disastrous will happen. Unfortunately, Monterey County has spent decades waiting and waiting. The cost just to bring our roads to a fair condition is at least $600 million.

A significant part of the Road Fund comes from revenue generated by the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT). This is the tax that visitors must pay on the rooms while staying in Monterey County. Historically, Monterey County has allocated 25% of its revenues to the Road Fund. A few years ago, that allocation was nearly halved. The estimated TOT tax to Monterey County this year is about $40 million. Of that approximately $6.2 million will go to the Road Fund. I made the motion that passed during this year’s budget hearings to restore that 25% to next year’s Road Fund. There is no guarantee that my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors will support that during next year’s budget discussions, but I will fight for it.

Roadwork, aside from emergency repairs, is laid out in five-year plans. Because of the long neglect, it is going to take many years of work to make a significant impact on our roads, but the good news is that it is happening. Much of this credit in developing a more aggressive road repair plan must go to Randy Ishii, Director of Public Works, Facilities and Parks. One of the most recent examples is the recent paving and reopening of Kirby Park which is due to his efforts to repair damage from the 2017 and 2023 storms.

Little by little, we are finally making some progress on North County roads. The recently added merge lane at Werner and Elkhorn Road has loosened the terrible bottleneck that has been there for many years. Nearby Hudson Landing Road was paved at its worst places as was Waugh Road on the other side of the railroad tracks. The communities of Castroville and Boronda have had some repaving over the last year with more to come. Work is also planned along Las Lomas Drive. There will soon be repaving of streets in Pajaro and Salinas Road which runs through the town. Soon a section of Paradise Road will also be paved.

That is just the beginning. In the next few years, work is also planned on Blackie Road, closest to Castroville. An extension from Blackie Road to Highway 156, near Castroville Boulevard, is also planned. Dolan Road, which I hear many complaints about, is also part of the current five-year plan. There are other projects being looked at as well, such as the San Juan Grade/Rogge Road intersection, which is an odd configuration creating its own set of problems.

None of this happens fast enough. State requirements and environmental laws make government move even slower than it usually does. There are other roads that need to be addressed as well – Vierra Canyon Road, Elkhorn Road, Tustin Road, Meridian Road and more. One can name almost every road in North County and there is work to found. Being that it costs over $1 million to pave a mile of road, the barrier to fixing our roads is money. We are on the path to fixing our worst roads, but there will always be more work to do than there is money.

As always, don't hesitate to reach out to my office for assistance. You can reach us at 831-755-5022 or district2@co.monterey.ca.us.

Sincerely,

Glenn Church

District 2 Supervisor