Closure of Petaluma Boulevard South:

• Petaluma Boulevard South will be closed in both directions at the Petaluma River Bridge on March 16, 17 and 18 from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. The closure is necessary for the placement of girders on the northbound bridge being constructed.
• Detour for east side of Petaluma Boulevard South closure: Use the northbound 101 on-ramp from Petaluma Boulevard South.
• Detour for west side of Petaluma Boulevard South: Take Petaluma Boulevard South, turn right on D Street, turn right on Lakeville Street, and continue to Highway 101.

Closure of northbound Highway 101 and the northbound on-ramp from Petaluma Boulevard South:

• Northbound Highway 101 and the on-ramp from Petaluma Boulevard South will be closed at the new Kastania Road overcrossing south of the Petaluma River on March 19, March 23, 24, 25 and 26 from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. The closure is necessary for the placement of girders on the new northbound portion of the bridge.
• Detour: Northbound Highway 101 traffic will exit on Petaluma Boulevard South and proceed through downtown Petaluma, turn right on D Street, right on Lakeville Street and return to northbound 101.

During the modification of the toll booths and canopy for the moveable median barrier project, bridge engineers determined the structure needed to be retrofitted. Contractors will be performing minor demolition work and adding steel bracing to several toll booths over the course of a few months.

The Toll Plaza clock will be replaced once all other retrofit work is complete, likely by early summer. Driving lanes #7 and #8 will open once the Doyle Drive reconfiguration is complete. That work is expected to be finished in the spring.

The change from 55 to 45 mph was to accommodate a new entrance to Taylor Mountain Regional Park and was not a reaction to Sunday’s accident. But traffic officials said it would help reduce speeds on Santa Rosa streets.

“It’s good to have a gradual step down in speed before you get to the city,” said Rob Sprinkle, Santa Rosa’s traffic engineer.

The speed limit on the major county road that connects Penngrove and Santa Rosa will now be reduced to 45 mph about three-quarters of a mile south of the Santa Rosa city limits near the planned entrance area to the park, which will include turning lanes when it opens this spring. The speed limit at the city limits is already 45 mph and drops to 40 mph north of Kawana Springs Road.

The 6-year-old girl was hit Sunday while using a crosswalk with her mother at Breeze Way.

“People speed. I’m very familiar with this major collector (road),” Zane said. “I know most people go 60 to 65 on that stretch.”

Petaluma Hill Road carries 14,000 cars per day, according to a county report. There have been five collisions on the section between Santa Rosa and Taylor Mountain Regional Park in the past four years.

“We believe that by reducing the speed limit, we will reduce the number of collisions that occur in that location,” said Jason Nutt, deputy director of the county Transportation and Public Works Department.

The county bridge crew will continue work this week removing and replacing a bridge viaduct on Starrett Hill Road in Monte Rio. Starrett Hill Road will remain closed during the construction that is scheduled through April 20. Local residential traffic has access off Moscow Road and Main Street.

Maintenance work this week includes culvert cleaning along Pine Mountain Road, Sweetwater Springs Road and Green Valley Road. The Cotati road crew will be cutting brush along Hutchinson Road off Hessel. Healdsburg crews will be cutting brush Monday and Thursday on Chalk Hill Road and assisting Cal Fire with roadside brushing on Chalk Hill Road Tuesday and Wednesday.

Roadside mowing is scheduled for Gericke Road and Bloomfield Road in West County, and in the Glen Ellen and Kenwood areas in the south county area.

Workers building the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit tracks will be testing the device from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the East Cotati Avenue railroad crossing. The contractors will be running a freight train through the crossing multiple times to test the newly installed warning lights and bells.

Flaggers will stop traffic as the train passes through the crossing during test runs. Motorists can expect delays at the crossing and are advised to use alternative routes such as Southwest Boulevard.

This week road maintenance crews will fill potholes and do roadside mowing at various locations throughout the county. The Cotati crew will be spending the next two days pothole patching the upper portion of Sonoma Mountain Road off Adobe Road. The Guerneville crew will be cleaning culverts at several locations in West County.

Cal Fire will be assisting road crews from Healdsburg and Cotati this week clearing roadside brush along Chalk Hill Road and Kennedy Road. The brushing work is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, expect one lane traffic controls and minor delays between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. each day.

Drivers should be aware that when they are exiting the freeway at Old Redwood Highway, they will have to choose the left lane or right lane as soon as they begin to exit. The lanes will be at different heights, and once a lane is entered, it will not be possible to switch lanes.

This week there will be temporary closures of off-ramps while the contractor prepares for the new stage of construction.
• The northbound Highway 101 off-ramp to Old Redwood Highway will be closed tonight from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
• The southbound Highway 101 off-ramp to Old Redwood Highway/Petaluma Boulevard North will also be closed tonight from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

These closures depend on weather conditions and will be rescheduled if necessary. For information about this and other projects, go to www.dot.ca.gov/dist4 and click on “Projects” and “Sonoma County.”

Road crews this week will continue storm cleanup and pothole filling throughout the county. The culvert crew will be on Geysers Road this week repairing damaged culvert inlets and clearing slides from drainage ditches. Cotati crews will be cleaning culverts in west and south county. The bridge crew will be doing guard rail repairs in various location. Traffic crews will be doing sign maintenance and replacements countywide.

Cal Fire crews will be assisting with roadside brush and vegetation removal along Kennedy Road in west county and Chalk Hill Road in north county today and Wednesday. Expect one lane traffic controls and minor delays between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. both days.

During the modification of the toll booths and canopy for the Moveable Median Barrier project, engineers determined the structure needed to be retrofitted. A contractor will be performing minor demolition work and adding steel bracing to several toll booths over the course of a few months.

Similar work has already been completed with Toll Booth #7.

When the retrofit work at Toll Booth #5 is complete, the same work will be done at Toll Booth #3. That work is also projected to take about a month to complete, and will affect the lanes adjacent to the toll booth.

The Toll Plaza clock will be replaced once all other retrofit work is complete, likely by early summer. Driving lanes #7 and #8 will open once the Doyle Drive reconfiguration is complete. That work is expected to be finished in the spring.

• The demolition of the old northbound Highway 101 bridge over Petaluma Boulevard South is being completed in one day to avoid several nights of ramp and road closures.

• Residents may notice increased noise as work is completed above Petaluma Boulevard South.

• Detour 1 (east side of Petaluma Blvd. S. closure): Northbound 101 traffic that usually exits at Petaluma Boulevard South will be diverted to the next exit at Highway 116/Lakeville Highway.

• Detour 2 (east side of Petaluma Blvd. S. closure): Residents who live or work on the east side of the freeway or on Kastania Road can exit at Highway 116/Lakeville Highway, take southbound 101, and exit at Petaluma Boulevard South to access their residence or business.

• Detour 3 (east side of Petaluma Blvd. S. closure): During the closure of Petaluma Boulevard South, park and ride users, local residents, and businesses who want to travel north on 101 can take the southbound 101 on-ramp from Petaluma Boulevard South, travel to the Redwood Landfill interchange, and return to northbound 101.

• Detour 4 (west side of Petaluma Blvd. S.): take Petaluma Blvd. S., turn right on D Street, turn right on Lakeville Street, and continue to 101.

The work is weather dependent. If work on Feb. 8 is cancelled due to weather conditions, closures will be rescheduled for Feb. 10.

The California Transportation Commission last week approved the amount, acknowledging for the first time the extent of the project’s budget overrun due to measures taken to date — and those that will be needed going forward — to assure birds are not harmed by construction.

The allocation comes as construction crews are busy preparing to demolish a part of the old highway bridge before the migratory cliff swallows return next month from their winter grounds in South America.

The birds for years have made their conical mud nests under the Petaluma River Bridge, which consists of two 907-foot parallel spans. When Caltrans in 2013 embarked on a $130 million project to replace the structure with a wider, six-lane bridge, workers installed nets under the two existing spans to keep the birds from nesting. The nets actually trapped and killed dozens of birds, prompting a lawsuit from a coalition of wildlife advocates.

As part of a settlement agreement, Caltrans took down the nets during the 2014 nesting season and replaced them with hard plastic siding that discourages nesting under the bridge. Caltrans also agreed to pay for biologists to monitor the work site and ensure bird safety, and agreed to demolish the old bridge outside of nesting season, which runs from Feb. 15 to Aug. 15.

The additional expenditures for bird monitoring, legal fees and staff time dealing with the bird issue, including public outreach, raised some eyebrows with the Transportation Commission.

“We could have built condos with that money for those birds,” said Vice-Chairwoman Lucetta Dunn.

Wildlife advocates say that the bird safety measures Caltrans implemented last season, at a cost of $4 million, have worked, but some also questioned the price tag for the efforts going forward.

“I’m very skeptical that it should cost $5.5 million to exclude birds from a bridge. That’s ridiculous,” said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Overruns are part of how Caltrans does business. If they had done the project right in the first place, it would have saved millions in tax payer money,” Miller said. “I hope no one is going to scapegoat the birds.”

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Caltrans included local Audubon Society chapters and Veronica Bowers, who runs a songbird rescue center in Sebastopol.

Caltrans spokesman Allyn Amsk said the additional funding request was what was required to complete the project given the measures needed to protect birds.

“The additional funding will allow us to complete the project in 2016 and further protect the ecology at the construction site at the Petaluma River in Sonoma County, including migratory birds like cliff swallows,” he said.

Cliff swallows are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. C.C. Myers, Inc., the contractor that installed the nets two years ago, was fined $3,525 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for harming the swallows. Caltrans said 67 birds died in the netting.

The bridge project is part of the $1.2 billion effort to widen Highway 101 to six lanes and alleviate congestion from Windsor to Novato. Crews are building a new six-lane bridge over the Petaluma River in the exact footprint of the 60-year-old span, a complicated feat of engineering that entails phased construction in order to keep traffic flowing.

Northbound traffic is currently being routed onto the median between the twin spans while workers demolish the old northbound bridge. The last section of bridge is slated for removal on Feb. 8, a week before bird nesting season begins. The demolition work will close Petaluma Boulevard South under the bridge for most of the day and involve a detour.

“We want to have these activities done before the start of migratory bird season,” Amsk said.

The overall project, planned for completion in August 2016, is six months behind schedule because of what Caltrans says are delays due to the bird settlement agreement.

Susan Kirks of the Madrone Audubon Society, one of the groups that sued Caltrans, said her organization would monitor the work site over the next two nesting seasons and report any violations. She said she hopes Caltrans learns from the experience and will implement the new bird safety measures on future projects.

“This didn’t happen because of the birds. It happened because of Caltrans’ egregious use of cheap netting,” she said. “Hopefully this will raise awareness and prevent future expensive tragedies and deaths. We hope for a positive outcome in the end.”

Super Bowl Sunday revelers are being urged to plan how they’re getting home and avoid driving after getting drunk.

Several Sonoma County law enforcement agencies said they would put extra patrols on the streets that will be keeping watch for intoxicated drivers. These patrol officers will solely be looking to make DUI arrests, working separately from other officers responding to calls for service and other routine work.

During Super Bowl 2012, impaired drivers were involved in nearly 225 collisions statewide, according to the most recent statistics available from the CHP. Eight of those crashes resulted in someone’s death and people suffered injuries in 79 crashes. CHP officers arrested 422 people on suspicion of DUI charges.

It was not immediately clear how those numbers compare to a typical Sunday.

The Santa Rosa-area CHP, Santa Rosa and Petaluma police departments will be placing more officers on the street Sunday when the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots face off for the NFL Super Bowl XLIX.

The cost of placing extra officers on the streets is supported by a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration administered by California’s Office of Traffic Safety. The program supports a variety of DUI enforcement projects, including focused patrols on holidays and special occasions.

CHP Officer Jon Sloat urged people to report impaired drivers by calling 911. Callers should be prepared to give the location, direction of travel, vehicle description and a license plate number and details about driver behavior.

— By Julie Johnson

Lakeville Highway will be closed under Highway 101 at night from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., tonight through Thursday. A detour is available on Caulfield Lane.

Petaluma Boulevard South under Highway 101 will be closed for 20 hours on Feb. 8 as crews demolish the old Petaluma River Bridge. The road and the northbound Highway 101 offramp at that spot will be closed from 4 a.m. to midnight. Detours will be posted in various locations. The work has been rescheduled from Feb. 1.

Caltrans also said that a new northbound onramp at Petaluma Boulevard South would open in three to four weeks, but the agency did not give an exact date. The onramp has been closed since last fall, when highway traffic was shifted onto a raised median south of Petaluma.

The closures depend on weather conditions and will be rescheduled if necessary, Caltrans said.

Bridge officials are reminding motorists that the speed limit southbound on the Waldo Grade in Marin County, south of the Waldo tunnel, was lowered from 55 mph to 45 mph. The speed limit across the bridge is also 45 mph. The speed limit is 35 mph approaching the toll plaza and 25 mph through the toll booths.

Many drivers are exceeding the speed limits, creating potentially unsafe driving conditions in these areas, bridge officials and CHP officers say.

The CHP has deployed a speed enforcement team on the Golden Gate Bridge to monitor and cite speeding drivers on the Waldo Grade, across the span and through the toll plaza.

“We’re seeing too many drivers driving 20 to 30 miles over the speed limit,” said Bridge Manager Kary Witt. “It’s completely unacceptable, and the CHP will help us remind drivers the best way to stay safe on the bridge is by sticking to the speed limits.”

A tree contractor will be working along the road shoulder on Lakeville Road this week, chipping brush piles and grinding stumps. Traffic delays are possible when the contractor moves equipment and crews out onto the roadway. This work will complete the cleanup following tree work over the past two months.

The bridge crew will continue work this week constructing a retaining wall along Pine Flat Road in North County. The culvert crew has moved to Freezout Road to replace a culvert and roadway partially damaged in last month’s storms. And traffic crews will be performing sign maintenance county-wide and storm drain inspections.

This weekend’s closure for the installation of a movable median barrier could cause headaches for the 110,000 daily drivers that normally use the bridge to travel to San Francisco.

At one minute past midnight on Saturday, the bridge will close and crews will work around the clock to install the 3,200 steel-and-concrete barrier segments that are held together with steel pins. Each unit is 12 inches wide, 32 inches high and weighs 1,500 pounds. The bridge is expected to reopen at 4 a.m. Jan. 12.

Once completed, large “zipper” trucks will be able to shift the barrier one lane at a time. A similar system is already in use at the southern approach to the bridge.

The north and southbound lanes of the 1.7-mile, six-lane bridge are currently separated by 19-inch plastic pylons, which have to be moved manually, usually by a worker hanging off the back of a truck.

The $30 million movable barrier is designed to prevent head-on collisions on the bridge, said Dana Fehler, a bridge spokeswoman. There have been 36 traffic fatalities on the bridge since 1970, including 16 head-on crashes, although there have been none since 2001. Officials reduced the speed limit from 55 mph to 45 mph in 1983 to increase safety.

“The movable median barrier will virtually eliminate cross-over collisions,” Fehler said. “It will enhance safety on the bridge and be a more efficient way to reconfigure lane changes.”

Most of the funding for the project comes from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission ($20 million), federal agencies ($1.3 million) and Golden Gate Bridge tolls ($5.1 million).

Transportation officials are planning for the unprecedented bridge closure and reminding travelers to plan ahead.

The bridge was closed briefly eight times between 1973 and 1976 for a suspender rope replacement project. Each of those closures was between 2:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Winds up to 75 mph closed the bridge in 1951, 1982 and 1983. The longest closure lasted four hours. The bridge also was closed for visits by President Franklin Roosevelt and French President Charles de Gaulle and for the 50th anniversary in 1987.

At 9:30 p.m. Friday night, law enforcement officers will begin closing access roads leading to the bridge. During the full closure, southbound Highway 101 will be closed at Marin City. In San Francisco, the closure will start at the intersection of Doyle Drive and Marina Boulevard. There also will be a closure at the intersection of Highway 1 and Lake Street.

Golden Gate Transit buses will be allowed to cross the bridge and will operate on a normal weekend schedule. The east sidewalk of the bridge will remain open for cyclists and pedestrians. Golden Gate Ferry will have extra trips from Larkspur and Sausalito to San Francisco. From the North Bay, drivers can use the Richmond Bridge and the Bay Bridge to reach San Francisco.

“We’re telling drivers to stay off the road that weekend,” Fehler said. “If you have to travel, take transit.”

When the bridge reopens, drivers will find conditions have changed. Southbound drivers approaching the bridge will merge left instead of merging right as they currently do. The speed limit on Highway 101 south of the Waldo Tunnel will be permanently reduced to 45 mph from the current 55 mph.

“It will take some time to get used to the new driving conditions,” Fehler said. “We want people to take it slow.”

Using a transportation grant, Sonoma County bought 22 EVs, which officials say will help the county meet its greenhouse gas emission goals while saving money on fuel.

“This is really to demonstrate our environmental leadership,” Supervisor Efren Carrillo said. “But also, it helps reduce our fuel cost. We’re saving taxpayers money on fuel while reducing emissions. It’s truly exciting to be at the forefront as a local government.”

The purchase, which was initially reported in September, is part of a greater Bay Area effort to increase electric vehicles in government fleets. The $2.7 million Metropolitan Transportation Commission grant that helped 10 agencies buy 90 EVs is the largest municipal fleet deployment of electric vehicles in the country, according to the Bay Area Climate Collaborative. The Sonoma County Water Agency also bought five EVs as part of the grant.

“This is one of the most effective steps governments can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector,” said Rafael Reyes, executive director of the Bay Area Climate Collaborative.

Sonoma County’s share of the grant, $519,000, went toward 22 Ford Focus plug-in sedans and the installation of 10 charging stations, said David Worthington, the county’s fleet manager. Those cars are being driven by county social workers and health officials on government business, saving taxpayers 3,837 gallons of fuel, and sparing the environment 32 tons of carbon annually, he said.

“The county wanted to be a leader in greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “Electric vehicles are another way of doing that.”

The new electric cars, purchased from Hansel Ford after a competitive bid process and taking advantage of state and federal incentives for EV buyers, are adding to a county fleet that has won the Government Green Fleet Award at the Green Fleet Forum each of the past five years.

Of the county’s 1,128 vehicles, 250 are hybrid-electric and 329 get more than 30 miles per gallon for a total savings of 166,558 gallons of gasoline over the past 12 years while driving more than 10 million miles, according to the county. Most of the electricity for the county’s EV charging stations is generated by a natural gas fuel cell plant, which is a clean energy source.

“We’re excited to add these vehicles to our fleet,” Jose Obregon, the county director of general services, said in a statement. “On the average, with our on-site stationary fuel cell, we are able to operate these vehicles at a fuel cost that is 83 percent lower than a conventionally powered vehicle.”

The EVs have a range of 60 to 90 miles on a single charge, which will give county employees the confidence to make it to appointments and back, said Liz Yager, the county energy and sustainability manager. It also exposes employees to electric vehicles and makes it more likely that they will buy one for their own use.

Fleet vehicles contribute more than 50 percent of the county’s greenhouse gases, so reductions in tailpipe emissions make a big impact, she said.

“Vehicle miles traveled is the biggest nut to crack countywide as far as emissions,” she said. “Our employees are able to work with virtually zero tailpipe emissions. That’s pretty exciting.”

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Drivers dread it, but some can’t avoid it.

The intersection at Highways 121 and 116 in Schellville has been a traffic congestion nightmare for both visitors and residents of Sonoma and Napa. However, motorists have few alternatives when trying to pass through that part of Wine Country.

“There’s no back way, unless you cut through a (gated area) or a vineyard,” said Alan Wastell, tasting room manager at Anaba Wines, at the northwest corner of problematic highway intersection. On busy days, “it can back up for miles,” Wastell said.

State and local officials have been looking for a remedy.

They’re moving ahead with plans that call for a possible two-lane roundabout or traffic signal at the intersection, which is now a four-way stop. However, motorists will have to wait several more years to see any relief.

“We’re at the halfway point” of studies and planning, said Seana Gause, senior programming and project analyst with the Sonoma County Transportation Authority.

Officials are still assessing environmental and other impacts, such as a noise, for both options before they can move ahead with designs, she said. They’re also meeting with business and vineyard owners, who could see some encroachment if a roundabout is built.

“If all the stars align, we would probably be ready to go to construction in five years,” Gause said.

The intersection handles traffic from the two-lane Bonneau Road to the west, and Highways 116 to the north and 121 from both the east and south. While many of the commuters are tourists, Gause said many local residents use it. It’s an important east-west thoroughfare for Napa and Sonoma counties.

Caltrans found 18,000 vehicles traveled daily on that segment of Highway 121 last year, while 15,500 traveled daily on Highway 116.

It also found that the intersection had a “higher than average” accident rate. There were 13 accidents on Highway 116 between April 2008 to the end of March 2011, according to the latest figures provided by Caltrans. Up to a third of them were related to congestion.

During the same period, Caltrans said there were 19 accidents, one of which was fatal, on Highway 121. About half of those incidents were related to congestion in the area, according to the state agency.

Wastell, a Sonoma resident, travels the same roads to get to and from work. He said congestion gets worse around the holidays and weekends when tourists are visiting Wine Country.

Sonoma city officials also are considering building two roundabouts, including one in front of the historic Plaza. The idea faces opposition from many residents.

Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin said she’s seen some support for a roundabout at the intersection of Highways 121 and 116.

“Almost universally, the folks who have talked to me have supported a roundabout approach,” Gorin said, adding that a roundabout seven miles to the north, on Arnold Drive and Agua Caliente Road, has worked well to ease traffic.

She said it’s taken so long to deal with the crossing at 116 and 121 in part because of the number of government agencies involved.

“Because this particular intersection at Highway 121 and 116 is multi-jurisdictional it’s even more complex to design a new intersection,” Gorin said.

Money also will be a hurdle.

Gorin said it’s unlikely the county’s general fund will be tapped for the project, estimated to cost $17.7 million to $26.5 million.

About $5 million could come from Measure M, the quarter-cent sales tax voters approved back in 2004 for transportation needs and road improvements, Gause said. Work continues to make the project “shovel ready” in case officials find state and federal dollars.

The plans also call for sidewalks up to 10 feet wide, which would accommodate both pedestrians and bicyclists. An existing park-and-ride lot could be relocated and the nearby bridge over Yellow Creek replaced.

John Sweazey, owner of Anaba Wines, said although he doesn’t expect to see any “Michelangelo fountains,” a roundabout would be better aesthetically for the highway intersection. He said it remains to be seen whether it would work in an area that will continue to draw heavy traffic.

“We’re excited about having something happen. People have been waiting for a while,” he said.

With 2014 winding down, I came to realize that my 19-year international travel streak was likely going to come to an end. It’s been a busy year domestically, and I hadn’t had time to leave the country at all. Looking ahead to the last month of the year, I was out of vacation days and busy just about every weekend … except this past Saturday.

But there was no way I could leave the country and return in a day, right? I mulled it over and did some quick Google mapping. I found out that my house in Petaluma was about 550 miles from the Mexico border. Maybe there was a way …

On Friday night, I made the decision to go for it. It was so spontaneous, I didn’t even have time to download any podcasts or curate a collection of music. I would be at the mercy of Heartland radio, and my own thoughts. I got a few hours of sleep on Friday night and awoke after midnight. I made a sandwich and a tall thermos of coffee, grabbed my passport and jumped into my 1998 Toyota Camry.

I pulled out of my driveway at 1:46 a.m., took D Street to Petaluma Boulevard South, and then got on southbound Highway 101. There were still plenty of cars on the freeway at this hour, probably people heading home from their Friday night as my Saturday morning was just getting started.

I crossed the Richmond Bridge and continued on 580 through the East Bay and up over the Altamont Pass, reaching the Central Valley just after 3 a.m. With a 70 mph speed limit on Interstate 5, I set the cruise control to 75 and zoned out. Nothing but blackness, straight, flat freeway and a few semi-trucks to punctuate the monotony.

I hit the Grapevine, the windy stretch of I-5 over the Southern California mountains, at dawn and could see that the mountains got a nice dusting of snow in the recent storm. I watched a beautiful sunrise over the Tejon Pass, then dropped into the San Fernando Valley just after 7 a.m.

I hit my first patch of traffic just past downtown Los Angeles. It was 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and the freeway was gridlocked. It made me glad to live in Sonoma County. With all the complaining we do about the Sonoma-Marin Narrows bottleneck, it’s nothing compared to what Southern Californians deal with every day.

I made my first stop in Commerce City, a gas and bathroom break, then back on the freeway through Orange County, past Disneyland, and into the ever shrinking gap between the Los Angeles and San Diego metro areas. A quick bathroom break in Oceanside, and I was speeding through San Diego, quickly running out of America.

Cars waiting at the U.S./Mexico border.

At 9:55 a.m., 8 hours and 9 minutes and 547.1 miles after leaving home, I pulled into the parking area about 100 feet from the Mexico border. I walked across the border and into Mexico. I did a bit of Christmas shopping, buying some beautiful handicrafts for people in my life, then I walked back to the border and found a line of people a half mile long all waiting to cross into America. This was going to be a problem, I could tell.

After half an hour in line, I had barely moved 20 feet. I imagined that everyone in this line was seeking to take advantage of President Obama’s relaxed immigration policy. When the line would stop moving for 20 minute stretches, I imagined that Congress, which was debating a $1.1 trillion spending bill as I languished in line, had voted to defund Obama’s immigration policy, forcing the border to close and stranding me in Mexico indefinitely. These were ridiculous thoughts, I know, but they seemed perfectly rational when you’re stuck in a line that is seemingly stationary.

Finally, two hours later, I made it to the front of the line, flashed my passport for the Customs and Border Patrol agent and reentered the U.S. Dreading the 8-hour drive ahead of me, I got back to my car at 12:52 p.m. with plenty of daylight left.

I zipped back through San Diego, hit some inevitable traffic in Los Angeles, and then back over the Grapevine and into the Central Valley at dusk. Four hours from home and I started feeling fatigue setting in. I searched for some music to keep me awake and found myself singing out loud to Joe Walsh’s Life’s Been Good. “My Maserati does 185 / I lost my license, now I don’t drive.”

A quick stop for gas, the second fill up of the day ($2.49/gallon, sweet!) and I was in the home stretch. Hitting the 580 and leaving the boring I-5 behind, I got my second wind. Now the driving was fun again, winding up over the Altamont Pass and through the East Bay. I started doing the math and I thought I could probably beat my time on the return.

I hit Highway 101 with 20 miles to go, and I knew I could make it. No traffic at 8:30 p.m. through the Narrows. I got off the freeway at Petaluma Boulevard South, navigated the city streets and pulled up to my house just as the clock hit 8:52 p.m., exactly 8 hours since leaving the border and just over 19 hours since leaving home that morning. More amazingly, the return trip was 547.1 miles, exactly the same as on the way down, even with different stops and off ramps on the two legs of the trip.

So, I proved that it is possible to drive from Petaluma to Mexico and back in a day. I don’t recommend it, however. But I did keep intact my international travel streak, now 20 years and counting. I think I’ll plan a more meaningful trip next year.