Another fix for SLO County’s ‘Blood Alley’: Stretch of Hwy. 46 will be widened to 4 lanes
The push to widen Highway 46 in northern San Luis Obispo County received a major piece of funding this week.
Caltrans announced Friday it has allocated $589 million for road projects throughout the state, including $136 million to the long-awaited Highway 46 project.
The funding is partially through Senate Bill 1 (SB1), the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, according to a Caltrans news release.
According to the release, the money will go to convert Highway 46 East between the Shandon Roadside Rest Area and Jack Ranch Cafe into a four-lane expressway.
That portion of Highway 46, which overlaps with Highway 41 leading out of SLO County, was long known as “Blood Alley” due to its frequent deadly head-on collisions, before a string of projects widened the highway and added dividers between Paso Robles and the Cholame “Y.”
In 2019, $15 million in funding that had been allocated for a widening project on Highway 46 east of the Cholame “Y” was almost diverted to rail projects instead, but community backlash pushed lawmakers to restore $10.3 million to go toward the project.
Caltrans District 5 spokesman Jim Shivers said the latest widening project is “needed to accommodate the number of travelers that use this major east-west route, which links the Central Coast to the San Joaquin Valley.”
“It is consistent with prior widening projects to enhance safety in this corridor,” he said.
Construction could begin as early as the spring.
Shivers said the remaining stretch of two-lane highway west of the Cholame “Y” would be the next phase of a project once this portion is completed.
Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, who advocated for the funding for the 2019 project east of the “Y,” on Friday applauded the new commitment to fixing a portion of the heavily traveled road.
“In 2019, thousands of Central Coast residents signed our petition to save funding for the widening of Highway 46,” he said in a statement to The Tribune. “I’m glad to see this funding finally being programmed for this critical highway infrastructure project. The widening of Highway 46 will save lives.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2022 at 1:08 PM.
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