Deadly stretch of Highway 101 near Paso needs an upgrade

Just north of Paso Robles you come to a 7-mile stretch of Highway 101 that isn’t freeway. The sign says, “Cross traffic ahead next 7 miles.” Another sign says, “End freeway.”

Four people were killed at 6:15 p.m. on Christmas Eve on that non-freeway stretch of 101. They were in a minivan that smashed into a semi-trailer truck, which was turning left at Wellsona Road.

I’m somewhat familiar with those 7 miles of 101 because for the past few months I’ve been driving on some of them every day. I usually don’t reach the fatal intersection, but I do make a left turn every day into the four lanes of non-freeway traffic that continue traveling at freeway speed.

The Dec. 27 Tribune reported there have been 10 collisions at Highway 101 and Wellsona Road in the past four years. They include injury and non-injury crashes.

And a one-mile section of Highway 101 that includes the Wellsona intersection has had a total of 25 injury and non-injury collisions in the past four years (including those 10 crashes in the intersection itself.) A collision there last May left one driver with major injuries and the other with moderate injuries.

This reminds me of a cartoon by Bill Mauldin, the World War II soldier cartoonist. It shows two soldiers taking cover behind some rubble as bullets zing over their heads. One soldier tells the other, “I feel like a fugitive from th’ law of averages.”

I would say that anyone who travels on this stretch of non-freeway 101 is also a fugitive from

the law of averages. And it will continue to take its toll until something is done. The grandfather of one of the Christmas Eve crash victims suggested a traffic signal at the intersection of Highway 101 and Wellsona Road.

I suggest lowering the speed limit on those 7 non-freeway miles. Put up a sign with a flashing yellow light right next to the existing signs about the freeway ending and the stretch of cross traffic ahead. The new sign could say “Reduce speed to 60 MPH. Hazardous conditions.”

Sure, back in the 1950s cross traffic on those 7 miles of non-freeway 101 was tolerable, but things have changed. The highway now has recreational-vehicle resorts, a truck stop, a winery, other businesses, increased population and increased traffic.

That stretch of 101 is overdue for upgrading to full freeway. Sure, it’ll cost millions, but if we’d cancel that dream bullet train project in the San Joaquin Valley, we could use that money instead to correct real, obvious hazards like the non-freeway stretches of Highway 101.

This story was originally published January 1, 2015 at 12:12 PM with the headline "Deadly stretch of Highway 101 near Paso needs an upgrade."