California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

The 58.5-mile long Highway 101 corridor from the Bay Bridge to the SR 85/US-101 interchange in South San Jose accommodates just over 2.6 million trips on an average weekday. Travel delays on the US-101 corridor over the 2012-2016 five-year period increased by more than 91% (an average delay increase of over 18% per year). Given that California’s economy recently grew to become the sixth largest in the world, this waste of time stuck in traffic ranks among the most consequential economic inefficiencies in the world; workers in this region produce about 15 percent of California’s annual gross domestic product (GDP), 53 percent of its patents and almost 75 percent of the state’s venture capital investment.The extensive economic strength in this corridor drives demand for travel and provides the essential context for the existing conditions and assets described in this report. This demand has overwhelmed much of the available capacity and is expected to do so in the future as well. Therefore, effective Active Transportation and Demand Management (ATDM) strategies must not only address the inefficient use of current capacity and expand capacity where possible, but also address the excess demand in the short term in ways that ensure the mobility gains achieved through these strategies (e.g., delay reductions, travel time reliability improvements) are not lost through induced demand. In short, this allocation will require strategies that will distribute trip making to alternative routes, off-peak periods, and to higher occupancy modes, or even address the more fundamental need for making some trips in the first place. This report concludes with an exploration of ATDM strategies, and provides information on current conditions, operations, built environment, roadwayassets, and travel behavior along the corridor.