Highway 25 Widening

proposed

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), in cooperation with the Council of San Benito County Governments and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, is proposing the eventual replacement of 11.2 miles of the existing State Route 25 two-lane highway with a four-lane expressway in San Benito and Santa Clara counties. A future interchange at State Route 25/State Route 156 would require widening State Route 156 between post miles R10.5 and R12.2. Caltrans is the lead agency for this project under the California Environmental Quality Act. The Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR), completed in June 2016 evaluated a proposed route adoption and includes a route adoption study (a broad Tier I environmental analysis). Three alternatives for the route adoption were under consideration: a No-Build Alternative and Alternatives 1 and 2. The Final EIR selected the Alternative 2 as the preferred alternative for route adoption. In October 2016, Caltrans submitted documentation to the California Transportation Commission for the route adoption of the preferred route adoption alignment, which was subsequently approved. A route adoption would require the City of Hollister, San Benito and Santa Clara counties to adopt a specific corridor for a future expressway into their General Plans. Both the City of Hollister and San Benito County have adopted the route adoptions, Santa Clara’s approval is pending. At some time in the future, most or all of the parcels within the defined area would eventually be acquired for the expressway. At this time there is not a build portion on this project. A new environmental document will be produced and circulated to the public if a build project is proposed in the future.