“We’re making great progress,” said Bob Haus, public information officer for Caltrans. His office is in Oakland and he recently led a media tour of a major focal point of the project, the Wilfred Avenue-Golf Course Drive connection tunneled under 101 freeway near Rohnert Park’s northern boundary.

Haus said, “We’re not quite at the halfway point in this $40 million project. But since we broke ground on it back in June 2009, we expect to have it completed by late 2012.”

Maybe it seems longer to RP drivers who have endured numerous route changes the past 13 months and quite likely to motorists who’ve crawled through the construction area during commute hours. But Haus has the facts.

“The project will construct two new lanes, one northbound and one southbound, both will be High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV), plus wider and new on and off ramps.

“In addition to relieving congestion, the project will resolve the long-standing problem of traveling from one side of Rohnert Park to the other. Currently the east and west sides are linked in this area by Commerce Boulevard, a rather long, circuitous route under the freeway,” he said. “When completed ... (the connection) will be a short, straight, wide road that runs beneath the freeway.”

Highway 101 in Sonoma County is a busy construction area for Caltrans. HOV lanes will be added from Novato Narrows north of Novato all the way to Cloverdale near the Mendocino County border.

Construction crews are building a new freeway access road from the northern end of Old Redwood Highway in Cotati. Redwood trees have been removed near the Gravenstein Highway terminus in Cotati to make room for the HOV lanes and improve entry and exit lanes to the freeway. Caltrans has said it will replace the fallen redwoods with other trees native to California.

The connection between Wilfred Avenue and Golf Course Drive provides RP with its second link between east and west. RP Expressway with its Congressman Don Clausen overpass goes above the freeway; Golf Course-Wilfred will go under it.

Years ago there was talk of a connection across the freeway from State Farm Drive on the east to Business Park Drive on the west. It was planned to relieve the entanglements further north at Commerce Blvd. But this idea never found financing and was withdrawn.