Caltrans agrees to add conduit to highway projects

23 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Slow is a lot better than Stop.

More broadband conduit might be going into California highway projects over the next few years. A deal was struck between a north coast assemblyman – Jim Wood (D – Healdsburg) – and Caltrans: Wood drops his current effort to write conduit obligations into law, and Caltrans promises to rewrite its policies to be more accomodating to broadband infrastructure. According to a press release from Wood’s office…

“Caltrans has been a willing participant in discussions during the past two years as we have tried to move the needle on expanding Californian’s access to broadband,” said Wood. “Adopting a ‘dig once’ policy for these priority areas is an important advancement and we could not have done it without recognition by Caltrans that they play a meaningful role in facilitating expanded access to broadband.”

“In addition to improving mobility, we realize many benefits to communities and businesses can be realized through collaboration,” said Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty. “While performing our primary duty of maintaining California’s transportation infrastructure, it makes sense to achieve economies of scale where we can in order to maximize the benefits to Californians.”

By Caltrans installing conduit during planned road work, the cost of installing cable at a future date can be mitigated – often reducing costs to pennies on the dollar because trenches would only be opened once, rather than multiple times…

Last year, progress was made when AB 1549 established the “Broadband Task Force,” a process by which Caltrans brings together stakeholders to identify opportunities where companies can collaborate to install broadband conduit as part of future Caltrans projects. The first and very productive meeting was held with more than a dozen stakeholders earlier this month and regularly scheduled meetings will continue.

I participated in that meeting with Caltrans a couple of weeks ago. There was a genuine desire to cooperate with broadband infrastructure development efforts. But it’s a big organisation that moves slowly and doesn’t always implement policy on a statewide basis – Caltrans’ regional districts have a lot of autonomy.

This agreement is progress. If it means that Caltrans is moving – in its slow but inexorable way – toward being a broadband development player, it’s a win for everyone.