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Caltrans says access modified to new Murphys median after residents, publisher raise concerns
Summary
Calaveras County Council of Governments members and Caltrans staff discussed a recently installed concrete median at the SR 4/Tom Bell Road (Murphys) intersection after residents and a local publisher raised concerns about access, business impacts and communications; Caltrans said it has modified access and will study further changes.
Calaveras County Council of Governments members on Oct. 1 heard public complaints about a concrete median recently installed at the State Route 4 intersection with Tom Bell Road and Big Trees Road in Murphys, and Caltrans staff told the board it had modified access and will examine additional improvements.
Christopher Butler, publisher of calaveras2026election.com, told the board that Caltrans had published the project on the state SeqNet site in June 2024 and that local officials were left scrambling afterwards. Butler said the county and COG were “blindsided” and asked why local leaders had not caught the project earlier.
The matter matters to residents and business owners because the median sits in the heart of Murphys’ commercial area and, according to Caltrans staff, was installed to reduce broadside collisions. A Caltrans representative told the board that the agency had modified access at the site and described the changes being implemented.
“We have modified it. I think that's what is in your handout. So we have modified the access, and we're gonna have a 2 lehi turn lanes. So 1 going into the grocery store and 1 going into the, to the gas station,” the Caltrans representative said during the meeting.
Caltrans staff said the installed raised median segment covers about 400 feet near the transit nodes and business driveways. The representative described site circulation as follows: three driveways serve the gas station, the last driveway will retain full access, and the redesign is intended to allow a California-legal 65-foot truck to enter; a 40-foot single-fuel tanker should also be able to circulate as needed.
Caltrans staff also told the board the raised median would remain where collision rates were highest; the project team left a striped section on the opposite side and preserved a raised median only at the primary conflict area. The presenter said the collision rate in the flagged segment had been “almost 7 times higher than the state average rate of collisions,” which Caltrans cited as the reason for the safety countermeasure.
Board members and residents said the median had rerouted traffic onto local streets and created circulation issues for emergency vehicles and businesses. A board member told attendees that the south gas station’s access was constrained and that the raised median had at first limited some turns, causing more traffic to circulate on local streets.
Caltrans staff said the vendor and their team would continue to look for opportunities to revise the configuration and to consider additional intersection modifications west of the median, and that they would coordinate with the county and COG staff on next steps. The board said it would follow up with Caltrans and county staff offline and would continue public outreach.
No formal policy vote or change to the project’s funding was taken at the meeting; Caltrans staff described the changes as operational modifications and committed to further investigation and outreach.
Residents who remain concerned about access, circulation and the county’s awareness of the project said they expect continued follow-up from both the county and Caltrans.
