Santa Rosa City Councilman Gary Wysocky lost his coveted seat on the powerful Sonoma County Transportation Authority to newcomer Erin Carlstrom Tuesday night. On a 4-2 vote, Carlstrom was appointed by the City Council to replace Wysocky on the 12-member board.

The pace of work to widen Highway 101 through Sonoma County is picking up and shifting to Petaluma, where four major projects to rebuild overpasses and bridges will start within the next few months. It will also probably make Petaluma traffic a mess until work is completed in late 2014.

Santa Rosa leaders, city staff and neighbors gathered Monday at the site of the new Sixth Street undercrossing to celebrate the completion of a project designed to help reconnect a city long divided by Highway 101.

A planned project to rebuild a Highway 101 interchange in north Petaluma remains in limbo as the city and state dispute whether the city can pay its share with former redevelopment dollars.

The California Transportation Commission on Wednesday approved $82 million to replace the parallel spans of Highway 101 over the Petaluma River. The construction work, which could start this fall and take two years, is a major part of the widening of Highway 101 through Sonoma County and the Novato Narrows.

Replacing and widening the Highway 101 bridges over the Petaluma River is the next major step in a billion-dollar freeway project that has proceeded in spurts over the past decade — and is now within a few years of completion. The state is expected Wednesday to approve $82 million for construction that could begin this fall to replace the parallel spans over the Petaluma River that are one of the bottlenecks on the highway from Windsor to Marin County.

Installation work on bicycle lanes that have proved controversial in the city of Sonoma is set to begin. The $142,000 project is intended to ease road congestion and promote environmentally friendly modes of transportation. But some residents on Fifth Street West are worried the project will lead to increased traffic on their street.

Trains could be delayed a year or more on the Santa Rosa-San Rafael commute rail line and the cost is now estimated to be $45 million more than anticipated, transit officials said Friday.

On Thursday, two elected officials and I got into the weeds — literally and figuratively — over the proposed bike bridge spanning Highway 101 in Santa Rosa.