"The problem is the economy," said Jeff Funk of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority's highway and construction department. "The sales tax revenues aren't being generated to support all the projects."

The stretch of Highway 85 from Interstate 280 to Highway 87 has been slated to receive $9.3 million of Santa Clara County money to, one way or another, remove the roadway's tining that, when driven over, creates the offending sound. The highway's noise mitigation project was one of about 20 to be funded through the county's 1996 Measure B sales tax, expected to generate $1.5 billion for rail and roadway improvements, said Measure B program administrator Jeff Davis. The tax will end in April 2006.

In early June, the county board of supervisors, in the face of the weakening economy, reaffirmed that the projects not yet under construction, including Highway 85, were all on track. But later that month the county's most recent quarterly sales tax revenue report showed that revenue was significantly below what was expected and below what would continue to allow all the projects to be done as scheduled, Funk said.

The county's top priority was getting underway a large project to improve the interchange at Highway 85 and Interstate 101. So on Sept. 10, county staff brought the board a proposal to immediately prioritize that project and rank the other projects. The Highway 85 project was ranked on the lowest tier of priority and was even suggested as a possible project to be removed from the program altogether, Funk and Davis said.

The reason Highway 85 was ranked so low, Davis said, is because it was one of the few projects not relating to congestion relief, which impacts the entire county. The noise mitigation would only affect the relatively few residents in Saratoga, Cupertino, Los Gatos and San Jose who hear the noise, he said.

The board approved the staff's recommendation without any discussion as a tentative measure to make sure that the interchange project remained on schedule, Davis said. He said the board would revisit the prioritizations, probably in January, after the December sales tax revenue reports are available.

A project to test the efficacy of a microgrinding technique along Highway 85 is still moving forward and scheduled to begin this month, Funk said. But Davis said that if the test doesn't result in a significant reduction of noise in the area, the whole project could be scrapped in December, before the board even reviews the prioritizations. Because Caltrans, which owns Highway 85, is opposed to any other method of reducing noise along the roadway, he said, the board "is not supportive of anything but grinding." If that technique doesn't work, he said, the board would be unlikely to move forward with another plan, particularly with the current economic situation as it is.

Funk said the test project would not be a total waste if the entire project were cancelled, as VTA wants to learn more about microgrinding and its effectiveness for a variety of roadways. Also, he said, things could change and the project could move forward, albeit later than expected.

"If you are optimistic, the economy could come back quickly and we would be ahead of the game," he said. "You never know when other, surprise funds will come along."

Davis reiterated that point.

"We're looking, of course, at all alternative funding sources," he said. "We're hoping that the economy will turn around."