NBC News San Francisco Bay Area reports, “One of the few upsides of the pandemic is that fewer vehicles on the roads means Caltrans has [safely] moved ahead of schedule on a number of road projects across the Bay Area.” The department reportedly took advantage of the light traffic during 2020 to lay down down 1.2 million tons of asphalt in the Bay Area — about double the amount it applies in a typical year — and its work projects included “almost 64 lane miles of express lanes.”