Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Downtown Sacramento Riverfront Connector

Today there will be an open house on the connecting of downtown Sacramento to the riverfront.















The informational meeting will provide a project overview, schedule and next steps. The public is invited to stop in anytime between 5 and 7 p.m. at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria at 828 I St., and city staff and technical specialists will be on-hand to answer questions and provide more details about the project.

When the I-5 Riverfront Reconnection Project was in its initial vision stage, the City Council had considered creating a deck over the freeway to reconnect downtown to the riverfront.

A project review study found the decking idea was too expensive, so it was scrapped in favor of the current bridging project, according to the Department of Transportation website.

The current design – which includes bike and pedestrian improvements to Capitol Mall, a new gateway entrance into Old Sacramento and a new N Street bridge crossing I-5 – is in the environmental review stages now, and the public may review draft environmental impact reports until Aug. 31.

Of the estimated $38 million design and construction cost for the project, about $5 million comes from federal sources, another $1 million comes from local funding, and an additional $300,000 comes from a Caltrans community-planning grant.

Future financing for design and construction will be sought once the planning and environmental phase is completed. That funding is likely to come from a variety of public and private funding sources, according to the Department of Transportation website.

Depending on available funding, construction for the first phase of improvements could begin as early as 2014.

To read more about the project click here or here in the Sacramento Press.

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