American River Crossing Study

The American river Crossings Alternatives Study will analyze potential crossings of the American River as called for in the Sacramento 2030 General Plan, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG)  Regional Blueprint and the adopted Metropolitan Transportation Plan. A crossing has the potential to relieve congestion on I-5 caused by limited options for local traffic to utilize local streets to connect employee-rich neighborhoods north of the river with the jobs-rich central core.

The Study area runs along the lower American River between I-5 and State Route 160. The Study area is bordered by Discovery Park in the South Natomas Community Plan to the north and The River District in the Central City Community Plan to the south.

 Caltrans awarded (SACOG) a $270,000 federal Partnership Planning grant toward studying alternative American River crossings in an effort to identify the most feasible crossing locations. The City of Sacramento is the named subrecipient for this grant and will be conducting the study. Establishment of a CIP, execution of agreements, and appropriation of funds is necessary to begin work on the project.

CityCouncil Report

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.

Bridges needed to cross the Sacramento River

It seem like every 3 or 4 years the City of Sacramento will discuss the possibility of building some bridges to link both West Sacramento and Sacramento… and then any ideas that are mentioned seem to be forgotten until another new study is needed to look into it again. This year both the cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento are investigating on whether one or more new bridges are needed so as to better connect the two communities, and are looking to hear from the public on the matter.

Today a non-scientific survey was launched as part of the Sacramento River Crossing Study with a nine-question survey asking where the best location would be to build them. The study will be open for responses till June 24th with the intent to evaluate a number of alternatives from a “no build” option to multiple crossings and locations. A final report is set to go to the city councils by the end of the year. The online survey is available here.

I still don’t understand why the city keeps spending money on study after study but still can’t identify where funding would come from to build just one of these bridges? This is the same story I’ve heard for over 20 years where numerous studies on decking I-5 have been done, but the end result is always that the cost to deck I-5 is substantially more that the previous study, therefore it cost too much to build at this time. I’m certain that these numerous studies have cost the city lots of money and showing virtually nothing new from the previous studies done before. This time, how about including several ideas on where the money to build new bridges would come from, there is no need to waist everyone’s time and money again if there is no funding plan in place to make this plan reality.