The Sacramento City Council will be meeting on Tuesday, October 29 for a ‘Transportation Funding and Priorities Workshop’. The meeting announcement and agenda is at http://sacramento.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=21&event_id=3561. From 5:00PM to 7:00PM, the council will discuss the staff document, and the public may comment, with the usual two minute limit.
At first glance, the list of projects (in the staff document) submitted by Sacramento to SacTA looks better than it has in the past, but there is still a ways to go. Congestion relief should be achieved by shifting trips away from private vehicles and to transit, walking, and bicycling. Building new lanes miles and new interchanges does not relieve congestion, it induces more traffic. New bridges may or may not relieve congestion, but there is an argument to be made that Sacramento has too few river bridges and circulation for all modes of travel would be improved by more bridges, so long as they have limited or even no private car capacity. The chart below shows the distribution of projects in six categories, which were determined by the city.
One of the opportunities for the public to voice is that Sacramento should provide stronger leadership in transportation funding and project types, in alignment with the mobility and land use element being developed by the The Mayor’s Commission on Climate Change The Mayor’s Commission on Climate Change. Sacramento contains one-third of the population and voters in the county, yet in the past has not been a strong supporter of more responsible and progressive transportation expenditures throughout the county. The sprawl-inducing highways and interchanges so popular in other parts of the county harms the city, creating more traffic, more air pollution, and harms the transit system. It is time for the city to stand up and say no to these kind of projects.
Sacramento Transit Advocates and Riders (STAR) 