The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 11

TTT "1 i 1 i 4 4 i ri iu i iui aacramemo ee aunuay rwuiui ia BSaaen0iIfiMCticalDW SB ahead for our swollen streets? More cars By Dan Bernstein Bee Staff Writer i city "The traffic backing up from intersections is backing up along the entire Frink said the worst intersections in the city are along Howe Avenue Arden Way and El Camino Avenue Even with plans to widen Sunrise Boulevard to six lanes from the American River Bridge to Madison Avenue traffic over the bridge is expected to exceed the capacity by 34 percent according to a planning report The outlook is similar for the three other overcrowded thoroughfares that cross the river Howe Avenue Watt Avenue and Hazel Avenue drivers on Fair Oaks Boulevard might switch to Garfield Avenue and drivers Sunrise Boulevard might hop on San Juant-Avenue Motorists trying to outfox traffic at con-? gested intersections might even end up on residential streets which will trigger corn- plaints Ray said City and county officials each say they-need about $10 million more per year to un- dertake road widening and intersection provement projects that will prevent a bad situation from becoming a disaster is growing at 3 (percent) to 5 per-J cent per year not adding any roads" said Frink not doing much widening getting quite alarm-4 5 Lynn Roble Another consequence of adding tens of thousands of more cars to an already overloaded system is that the peak congestion times will spread out few years ago the peak hour lasted 15 minutes" Frink said "Now up to a half-hour and 10 years from now it will be an hour and a Ray agreed He said that in five years the morning and afternoon rush hours could start 30 minutes sooner in 10 years they could be pushed back an hour If main roads become too congested motorists will start to seek alternate routes along parallel narrower streets For example Ray said drivers on Watt Avenue might switch to Eastern Avenue "It could take four to five minutes to get through intersections during the peak time" he said have people waiting two three or four changes of a signal to get Frink predicted that in 10 years delays will easily double if we get no additional At 5 pm on a weekday it takes about 10 minutes to drive north on Sunrise Boulevard from Highway 50 to Fair Oaks Boulevard an average speed of 12 mph for the two-mile trip Many of the thousands of motorists who sit in traffic on the most congested thoroughfare in Sacramento County probably think it get any worse They are wrong could become a 20-minute trip instead of a 10-minute said James Ray chief of the highways and bridges division As new developments spawn more traffic city and county roads will suffer along with highways in some cases more More traffic and less money also increases the chances of accidents at busy intersections in need of traffic lights One such intersection is Pocket Road and Greenhaven Drive according to City Councilwoman "The problems are always at intersections because if you have signals you have to give half the time to other said Leslie Frink deputy public works director for the Traffic Continued from page A1 1 Sacramento area traffic by 1995 The result will be traffic tie-ups in both directions simultaneously on portions of some freeways 2 The Caltrans report warns that un-? less new freeways are built the? downtown interchange for US-50 Highway 99 and Business 1-80 eventually become a critical bottle-! neck for the whole The population of urban area including south Placer? County is expected to jump from- 929000 in 1985 to 14 million in 1995? according to the report Over those? same 10 years the report says the? number of highway miles classified? as "severely will increase? from 80 to 250 Supervisor Smoley said part of the? reason why more money has not been spent on roads is that Proposi- tion 13 the tax-cutting measure passed by California voters in 1978 has forced the county to choose? among essential services our county budget structure? roads compete with she said the last five years there? has been more and more public? pressure for patrols Roads kept losing losing 2 The City Council also has ap-? proved developments without adequate provisions for coping with the! traffic they will generate according to Mayor Anne Rudin too far-flung right Rudin said "Suburban sprawl has made good transportation planning very For example in the 1970s the! council approved numerous Comparing traffic around Sacramento county officials Both elected officials and developers said there has never been any connection between those contributions and the approval of projects Supervisor Toby Johnson who has served on the board since 1979 was willing to accept some of the blame for traffic problems "I think I probably should have been more cognizant of the repercussions of growth with respect to he said think we were ever given any warning signs until 1983 and when we started doing He was referring to plans to form assessment districts to pay for improvements around Bradshaw Road and Sunrise Boulevard Neither district has been implemented yet and many property owners remain opposed to the plan County Supervisor Ilia Collin said Caltrans officials warned the board in the early 1980s that approving new office buildings along US-50 would result in traffic delays But she said supervisors resented the state trying to Influence local land-use decisions and approved the projects Supervisor Sandra Smoley said when she voted for many building projects she think they would have a drastic effect on traffic because of programs being hatched to encourage people to drive less would say that during the 1970s people had high hopes that light rail and mass transit would solve commuter she said thought the era of the automobile was about to In a broader sense traffic problems can be traced to land-use policies begun 40 years ago and revised only recently according to Supervisor Grantland Johnson The city he said did not encourage development close to the central city and the county did not try to keep the unincorporated areas rural recall the city was implicitly pushing development on the (Highway) 50 corridor and the county was fully accepting it without concern for providing transportation said Johnson a former city councilman While some motorists might disagree traffic in the Sacramento area is not that bad now compared with other metropolitan areas Stop-and-go traffic on highways usually occurs only for a few miles during rush hours and at busy off ramps Peak traffic periods usually last no longer than an hour apiece and most delays run from 10 to 20 minutes The worst congestion is in eastern Sacramento County where traffic crawls for hours each day over the north-south roads that cross the American River Howe Avenue Watt Avenue Sunrise Boulevard and Hazel Avenue "This kind of congestion is similar to that found in parts of Los Angeles in the late 1950s in Orange and Santa Clara counties in the late 1960s and in San Diego in the according to a recent Caltrans report Many of the congestion problems arise from the fact that highway system is radial like spokes on a wheel That is fine if the vast majority of car trips are between the suburbs and downtown Increasingly however as new offices are built in the suburbs commuters are traveling from one suburb to another Officials say that in the next 20 years 60 percent of all new jobs will be created outside the central city ing of 454 miles of freeway routes in the mid-1970s by the board On a smaller scale the supervisors dropped plans last year to widen a portion of Watt Avenue because of strong neighborhood opposition The main current transportation project in Sacramento Regional $176 million 183-mile light-rail line will do virtually nothing to relieve traffic along Business 1-80 and US-50 according to authorities When the City Council decided to build the train system in 1979 it used $94 million in federal funds that had been slated for a new highway to bypass Business 1-80 Now the financially strapped local governments are considering three funding proposals to keep up roads: a ifc-cent or a 1-cent sales tax an added $500 to $800 fee for new homeowners and a $20 to $50 fee for existing homeowners If all three are enacted Sacramento County residents will pay $300 million over the next 10 years And that be enough The only new highway now under consideration a 35-mile beltway to connect Interstate 5 south of Sacramento to 1-80 near Roseville would cost $700 million to $800 million and has failed to attract widespread support It is now being restudied As a result some officials say the only way to avoid gridlock stop-and-go traffic on state highways and local surface streets is to stop approving building projects "Unless we get control of traffic problems by 1990 have to get some kind of a moratorium on growth" said Toby Johnson chairman of the county Board of Supervisors honest to Gocl know of any other Such a possibility seems remote however Transportation specialists in the Legislature say they are unaware of any local governing body in the state that has imposed a building moratorium to lessen traffic congestion Even if no more developments are considered the stockpile of projects already approved is enough to jam every highway in Sacramento County- Consider projects in the following areas: North Natomas: Plans for the urbanization of 9000 acres of farmland in north Sacramento including 32600 new homes and 271 million square feet of office space will double traffic on some portions of 1-5 within 20 years South Sacramento: New residential developments planned for the Elk Grove and Vineyard areas plus Laguna Creek and Elliot Ranch will increase traffic on Highway 99 up to 70 percent on some sections of that highway Placer County: Huge subdivisions in South Placer including the planned 11000-home Stanford Ranch could triple the populations of Rocklin Roseville and Lincoln by 2010 adding tens of thousands of cars each day to 1-80 Folsom: A building boom in Folsom expected to double that population by 2005 will pour more traffic onto US-50 During that same period up to 55000 new high-tech jobs could be created along that corridor Statistics compiled by the Sacra-: mento Area Council of Governments show daily car trips in the five-county region are expected to jump from 41 million in 1985 to 52 million in Free to slightly restricted traffic flow Little or no restriction on maneuverability Erratic traffic flow Increased and varied automobile density Reduced maneuverability Unstable to forced traffic flow Stop-and-go situations Low maneuverability By 1995 Today buildings near Cal Expo that feed tens of thousands of cars onto Busi-! ness 1-80 the most congested high-? way in the area A planned bypass to? relieve traffic on that freeway was! abandoned in 1979 the council de? cided instead to use the $94 million? from that project to help build the light-rail system in the 1970s there was a lot! of anti-automobile said Leslie Frink city deputy works director was a per- ception that if you made it tougher to-drive fewer people would take their cars Few people saw it While light rail was touted as an! alternate way to relieve along Business 1-80 officials now say-that the train northeast leg" will remove only a few thousand of the more than 120000 cars now using the highway each day 2 a strict transportation anal-? ysis the short-term impacts are go? ing to be said Wayne Shijo planner with Jones Stokes Associ- ates Inc Light rail is expected to attract 20500 annual riders but 60 percent of them will be those who have been using buses according to Regional Transit officials And bus service has not kept pace with the tremendous population growth service level has" virtually not changed except for elimination of service during the last six said Regional Transit General Manager David A Boggs Although city officials want to en-! courage people to take buses and light rail by making it harder to park downtown the City Council recently approved the construction of a new 700-space parking garage across from City Hall The council also recently eliminated parking fee-discounts for peo-! pie who commute to work in car tk I pools Designed to encourage ride US-50 from downtown to Rancho Cordova US-50 from Rancho Cordova to El Dorado Hills Business 80 from downtown to Auburn Interstate 80 from Davis to Sacramento Interstate 80 from Sacramento to Del Paso Heights South Interstate 5 from downtown to Franklin Road North Interstate 5 from downtown to the airport Interstate 5 from the airport to Woodland South Hwy Elk Groyeto Sacramento North Hwy 99 El Camino Avenue to Junction 70-99 4 4 Source: Wfoma Dept of Transportation Bee graphic sembly Office of Research attributed part of the willingness of local elected officials to approve huge developments to the prominence of local developers in the campaign financing A study by The Bee in 1985 found that developers and their allies supplied almost half of the $32 million in campaign funds raised in the previous 10 years by elected city and tently have sided with arguments on the need for more jobs and cheaper housing without fullV considering issues has been too much of a piecemeal approach to said Michael Eaton president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento you put the pieces together the picture becomes Steve Thompson chief of the As 1995 to 63 million in 2005 While Caltrans officials expect lanes to be added to some sections of Highway 99 Interstate 80 and US-50 within the next 10 years they do not expect those widening projects to adequately handle the additional traffic In the view of some environmentalists the pending crisis was created by elected officials who consis sharing the measure was dropped because some people were cheating- not always i Mayor Rudin said admit Freeway solution slipped through fingers By Dan Bernstein Bee Staff Writer whether to preserve part of Highway 143 for a future bridge across the American River Finally after more public hearings at which bridge foes outnumbered proponents the su pervisors voted 3-2 to give up that option too! William Hauck chairman of a special citl zens task force that recommended abandon! I ing the freeway routes said he now regrets I the position concerned about Sacramento County turning into another Santa Clara he! said the traffic was like this 10 years ago I the sentiments (for building freeways) would have been a lot Clem Tamraz a Carmichael resident was one of the leading opponents of High levard to Interstate 80 near Roseville Highway 244 a 75-mile stretch from Auburn Boulevard near 1-80 to Highway 50 near Fair Oaks Boulevard Highway 143 which would have gone 195 miles from Highway 99 in Elk Grove to Route 244 (north of Whitney Avenue) in Carmichael By the early 1970s Caltrans had spent about $106 million to acquire rights of way for the routes It had gathered about 83 percent of the land for Highway 143 58 percent for Highway 244 and 30 percent for Highway 65 according to a Caltrans report Total building costs for all three highways was estimated at $149 million in 1973 Construction was to begin in the 1980s Everything was on track until late 1972 when supervisors began holding public hearings They discovered that the freeways so popular Residents from eastern suburbs packed those hearings and complained that the roads would ruin the rural flavor of their neighborhoods and wipe out valuable land along the American River Parkway They persuaded supervisors to restudy the highways despite the insistence of county public works officials that there should be no turning back was like a voice in the recalled DW McKenzie who was deputy county public works director at the time told them for 25 years what would happen (with traffic) and now happening" But the environmental movement was in its heyday and Caltrans was not doing much to encourage Sacramento to stick with the original freeways The talk of the day was about mass transit not building new roads In December 1974 the Board of Supervisors asked the state Legislature to drop Highways 65 143 and 244 from the state highway system By mid-1976 the county was faced with a deadline to buy for $17 million the remaining rights of way for the highway routes or lose the corridors forever Highways 65 and 244 were dropped with ltle argument but the board was splitWer I i stupidity all the way down the line That right of way should have been saved at all State officials say that if the freeways had been built traffic would be much lighter today along many major roads including Howe Avenue Watt Avenue Sunrise Boulevard Fair Oaks Boulevard and Highway 50 abandonment of those rights of way was a very serious error for transportation in said James Ray head of highways and bridges for Sacramento County too late to recover for the big State Department of Transportation district director William Green did not dispute that Sacramento lost a golden opportunity I know how you could come to any other he said The old freeway plans were adopted by the state highway department in the early 1960s and agreements were then drawn up with the county The roads were: Highway 65 running 184 miles from south of Grant Line Road near Sunrise Bou A decade ago Sacramento County supervisors pleased overflowing crowds at public hearings by voting to erase dotted lines from county maps showing the paths of three long-planned freeways spanning 454 miles But years after the hundreds of residents near the proposed routes got their way tens of thousands of drivers began finding themselves stuck in traffic jams on roads that were once taken for granted Today supervisors who made the decision admit that abandoning the freeway routes was a big mistake Supervisor Sandy Smoley: turned out to be the wrong decision and I admit it I say that in speeches I blew Former Supervisor Ted Sheedy: the -very least I wish we would have kept the rights of way It would be great for planning I Former Supervisor Pat Melarkev: was way 143 said recently that while traffic his neighborhood has gotten worse he doe: not regret his position in the 1 970s prevented a neighborhood from be 1 coming an industrial he said rec ognized it was a selfish decision Driving more inconvenient but the price wt i were willing to pay for.