The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 3, in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders, proposes to construct improvements consisting of managed lanes, pedestrian/bicycle facilities, and Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) elements along Interstate 80 (I-80) and United States Route 50 from Kidwell Road near the eastern Solano County boundary (near Dixon), through Yolo County, and to West El Camino Avenue on I-80 and Interstate 5 on US 50 in Sacramento County. For illustration purposes, the project consists of the following three segments:
- Segment 1 stretches from Kidwell Road in eastern Solano County, through Davis, to the eastern end of the Yolo Causeway just west of Enterprise Boulevard in West Sacramento;
- Segment 2 starts just west of Enterprise Boulevard and continues on I-80 to West El Camino Avenue; and
- Segment 3 start at the I-80/US 50 separation and continues east along US 50 to I-5 near downtown Sacramento.
The corridor serves as a primary connection for east-west travel in Solano, Yolo and Sacramento Counties, and is part of a major transportation route between the state capital and the San Francisco bay area to the west. The corridor also provides north-south connections to State Route (SR) 113 in Yolo County and I-5 and SR 99 in Sacramento County. Because of its designation as a primary east-west route, the corridor accommodates a wide range of transportation modes, some of which includes park-and-ride users, bicyclists, personal vehicles, and freight trucks.
I-80 is the primary freeway serving the movement of people and goods between Northern California and the eastern United States. Within the Sacramento region, the route serves local and commute traffic, traffic to/from the San Francisco Bay Area, recreational traffic to and from the Lake Tahoe Basin, and is a primary corridor for goods movement. Within the corridor, the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area and floodplain limits east-west linkages, funneling many modes and forms of transportation into the narrow I-80 corridor between the cities of Davis and West Sacramento.
The purpose of this project is to improve multimodal mobility on the I-80 and US-50 corridors in Solano, Yolo, and Sacramento Counties. This project will also increase the number of people using the corridors by increasing transit, bicycle/pedestrian, and carpool use. It will also address non-recurrent congestion caused by incidents by improving incident detection, verification, response and clearing.
I-80 and US-50 corridors experience high travel demand, especially during peak commute periods and weekend. The demand has created severe traffic congestion and impaired mobility along the route. At various locations, specifically I-80 through Davis and along the Yolo Bypass Causeway between Davis and West Sacramento, travel demand has exceeded highway design capacity, resulting in bottlenecks. Traffic congestion along the I-80 and US 50 corridor within the project limits has impacted public transit headway times and reliability. Additionally, the congestion on the I-80 and US-50 corridors moves traffic onto local county and city streets as travelers seek a route around the congestion. This has additional negative impacts to local roads and the businesses and residents along them.
There is a need to improve transit access and viability for Yolo Bus, Solano Transit and upcoming electric buses between University of California, Davis campus and UCD Medical Center. Additionally, collision patterns and collision time of day is typical for a freeway segment with heavy congestion and stop and go conditions. The entry/exit to the bike and pedestrian crossing on each side of the causeway is deficient which increases safety and mobility issues. These deficiencies preclude average riders from using the bikeway and consequently ridership suffers and is much lower than it might otherwise be.
There are two project teams in which Yolo County is participating. One is a Steering Committee made up of legislators and Public Works Directors from the City of Davis, West Sacramento and County of Yolo plus a representative of the University of California at Davis. Given SACOG's role in regional transportation issues and this being a transportation project, staff recommends that the Board officially appoint Supervisor Saylor to this steering committee as he is the County's representative for SACOG.
The second team is a Project Development Team comprised of Caltrans staff from design, traffic operation, environmental, right of way, planning, and structures design plus technical staff from the City of Davis, West Sacramento, County of Yolo and UCD.
Caltrans is currently considering seven alternatives including three interim alternatives to build some improvements sooner and a no-build alternative. Caltrans’ current project targets are:
Begin Environmental Work October 2019
Circulate Environmental Documents January 2021
Complete Design and Construction Documents November 2023
Complete Right of Way December 2023
Advertise for Construction April 2024
Award Contract July 2024
Complete Construction October 2027
The project encompasses 21.5 miles of freeway including 16 structures. The current estimated construction cost is 500 million dollars. |