Region transit plan is blasted

The Sacramento region's cities and counties are poised this spring to ratify what proponents say is a groundbreaking new $42 billion transportation spending plan with more money than ever for transit, pedestrians and bicyclists.

Environmentalists, however, complain the plan doesn't go far enough.

"We are asking for nothing short of a true paradigm shift" away from cars, officials with the Environmental Council of Sacramento wrote in an analysis last week.

The list of projects to be funded over the next 25 years is called the Metropolitan Transportation Plan and is published by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the region's transportation planning agency.

It is made up of local governments in Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Yuba and Sutter counties.

SACOG officials counter that they have gone as far as they felt they could to create a spending plan that encourages more transit use but doesn't leave car drivers stuck in traffic jams.

"I value them pushing us on those things," SACOG Executive Director Mike McKeever said of the environmentalists' critique.

But, he said, his agency put as much money as it felt it legally can into transit. He countered that environmentalists have not met his challenge of showing exactly what additional revenue sources can be used for more buses and light rail.

"At some point," McKeever said, "it gets to be a credibility issue."

Certainly, environmentalists have come a long way from eight years ago when they sued local cities and counties, arguing officials were spending too much money on roads and not enough on alternatives.

Cities and counties prevailed, but environmentalist leader Andy Sawyer says, "it's probably the most effective lawsuit we ever lost."

The suit, he and other environmentalists said, helped prompt cities and counties to rethink sprawl, and agree to a set of principles – called the regional Blueprint – to build more compact, transit-friendly communities.

SACOG's 25-year plan includes money to extend light rail to the Sacramento International Airport and introduce "bus rapid transit" – buses that can travel in an exclusive lane – on some key streets around the region.

It also funds several major new roads, including a possible toll road, Placer Parkway, to connect the Roseville and Rocklin areas to the highways 70 and 99 in Sutter County toward the airport.

Another major beltway-style road is envisioned in southeast Sacramento County, most likely a widened Grant Line Road, from Elk Grove to El Dorado Hills.

The plan also supports two controversial new bridges into downtown Sacramento to relieve what is expected to be serious congestion on downtown freeways.

One bridge would connect with South Natomas over the American River. The other would connect to West Sacramento over the Sacramento River, possibly at Broadway.

Environmentalists suggest SACOG should refuse to extend transportation funding to cities and counties that do not adhere to the region's Blueprint agreement to focus on more transit- and pedestrian-oriented growth.

SACOG's McKeever acknowledged his agency board, made up of elected officials from those cities and counties, could consider that. But he argued that's unnecessary because the agency's 25-year transportation spending plan is based on building roads and transit that fit the proposed new growth patterns.

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• Call The Bee's Tony Bizjak, (916) 321-1059.