We have a barrel-chested celebrity in town – and it isn't the governor. The stout new Grant Line Road crossing at Highway 99 in Elk Grove just won a Tranny Award as "interchange of the year" in California.
We went out last week to check it out. As slabs of roadway go, it's kind of handsome. It has fancy lantern-style lights, stamped and stained concrete walls, and important-looking pillars bearing the Elk Grove city logo – a fitting entryway to a car-congested community.
To the east, Grant Line Road bustled with traffic as usual for a Friday afternoon.
But the overpass was looking just plain forlorn. Nary a car passed. Definitely no cyclists or pedestrians.
Stand on top, look west, and see why: Six empty lanes flow down to Kammerer Road where soon enough the road shrinks to a tiny, shoulderless two-lane farm road, disappearing into the fields.
Just south of the interchange sit two old barns.
To the north stands a ghostly vision of this area's future. It's the skeleton of a partially built shopping center, stalled by the bad economy, surrounded by weeds.
Why did our interchange win its Tranny?
Sarah West of the California Transportation Foundation said judges were impressed with how Elk Grove and Sacramento area transportation officials cooperated to creatively finance the project – on a fast track.
The cost: a whopping $83 million. Much of it comes from fees imposed on new development in Elk Grove, said Fritz Buchman of the Elk Grove public works department.
But a chunk comes from us. Any time we buy something in Sacramento County, a fraction of our sales taxrevenue goes to certain major transportation projects.
Why this project? Elk Grove needed it to get cars to the mall. Also, the city is talking about pushing its boundaries out south of Kammerer Road.
The interchange also is a sign of something big and controversial coming our way – a beltway called the Capital SouthEast Connector.
It would be a bypass road, taking traffic off highways 99 and 50. It's envisioned to run eastward from Interstate 5, looping below Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova and connecting to Highway 50 in El Dorado County.
Planners say they can build it and still protect the rural character of south county.
Critics disagree, saying it and interchanges like the one at Grant Line will just create more sprawl and congestion.
Residents in Sheldon and El Dorado Hills already are protesting the probable traffic impacts on their communities.
Next up: Elk Grove and connector officials will hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at Carroll Elementary School, 10325 Stathos Drive, to talk about aligning a new and bigger Kammerer Road connecting Highway 99 and I-5.
For better or worse, our award-winning interchange will no longer be lonely.
Call The Bee's Tony Bizjak, (916) 321-1059.
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