Back-Seat Driver: Commute is bad, but not that bad

This month in Sacramento, it's all about the "Big Fix," gas prices and pedal power.

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Reader David Bachman of Elk Grove wants to know what the heck we meant when we wrote the upcoming "Big Fix" closures on Interstate 5 downtown will extend the region's typical 31/2-hour morning commute to more than five hours.

Bachman reports his Elk Grove commute isn't great, but it's still only 35 minutes.

We didn't mean to imply the average commuter here drives 31/2 hours each day. We meant that's how many hours each morning freeways are congested with commute traffic.

Do you remember how people used to call it the commute hour? That sounds so quaint now. That hour grew into the monster that ate our morning.

State Department of Transportation officials say their repair project on I-5, starting May 30, will push that period out to five hours.

As for the individual commuter in Sacramento, the average morning commute time these days is a little longer than 20 minutes.

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Is this the year Million Mile May finally will live up to its name? Each May (national bike month) for the last three years, thousands of Sacramentans have logged and registered their biking miles.

The group effort has been led by several transportation agencies. Everyone is invited. They want to see more Sacramentans actively pedaling about. Plus, for the heck of it, they've been trying to tally a million miles. First year, volunteer veloists hit 476,000 miles. The next year, 628,000. Last year, the region got to 927,000 miles.

With gas prices what they are, organizers sound confident the first million-mile year is at hand. If you're interested, pull out your bike helmet and sign up at bikecommutemonth.com.

You get a free T-shirt.

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Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento - a walker, not a pedaler - just launched her own effort against high gas prices. She wants federal government street funds in the future to go only to "complete streets."

That trendy new term means streets built with more than cars in mind - sidewalks for pedestrians, space for cyclists and extra room for transit, when appropriate.

Matsui's bill doesn't mandate every new street has to accommodate for every mode. It would, however, require states and regional planning agencies to have a formal program for looking at new streets as not just for cars anymore.

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While the region's eyes are on the Big Fix on I-5, plans quietly are inching forward across the county for a new expressway: The Elk Grove-Rancho Cordova- El Dorado connector, or, as they've thankfully taken to calling it lately, simply, "the Connector."

It would swoop from I-5 south of Sacramento to Elk Grove, then possibly behind Rancho Cordova up to El Dorado Hills and supposedly take some burden off existing freeways.

The idea isn't new. People have been talking about beltways here for decades. Voters even approved partial funds for the connector a few years ago. Now, project head Tom Zlotkowski is rounding up local leaders for a bus tour and a "what next?" discussion.

Among the tricky questions: What to do about the hamlet of Sheldon, where residents say no way to an expressway through town?