Sacramento's new transportation plan could bring improvements to your neighborhood
Planner Jennifer Donlon Wyant talks to a resident in Oak Park about transportation
Sacramento (Nov. 16, 2022) - A plan to prioritize city transportation projects that improve equity, connections to jobs, and opportunities to bike and walk passed the Sacramento City Council unanimously on Tuesday.
The new Transportation Priorities Plan will be a guiding budgetary document for city staff for allocating resources to transportation projects around the city. You can find all of the projects in the plan on the City’s website.
“There are over 700 projects in the pipeline for the City of Sacramento, and I think this plan gives us a fair and equitable approach to which projects will have the highest impact,” said Mayor Darrell Steinberg.
The City of Sacramento has roughly $42 million annually budgeted for transportation projects — far less than is needed to complete all the projects approved by Council. The current list surpasses $5 billion and would take 100 years to complete at current funding levels.
Earlier this year in March, the City Council gave direction to staff to take the list of approved transportation projects and evaluate them. City staff explored how each project would improve air quality, climate, and health, provide an equitable investment, provide access to community destinations, improve traffic safety, and or help fix or maintain roads and corridors that see the most use. This criteria also better aligns with most grants and other types of funding opportunities, which makes the prioritized projects more competitive for outside funding.
Projects that are considered high priority must meet most or all of the planning criteria. One of the top priority projects is improvements to Marysville Boulevard in District 2. The current project calls for traffic calming, improved pedestrian crossings, and adding separated bikeways, and is also part of the application for the 2022 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Safe Streets for All grant.
“The thing I'm most proud of is centering voices that typically don't get involved in City government decision-making, focusing engagement in communities with historically low rates of inclusion and participation,” said Jennifer Donlon Wyant, Transportation Planning Manager for the City of Sacramento. “We led with asking and focusing on community values rather than staff developing recommendations and asking communities what they thought.”
To follow the latest in City of Sacramento transportation developments visit SacTransportation.org.
