Vital projects can begin now it appears, and it sounds like the extra cost is well worth the rush as congestion will surely be reduced, and sooner is better than later.
An excerpt.
Traffic work to start early
Selling bonds now, ahead of a 2009 tax extension, targets region's gridlock.
By Tony Bizjak - Bee Staff Writer Published 12:00 am PST Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Arguing that Sacramento County's traffic congestion is getting too snarled to wait any longer, officials are selling $100 million worth of Measure A sales tax bonds two years early to speed work on sorely needed transportation projects.
This month's bond sale kicks off what officials say will be an upswing in transportation construction over the next decade as the county struggles to grow without hitting gridlock.
The building spree will be fueled by what is today a rare act in California politics: an overwhelming agreement by voters to hike their sales tax.
Sacramento county residents voted in 2004 to renew an existing tax -- a half-cent for another 30 years -- in hopes Sacramento can stop short of the congestion woes besetting Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
The Measure A sales tax goes into effect in 2009 and is expected to generate a whopping $10 billion that will be disbursed countywide.
The money won't end congestion in Sacramento, not by a long shot, officials said.
But, at a time of uncertain federal and state revenue, "we are doing what an urban county has to do these days to keep functioning, to stay in the game," said planner Pete Hathaway of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
The initial $100 million bond sale will solidify three key projects in the coming months -- a four-lane bridge below Folsom Dam to ease the clogged commute between El Dorado Hills and south Placer County, and two freeway interchanges on Highway 99 in Elk Grove, one at Grant Line Road and the other at Sheldon Road.
It also will provide planning money for eight other projects, including widening of sections of Bradshaw Road, Hazel and Madison avenues, and preliminary work on a major expansion of the downtown Sacramento railroad station.
Another 44 transportation projects are scheduled for Measure A money in the coming years. Those include a light-rail extension to Cosumnes River College and a series of freeway flyover carpool lanes at major interchanges.
The county's admittedly "aggressive schedule" has a downside, acknowledged Brian Williams, executive director of the Sacramento Transportation Authority, the agency that manages Measure A funds.
It means STA members -- Sacramento County and its cities -- will incur an estimated $10 million in financing costs prior to 2009, when the Measure A sales tax renewal revenue kicks in, Williams said.
