City of Sacramento draft 2030 General Plan

On Thursday, May 8, the City of Sacramento is hosting a community event to commemorate the public release of the draft 2030 General Plan.

Destination 2030: Celebrating Sacramento's Future is a community-wide event to be held in Cesar Chavez Plaza Park, 910 I Street, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. May 8. All Sacramento residents are invited to drop by the park during the event to enjoy refreshments, music and a preview of the draft plan that will help shape they city's future.

Make reservations to attend this event by calling the General Plan Hotline at (916) 808-7500 or send an email to generalplan@sacgp.org.

The celebration is a culmination of a planning process that began in 2004. Over the last four years, the City hosted more than 40 events and conducted a telephone survey to gather input for policy direction in the draft plan. Information received from more than 4,600 residents who attended these gatherings helped shape this document.

A general plan is a city's official statement regarding the extent and types of development needed to achieve it's physical, economic and social goals. It acts as a blueprint for not only growth, but the preservation of open space. Over the next 25 years, Sacramento can expect to grow by more than 200,000 residents. Planning for such growth is not only important, it is required by state law.

Following the release of the draft 2030 General Plan, a draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the General Plan will be released for a 60-day public review period beginning in late May or early June. Following the public review period, city staff and consultants will prepare the final 2030 General Plan for adoption by the Sacramento City Council in late 2008.

Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) 2035

Transportation consistently ranks as one of the chief concern of residents on the Sacramento Region. The Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) 2035 will guide billions of dollars for transit, roads, neighborhood improvements, bike trails and other transportation related projects.

The next phase in building a regional transportation strategy will consist of eight identical workshops held simultaneously throughout the Sacramento Region on one night:

Tall Order: Moving the Region Forward
Thursday, November 16th
6 pm to 9 pm

All eight workshops (locations below) will be linked via satellite and include region wide interactive polling technology  As a participant, you will shape our future transportation plan and influence our regional land-use strategy by determining where to invest transportation dollars. Whether you would like to see more transit options such as a streetcar in your downtown, more bikeways, dedicated bus lanes, freeway expansion, etc. or just concerned about our air quality, this interactive event will put your fingerprint on our regional transportation plan.

RSVP at the website or call Valley Vision at 916-325-1634. Don't forget to tell your friends, family, and neighbors about the MTP TALL Order.  It is free and dinner and beverages will be served.
Locations

Sacramento (South) County
Pavilion in Elk Grove
9950 Elk Grove-Florin Road
Elk Grove

Sacramento (North City)
Inderkum High School
2500 New Market Drive
Natomas

Sacramento (East) County
Folsom Community Center
52 Natoma Street
Folsom

Sacramento (Central) County
Memorial Auditorium
1515 J Street
Sacramento

The Sacramento region's Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) is a 23-year plan for transportation improvements in our six-county region. Based on projections for growth in population, housing and jobs, the MTP is key to the quality of life and economic health of our region.   To see results of workshops, and workshops for your area, go to the MTP website.

The Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) has issued its own long-range and land-use transportation plan which reduces more traffic and sprawl than the Sacramento Area Council of Governments' "Preferred Alternative."  ECOS says the Blueprint effort doesn't go far enough to protect the region from worsening air quality and the other effects of increased traffic that are expected as some 1.7 more people join the regional population by 2050.

Both proposals describe how $1 billion a year in transportation construction cash could be spent. Both are designed to improve the region's declining transportation mobility and air quality.

ECOS calls for development and transportation construction in existing urban areas -- instead of building into open space and farmland.  The plan includes an underground light-rail system for downtown Sacramento, a prohibition on developing gated communities, parking fees for suburban work centers, a gas tax of $1 per gallon and elimination of proposed beltways on the Sacramento region's outskirts.

ECOS is wants to cut auto use to half of all trips, down from about 90 percent now.  The group developed their plan with the help of University of California Davis professor Robert Johnston and a grant from the Mineta Transportation Institute.  Johnston, a professor with UC Davis' Department of Environmental Science & Policy, and a computer-model guru, used an advanced transportation modeling program to figure how some of the strategies of the ECOS vision would work. The software differs from SACOG's in that SACOG's simply places land uses on the regional map. His method places a whole transportation system and shows how land uses would develop from that.

ECOS's vision calls for limiting growth to the region's "greenfield" areas, discouraging automobile driving and emphasizing the development of alternative transportation systems, rapid transit, biking and walking.  To achieve these goals, ECOS first proposes that cities and counties in the region enact strong boundaries to growth, similar to Sacramento County's Urban Services Boundary. There would be no south-area expressway linking Folsom with Elk Grove, and for Placer Parkway -- a route that would link Highway 65 in the Roseville area with Highway 70/99 near Sacramento International Airport.

And there would be no freeway widening and expansions into the region's now undeveloped areas. This would include not building more high-occupancy-vehicle lanes. Instead, such lanes would be carved from existing freeway lanes, and their use limited to cars with three or more passengers, compared to two passengers today.

Freeways would be limited to four lanes maximum, including lanes for high-occupancy vehicles. Transportation money would be spent maintaining existing roads, and improving sidewalks, bike lanes, freeway interchange overpasses and other infrastructure to better serve pedalers and pedestrians.

Transportation construction and development would instead take place in existing urban areas. Cities and counties would push for high-density housing and mixed-use development, designed to encourage walking and transit use. Among other things, approval of cul-de-sacs and gated communities would be forbidden, in order to create more walkable street systems. And to create more infill development for bicyclers and walkers, "underutilized" urban land, including vacant retail centers, would be redeveloped as mixed-use projects.

At the same time, stop signs, traffic calming, bus shelters and other measures that make moving around more "comfortable" for walkers, bikers and bus riders would become priority items.

Also, to discourage automobile travel, parking requirements for new commercial development would be reduced, and most future work-center parking would be inside buildings, rather than in sprawling parking lots. Many existing sprawling parking lots now near transit lines would be converted to mixed-use developments.

Workers would be charged for parking -- $1 per hour in suburban work centers, $2 for more urban work centers. Parking at high schools would be reduced, and students would pay for parking.

Cars would be banned in Old Sacramento, which would become an example of pedestrian-friendliness.  People would walk into the area from perimeter parking garages.

Fast buses: To help make all of these things work, the bus system would become far more efficient. Bus-rapid-transit systems would operate on dedicated lanes and be able to control traffic lights to their advantage. The waiting time for a mainline bus would, in some cases, be cut to as little as seven minutes during daylight hours as buses move along at average speeds of around 30 mph. The Blueprint's preferred scenario would also rely on bus-rapid-transit, but to a lesser degree, Mogavero said.

Shuttle buses would serve residential areas, picking up commuters, the elderly and disabled. Bicyclists would get their own dedicated system, allowing easy, safe travel in urban areas.

The current light-rail system would be put underground in the downtown Sacramento area, allowing light-rail cars to move from stop to stop at speeds akin to bus-rapid-transit. And a "historical trolley" system would move workers and residents across Tower Bridge and around the downtown area and the riverside portion of West Sacramento.

Other ECOS proposals include:

* Incentives for spreading the use of hybrid engines to all kinds of vehicles.
* Increasing the gas tax every two to three years to encourage use of other energy sources.
* Dedicating portions of existing roads for the sole use of light rail and bus-rapid-transit.

The ECOS plan is based on the following transportation elements:

* A very strong bus-rapid-transit system that includes using one lane of any six- to eight-lane road exclusively for the buses.
* Elimination of new freeway and freeway widening, except that some bus-rapid-transit lines were allowed to go under or over some of the busiest intersections.
* Very "tight" suburban growth boundaries, tighter even than the strongest Blueprint growth scenario.
* A gas tax of $1 per gallon and parking charges for work centers limited to $6 a day in the Sacramento central business district and $2 elsewhere.

Johnston ran six scenarios, starting with a "base-case" scenario showing growth continuing with current transportation and development planning methods. The remaining five scenarios showed the impact of the ECOS measures in increasing strength.

Under the base case approach, the six counties experienced 11.5 million vehicle miles traveled during the morning peak traffic period. With all of the ECOS measures inserted for the final scenario, mileage dropped 24.5 percent to 8.6 million.

* Walking increased to 13.2 percent of all trips from 9.3 percent.
* Driving single-occupant vehicles dropped from 36.5 percent of all trips to 24.4 percent.
* Transit use rose to 16.3 percent from 4.8 percent.
* Bike use rose to 9.7 percent of trips from 7.1 percent.

Considering actual automobile operating costs and the value of time lost drivers gained $3.6 million per day under the ECOS approach and lost $145,380 daily under the base case.

The SACOG Blueprint Program "preferred alternative"

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments Blueprint Program has developed a land-use plan for growth in the six-county Sacramento region that could dramatically change the region's lifestyle, including the way we get around.  To handle the 1.7 million more people and 840,000 new homes projected for the region by 2050, this plan, called the "preferred alternative," calls for higher-density, mixed-use development in and near existing urban areas. 

Developed through research, community outreach and consensus-building from 2002-2004, the preferred alternative will generate far less traffic congestion than will the current approach to urban planning.  Current zoning and growth patterns will take urban sprawl into the region's surrounding farm land and the region's system of housing, retail, service outlets, work centers, roadways and transit systems will become increasingly unworkable.

Under the preferred alternative, the Sacramento region's habit of building large-lot houses in an endless sprawl across the countryside would be blunted. Instead, communities would voluntarily focus on building small-lot, mixed-use, "infill" communities, many of them in older neighborhood commercial strips. Among other things, the percentage of attached and small-lot new homes built would increase to 70 percent, double the current level.

Therefore it is crucial, says SACOG, a government agency that oversees the region's transportation funding, that the region's transportation system be done right to avoid massive congestion. As much as $1 billion a year will be spent on the region's in transportation infrastructure for decades to come, but the alternative proposal will use that money in a much more innovative way. 

Transportation systems being investigated include:

• A more controlled traffic light system with traffic lights synchronized to allow cars to travel without hitting red lights, speeding up and decongesting traffic flow.
• Electric message signs may be dramatically increased to warn drivers to avoid accidents and other obstructions ahead and guide them to a fast detour.
• Screens to hide the crash from other drivers to prevent the traffic-clogging habit of rubber-necking at accident scenes.
• Cars outfitted with radar-controlled brakes that automatically engage when the radar senses a crash is imminent. That means fewer delays from accidents. It also means cars can safely travel closer, again speeding traffic flow.
• Drivers in a hurry may be able to shift into the fast lane or a car-pool lane, even though only one person is in the car. Their cars will be outfitted with transponders, sending signals to a monitor. The drivers will get a bill for the lane's use. Early versions of such systems are now in place at Bay Area bridges.
• Trucks or other vehicles that travel a considerable amount may be fitted with global positioning systems that record their mileage. They would be billed per road usage to help maintain roads.
• Shuttle systems would drive off main bus routes into neighborhoods, stopping for passengers at homes. Residents would be able to call to get the shuttle to stop at their homes. A similar system is now being tried in Citrus Heights, and downtown Sacramento also has a shuttle.
• More car-pool lanes in existing urban areas, while few or none would be built in the outskirts.
• Creation of more light rail might be displaced or outpaced by the far-less-expensive bus systems, which do not require extensive acquisition of right of ways, massive construction and pricey vehicles to work.

One of the more fascinating things to emerge from SACOG's planning effort is that walking and biking will almost surely be seen as contributive transportation technologies. Attractive, usable trailways are a crucial step toward making overall transit in high-density communities practical. The trick would be to make it easy, maybe even fun, to bike to a store, post office, work or other destination from home. That would be done, said the planners, by designing attractive, mixed-use communities.

SACOG is the designated regional transportation planner, charged with envisioning the freeways and other main transit needed. The agency also requests the construction funding from federal and state agencies. SACOG, for instance, planned the $23 billion in additions to the regional highways and so on that were to be built between 2002 and 2025.

The base-case approach -- simply building more roads to keep up with sprawl -- has dominated community planning since the late 1940s, when the mobility created by mass ownership of automobiles allowed housing to be built in sprawling suburbs that were distant from stores, work centers or government services.  If this practice were continued, worsening congestion and air quality could prompt the federal government to cut off the dispersal of transportation construction money.

Driving would become a nightmare. SACOG figures that if growth continued as usual, each household would spend an average of 81 minutes per weekday driving, up 26 percent from 64 minutes now. Under the preferred alternative, the daily minutes would drop to 62, despite the population growth.

SACOG provides more reasons to enact its preferred alternative:

• Currently, SACOG estimates that 6.9 percent of the public's trips are now walking or biking. Under the base-case scenario, 5.5 percent of trips would be walking or biking. With the preferred alternative, the figure nearly doubles to 13 percent.
• In the base-case pattern, 660 square miles, or 28.7 million acres, of open space will be developed. The preferred alternative would use 304 square miles, or 13.2 million acres.
• 70 percent of the populace will live in walkable areas under the preferred alternative, compared to 34 percent in the base case.  Currently less than 34 percent live in such areas.

Sprawl:  "Unregulated growth expressed as careless new use of land and other resources."  Delores Hayden, A Field Guide to Sprawl