Placer Parkway among projects hit by state funding shortfall

A Lincoln bypass and an east-west link to Sutter County are planned Placer County roadway projects that may be pushed back because promised funds are likely to be confiscated to help mend the state's budget crisis.Passed in 2002, Proposition 42 designated gasoline taxes in California for state transportation projects beginning in 2008-09, after previously putting those monies into the state's general fund. However, a loophole in the law allowed for funds to be re-allocated in a state fiscal crisis. Transportation planners have been left out in the cold.Local transportation officials are worried Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2005-2006 budget will dip into Proposition 42 funds once again, extending the shortfall hitting California's counties and roads.According to Celia McAdam, executive director of the Placer County Transportation Planning Agency, the Lincoln Bypass could see a two-year delay in a best-case scenario."That money was being counted on as the state was making promises (on transportation funding). They do a fund estimate and what our fair share is going to be," McAdam said. "They programmed projects based on those assumptions and estimates, and those are turning out to be not true."Over the next 30 years, McAdam said Placer County expects a $3.3 billion need for transportation projects. Currently, only $462 million, or 14 percent, has been secured. Between what critics are calling "raids" on Proposition 42 funding and other borrowing from state highway accounts, an estimated $4 billion has been diverted into the state's general fund that would have otherwise gone to roadway projects, mainly highways, since 2001. The governor's proposed 2005-06 budget would tap $1.1 billion from transportation monies and divert them into the general fund.Those delays could hit home with projects like the Lincoln bypass, which would reroute Highway 65 around Lincoln, and a medley of needed improvements to roadways from Roseville to Tahoe.While the governor's budget has a long way to go before the May revision, McAdam said that local planners are already moving forward, looking for alternate sources of funding.Placer ParkwayWhat: 15-mile, high-speed road connecting Highway 65 to state routes 99 and/or 70 in Sutter CountyCost: Between $400-500 millionProject status: Construction begins 2015 in the earliest, but could be delayed by lack of state funding. Construction expected to take five years.Options: Transportation plannners may explore option of making the Parkway a toll road State Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks), said that transportation projects are "critical to economic growth.""Certainly the governor's budget does include (taking) transportation money out of the Proposition 42 fund, and that does potentially put highway projects throughout California at risk," Cox said. Utilizing private sources for funds has become a potential alternative officials are exploring. As demand for housing in the area increases, developer fees are becoming more obtainable. In March, KT Communities Corp. allocated $50,000 to the county to study two alternative routes to the Placer Parkway, which would connect Highways 65 and 70 and/or 99 through rural west county lands, in hopes the parkway would not cut directly through a private university and village project scheduled to begin construction in 2008.Previously there were four routes under consideration for the road, but the two additional alignments run further north of the De La Salle University project, which KT spokesman Steve Capps said "makes more sense.""It doesn't make sense to run a freeway (through)," Capps said. "We just think it makes sense to consider other alignments."Environmentalists and critics of westward sprawl in the county have cited the boon in private funding as a potential Trojan Horse to expanded building in the largely undeveloped area, where vernal pools, protected species and rural grasslands are seen as critical habitat that will be put at risk. In its current configuration, the Placer Parkway is not designed with freeway exits, but environmentalists worry the tradeoff in private funding for study and construction could change that. However, Capps said the De La Salle project is a separate entity."The project stands on its own and always has," he said. "It's not connected to any others."Jason Probst can be reached at jasonp@goldcountrymedia.com.