North Coast Projects Land More Than $1.3 Million in Caltrans Planning Grants
Arcata is split by Highway 101. [Image from Arcata]
Several North Coast communities will receive a share of $23.6 million in statewide transportation planning grants announced by Caltrans last week, with projects in Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity, Del Norte and Lake counties securing more than $1.3 million combined for studies and planning efforts focused on transportation safety, mobility and climate resilience.
The largest local award went to the City of Arcata, which received $700,000 for its Reconnect Arcata Project. The effort will examine ways to reconnect neighborhoods, downtown Arcata and Cal Poly Humboldt that were divided by the construction of U.S. Highway 101 and state highways 299 and 255. Proposed concepts include improved pedestrian and bicycle crossings, enhanced transit access and even a potential freeway lid connecting downtown with the university.
In Mendocino County, the Mendocino Council of Governments was awarded $188,800 for the SR 20 Willits Multimodal Circulation and Intersection Improvement Study. The project will evaluate transportation conditions along the State Route 20 corridor between Walker Road and Cropley Lane and consider improvements for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit users.
Trinity County received $180,000 for the Trinity County Transportation Commission’s Trinity County Transit Development Plan. The planning effort will examine current and future transit needs, identify service improvements and help guide public transportation investments in the county.
Del Norte County secured $100,000 for the Del Norte Local Transportation Commission’s Del Norte County Regional Transportation Plan update. The project will update the county’s long-range transportation blueprint and help prioritize future transportation investments.
Lake County received $179,271 for a Clear Lake Ferry Service Feasibility Study led by the Lake County/City Area Planning Council. The study will examine whether waterborne transportation on Clear Lake could provide connections between communities, reduce vehicle travel, support emergency response and evacuation efforts, and create recreational and tourism opportunities.
Additional grants were awarded elsewhere in California for projects ranging from bicycle and pedestrian improvements to transit planning, railroad crossing safety studies and climate resilience efforts.
According to Caltrans, the statewide program awarded funding to 58 projects designed to improve mobility, enhance safety, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen transportation systems in under-resourced communities. Nearly $14 million of the funding comes from Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.
“Every California community deserves an opportunity to shape a safer, healthier and more connected future,” California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin said in a statement announcing the awards.
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California: Currently $1.5 Trillion in debt.
Heck… let’s add to it !!!
The problem with those kinds of debt trackers is they report unfunded liabilities from pension plans that are only “unfunded” because the funding mechanism is an ongoing market investment that is only drawn down as needed.
This same tactic is used by people who want to eliminate the usps to cast it in a poor light.
The irony of it typically being right leaning commenters that use this argument is that those “unfunded” liabilities are only a real risk if the market is an unreliable place to store your money. If commercial investment is a safe and reliable tool for economic stability, which is a crucial tenet of right leaning economic theory, then there’s no reason to portray these liabilities as “debt”.
‘Un-Funded’ means they haven’t got the funded money for them. (Def).
They are planning to cross ‘that financial bridge’ when they ‘get there’.
Meanwhile… the future debt (expenditures) are still there… waiting… and growing.
Employees are working.
Future benefits are er… ‘guaranteed’.
So where are they going to get that money ?
Supposed answer… oh heck… we dunno.
Raise taxes I guess.
But wait, now there’s nobody working, they are out wandering around !
……
>”… Commercial Investment is a safe and reliable tool for economic stability”
True. But these ‘projects’ are not ‘Commercial Investment’.
Commercial Investment has a goal. New factory, new product, new paid service.
These er… projects:
Produce no income.
Produce no goods.
Produce no service.
In essence, they produce nothing.
Bike lanes. Nobody’s riding.
Bus lines. Nobody’s riding.
I suppose, till the Newsomite policies fully take place, then you will ride the bus for an hour and then walk a mile in the rain.
Go figure.
The pensions for employees that haven’t earned them yet are “unfunded” because allocating money to them would be moronic.
They are funded out of a pooled investment fund and the annual funding needs are allocated annually out of that fund. Pulling out years of need in advance and having it sit in something like a low yield savings account instead of in the managed funds they use would be wildly irresponsible, fiscally.
Its a dishonest use of language meant to confuse an issue that you clearly know you are factually incorrect about but emotionally committed to.
Same with your mantra about no one using the bike lanes or busses, that tells me that you don’t use either and are just making the claim you want to be true rather than speaks from any personal knowledge
so I just did a quick search for calpers funding level and it shows they are about 80% to meet current liabilities. I gotta say, Thatguyinarcata sounds A LOT more knowledgeable about this than you do.
$700,000 for its reconnect project? Are you frigging serious? Umm how bout the streets and sidewalks that are there now, and in need of maintenance?
This whole grant scam is just more redistribution of wealth. TAXation of earners to give to nonearners=government jobs.
I totally agree. Arcata and HSU ought to be funding this and not anyone else. Cal trans dollars have to go otherwhere. Roads bridges and the corridor bypasses here.
They are repairing and adding sidewalks to the existing roads. So far that seems to be the main activity related to this whole plan.
The roads in question (101, 299, 255, and the connecting roads) arent in bad shape though. The issue theyre trying to address is the difficulty of navigating across those major roads without a vehicle.
Navigating anywhere without a vehicle is difficult. 299, not much foot traffic there. 255, there are stoplights where the foot traffic is. 101, can be crossed at 7th, 11th, 14th, the foot bridge, and Sunset. I don’t really see a problem, if you’re not driving its either a choice or you’re broke. Who are we catering to here?
To sum up: More Bike Lanes!!!
Tweaker ferry from city of clearlake to…..take your pick.
I’m disappointed to see the Little River and Annie & Mary trails weren’t listed.
As far as I understand the article nothing is being spent on actual infrastructure. This is all for feasibility studies? So we can assume the vast majority of the money will be leaving the local area once awarded to various consulting firms. Not sure this has any real economic impact for us, either positive or negative.