SACOG Conformity Determination

are made by bicycle, but 15 percent of commuters travel no further than three miles to work. Few
suburban children bicycle or walk today; instead, their parents drive them around by auto. Unless
community design changes take hold, the share of trips made by bicycling and walking is not
predicted to change significantly.
Beyond transit, walking, and bicycling, the region faces a 40 to 50 percent increase in auto
travel. Obviously it makes a difference whether those people will drive alone or ride in
carpools, and where on the system they travel. The 2006 MTP includes funding for
transportation demand management (TDM), including a rideshare program. The regional
rideshare program is included in the current SIP as a Transportation Control Measure (TCM), and
will remain a TCM in perpetuity as a SIP requirement. Like nearly all urban areas around the
country, Sacramento is seeing a gradual shift from commuting by carpool and transit to driving
alone. This trend reflects the separation of housing from jobs, the huge increase in two-worker
households, and the predominantly suburban lifestyle with lots of widely separated activities and an
increasing need for one or more errand stops on the way to or from work. TDM programs offer
people information and incentives for alternatives to driving whenever this is feasible.
Congestion generally will continue to worsen inside the urban area, because the system has
little remaining spare road capacity and the region foresees neither the funding nor the
community desire to increase road capacity by 40 percent or more. The 2006 MTP proposes
some road improvements, to hold off some of the increase in congestion. While the region
cannot reasonably be expected to build its way out of congestion, the investments listed in the 2006
MTP will make a difference, lessening congestion in some corridors, depending on where the
region invests in more transit and road capacity or land use changes.
The 2006 MTP foresees $27.5 billion to work with, on average almost $1.2 billion per year for
22 years, with $4.9 billion of that as federal funds coming to the region for regional-scale
improvements. The federal funds have come to the region in past years, but the region before
2002 passed them to counties and cities for local projects. Of the $27.5 billion, the 2006 MTP
shows that about a quarter goes to operate transit services - not enough to provide the level of
transit service needed in a region of 2.9 million. Another quarter goes to maintain streets, roads,
and highways - again, not enough to provide adequate maintenance especially in more rural areas
of the region. Essentially, the remaining half must be used for improvements:
• First $2.8 billion goes to transit improvements, including light rail extensions, a 150 percent
increase in bus service in urban Sacramento, and increases in bus service in the other
counties.
• Second, $3.2 billion goes to state highway improvements, mainly to complete four-lane
highways to connect the northern counties with the rest of the region and add carpool lanes
to urban freeways.
• Third, $6 billion goes to local street and road improvements, such as intersection
improvements, safety projects, signal timing, widening in growth areas, and new
connections for local access.
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