The Sierra Club and the Environmental Council of Sacramento have filed a lawsuit against Caltrans alleging legally inadequate environmental analysis of the Yolo 80 Corridor Improvements Project that would add two new lanes through Yolo County.
The project, which would widen 17 miles of the freeway from six to eight lanes between Davis and Sacramento through the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, was created by Caltrans to ease congestion, improve freeway operation, support reliable transport of goods and services throughout the region, improve modality and travel time reliability and provide expedited traveler information and monitoring systems.
Caltrans' website stated that the project is needed because of recurring congestion during the morning and afternoon peak periods exceeding current design capacity, operational inefficiencies leading to the formation of bottlenecks, inefficient movement of goods and services and a reliance on single-occupancy vehicles.
However, the lawsuit argues that Caltrans has not conducted a valid analysis of adverse environmental impacts or implemented appropriate mitigation for potential "harmful effects."
A press release from the two environmental agencies filing the lawsuit claimed that the environmental impact report "grossly underestimates increased vehicular travel, which would emit far larger quantities of greenhouse gasses and air pollutants than claimed."
"The [report] fails to consider viable alternatives, such as increased public transit or alternate tolling strategies," the release stated. "Therefore, the project neither adequately manages demand nor produces adequate revenue to fund needed transit alternatives. Also, Caltrans' proposed mitigation is woefully inadequate to offset the resulting increased [greenhouse gases] and air pollutant emissions."
Additionally, the organizations argued that Caltrans violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to acknowledge that freeway widening does not produce less congestion but instead results in increased traffic leading to worse congestion and pollution due to "induced demand."
Alan Pryor, Sierra Club Yolano Group chair, explained that "when you add freeway capacities, you change drivers' behavior where previously they may decide to drive into work very early or a little bit later to avoid rush hour traffic."
"They may previously have said I just can't take this congestion anymore and I'm going to just ride the bus, the light rail or the Capital Corridor Train in to work and all of a sudden there's another lane there," Pryor continued regarding induced demand. "Invariably, enough people will come to that same conclusion, they'll change their behavior, they'll start using the freeway and within 5 to 10 years that new freeway lane is every bit as crowded if not more crowded than before the freeway was widened."
Pryor argued that the project would encourage people to drive instead of utilizing public transit, which would have an adverse effect on the finances of public transit districts and on the overall greenhouse gas emissions.
UC Davis' National Center for Sustainable Transportation created an induced travel calculator that calculates the induced travel effects of highway expansion projects. The calculator has been incorporated into the Caltrans Transportation Analysis Framework, a policy document to guide the department's environmental analysis in a manner that complies with the requirements of state law.
"This is based on numerous studies where they calculated how many cars are using these stretches of freeway before, during and after these widening projects," Pryor said regarding the calculator. "Caltrans admitted that the National Center for Sustainable Transportation induced demand calculator is the superior model in calculating induced demand vehicle miles traveled."
However, Pryor noted that Caltrans chose to use an older methodology to calculate induced demand leading to a much lower prediction.
"Caltrans calculated vehicle miles traveled due to induced demand of 57 million miles per year using their older methodology," he highlighted. "The newer methodology developed by UC Davis calculates about 180 million vehicle miles traveled per year."
If true, that would mean that the calculations Caltrans has made regarding greenhouse gas emissions and priority pollutants would be significantly off in its environmental impact report and go against the California Environmental Quality Act, which made "vehicle miles traveled" the new lens for assessing transportation impacts on the environment for projects subject to review.
Caltrans declined to comment noting that it does not comment on pending litigation.
Locally, the Yolo Transportation District has fully supported the project arguing that it will address congestion issues that impact Yolo County drivers and some of its bus routes.
"We have been a key partner with Caltrans District 3 since securing $85.9 million in federal INFRA grants in 2021 and have actively contributed to the project's development," Autumn Bernstein, executive director for the Yolo Transportation District, stated in an email. "YoloTD is committed to addressing the severe congestion on I-80 in Yolo County, which affects all road users, including our core transit services such as Route 42 A/B, Causeway Connection and downtown Sacramento express commuter buses."
Bernstein noted that the current traffic conditions are untenable and create significant delays impacting commuters' travel times. She argued that the project would enhance safety by reducing the high percentage of traffic fatalities caused by congestion while also addressing the issue of excess traffic diverting onto adjacent residential streets and rural roads, which were not designed for high traffic volumes.
Furthermore, she argued that some opponents of the project are misrepresenting what the term "induced demand" means.
"The Yolo Causeway is literally a land bridge between the Bay Area and Sacramento regions, as well as a major interstate freeway," she stressed. "So demand for travel on this freeway is driven by much bigger forces such as housing costs and economic growth across Northern California and beyond."
She claimed that the Caltrans 2023 Interstate 80 Comprehensive Multimodal Corridor Plan found that only 16% of the additional travel on the new lanes is attributable to induced demand with the remaining 84% being due to regional factors like population and employment growth.
"From a financial perspective, the Yolo 80 Managed Lanes project will provide essential funding to enhance our Route 42 A/B and Causeway Connection services," Bernstein remarked. "These lanes, managed through tolling, will allow our buses to bypass traffic making public transit a competitive option compared to cars. We anticipate this will increase, not decrease, ridership."
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