East Bay, Sacramento To Cut Freeway Truck Trips With Deeper Shipping Channel

East Bay, Sacramento To Cut Freeway Truck Trips With Deeper Shipping Channel
East Bay Business Times - by David Goll
Friday, April 18, 2008



The first step in reducing the number of freeway truck trips between the East Bay and the state capital by at least 23,000 a year has come with allocation of $10 million to deepen the Sacramento Ship Channel.

The California Transportation Commission's $10 million commitment will be matched by $10 million from the Port of Sacramento. The $80 million project will deepen the 43-mile-long channel between West Sacramento and the Solano County town of Collinsville in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from 30 to 35 feet. The remaining money will have to be secured from other government sources.

Officials from both the Bay Area and Sacramento region embarking on interregional planning efforts hope that more robust ship traffic on the channel leading to the Port of Sacramento will make a major contribution to reducing the number of trucks - and the resulting diesel-fuel pollution - needed to move goods between the two areas.

Mike Luken, manager of the Port of Sacramento, located in the Yolo County suburb of West Sacramento, said the CTC's financial contribution is just the beginning.

"We will be seeking $60 million in federal funds," he said. Work on the $80 million project should begin in late 2009 or early 2010 fiscal year, with completion expected by mid-year 2013.

Luken said that while about 30 percent of all deep-draft ships carrying cargo can now make it to Sacramento's port, that will increase to 70 percent once the channel is 35 feet deep.

In 2006, the Port of Oakland, the nation's fourth-busiest container port, took over management of the smaller Port of Sacramento. It was hoped the cooperative arrangement would both boost activity at the inland port - at the center of the state's agricultural bounty - and provide overflow support for the teeming Port of Oakland, which is grappling with increases in cargo volume, especially farm crop exports from California and imports of consumer goods from Asia.

The cooperative relationship between the two ports also serves as a centerpiece in the growing movement to coordinate planning between the nine-county Bay Area and six-county Sacramento region as the two fast-growing metropolitan areas form what the federal government calls a "megaregion."

A study by the two ports revealed that a deeper Sacramento Ship Channel could eliminate up to 23,000 annual trips by trucks moving goods between the two ports.

One of the first attempts at mega-regional cooperation occurred April 10, when the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments, both Bay Area regional planning groups based in Oakland, met with members of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments at the UC-Davis campus. Improvements in transportation and land-use planning were high on the agenda.

"This really breaks some new ground," said John Goodwin, spokesman for the MTC, which oversees transportation funding and planning in the Bay Area. "Even though these are two separate metropolitan areas, it just makes sense to consider what each other is doing when we look at the growing amount of interregional travel between the Sacramento and Central valleys and the Bay Area."

Goodwin said planners need to consider freeway corridors like Interstates 80 and 580, passenger railroads like the Capitol Corridor and Altamont Commuter Express, and rail and water systems carrying goods between the two regions and beyond.

"Improving the transportation of goods and people is critical to the economic well-being of both areas," he said. "One is definitely increasing the use of barges and ships to move goods between the ports of Oakland and Sacramento. And if you extend the boundaries of the megaregion to the Sierra Nevada, there are some very interesting proposals to expand rail tunnels in the Donner Pass region to accommodate double-deck container trains as a way to transport goods from Northern California ports to points east."

Jim Spering serves on the Board of Supervisors in Solano County - ground zero in the people and freight transportation connections between the Bay Area and Sacramento.

"I think this event was a good starting point for the interregional planning process," Spering said. "But I also think it's very important for us to get beyond an academic forum and get into practical applications."

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