Connector road project receives state boost
Caltrans land worth $86 million will be transferred to Union City to help fund Quarry Lakes Parkway
UNION CITY » Union City’s plan to build a major road to connect Mission Boulevard and Paseo Padre Parkway is getting a big boost from the California Transportation Commission.
The commission’s board unanimously voted last month to transfer 36 acres of Caltrans-owned land to Union City, which intends to sell a large chunk of it to a developer to help fund its Quarry Lakes Parkway project, formerly known as the East-West Connector.
The deal still needs to be formalized on paper, but the approval represents a big step forward for the three-mile, four-lane roadway that city officials say would ease traffic congestion on Decoto Road and provide better access to thousands of new and planned homes in the city’s “Station District” surrounding BART’s Union City Station.
Union City is updating its plan for the project, which has been revised for decades. The newest version will include bicycle and biking paths along the route and tie them into Fremont’s own plans to improve Decoto Road.
The project is estimated to cost $288 million, but the city hasn’t yet firmed up all the money to pay that.
Critics of the project, including some residents and local biking organizations, have complained for years that it’s too big and unnecessary.
They say the idea of building more roads to reduce congestion is
outdated, especially in a region where officials are ostensibly trying to find ways to discourage people from driving and emitting greenhouse gases.
“It’s essentially a highway or expressway in the suburbs and calling it transit-oriented development,” Liz Ames, a BART board director who represents Union City, said Thursday in an interview.
“The dominant use for this facility is cars and commuting,” added Ames, who had started an online petition opposing the land transfer and roadway, collecting more than 1,000 signatures.
“In the beginning, it might lessen the commute time, but then eventually more cars and trucks get on the road. So we need to come up with better ideas for mobility,” she said.
City staff officials disagree, pointing to a traffic study they did last year showing that about 80% of the people expected to be
driving on the new road will be residents, not outof-town commuters trying to get to the Dumbarton Bridge.
“They are not people coming from Livermore or Tracy,” City Manager Joan Malloy said, although about 20% of the traffic is projected to be cut-through.
“Not everybody is going to get to their homes by riding BART,” Deputy City Manager Mark Evanoff added. “We’re not a car-less society.”
Dave Cambell, the advocacy director for Bike East Bay, told the state commission during its June 24 meeting he thinks the city’s traffic study is “flawed,” was done in “bad faith” and leaves many questions unanswered.
He said a smaller circulation road that runs around the Station District could be viable, but a four-lane project amounts to “an oversized freeway.”
Evanoff maintains there’s only a “small cadre” of people opposing the project.
The city says it’ll pay Caltrans $86 million for the land by selling about 27 acres of it to a developer.
Caltrans then will use the money to help fund other local transportation projects, including part of the Quarry Lakes Parkway.
In the city’s current plan, the roadway will pass under two sets of railroad tracks and a set of BART tracks and through a Superfund site.
Bridges would be built over Alameda Creek and the Alameda County Flood Control Channel, and the roadway project also could involve razing buildings on the Peterson Ranch and Ramirez Farm and removing
their crops.
Though design, land and construction costs for the project total an estimated $288 million, according to Union City Public Works Director Marilou Ayupan, the city has only firmly identified about $83 million to pay for it — from Alameda County Transportation Commission funds, mostly through 1986’s Measure B.
Beyond that, officials said they hope Caltrans will return about $57 million to the city, which also is counting on about $112 million from 2014’s Measure BB
funds.
But the Alameda County Transportation Commission would have to allocate the $112 million, and other, more transit-focused projects could be competing for the money.
“As long as a project meets the regional goals, funding opportunities are everywhere,” Ayupan said, noting the project will be built in phases and could qualify for other regional funding in the future.
She said she couldn’t predict whether $288 million would actually be enough to
complete the project.
“The funding part doesn’t scare me at all,” she said.
Campbell, of the biking group, said the project’s funding model is not realistic.
“This is going to be a half-a-billion-dollar project. No one is asking, ‘Hey if you had half a billion dollars to improve safety and transportation in Union City, what would be the needs?,’” he said. “What else could we spend the money on?”