El Dorado Hills Citizens Alliance Notes

Notes on the quarterly meeting
of the El Dorado/City of Folsom
Joint Powers Authority, July 19, 2006

These notes are brief highlights of status and planning information presented at the meeting.

Empire Ranch Road / US 50 Freeway Interchange

The City of Folsom is near finishing to finalize the EIR. Detailed design will begin soon, design is estimated to require about 18 months. Project cost is estimated at about $22 million, final completion is estimated for 2011.

El Dorado County DOT is working with Caltrans on a TCR (concept report) for US 50 projects.

Three projects in El Dorado County must be completed as prerequisites to opening the Empire Ranch Road interchange. Due to widening of US 50 to the west of the Empire Ranch interchange Caltrans requires widening to the east in order to have compatible roadway widths. Specifically, an abrupt transition from four lanes eastbound to two lanes eastbound must be avoided.

For brevity the US 50 interchange at EDH Blvd and Latrobe Road is called simply the EDH interchange.

Iron Point / Saratoga connection

Folsom is finishing its last 1,000 feet of road construction to extend Iron Point Road..

El Dorado County is doing a full EIR for construction of the new roadway for Saratoga to build westward and connect with Iron Point Road.  County DOT anticipates project completion in the spring of 2008.


Green Valley Road

Final widening of Green Valley Road between the county line and Francisco Drive is in progress.

There was no comment at the meeting about whether Folsom has plans to widen the same roadway between the county line and the intersection with Blue Ravine and East Natomas.


New American River bridge in Folsom

Folsom is currently obtaining easements and relocating utilities prior to construction. The new bridge is expected to open by December, 2008.


Connector and related areas

SACOG's Technical Advisory Committee is finalizing a preliminary report this week. This will advance the project from basic concept planning to detailed planning.

The Connector Policy Advisory Committee met last week. There are still unresolved governance issues involving multiple agencies.

Elk Grove currently is spending about $6 million on road improvements. This amount probably is the funding allocation for currently active projects; there was no indication of time frame for that investment or of budgeting for additional capital improvements.

There is an organization, the US 50 Mobility Partnership, which consists of multiple member agencies. It presumably is working on coordination for traffic infrastructure development in and near the US 50 corridor. The organization was mentioned only briefly at the meeting.

EDHCA offered one comment about plans for the El Dorado Hills terminus of the Connector. We suggested that this northeast end of the Connector would need multiple end points, not a single link leading to a single-point terminus. The area of greatest concern for future surface-street traffic congestions in El Dorado Hills is centered on the intersection of White Rock Road and Latrobe Road. That intersection is highly vulnerable to major traffic problems because of the road network's topology and the pattern of land use that will be realized as the area south of US 50 builds out.

EDHCA followed this with a recommendation to support construction of a new east/west arterial which would intersect Latrobe Road on the south side of the business park. Such a road would provide east/west capacity in an area that currently has no east/west arterial connections. It would draw traffic away from the center of El Dorado Hills, helping to ease congestion in the central area. It would be an important link in the EDH road network:  Multiple north/south links need east/west links in order to supply alternate routes to relieve north/south congestion.

Russ Nygaard (EDC Deputy Director, Foothill Division) spoke iat the meeting to support a new east/west arterial.. Following the meeting Bob Holderness, former mayor of Folsom, privately expressed support for it.