Reposted from the Sacramento Bee
Published Thursday, June 12, 2008

Officials hope to restore Hwy. 65 bypass to four lanes around Lincoln

By Jennifer K. Morita

Local officials hope to restore the long-awaited Highway 65 bypass project in Lincoln to the originally planned four lanes now that the winning bid came in $35 million under estimate.

"We are doing the absolute maximum possible with whatever money we've got," said Placer County Transportation Planning Agency Executive Director Celia McAdam.

The California Transportation Commission will still have to weigh in, however.

The bypass, designed to divert commuter and big-rig traffic around downtown Lincoln, was first proposed as a four-lane road starting at Industrial Boulevard and reconnecting to the highway near Sheridan.

But as the price tag for the delayed project soared to $324 million, including engineering and design costs, rights-of-way purchases and construction, Lincoln and county transportation agency officials scaled it back to a two-lane road.

"The only way we could have a fully funded project was to scale it back," Lincoln City Councilman Tom Cosgrove said. "The cost of construction had gone up so much that we got less for the amount of money that we had available.

"Now, the situation is basically reversed."

A sluggish economy and the downturn in the housing industry has upped the competition among construction companies looking for work.

Another major Placer County project to build carpool lanes on Interstate 80 through Roseville recently came in at $86 million less than estimated.

Construction cost for the Lincoln bypass project was estimated at nearly $172 million, but the winning bid came in at $137 million, McAdam said.

"Our game plan is to restore the scope of the project and get closer to the original vision that we've had all along," she said. "We think we can get at least to Wise Road with four lanes from the south."

Cosgrove called the plan a "common-sense approach."

"We can literally get more project for our dollar than we could a few years ago, and it's going to be a long time before we have any financial resources in this region to do a significant project," he said.

Since the environmental analysis was done for four lanes to Sheridan, it won't be necessary to conduct another study, Cosgrove and McAdam said.

With more competitive bids coming in, the California Transportation Commission has to decide the proper way to deal with the dollars that have been saved.

"The real debate at this point is what would be the priority," Commissioner Jim Earp said. "Would it be to keep the money in the corridor that's getting the savings so you can, hopefully, enhance the corridor more and get more mobility for the same dollar?

"Or does it go back into the big Proposition 1B pot so that other worthy projects can have a shot at getting something done?"

So far, only a handful of projects funded by the voter-approved Proposition 1B transportation infrastructure bonds have broken ground, including the Roseville Interstate 80 "bottleneck" project.

Construction on the Lincoln bypass is scheduled to break ground June 27.

Earp said the issue has been discussed in depth by the commission.

"There are some commissioners on both sides of the issue, but there have been no hard and fast guidelines that have come out of that yet. I expect that it will happen within the near future," Earp said.

Cosgrove, however, is confident that the Lincoln bypass will be four lanes.

"I think the people we've spoken with already understand what our interests are, and my sense is that we'll be able to make this happen," he said.