Solano Transportation Authority Adopts Strategy to Seek Funds for Railroad Undercrossing

The Solano Transportation Authority Board of Directors unanimously approved a strategy Wednesday afternoon to try and secure federal and state money to pay for a portion of a planned railroad undercrossing for West B Street.

Dixon Mayor Jack Bachelor, who sits on the STA Board of Directors, said the undercrossing was purely for the safety of residents and had nothing to do with access to the Dixon train station area.

STA staff said there have been two pedestrian fatalities at the crossing since 1990, and there are an estimated 500 pedestrian trips over the crossing daily, the majority of which are students.

Making the route safer for students going to and from school was the kind of thing Bachelor said he was meant to do as mayor.

“It’s what I was elected to do,” he said.

The project is identified as a Solano Safe Routes to School project as well as part of the countywide Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan.

The STA funding strategy would bring in roughly $4.95 million in additional money from what staff called “remaining federal and state sources.”

The outlined plan involves identifying money for various state and federal programs that can be used for the project, including from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Safe Routes to School program.

If successful, the plan would leave about a $1.15 million shortfall, and prove to future grant sources that the project had enough money for at least one phase of construction.

That strategy would go a long way toward making the project “shovel ready,” part of the STA’s overall strategy for Solano County projects and a crucial label at the state and federal level for projects that have been awarded money in tight economic times.

The STA board recently came back from a short lobbying trip to Washington, D.C. where they were told by lawmakers that the normal process for paying for transportation projects, called earmarking, was off the table, making a “shovel ready” project all the more important to have.