City of Santa Rosa Awarded $12 Million for Highway 101 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing
Funds help close significant gap in community’s transportation network for pedestrians and bicyclists
The City of Santa Rosa has been awarded $12 million in federal grant funds from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to go toward construction of the City’s planned Highway 101 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing project. The funds, which MTC awarded to the City through California’s Active Transportation Program (ATP), provide a significant boost to the funding needed for the $21 million-construction phase of the project.
City Council approved the award during their August 17th Council meeting, ensuring construction for the Highway 101 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing could begin by October 2023. Anticipated completion date for the project is December 2025, pending securing an additional $6 million in funding to cover the full cost of project construction. The City is required to commit a local match of at least 11.47% of the total project cost – the remaining approximately $3 million allocation is secured through state funding Senate Bill 1 $2.5 million and the Transportation Development Act article three $0.55 million.
Santa Rosa’s Highway 101 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing project ranked sixth out of a field of 61 applications where only the top eight projects were recommended for funding by MTC on April 28, 2021. The California Transportation Commission (CTC) then approved MTC’s regional list of projects, including Santa Rosa’s project at the June 23, 2021 meeting. MTC’s 2021 ATP is a very competitive Regional Program with state and federal funding capacity set at $37 million in support of projects and programs that make walking and biking better travel options.
The project will construct a 17-foot wide bicycle and pedestrian shared-use overcrossing spanning Highway 101 at the Elliot-Edwards alignment approved by Caltrans. This will serve as a connector providing a safer and more comfortable alternative for bicyclists and pedestrians over the freeway between two high-traffic interchanges at College Avenue and Steele Lane. This is a critical link in the east-west bicycle and pedestrian network identified in the City’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan Update 2018.
Opportunities for community input on the project are planned for this fall. The first, scheduled for October 2021, will present the Overcrossing's preliminary design to the City's Design Review Board. The second will take place approximately one month after the Design Review Board meeting, where City staff will report out on the direction received from the Board and receive additional input from the community on the project.
More information on the Highway 101 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing project is available at srcity.org/BikePedOvercrossing.