SC Yolano Grp: Stop Caltrans' Freeway Sprawl!

On May 29, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) filed a lawsuit against Caltrans alleging inadequate environmental analysis and insufficient mitigation proposed for the environmental harm resulting from an I-80 freeway widening project through Yolo County.

Caltrans wants to widen 17 miles of the I-80 freeway from six to eight lanes between Davis and Sacramento through the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area. Our lawsuit seeks to stop this project until Caltrans conducts an accurate analysis of the true adverse environmental impacts that would result from the project.

Please help us force Caltrans to act responsibly and in compliance with California law by considering a generous, tax-deductible online donation to the Yolano Group’s fund at the Sierra Club Foundation.

In particular, we allege that Caltrans’ environmental review was both scientifically and legally inadequate. The deficiencies include:

i) Knowingly underestimating the increase in traffic resulting from the project and, thus, underestimating both associated greenhouse gas and priority pollutant emissions,

ii) Not considering other alternative viable public transit options, and

iii) Proposing woefully inadequate mitigation to offset the traffic and associated GHG emission impacts produced by this $450 million project.

Caltrans violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to account in their project’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that freeway widenings do not produce less congestion but typically result in even more future traffic leading to worse congestion, delays, and pollution. This is due to a phenomena called “Induced Demand”.

Proven by decades of research, including landmark studies at UC Davis’ famed Center for Sustainable Transportation, Induced Demand recognizes that as more freeway lanes are added that traffic will disproportionately increase to the extent that after 5-10 years the traffic congestion will be worse than ever.

For years Caltrans’ answer to highway congestion has been to simply to widen a freeway. However, landmark California legislation (SB 743) now requires that all roadway projects in California be analyzed using a new metric, “Vehicle Miles Traveled” (VMT), to account for the impacts of development projects on vehicular use.

Additionally, other legislation (SB32) requires that California reduce its overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40% by 2030. But, in fact, this freeway widening project actually substantially increases GHG emissions taking us further down the road of irreversible climate change. What is Caltrans thinking?

According to the Sierra Club Yolano Group Chair, Alan Pryor, “The EIR for the I-80 widening shows Caltrans is stuck in reverse when we need to move our region forward by investing in real alternatives to congestion that doesn't just put more cars on our roads and smog in our air. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars laying down concrete and asphalt that locks us into a future of car dependency at the expense of community health and our environment, Caltrans needs to get serious about real alternatives such as improved frequency and access to public transit instead of willfully ignoring state law.”

Thank you so much for your help and support in our fight to make Caltrans start behaving like the climate crisis is real!

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Sierra Club's Yolano Group is fiscally sponsored by the Sierra Club Foundation.

The Sierra Club Foundation’s mission is to promote efforts to educate and empower people to protect and improve the natural and human environment. Your donation to benefit the Yolano Group will go to the Sierra Club Foundation, fiscal sponsor of our charitable environmental programs. The Sierra Club Foundation is a public, charitable organization that is exempt from taxes under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. By law, the Sierra Club Foundation retains control and discretion/variance power over all charitable funds received, including how they are disbursed within the purposes for which they were contributed; the Foundation reserves the unilateral right to select those recipients or beneficiaries it believes will best accomplish those purposes.