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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

May 7, 2005

Suisun opens new Jepson Parkway bypass

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The twisting 12-mile bypass known as Jepson Parkway skirts the eastern fringes of Suisun City, Fairfield and Vacaville, coursing through strawberry patches and eucalyptus groves.

But scenery is not the main goal-- it's traffic relief.

There's still years and millions of dollars in work left before the parkway is complete, but transportation officials hailed the grand opening Friday of a wider thoroughfare at Walters Road in Suisun City as a key piece of the three-city puzzle that provides residents with an alternative to the oft-congested freeway.

Regional commuters and Sierra Nevada pleasure seekers could see benefits from the new route, too, because they will no longer have to compete with local residents who have relied on I-80 as the main pathway to nearby cities.

"We get the locals off Interstate 80, so it will clear that up, too," said Scott Corey, spokesman for Suisun City.

With two marsh-themed sculptures rising from the median of the four-lane route, the Walters Road section marks the start to the parkway. On the other end, work continues in Vacaville to widen the Leisure Town Road overcrossing.

Completing the middle portion in Fairfield, however, will take more money and more time. In the best-case scenario, the parkway will be finished in five years. In the worst case, if no funding can be found, completion could take up to a decade.

To date, almost $70 million has been spent to add bike lanes, fix bridges and turn rural roads into wider thoroughfares, but the same amount is needed to tie a bow around the parkway.

Transportation officials have been lobbying since 1998 to build the new route, arguing it will ease the pain of a growing county caught in the middle of a regional confluence of traffic.

More than 200,000 motorists throttle through Solano County on Interstate 80 each day, so the new parkway is seen as a way to let residents move within the county and not get caught in the freeway bump and grind.

"On a Friday afternoon, everybody from the Bay Area comes through on the way to the mountains," said Solano County Supervisor Mike Reagan. "This is going to become one of our main thoroughfares in Solano County."

Once the parkway is complete, transportation officials predict it will lessen the load on Interstate 80 by 10,000 to 15,000 cars a day.

They're not worried about nonresidents using the route as a way to sneak through the county, because it would involve backtracking on Highway 12 to start at the Walters Road entrance.

"It's essentially a local road," said Daryl Halls, head of the Solano Transportation Authority.

That's not to say the new route hasn't stirred controversy. About 800 residents in Vacaville complained about widening Leisure Town Road just steps from their back yards.

The conflict was quickly resolved when planners added bicycle lanes and grassy buffers closer to the back yards. In other cities along the road, new housing developments boast high soundwalls to muffle out car and truck noise.

Opponents of sprawl are keeping a close eye on the Vacaville portion, where they fear a new, wider road will only spur more housing -- a prospect that could add more cars and quickly swamp the new route with traffic.

"We want to make sure wider roads won't lead to sprawling developments between the cities," said Brent Schoradt, field representative for the Greenbelt Alliance.

Reagan, however, said the parkway includes growth-control plans.

Ultimately, he said, the rest of the parkway will include the same artistic flourishes present at Walters Road, from the new sculptures to arching signs and wide sidewalks. The road will have its own identity, he said.

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Mike Adamick covers transportation. Reach him at 925-945-4745 or madamick@cctimes.com.

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