Environmental groups argue that the agency purposely split the project into two phases to obscure the true impact of expanded road capacity.
A coalition of environmental groups are suing the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) in an effort to force the agency to reassess the proposed Interstate 80 highway expansion project dubbed the Yolo Causeway, reports Melanie Curry in Streetsblog California.
The suit alleges that the environmental impact report for the project improperly divided it into separate parts to obscure its full environmental impact. “The first project is using S.B. 1 highway maintenance funds to strengthen the roadbed along the causeway between Davis and Sacramento. Because Caltrans is calling it a "maintenance" project, no environmental review was conducted. But the second part of the project will take advantage of that new roadbed to restripe the highway with a new lane, expanding capacity.”
According to the lawsuit, the EIR for the second part of the project significantly overstates congestion reduction benefits, while Caltrans only has plans to mitigate roughly half of the estimated new vehicle miles traveled. “Similar concerns - faulty VMT calculations and inadequate mitigations for what will be increased climate-damaging emissions - have arisen in numerous other highway expansion plans throughout the state, including the I-15 in the Inland Empire, Highway 1 in Santa Cruz, and Highway 99 in the Central Valley, among others.”
FULL STORY: Environmental Groups File Suit Against I-80 Highway Expansion
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