Winter Rains Highlight Need for Improved Transportation Corridors

With the current and anticipated winter storms, regional Sacramento transportation leaders are highlighting the need to improve area transportation corridors to serve as key evacuation routes during floods and other emergencies.

One of those corridors is the SouthEast Connector Expressway. This 34-mile transportation corridor connects I-5 and Highway 99 in Elk Grove to Highway 50 in El Dorado Hills. Authorized in 2004 by Sacramento County voters, about 6.5 miles of the Connector have been improved primarily along Kammerer Road in Elk Grove and White Rock Road in Folsom.

The largest stretch of the Connector is along Grant Line Road through south Sacramento County. This mostly two-lane country road limits emergency access and its value as a route to higher ground when flooding threatens southern Sacramento County.

Parts of Grant Line Road were closed due to flooding in January 2023. The area has experienced several other flood incidents in recent decades.

“Recent flood events in south Sacramento County have demonstrated the need for improved transportation corridors in that area, including Grant Line Road, that can remain open even when threatened by high water,” said Derek Minnema, executive director of the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority, which is responsible for the project’s implementation. “The Connector’s design helps ensure that emergency responders and evacuees can use it when needed.”

The 19-mile Grant Line Road corridor is the Connector’s longest. It is being implemented with Sacramento County, Elk Grove, and Rancho Cordova. Planning and environmental review are complete or underway for portions of the alignment. Still, anticipated construction funding has not materialized as expected due to a shift in transportation funding priorities away from roadway capacity expansion.

“The need to improve the longest portion of the Connector route along Grant Line has been demonstrated, but securing the additional local, state, and federal funding that we need to move into construction has been a challenge,” said Minnema, who is leading efforts to raise the project’s visibility and make it a higher funding priority. “We’re trying to educate more area residents about our plans and help local, state, and federal officials better understand why this project needs to move forward sooner rather than later.”

The Connector JPA currently has several active funding requests under consideration by Rancho Cordova and the federal Department of Transportation, and it expects budget decisions in the next several months.