How will highways be affected? Who will pay for improving them?

Wed Jul 10 2024

Currently, Solano’s highways can be congested because more than half of our residents have to commute out of Solano County for work. The best way to take traffic off I-80, Highway 37, Highway 12, and Highway 113 is to prevent those trips in the first place – by bringing jobs to Solano County, which is exactly what we’re doing.

Leveraging the California Forever project to make Solano a bigger center for jobs will make it possible for people who live in Solano County to have a much shorter commute. Often, those Solano residents will be able to take advantage of the reverse commute direction where there’s little congestion.

For example, people commuting from Fairfield or Suisun City to the new city will be going east on Highway 12 in the morning – when all the traffic on Highway 12 is going west. Each of those trips mean one less trip on I-80, Highway 37, Highway 12, and Highway 113, in the peak direction, which will help alleviate congestion.

To be clear, over time, Highway 12 and Highway 113 will still need to be upgraded and widened – and this project is by far the best chance to do that.

To pay for those upgrades, Solano Transportation Authority has existing programs in place under which developers contribute towards the costs of improving highways impacted by their projects. We will contribute more than that amount towards the cost of improving highways.

For the remaining costs, we will work with the state and federal governments on ways to finance improvements to the highways. But in no event would any balance of the funds be paid by other Solano County residents or cities.

Transportation projects generally get funded by state and federal grants, not by counties. Highway money is already being spent by California and the federal government. But Solano County is not getting its fair share. We will use our contribution of the costs as the basis to get matching funds from the state and federal governments, so this will not cost Solano taxpayers any additional money, or take away from other projects in Solano.

California Forever will provide a net increase to the tax base of the county, benefitting current residents in all cities of Solano County.

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