■ $85K from SolTrans moves Industrial Park transit center forward

Benicia City Council has taken the next step in getting a bus hub built in the city Industrial Park by approving an $85,000 loan agreement with SolTrans.

SolTrans is the joint powers authority that has been providing public transportation — both local and express bus lines — to Benicia and Vallejo since 2011.

In this case, the transit system offered the city a “bridge loan” to help cover construction costs should Regional Measure 2 (bridge toll) and Regional Traffic Impact Fee (RTIF) revenues be delayed.

Those revenues are expected to underwrite the $2.11 million bus hub.

But the agreement between the Council and SolTrans, approved Feb. 3, assures funding for the project even if RTIF money — collected when building permits are issued for private Solano County development — isn’t available for five years, Public Works Director Graham Wadsworth said.

The Council accepted SolTrans’s offer when it authorized City Manager Brad Kilger to execute an agreement with the agency and to spend $40,000 in city traffic impact fees associated with the project.

According to the agreement, SolTrans expects the loan to be repaid, with RTIF Working Group 3 money, by June 30, 2018.

If those funds aren’t available by then, Benicia would pay SolTrans directly, then receive RTIF Working Group 3 funds as reimbursement as they are collected.

Wadsworth said the city would use traffic impact fee revenues to repay SolTrans.

Other funding for the project is coming from Solano Transportation Authority (STA) and the State Transit Assistance Funding.

The bus hub for the Industrial Park has been discussed for many years, sought as a replacement to a bus stop on Park Road south of Industrial Way that has no parking or other amenities.

Since 2013, the project has been seen as supporting Plan Bay Area, adopted July 13 of that year for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments.

That plan’s goals are to meet state mandates through integrating transportation and land use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.

Benicia began taking action on the hub after officials learned that Regional Measure 2 money would be available to fund the project.

The Council agreed that the STA would be the lead agency for the right-of-way phase of the project, because of its regional transportation significance.

The improved bus hub, catering in particular to Fairfield and Suisun Transit Route 40 that connects riders from Fairfield to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in Contra Costa County, would give commuters parking spaces, a “kiss-and-ride” pullout for motorists and other pullouts for buses, as well as sidewalks and transit shelters.

The Council approved a mitigated negative declaration, required by the California Environmental Quality Act, as well as conceptual plans underwritten by bridge toll money awarded by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. However, the project ran into a snag starting Dec. 3, 2013, when the owners of the acre of land targeted as the best place for the bus hub said they were not notified that the Council was taking action.

Their contention was confirmed at the Dec. 17, 2013, Council meeting.

Securing the land involved protracted negotiations in 2014 that included adoption of an ordinance that would legitimize and govern food truck operations in certain areas of the city, such as the taco truck the Barragans had operated on their property for more than 20 years.

Bid documents for the project are being prepared, and construction on the park-and-ride lot should start this summer, Wadsworth said.

He described the project as situated in “an excellent location, with easy access to Interstate 680.” The hub is expected to provide a place to board the Fairfield and Suisun Transit Route 40, linking Walnut Creek to Fairfield, and for those living along that route or with access to BART to travel to the Benicia Industrial Park for work.

In addition, it will have a small transit platform where SolTrans’s reservation-based General Public Dial-a-Ride buses can connect travelers to other destinations in Benicia, Wadsworth said.

Approved simultaneously with this matter were agreements with the California Board of Equalization, so requirements of the Revenue and Taxation Code can be accomplished, and with Diamond Bar tax auditors HdL Companies, which will analyze the taxes received by the penny sales tax increase approved by Benicia voters Nov. 4, 2014.