Benicia City Council will have the opportunity Tuesday to approve an $85,000 loan agreement with Soltrans that will pay for the construction of a bus hub in Benicia Industrial Park.
The item is on the Council’s consent calendar, which means it is on a list that could be approved unanimously by single vote with no comment, unless someone asks for a subject to be considered separately.
The Council is being asked to authorize City Manager Brad Kilger to execute the agreement with SolTrans and the expenditure of $40,000 in city traffic impact fees associated with the construction project.
Public Works Director Graham Wadsworth wrote a Dec. 23 report, saying Benicia finally owns the one-acre hub site.
It was obtained after protracted negotiations with the site’s previous owners, Antonio and Graciela Barragan, complicated by an initial, inadvertent failure by city staff to notify the family that their land was being considered for the project.
Construction bid documents are being prepared, and construction on the park and ride lot should begin in summer, he wrote.
Regional Measure 2 (bridge toll) and Regional Traffic Impact Fee (RTIF) are paying for building the $2.11 million bus hub, he wrote.
However, since the RTIF money, collected when building permits are issued for private Solano County development, may not be available for five years, SolTrans has offered a “bridge loan,” with the expectation that the loan would be paid off through RTIF Working Group 3 money within three years.
If that money isn’t available by then, he wrote, “the city will need to pay SolTrans directly and get paid TIF Working Group 3 funds as they are collected.” That’s because the SolTrans board wants reimbursement by June 30, 2018, he wrote.
Benicia would use its traffic impact fee revenues to repay SolTrans, he explained.
Other funding for the project is coming from Solano Transportation Authority (STA) and State Transit Assistance Funding (STAF), he wrote.
“The project provides an excellent location with easy access to Interstate-680 for the citizens who need a safe and convenient place to park their vehicle and board the Fairfield and Suisun Transit’s (FAST) Route 40, which provides transit service to the Walnut Creek BART station,” Wadsworth wrote.
“It will also be possible for people living along Route 40 or taking BART to get to the Benicia Industrial Park for work,” he wrote, adding that he recommends approval of the agreement.
“The park-and-ride facility will offer a small transit platform where SolTrans reservation based General Public Dial-a-Ride (DAR) buses can provide connecting services to destinations in Benicia,” he wrote.
If you go:
The Council will meet with the Finance Committee at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Council Chamber of City Hall, 250 East L St., to discuss the city’s 10-year financial forecast.
Sharing is caring!
Another boondoogle and waste of money. Recently there have been at least two articles where the City Council indicated that they will need to prioritize expenditures in this world of limited resources. I believe that their next step was community outreach via a survey.
Where would public transit fall out in the prioritization survey? No one can say for sure, but a similar survey about ten years ago resulted in the Benicia Breeze as the lowest valued service.
Here we go again the Mayor and her cronies want to commit the city to spending millions without any assurances some other entity will pay for it. Hickory decry dock the mouse ran up the clock!