North County Corridor slams on brakes – again

Another delay has stalled the unveiling of documents crucial to the North County Corridor, a future east-west expressway skirting Modesto, Riverbank and Oakdale.

A long-awaited draft environmental study – with loads of information on how the road could affect people, farms and other businesses – won’t be ready to circulate this month, as promised in September. It could become public in a couple months, under the most optimistic scenario.

The delay this time is blamed on state legislators’ failure to address transportation funding, a huge disappointment at the state Capitol last year.

For 10 years, the state has assumed federal responsibility for environmental decisions affecting highway projects using at least some federal road money. The arrangement expired Jan. 1 and federal transportation officials don’t have a big enough staff to absorb those tasks, including final steps of reviewing the huge project in north Stanislaus County.

A comprehensive transportation package in Sacramento would have included renewal of the state and federal arrangement. But tricky politics doomed the package last year, hurting progress on the North County Corridor and other projects.

New legislation – Assembly Bill 28, co-authored by Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton – would fix the problem with environmental decisions. But that process won’t start rolling until next month, so local transportation officials postponed a meeting scheduled for Wednesday of the governing board for the North County Corridor, as well as a public hearing tentatively set for late February.

“At best, this will delay the release of our environmental document by a couple of months,” county Public Works Director Matt Machado said in a notice.

The study initially was promised in summer 2015 and has been delayed several times since for various reasons.

The 18-mile expressway would run from northeast Modesto to Highway 108 east of Oakdale, with freeway interchanges at McHenry Avenue, Coffee and Oakdale roads, and Roselle Avenue, and roundabouts on the east end. Final route selection is up to the California Department of Transportation, perhaps in 2018.

A bypass of Oakdale has been talked about for six decades. The latest version could cost $700 million.

This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 1:14 PM with the headline "North County Corridor slams on brakes – again."