I attended an informational meeting hosted by the Sacramento Area Sewage District Thursday night. In addition to the operations director and the district engineer for the SASD, there were representatives from Arcade Creek Recreation and Park District, Sacramento County Department of Transportation, American River College, and the Sacramento County Department of Water Resources.
The reason for the meeting was the planned closure to pedestrians of a pipe that crosses Arcade Creek behind American River College. The pipe was built in the 1960’s and is still in operation. It’s about 50 feet long, three feet in diameter, and has a 23”-wide flat top.
Many people in the audience of seventy or more people were local residents, and just about everybody that spoke were adamant that the crossing remain open. From the comments I heard, there are many people that value the crossing because it links the Arcade Creek trail and adjoining neighborhoods with the ARC campus. Several generations have used the pipe to get to classes at ARC, according to some audience members.
An alternate route using Marmith, Hemlock, and Myrtle to replace the trail and pipe crossing was presented. However, one of the loudest applauses of the evening came after someone said that students are at risk on the roadways from drivers using their smartphones.
I encouraged the various agencies to work together with the community to find funding for construction of a bridge at the pipe location. The cooperative work would benefit everyone – the park district will have a popular trail that isn’t a dead end, ARC retains an access point for students, the County is closer to having an off-street bikeway along Arcade Creek, liability risk for the sewage district is eliminated, water resources maintains the existing water flow capacity, and the community may continue to cross the creek.
WALKSacramento made the following recommendations for Arcade Creek in the Los Rios Transportation Connections plan that we issued in 2008.
• Provide a pedestrian bridge and resurfaced walkway to connect with the recently completed trail from Arcade Creek Park.
• Provide a bicycle-pedestrian campus perimeter route from the parking lot near the stadium around the east side of the campus connecting the proposed bridge (s) to the northern part of the campus.
• Establish a College and community advisory committee to provide input to planning for the bridge(s) and connecting routes. The committee could include representatives of the College, the neighborhood residents, public safety agencies, recreation districts and other organizations concerned about Arcade Creek and transportation to the College.
For more information:
Presentation by SASD to Arcade Creek Park and Recreation District http://www.acrpd.com/uploads/Arcade_Creek_Presentation.pdf
Arcade Creek Sewer Pipeline Crossing Closure FACT SHEET http://www.acrpd.com/uploads/Arcade_Creek_Crossing_Removal_Fact_Sheet.pdf
Los Rios Connections Transportation Plan https://www.walksacramento.org/publications-and-media/reports/los-rios-transportation-connections/