Funding for Design of City Park Transit Station Approved

Benicia should receive more than $400,000 in regional transportation funds next week to begin designing two intermodal transit facilities on Military West, including a controversial one at City Park, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission said Tuesday.

MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger approved the allocation of bridge toll funds for the project on Feb. 23, agency records show. Oakland-based MTC is the transportation planning and financing agency for the nine-county Bay Area.

The planned transit facilities are expected to improve access to Benicia’s primary public transportation outlet to the Bay Area, the Vallejo Transit Route 78 bus that connects the city with Vallejo and to BART stations in Pleasant Hill and Concord.

The Benicia City Council approved the $3 million project in November after two years of planning and over the objections of historic preservationists, who still fear construction will damage the park at the intersection of First Street and Military West.

Changes near the park are expected to include additional street furniture on the Military West side of the park, realigned parking on First and East K streets, wider sidewalks, and new street lighting.

Charlie Knox, director of the city’s Public Works and Community Development Dept., said he was waiting to receive the go-ahead from the MTC.

“We’re waiting for a letter, this week or next, that ‘you are hereby authorized to proceed with the project,” Knox said.

Knox also said the city would install new warning lights and widen the median on Military West at West Second Street, where two kids were struck and seriously injured by a car last year.

The planned revamped transit stop on the west end of town, near where Military West, West K Street and Interstate 780 meet, could be finished by the summer, Knox said.

But, first, designs to be drafted by Kimley-Horn and Associates of Oakland will be reviewed by the city’s Traffic, Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Committee, Knox said.

The park has been at Military West and First Street since Benicia was founded by Robert Semple and Thomas Larkin in 1847. The city was one of the first communities incorporated after California became a state in 1850, and was the state capital from 1853 to 1854.

The Route 78 bus replaced Benicia Transit Route 75 in 2008. Benicia Transit and Vallejo Transit have since been merged to form a new agency, Solano County Transit, which will most likely be known as SolTrans.

MTC spokesman John Goodwin said Tuesday that money for the Military West transit projects was part of a $20 million allocation to Solano County and the Solano Transportation Authority for transit station projects planned in Benicia, Vallejo, Fairfield and Vacaville.