24 Oct Antioch Approves East County Transportation Projects

(Screenshot captured by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

The Antioch City Council on Tuesday approved an additional 18 transportation projects across Brentwood, Oakley, Pittsburg and Antioch that will receive funding from a regional fee.

The projects will be funded through the East Contra Costa Regional Fee and Financing Authority Board of Directors’ Regional Transportation Development Impact Mitigation fee, which is funded through fees on development projects in member cities.

The 18 projects — which will need over $500 million in funding to all be complete — include improvements and extensions to Slatten Ranch Road in Antioch, Loveridge Road and Standard Oil Avenue in Pittsburg and East Cypress Road in Oakley.

Once completed, Slatten Ranch Road would have a four-lane roadway from Wild Horse Road to the Antioch BART station and Pittsburg’s Standard Oil Avenue would have a new two-lane road near a part of James Donlon Boulevard.

ECCRFFA, created in 1994 with the initial member cities of Antioch, Pittsburg and Brentwood, identifies, prioritizes and funds regional transportation projects. Representatives of each jurisdiction, including Contra Costa County, sit on the board.

The fee has already funded several projects, including the Mokelumne Bicycle/Pedestrian Overcrossing and a part of State Route 4.

The addition of the projects also reprioritized transportation projects that benefit Pittsburg, at the request of a Pittsburg representative, and deprioritized an extension of James Donlon Boulevard.

Some of the board’s highest priority projects within Antioch are adding lanes to the Pittsburg-Antioch Highway, from Auto Center Drive to Loveridge Road in Pittsburg, and widening roads to four lanes between Lone Tree Way to Buchanan Road. Those two projects alone, according to an ECCRFA program update report, will cost over $100 million.

Council member Lori Ogorchock said it wasn’t clear how projects were prioritized on the list. Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe said that, to prioritize projects for funding, the board must unanimously approve a project.

Andrew Becker, a resident, said that there was no space to widen the roadway at Slatten Ranch Road, noting the homes nearby.

Council members approved the 18 items in a 3-0 vote, with member Tamisha Torres-Walker and Mayor Pro Tem Monica Wilson absent.

The next Antioch City Council meeting is Nov. 12.