E Main Street Neighborhood Livability Project | I-5 / SR 113 Freeway Connector

Phase: Planning

Project Description

The East Main Street Neighborhood Livability Project will deliver economic, safety, sustainability, and livability benefits to Woodland and the entire region. The project will construct crucial freeway-to-freeway connectors between Interstate 5 and State Route 113 in Woodland. Currently, traffic must exit the freeway and use City streets to travel between northbound I-5 and southbound SR 113 as well as northbound SR 113 and southbound I-5. The project will help complete the only east-west freeway route within the region aside from I-80 and an increasingly relied-upon alternative as congestion increases through the urban core of Sacramento. Additionally, the I-5 and SR 113 route is the only east-west overweight truck route in the entire Sacramento region.

More specifically, this project will produce safety, prosperity, social equity, and sustainability outcomes. The connectors will enhance westerly access to and from Sacramento International Airport, one of the region’s most vital economic assets. Importantly, this project will significantly improve regional goods movement and shipping by reducing time spent traveling on local roads. The effort will also enhance Emergency Services and Emergency Management throughout the region. Emergency Responders will experience improved response times when responding to incidents along the I-5 corridor, including traffic accidents. This project will substantially improve the efficiency of emergency evacuation, as both I-5 and SR 113 are prioritized evacuation routes for multiple designated Evacuation Zones throughout the County, particularly zones 39, 40, 42, 43.  

Moreover, the project will invest in a historically disadvantaged area by encouraging more sustainable actions, providing enhanced access to basic goods, and promoting an overall higher quality of life. Decreased traffic on East Main will ease congestion, separate big rigs from bikers and walkers, and decrease idling car emissions while encouraging active and public transit. Removing highway traffic will dovetail with local actions that invest in a sense of place, such as Woodland’s proposed Comprehensive Zoning Update that will allow more residential uses in the corridor and the East Main Street Improvement Project that delivered off-street bike paths, narrowed travel lanes, landscaping, and more. Finally, the project will improve access and remove noisy, heavy, and polluting traffic from the area surrounding the Yolano Donnelly Public Housing neighborhood, an area that the City of Woodland and County of Yolo have continuously prioritized as an underserved community deserving of reinvestment.