Act Now: To Keep Sprawl Out of Butte County

What do Butte County residents want their county to look like in one or two generations? Does Sacramento County have the look or maybe Yuba County that is even closer to us? How much urban sprawl is acceptable? Does the cost of housing persuade you to envision sprawl as the only solution? Would degraded air pollution and traffic jams like Sacramento cause you to flee Butte County?

These are some of the hard questions that Butte County residents must ask themselves immediately, for without clear thinking and action, it will soon be too late to stop trends such as the ones just south of us. Unfortunately, the Butte County Association of Governments (BCAG), one of the most neglected government entities by the public in Butte County, is the driving force preparing the County for unbridled growth.

With BCAG’s growth projections for Butte County suggesting that the County will expand from 220,000 residents in 2005 to 314,000 in 2025 (www.bcag.org), they are preparing the transportation infrastructure to allow an explosion in houses, cars, and big box retail. The ensuing complications will be dealt with just like the counties all over California that use antiquated engineering and ideas. For example, motorists and local officials clamor for more lanes when congestion occurs and then when roads can’t handle any more lanes, they want more roads. An analogy to this would be to seek a credit increase when you have used up your credit card debt limit. It might get you through the holidays, but there’s a disaster looming just ahead that has been repeated and later regretted all over the United States.

For some background, Butte County is presently operating with an illegal General Plan, so there is a void in comprehensive planning for all the major issues that impact all the cultural, community, natural, and working environments: agriculture, air quality, economy, education, habitats, health, housing, noise, recreation, open space, safety, transportation, water quality, water quantity, and wildlife. Transportation is usually the precursor to other impacts, so breaking the cycle perpetuated by BCAG (see article on page 13) requires looking beyond one’s own windshield and considering where the region’s going in 10, 25, or even 50 years. It requires thinking about the quality of life for our children and grandchildren. Will they thank us for failing to learn from our neighbors’ mistakes to the south? I think not.

This is where a robust imagination comes in. Instead of focusing on moving more cars along ever more pavement, what if we focused on constructing better communities — extraordinary ones, even? How would we start this and where would it take us? It’s entirely possible not only to imagine, but also to build the County’s small and large towns into lively centers where most needs are met with a single car or bus or bicycle trip — or walk — between compact locations. Imagine a place that’s all about its people — young, old, wealthy or working class — having lots of transportation, job, housing, and entertainment choices in order to lead more fulfilling and independent lives. This region can be a place whose air and water grow cleaner every year, with less traffic and noise and light pollution.

Butte Environmental Council is embarking on a project to challenge Butte County residents to not only imagine what their dream community and county would like, but how to make it happen. People interested in participating can watch our web site for more details: www.becnet.org.

The looming project that epitomizes this exhausting and unhealthy lifestyle is the highway 149 expansion that is expected to start in 2006, even though a major requirement for the project is to create a Habitat and Conservation Plan for Butte County. The project as planned will turn a 4.6 mile highway between highway/freeway 70 and highway/freeway 99 into a four-lane freeway with two clover-leaf intersections. All this is occurring in the middle of grazing land that is mostly zoned Unclassified or Grazing and Open Land in the County’s old General Plan. Oroville, the county seat and nearby city is four miles south of the highway. Current operating capacity is Level of Service C. The main traffic pattern on Hwy 149 is from Oroville to Chico and vise versa (DEIR/S May 2002). The DEIR/S projects that the LOS will drop from level C to E by 2020.

Many alternatives obviously exist to handle the majority of this internally generated traffic covering the total 20 mile stretch between Oroville and Chico.

Below are some ideas for the expansion corridor that we have presented to all the jurisdictional agencies over the last four years, yet they are dismissed as quaint when the $133.1 million boondoggle with four lanes and two clover leaf interchanges is crowding the discussion.

  • Signalize both intersections at a cost of approximately $250,000 each or use a fly over ramp.
  • Diminish traffic speed from Oroville to 55.
  • Lengthen turn lanes on Hwys 99 and 70.
  • Advocate for more funding for more CHP personnel in the area.
  • Prioritize Butte County Transit by increasing buses during peak commute hours.