Sacramento's future regional transportation center has gotten a green light to move on to its final design phase after clearing a federal environmental hurdle, months later than expected.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on Friday confirmed the city's proposed "intermodal facility" has made it through the federal environmental review process required due to federal funding for the project. Approval was delayed due to the complicated review process and concerns about the impact on historic Southern Pacific railroad shops and other historic properties.

Federal transportation officials, along with other federal and state agency staff, have determined the new depot will not have significant impact on the environment as long as proposed mitigation measures are followed.

The FHWA signed off on the project's environmental assessment by issuing a "finding of no significant impact," or FONSI, for the first two phases of the transportation center, an expansion of the historic Sacramento Valley Station into the 244-acre Railyards development site. The FHWA actually signed off on the FONSI Aug. 31 and then notified the city of Sacramento, the lead agency on the project. 

This environmental approval allows the city to submit construction authorizations for phases 1 and 2 to the California Department of Transportation by Dec. 1. Meeting that deadline ensures the project will still get $20 million in stimulus funding for the $56 million track relocation.

"It's a very important milestone for our project," said Hinda Chandler, project manager and a senior architect with the city's Department of Transportation.

Construction of Railyards infrastructure is expected to start within a month after the California Department of Housing and Community Development agreed to begin doling out $47 million in Prop. 1C money awarded in June 2008 to Railyards developer Thomas Enterprises. Following a six-week hiatus, the company will begin building the bridge at Fifth and H streets to extend Fifth Street into the Railyards.

The environmental approval allows the city to get easements and permits for utility relocation and to initiate final design work, in order to show by Dec. 1 that the city is ready to begin construction. The city had expected to get FHWA's approval on the environmental review process months ago, according to Chandler and Linda Tucker, spokesperson for the city's transportation department.

While construction had initially been anticipated for this fall, the delay put off construction for Phase 1 — track relocation — until March 2010, due to the lengthy bidding process that must now be held. Construction of Phase 2 — $30 million in expansions and improvements to the existing depot at Fifth and I streets — is expected to begin once track relocation is complete.

The expansion is expected to equip Sacramento to meet regional transportation needs for freight trains, service operators and passengers until at least 2025.

Sacramento Valley Station sits on a major national trade route called the Central Corridor, whose western junction is the high-volume Port of Oakland. The volume of imports and exports handled by the port via Sacramento has outgrown the 1925 station's current track setup, where freight and passenger trains share three tracks.

This has created a bottleneck for freight trains. As freight rail tonnage is expected to double by 2025, the situation would only get worse, and the Port of Oakland would be unable to handle growing trade.

Building tracks devoted to freight is expected to eliminate the bottleneck and enable a higher volume of freight trains to move more quickly through Sacramento, Tucker said.

In addition, Sacramento's station has not been able to keep up with the increasing number of train passengers. The station is already California's second-busiest train depot and the seventh busiest in the country, with 1.5 million train users each year and a roughly estimated 200,000 others using light rail, taxis, and local and Amtrak buses.

Cities are finding that downtown train stations are easier to access than airports outside cities. Train travel is becoming more popular after a decline that lasted 50 years, Chandler said.

Ridership is especially growing between Sacramento and the Bay Area. Expanding the transportation center to include a bigger, modern terminal and more space for trains, buses and other transportation is expected to draw up to 7.5 million users by 2025, and as many as 15 million if high-speed rail is added, Chandler said.

The station has eight Amtrak bus bays. The new regional center is expected to include 24 local bus bays and 11 for Amtrak and Greyhound buses, plus room for high-speed rail if needed.

In June, the Sacramento City Council voted against its 2007 decision to move the existing station 300 feet north, next to relocated train tracks. Councilmembers changed their minds after discovering an unnecessary station relocation would make the city ineligible to get federal funding for up to 80 percent of the project.

A California Environmental Quality Act review was conducted previously. Under the National Environmental Protection Act, an environmental review must be conducted by the lead federal agency when a project is getting federal funding. The new transportation center will get money from federal highway, transit and railroad programs through the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The FHWA and other agencies have been carefully reviewing the city’s proposal for more than a year. The other agencies include the California Department of Transportation, the state Office of Historic Preservation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the Federal Transit Administration and their state equivalents.

"It's a pretty good-sized project," said FHWA spokesperson Doug Hecox. "It's something we (took) great pains to be careful about."

The agencies worked quickly to make sure the project wouldn't lose the stimulus funding in what FRA spokesperson Warren Flatau described as "choreographed bureaucratic collaboration."

"Everyone (was) committed to doing this in record time," he said.

To expedite the project, the agencies conducted concurrent reviews — a relatively new practice. Until two or three years ago, federal environmental reviews took an average of three to five years, and sometimes up to eight, while each agency took its turn reviewing the environmental assessment document, according to the FHWA.

An environmental review for Phase 3, estimated to cost $252 million, must be done at a later date because the design for that phase is still only conceptual, Chandler said.

That phase could involve major renovation of the historic station building. Phase 3 isn't funded and may not happen for many years, said Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Stephen Mikesell, who has been heavily involved in the environmental review on behalf of the California Office of Historic Preservation.

A combination of federal, state and local funding is being used to finance the entire project. Last year, the project was awarded another $20 million in trade corridor funds under state Proposition 1B to fund track construction that will eliminate the bottleneck.

The city expects the state to issue bonds and award that funding within six months. If the state is no longer able to provide that funding, the city is confident the funds can be found elsehwere, Tucker said.

The city applied for $6 million more for Phase 1 in August, and on Tuesday, expects to submit an application for $30 million more, mostly for Phase 2.

An engineering consultant is designing the relocation of freight and passenger tracks, which will be moved north by 300 feet at the closest point and 500 feet at the farthest. The tracks will be straightened to allow long platforms and thus, longer trains.

Tracks will no longer be shared upon completion of this project. Four passenger tracks, two passenger platforms and at least two freight tracks will be built. The new configuration should increase passenger safety while no longer requiring freight trains to slow down as much. The tracks and new, longer platforms will allow more and longer trains, Tucker said.

Relocation of the tracks should take about a year. Tracks and signals will then be tested for three to four months. The new tracks are expected to be operating by mid-2011, Chandler said.

The historic rail station became a government facility in 2006, when the city bought that and nine acres of land from Thomas Enterprises. Amtrak leased the station from Union Pacific prior to the developer's purchase of the site.

The city is in arbitration with Thomas Enterprises as the two sides try to agree on the value and price for another 24 acres that the city has an option to buy, Chandler said. Negotiations aren't holding up track relocation.

The existing station will continue to be used as the depot during construction of the first two phases. Improvements to the historic station will include restoring an entrance at Fourth and I streets, which will highlight the station's architecture and allow passengers to enter from the front.

Once the larger facility is built to the north across the tracks, the historic depot will be used as a gateway to the new depot and as one location for baggage and ticketing.

"We feel it'll be a seamless blend of old and new," Chandler said.

However, the long-term use of the existing depot hasn't been settled. That could continue to be used as part of the depot or for an unrelated purpose, Mikesell said.

Photos by Eric Whalen. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.