Long suffering commuters of Placer County, rejoice!

The first lane of the three-phase expansion of the I-80 at the Placer/Sacramento border, known by various names but most often just "The Bottleneck."  As my fellow commuters know, the freeway goes from 5 lanes to 3 lanes in a short distance, and is backed up for what seems like 18 hours out of the day.

The story can be found on the Sacrament Business Journal Website:

The auxiliary lane -- which allows drivers to enter I-80 and drive in that lane or merge into other lanes -- is the first phase of a $210 million project to ease congestion on I-80, Caltrans spokeswoman Cassandra Pitts said. About 170,000 vehicles daily travel along Interstate 80 at Auburn Boulevard, but the figure includes eastbound and westbound traffic.

Read the whole story here...and enjoy your commute!

Actually, I should add that this kind of activity will have an impact on the possible Placer County local option transportation sales tax, but I have heard two opinions on the impact.

One school of thought is that voters will conclude that they don't need the local tax, and state money is paying for the needed improvements.

The other, of course, is that this will whet the appetite of local commuters for more improvements, which the campaign will argue needs a local funding source.

We'd love to hear which school of thought folks subscribe to.