Many Bay Area residents and tourists know American Canyon due to its location: the gateway to Napa Valley. Most drive through the city without stopping.
While the city welcomes the throng of tourists who pass through “Where Your Napa Valley Experience Begins,” its focus is squarely on the nearly 22,000 residents of American Canyon.
Due to its long-time status as an unincorporated community, American Canyon didn’t have dedicated funding to maintain its roads for decades. But as its population surged in recent years — more than doubling since 2000 — the strain on the city’s roads became acute.
“Some of the roads that were built prior to 1992 have never been upgraded,” said City Manager Jason Holley. “They are old county roads and were a lot like what you’d expect from a county road — not built to today’s code because there was little vehicle traffic that had to be accounted for and many of them received scant treatment or maintenance over the years.”
Since the countywide transportation Measure T became operative in 2018, American Canyon has gone into overdrive, applying its portion to road repairs, traffic calming measures, new bike lanes, curb ramps, sidewalk repairs, and safer intersections. In 2022 and 2023 alone, American Canyon completed 4.6 miles of road improvements.
“Measure T has been instrumental in rehabilitating our local streets and enhancing safety with improvements like sidewalks, ADA ramps, curbs, and gutters, and creating a more inviting and accessible community for residents and businesses alike,” said Mayor Leon Garcia.
While the $10 million in Measure T funds serve as the backbone of the new projects, the city has supplemented them with other revenue streams, including $4.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding and $4.5 million from a city gas tax.
Recent projects include pavement rehabilitation, new bike lanes, and measures to slow down traffic on a street in front of American Canyon Middle School and shoring up another that had not had any improvements since the early 1990s with a heavy-duty surface treatment and new bike lanes. The city is also soliciting bids for the reconstruction of Rio Del Mar, one of the oldest streets in the city.
“Our approach is fix replace the underlying, aging utilities — such as water lines — before undertaking the most effective treatments,” Holley said. “Older roads such as Rio Del Mar often require a full reconstruction, but other times less costly treatments such as a rubberized cape seal are a more cost-effective alternative.”
He says the city will use utility funds from residents’ and businesses’ water, gas, and electricity usage fees to fix the lines. Then the city can use Measure T funding to pave the road.
“We are trying to be proactive to prevent the scenario where a utility beneath the surface is in poor condition, we put a new road surface on top, and then find out we have to dig up that new surface because the utility has to be repaired,” Holley said.
The city is experimenting with different surfaces to find the most durable and cost-effective road treatment. Asphalt is expensive, but there are less costly materials — such as rubberized cap seal, an industrial paint with a rubberized material that makes it very durable. Holley estimates that these treatments are up to one-tenth the cost of pouring new asphalt.
While the bulk of the Measure T funds are going towards road upgrades, American Canyon is also applying them to other transportation needs and city priorities, such as public health.
“We want to make bicycling safer and more appealing, so we have added new bike lanes, lane striping, and other traffic calming measures. American Canyon is relatively flat and compact, said Holley. “We want to increase the opportunities to get people out of their vehicles and onto these pathways.”
Another priority is pedestrian safety. The city has installed crosswalk bulb-outs, pedestrian-activated rapid flashing beacons, and other features throughout the city, particularly near schools, to slow cars down. However, Measure T has its limitations, both in how the funds are utilized and how much tax revenue any city can receive. A new county measure on the November ballot could significantly expand cities’ ability to address their transportation needs.
Measure U would not only extend the Measure T sales tax funding to 2055 but allow cities to issue bonds for transportation projects. These bonds would not be subject to the same limitations as Measure T, allowing American Canyon to construct new roadways: It is planning 30 new lane miles by 2040.
Measure U would also set aside up to $56 million for regional capital improvement projects, with the focus on one of the county’s most persistent challenges — breaking up the bottlenecks between Napa and American Canyon.
As American Canyon anticipates continued growth — 3,379 new housing units are in the works over the next 15 years — Garcia says Measure U is instrumental to the city’s achieving its ambition of continuing to be a livable and safe city for its residents and attractive to future business growth.
American Canyon Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Valerie Zizak-Morais, who also serves as board chair of the Measure T Independent Tax Oversight Committee, sees another benefit to these road improvement projects. It makes the city more attractive for new businesses, she said. Potholes, poorly designed intersections, and sluggish traffic can frustrate commuters and shoppers, contributing to the sense that a city is not business-friendly.
“We are in growth mode,” Zizak-Morais said. “Our population is increasing, and we want to match that with more business growth, especially those that bring in higher paying jobs. The city’s commitment to maintaining and enhancing its streets is recognized by the business community and plays a tangible role in attracting those opportunities.”
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By Jackie Krentzman. Originally published by the League of California Cities.