CARTA Regional Toll Equity Study

The Capital Area Regional Tolling Authority (CARTA) is seeking qualified consultants to develop a Regional Toll Equity Study. The study will leverage geospatial analysis, focus groups, and community feedback to evaluate how tolling will impact the Capital Region. The study will assume that Express Lanes will be implemented on Interstate 80, Interstate 5, Highway 50, State Route 99, and State Route 65 as planned in SACOG’s 2025 Blueprint. Therefore, the study does not seek to answer the question of whether the Capital Region should implement tolling and instead focuses on how tolling can be implemented to better serve low-income residents and other impacted communities. The plan’s central deliverable is a table of actions that CARTA and its partners can take to make tolling more equitable in the Capital Region. This “Equity Framework” should designate near- mid- and long-term activities and should include both actions that are implemented system-wide and those that are corridor-specific.

The Regional Toll Equity Study is on an accelerated schedule to ensure it is finished before CARTA opens its first toll facility, the Yolo 80 Express Lanes in summer 2028. The Equity Study team will need to work collaboratively with CARTA’s Toll Program Management team to ensure priority near-term actions can be implemented before Yolo 80 goes live.

The Regional Toll Equity Study is funded by a Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant that is passed through SACOG. CARTA is the lead on the project and the contract resulting from this procurement will be with CARTA.

In January of 2024 Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), Yolo Transportation District (YoloTD), and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), created a joint powers authority (CARTA) to serve as tolling authority for the Sacramento region. While SACOG, YoloTD, and Caltrans are CARTA's initial members (and have voting seats on its board), CARTA was designed to expand membership to Sacramento Transportation Authority (STA), Placer County Transportation Planning Agency (PCTPA), and El Dorado County Transportation Commission (EDCTC) as the toll network grows. Each of these three (3) agencies has a non-voting seat on the CARTA board. All six (6) agencies actively participate in the CARTA Technical Advisory Group (TAG), an interagency executive group that oversees and guides the development of CARTA’s work.

CARTA’s primary focus is supporting the timely delivery of the Yolo 80 Project, which will add one (1) High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) 3+ lane in each direction on Interstate 80 (I-80) between the cities of Davis and West Sacramento. Yolo 80 is the first toll facility in the region and is anticipated to begin revenue service in 2028. Ultimately, toll lanes are envisioned throughout the core of the Capital region. Related documents and recordings of CARTA board meetings are available at captollauthority.org.

There are or will be multiple contracts that are interrelated with the contract resulting from this RFQ, with overlapping timelines. These include (but are not limited to) the Yolo 80 construction contract (held by Caltrans and primed by DeSilva Gates), the Yolo 80 Roadside Toll System and Traffic and Revenue Analysis (held by YoloTD and primed by Silicon Transportation Consultants), the Toll Program Management contract (held by CARTA and primed by Kimley-Horn), and four On-Call Services Benches (held by CARTA, with notice of intent to award expected in mid-December). Each of these contracts has been procured independently and firms that have been awarded those contracts have not had and will not have any role in this procurement for the Regional Toll Equity Study.