Sacramento State Students Now Have A New Way To Get To Class

There's a new way for students to get to Sacramento State.

The Ramona Avenue extension project includes an expansion of the street under Highway 50 toward the university before it dead ends at a new intersection at Folsom Boulevard.

The extension of Ramona Avenue includes a sidewalk and bike path that continues on to campus.

Hector Barron is the director of public works for the City of Sacramento. He says the new student housing south of the campus helped the city secure the $6.9 million in local, state and federal funding for the project.

"Normally, you come in, you make an improvement and development comes if it's a city project,” Barron said at the ribbon-cutting on Friday. “In this particular case, we had a student housing development that was kind of pushing us to say, ‘Hey, let's finish this ASAP.’"

Steve Perez is the university’s interim provost and vice president for academic affairs and was one of 40 people at the event. "It means a lot to the school,” he said. “We've been talking about and thinking about this for maybe about 20 years in one form or another. It really opens up this side of campus and us getting out.”

City Councilman Eric Guerra says the school was talking about this project when he was a student two decades ago.

"The fact now that we can link this property where students are going to be living, studying and hopefully working eliminates the ability for a student to have a car and reduces congestion that we have on 65th, Folsom and the 50," Guerra said.

City, state, and federal funds were required to complete the project.

The school is considering extending the road onto campus, but drainage and other land-use issues must be considered first.

On the south side of the freeway, Sac State owns 23 acres of land that it hopes to develop more quickly now that a direct connection to the campus exists.