Last April the Citrus Heights Sentinal told how Citrus Heights is using grant money (from the gas tax) to create an almost 3-mile biking and walking trail. Let's be honest: when you think of Citrus Heights, do you think of a trail like that? Of course not. So it's clearly innovative for the city to do that. And it is priaseworthy, too, because of the city's program to ascertain citizen's opinions first and fund the improvements they want for their neighborhoods.

Arden Arcade and Citrus Heights are both areas that grew as auto-oriented post-war suburbs. Retrofitting them with trails for biking and walking is tough - and certainly takes money. The fine print for the "Active Transportation" grant program says the money goes to cities and counties. As a city, Citrus Heights was able to directly access the grant funds. Arden Arcade can't do that, of course, because our community is just another nowhere land within Sacramento County's vast unincorporated UnCity. We have to wait for Sacramento County to figure out what it wants to do about Active Transportation, a process that's not yet ready for prime time. But we can dream, can't we? Gosh, maybe some day the County will be able to compete for Active Transportation grant money so Arden Arcade can start to see our sidewalk gaps filled and our utterly dysfunctional bicycle infrastructure improved. While we're waiting, keep in mind that Citrus Heights is getting it done NOW. But don't get your hopes too high, because SACOG, that omniscient agency that controls money for local transportation projects, hasn't noticed that there are no such trails here, as evidenced by the map available on SACOG's web site. That same map shows Citrus Heights' proposed new trail, by the way.