Natomas Marketplace - Sacramento

Location

Truxel Rd. and Interstate 80, Sacramento

A gigantic half-million sqare-foot shopping center located just off Interstate 80 at the Truxel Road exit, down the street from Arco Arena. Across the street is the Sacramento Gateway, a newly built (and also gigantic) shopping center.

Natomas Marketplace is regarded to have one of the worst parking lot arrangements in the area. The main artery runs through the middle of the lot, forcing vehicles to make unprotected turns across two opposing lanes to reach parking on their left. The main entrance and exit to the plaza is also a horrible mishmash of stop signs, traffic lights, yield signs, and turn-only lanes. The addition of stop signs and lane realignments at some locations has somewhat helped the situation but the designers clearly did not plan for the volume of traffic. The site is wedged between Truxel Road, I-80 and an irrigation canal with housing on the far side, so there are no options for additional entrances to the site without major construction.

To make things worse, it is less than a mile from Arco Arena so before and after events people will come here to eat, and/or leave their cars there and carpool or ride the bus to Arco to avoid paying $10 for parking. This compounds the traffic issues with sucking up a fair percentage of the parking spaces.