The idea of building a park that would stitch the I-5 freeway in downtown Sacramento, connecting the city's core to the Old Sacramento waterfront, moved a step forward today. The proposal is still early enough that the city has not yet released any detailed plans or timelines.
The park, if built, would stretch over the freeway, a plan discussed by elected city leaders for over a decade. Today, Congressmember Doris Matsui announced that she helped secure $3.15 million in federal funding to support the city’s next steps in planning the build.
Even with this new funding, the project is still in its early stages and likely years away from construction. Infrastructure projects as large as this often require hundreds of millions of dollars to complete and years of planning to even break ground. Matsui requested $5 million dollars of federal support to build the park in 2024.
A rendering of a park built above Interstate 5, connecting Old Sacramento to downtown.Courtesy of Downtown Sacramento Partnership
Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty said that with this money, the city will be able to determine the next phases, such as design, grant requests, and how a proposal can move toward construction.
Traffic moves along Interstate 5 in downtown Sacramento on May 6, 2026, where the proposed park covering the freeway would be.Tony Rodriguez/CapRadio
“This three million dollars gets us to the room to ask for resources,” McCarty said. “We never had a chance to go there until we had this money before us to do the engineering and design.”
This project will add to a list of multiple large infrastructure projects that the city of Sacramento is looking to move forward with. Plans like replacing the I Street Bridge, the Downtown Riverfront Streetcar connection, and major redevelopment in the Railyards in north downtown are all in progress. Many of these efforts have taken years to plan and move forward, and continue to rely on more layers of local, state, and federal funding.
Matsui said the funding is obviously not enough to cover the entire project, but it will allow the city to move it from a proposal to a well-planned concept. She said it will be necessary to secure more funding, whether from the federal government or elsewhere.
“Of course it will,” Matsui said when asked whether the project would cost far more than $3.15 million. “Everything like this takes time.
Matsui's announcement that she secured the $3 million comes as she’s seeking re-election to represent California’s 7th Congressional District. Matsui says securing federal funding for projects like this is the reason she should stay in her seat. Her opponent in the race, Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang, has been critical of she calls Matsui’s “establishment politics.”
McCarty said the city has to pursue multiple major projects at the same time, even if Sacramento faces broader budget and infrastructure pressure.
“Good thing we can walk and chew gum at the same time,” McCarty said when asked about how the city can work simultaneously on several high-cost construction plans, like the I Street Bridge. “These are two separate projects, two separate pots of money we’re going after.”
A conceptual rendering of the proposed project was displayed during a press conference on May 6, 2026.Tony Rodriguez/CapRadio
Michael Ault is the executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. The nonprofit will work with the city on planning discussions and efforts to secure more funding. Ault pointed to similar freeway-covering park projects, such as Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, which cost around $110 million dollars to build.
“This gets us a long way towards getting actual construction drawings to be a shovel-ready project,” Ault said. “It could be a several hundred million dollar project … but you've got to start somewhere.”
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