Newly minted Assembly Minority Leader Kristin Olsen has developed a well-earned reputation around the Capitol as a woman on the move.

Sacramento’s streetcar project gained steam Feb. 2 when supporters received promising news about federal funding, but opponents still question the streetcar’s potential benefits to downtown’s economic development.

A long-time small-business owner before entering politics, California Senator Ted Gaines has become a key figure in some of the most important political crusades facing the Sacramento region in recent years, including the battle to save the Kings and efforts to keep electric carmaker Tesla in the Golden State.

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32) requires the state’s major industry sectors to return California’s emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. To pay for AB32’s associated Cap-and-Trade Program, the cost of gasoline and diesel fuels will increase approximately 12 cents per gallon beginning Jan. 1, 2015.

Long regarded as the region’s industrial bastion relegated to the other side of the river, today’s West Sacramento is barreling out of the past.

West Sacramento’s transportation infrastructure will be a key part of the rapidly growing city. Here’s a look at what’s happening, with a few projects already underway or recently announced.

It’s been a year since Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that created the Active Transportation Program to boost non-motorized transportation across the state, where one in four Californians are obese and more than 3.9 million are diabetic. And as California emerges as a national leader in transportation reform, Yolo County is finding itself at the forefront of the movement.

Construction guru C.C. Myers has, for more than two decades, been California’s go-to guy when roads are ravaged by acts of God (like the ’94 Northridge earthquake) or the toll of time (Folsom’s Lake Natoma Crossing, Interstate 5 in Sacramento, Route 99 in Turlock, the Walnut Creek Interchange, and the list goes on). The New York Times once called him the “Miracle Worker Highway Man.”

Bridge worker Scott Bennett has been tending to the iconic Sacramento structure for 12 years. 

At 88 years old, the Sacramento Valley Station at 4th and I streets is bound for new glory, as  the second phase of the $34-million rejuvenation project gets underway at the city’s downtown transportation hub.