5:30 p.m. update Napa and Solano counties will get $74 million to widen Jamieson Canyon Road/Highway 12 to four lanes, the California Transportation Commission voted Wednesday.

This probably isn’t enough to completely do the job, but it should provide major congestion relief for commuters and weekend travelers, Jim Leddy, executive director of the Napa County Transportation Commission, said after the vote.

After two weeks of furious politicking, the commission allocated $4.5 billion in state Proposition 1B bond funds, giving more money to the state’s major metropolitan areas than staff had proposed.

Going into the meeting in Irvine, the commission had recommended that Napa and Solano counties get $95 million for Jamieson Canyon, but this was cut to $74 million during the session.

Commissioners penalized Napa and Solano for not having a local sales tax to support highway projects such as this one, Leddy said. The commission noted that the other seven Bay Area counties have such a tax, he said.

In June, Napa County voters rejected Measure H, a half-cent sales tax for transportation issues. Solano County voters rejected a similar proposal, also called Measure H, on the same day.

CTC Vice Chair James Ghielmetto said that Napa and Solano counties, by not having a local transportation tax, were not pulling their full weight, Leddy said.

Leddy said he will ask the Napa County Transportation Planning Agency to consider putting a sales tax increase before voters a second time in November 2008.

Because that is a presidential election with expected high voter turnout, it would be a promising date for voters consider a reformulated tax measure, he said.

A majority of Napa County voters endorsed the 2006 sales tax, but not the 66 percent super majority required by law, Leddy noted. “The will is there. We just have to make sure the super will is there,” he said.

In addition to seeing $21 million shaved from the Jamieson Canyon project Wednesday, the county is also ineligible to apply for another $1 billion pot of state bond money for which a local tax is a requirement, Leddy said.

Napa County could have reasonably expected to have received $3.8 million from this program, he said.

“It’s what we said during the sales tax debate,” said Napa County Supervisor Bill Dodd, who is also on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “The state really values counties with a sales tax.”

Napa still did well in the bond competition, receiving considerably more money than the county’s small population would have justified, Dodd said.

With $74 million, Caltrans can put the Jamieson Canyon project on the fast track. Assuming environmental and engineering studies go according to plan, the project could be ready for construction in September 2010, Leddy said.

Construction is expected to take two or three years, depending on how wet the winters are, he said.