Streetcar in Sacramento

[buddy559]

This is a cut and paste from the news report. There is a nice video, but I am not sure how to post the link. For anyone familiar with sacramento, this would really help in downtown, where they seem to be discouraging vehicle traffic. It would provide a link from downtown, to midtown, and depending on how far into West Sac it goes may provide a link to the River train.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A streetcar eventually bound for Atlanta hit the streets of downtown Sacramento Friday on light rail tracks to offer a preview of what proposed streetcar service might look like.

As opposed to Sacramento Light Rail, which uses larger trains designed for longer trips into the suburbs, streetcars would be smallervehicles making frequent stops in the urban core.

"Streetcars matter because they make it possible to get around an urban place easily," said West Sacramento Mayor Chris Cabaldon at a news conference offering a progress report on streetcar planning.

Cabaldon refers to streetcars as "pedestrian accelerators."

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments board of directors on Thursday approved spending $5 million to begin engineering the streetcar system.

The initial 3.3-mile line would run from West Sacramento City Hall across the Tower Bridge, jogging up 3rd Street to the Intermodal Facility, then down 7th and 8th Streets to K Street before circling the Sacramento Convention Center. The line would run right past the proposed downtown arena.

Sacramento civic leaders point to Portland's streetcar system as a model for the nation.

Portland's 12-year-old system covers nearly 15 miles and will carry nearly five million passengers this year.

Portland developer John Carroll, a board member of the public streetcar corporation, said at the news conference the system has spurred private development because investors know they'll have built-in foot traffic.

"The idea of having a streetcar with tracks in the line is a committment. It's there permanently," Caroll said.

The startup cost of the Sacramento streetcar system is estimated at up to $150 million, with the federal government picking up a significant share .

Streetcars stopped running along Sacramento streets in the 1940's, but optimists predict their return by 2017.

"We're actually at the precipice of bringing streetcars back," said Sacramento City Councilman Steve Hansen. "We're undoing some decisions that disconnected our region."

by George Warren, [email protected]

News10/KXTV

 

[Paulus]

Mixed traffic streetcar? For shame. And why not just run light rail station distances in the suburbs and then more frequent stops in the urban area? There's nothing intrinsic to a streetcar that makes it better for that.

 

[Blackwolf]

I disagree, Paulus. In Sacramento's case, re-establishing the streetcar lines between West Sacramento and Sacramento (two separate cities, divided by the Sacramento River, and in separate counties) would be a very sizable improvement to anything that currently exists.

West Sacramento is in the midst of a building boom, including industrial (several brand-new factories are being built right now,) commercial (Marriott and the city are in the final planning stages of a massive new convention center and hotel project on the riverfront which the streetcar line would pass right by,) and medium-density high-end residential.

Sacramento is poised to redevelop it's downtown core over the next 20 years massively, and the Railyards Project is very much a part of that. I won't get into the downtown arena debate though, as that whole thing is a massive mess.

So, having a pedestrian-friendly streetcar that interfaces quite well with light-rail along several points and then heavy-rail/intercity bus at Sacramento Valley Station (the listed "intermodal station" in the report,) makes everything VERY smartly planned. And when finished, this initial line would be a direct connection between two convention centers, two prosperous municipalities, government, tourist attractions, and most importantly a huge number of businesses along it's whole route. As for it being mixed traffic? I see this as a starter for more car-free streets in Sacramento.

 

[tp49]

I'd rather just see them make something like this an extension of the existing light rail system. A link from West Sac that connects to light rail either on K Street or towards 16th Street makes midtown very easily accessible and might be more cost effective. I think there are better uses for this kind of funding namely extending light rail through Natomas (an area with notoriously horrid transit access) and up to the airport. The Railyards project is all well and good but for all the hype about it the only construction in the last 10 years has been two street bridges to nowhere and and the removal of the toxic dirt and it's safe to say that it's a mess now being on it's third developer without any clear plan in mind.

Sacramento needs to look towards building up more of a corporate presence in the region and not be as reliant on the state government for providing jobs especially considering how hard hit this area was during the economic crisis. As someone who lived downtown for over a decade I am all for better transit and eliminating the need for cars but this is not going to be accomplished unless areas in the city are more accessible from downtown with transit including later operating hours. As for whether Sac needs more car-free streets is an issue open to debate.

 

[buddy559]

In the video, it looked like they were going to head up to 19th street, (not sure if they would tag into the current rail line there) It was hard to tell from their graphic, but it looked like they would come up K st and head back down N.

I really wasn't impressed with the model car they used. It looked like an electric bus, with doors front and back, that ran on rails. With a more open design they could make very brief stops, and run more often, which would move shoppers between the dying Downtown plaza mall, and growing midtown, as well as across the river into west sac.

Someone commented on the website what the advantage would be of the street car vs a bus that would run the same route and schedule, not sure I could answer that.

 

[tp49]

http://www.news10.net/news/article/265789/2/Sacramento-previews-proposed-streetcar-system

Is the video in question from News 10. I saw the report briefly Friday night on the late news but hadn't seen the map. Seeing the proposed map I just can't support the plan in its current form. I think it would be a much better idea to link into the existing light rail system from West Sacramento than to build this. The existing system runs down K Street from 12th to 7th Streets, then down 7th Street to O Street, then down O Street to 12th Street then down 12th Street to R Street where it heads east through Midtown.

At this point Downtown Plaza isn't relevant because the new arena will be placed on that site (the Kings ownership now owns the mall and there is a schedule for demolition set for Summer, 2012) and the majority of traffic in the mall is seen during the lunch hours during the week.

Unless SACOG releases their ideas for working with the traffic patterns in downtown I see this being more of a burden than a benefit. It's something that I like the idea of but need to see more of how it will be executed before I can say that I like it (not that my opinion matters one iota to the powers that be either.)