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Friday, February 10, 2012
Sac to plan streetcar's route
by Kathleen Haley, published on July 28, 2010 at 8:29 PM
Storyline: Regional Issues
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The city of Sacramento is back at the drawing board — literally — on its efforts to set up a streetcar connecting to West Sacramento.
A new study to plan the streetcar route in Sacramento has received $310,000 in federal grant funds.
An additional $90,000 from a local source will help pay for the study, according to a July 27 report from the city’s Transportation Department. The City Council signed off on the new funding Tuesday night.
“What we’ll be doing now is looking now more broadly at the best routes for that system on the Sacramento side,” Councilman Steve Cohn said Wednesday.
In the most recent plan, the streetcar would run from West Sacramento City Hall, across Tower Bridge and stop in Old Sacramento at the foot of the bridge.
City leaders learned earlier this month that the Sacramento/West Sacramento project would not receive the millions of federal dollars for which it had applied.
Cohn said one of the weaknesses of the streetcar plan was that it didn’t outline a route in Sacramento beyond Tower Bridge.
In the new study, the city will examine ideas for a route.
“The project focuses on connecting some of the most active destinations in the City of Sacramento including: the dense urban central business district, the vacant 240 acre Railyards redevelopment area, the emerging commercial, arts, and entertainment neighborhood in Midtown, the R Street corridor, the Sacramento State University campus and the Arden Fair Mall,” according to the Transportation Department’s report.
Cohn said he does not expect the city will have a decision on the final route after this study is conducted. But he said he wants to make headway on extending the route past Tower Bridge and connecting it with other forms of transportation, such as light rail.
The city’s report did not specify when work on the study will start. Read the report on the new funding for a streetcar plan here.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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The nice thing about a streetcar system is that it is modular: you build the basic structure and then can expand it. It costs less than light rail, and can be built faster, although it's not as fast or as useful for inter-city commuter service than light rail. But within a city it can provide very useful transportation.
It is ridiculous that a major urban area built on three sides of 2 major rivers has a tiny number of crossings. It is also ridiculous that very local and short distance vehicle traffic is essentially forced to get onto Interstate, long-distance highways for very local and short-distance trips.
There should be an R Street rail bridge, AND a Broadway - Jefferson Boulevard vehicle bridge, AND a Sutterville - Linden/Lake Washington Boulevard vehicle bridge. The latter two bridges for cars and trucks, that real people will use. Trolleys don't cut it for IKEA shoppers, or any other shoppers for that matter.
The opposition to these bridges in Land Park has a "butt-plug" mentality. They enjoy constipating the traffic flow for those who need to commute in or through the area.
What to do? Give Land Park a Traffic Enema.
The R Street railroad bridge is not straight, it curves north. Thus, in order to cross the river, the track would have to curve westward an additional 90 degrees, taking out a good chunk of the recently completed Riverfront Promenade project. Thus, a bridge would actually cross the river at around P or Q Street--just a couple hundred yards south of the Tower Bridge. Why put one so close?
The R Street bridge has recently been repurposed to another use--it was refinished and lights were installed to turn it into a pedestrian/bicycle bridge. It has a useful function in its current state, which it would lose if it was turned back into a railroad bridge.
A brand-new bridge across the Sacramento River would probably cost more than the entire proposed streetcar system. Requiring a new bridge would dramatically increase the cost of the system, making grant funds harder to obtain and making the project less politically and fiscally palatable.
R Street is not particularly well-suited to be a streetcar corridor. The tracks west of 13th Street are current used as a yard to store cars in preparation for rush-hour use, and turning that segment back into active right-of-way would require relocation of the yard. It would also require an extra mile of streetcar track along R Street where none currently exists, between Front Street and 10th Street (the edge of the yard.)
The only possible reason to use the R Street bridge would be to save a little money vs. the cost of building another bridge over I-5, but the savings would be minimal compared to the cost of the bridge over the American River and the other adjustments needed to the right-of-way. You're saving a little but having to spend a lot more, for a bridge that ends up facing in entirely the wrong direction to cross the river.
The Tower Bridge is just not that busy. I suppose maybe it gets a bit stacked up during rush hour, but generally it is not a high-impact roadway now that it is no longer a state highway. Feel free to provide detailed statistics to the contrary, but it is hard to justify the idea that Tower Bridge is that busy. I cross that river a lot, and never have much reason to take the Pioneer Bridge unless I'm already on the freeway or coming from south of Broadway.
Finally, a streetcar line would not simply add to the existing traffic mix--it would actually replace much of the current traffic. Yolobus lines currently running between downtown Sacramento and the West Capitol corridor would be taken out of service. Many who currently drive from West Sac to Sacramento wouldn't have to drive at all--they could ride the streetcar instead. This would actually reduce traffic over the Tower Bridge, increasing total capacity and passenger throughput, especially for just the types of trips you specify--very local and short-distance trips.
And, as I said before--Tower Bridge was built with 2 lanes of traffic in each direction, PLUS a separate lane for interurban trains. The bridge currently has 2 lanes of traffic in each direction, slightly wider than the bridge's original configuration. There is little reason why it could not return to 2 lanes each way with a streetcar in the middle.
As to your suggestion that trolleys don't cut it for shoppers--NONSENSE. Plenty of people shop on public transit--I do, and resent your suggestion that I'm not a "real person" if I do. And IKEA will deliver, so you don't need to wrangle your big new KNARDSLIRKEN into your car to take it home!
Your stuff about bridges in Land Park is both a total non sequitur and very offensive.