Sacramento, CA | The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced that Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is a recipient of a $150,000 Community Challenge Planning Grant from the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. The Agency will administer the grant on behalf of the Housing Authority of the County of Sacramento and is one of only two grantees in the state of California. The highly competitive 2011 Sustainable Communities grants totaled $97 million. Only 27 communities and organizations will receive the Community Challenge grants. The goal of the Sustainable Communities grants is to help communities improve their economic competitiveness by connect

Living in the city and wondering how you can do your part to Spare The Air and maintain your glamorous self? The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District and the air districts of the Sacramento region have five trendy tips to help you learn how to help improve the air quality while being chic in the Sacramento region. 1. Be a Nerd Doing your part to help the environment and society is not always easy. You are studying for your biology midterm and not quite sure why it has to involve frogs. Then, last week you picked up an extra shift at the coffee shop to pay for that can’t-take-my-eyes-off-every-time-I-walk-past-the-window scarf at the boutique on J Street. On top of work

The good news is more and more people at Sacramento State are using alternative transportation and parking as they should. The bad news is revenue from parking citations has been down, and that may lead to changes to the university’s Hornet Shuttle program. The University of Transportation and Parking Services, or UTAPS, held an open forum this afternoon regarding proposed Hornet Shuttle route changes for Spring and Fall 2011. The Hornet Shuttle program began in 1989 with shuttle routes running off campus Monday – Friday from 7am to 7pm during the Fall and Spring semesters. The current fleet of six buses, all running on compressed natural gas, make 18 to 24 runs combined among three rout

Dozens of bus routes in the Sacramento region will vanish and light rail will slow down on the weekends as a result of sweeping Regional Transit budget cuts. The agency’s board of directors slashed bus, light rail and paratransit service Monday night to resolve a $10.6 million deficit. One of the major budget fixes scales back night service seven days per week. The RT board decided that light rail, bus and paratransit trips that now begin after 9 p.m. will cease. Public transportation will also be slower on weekends. Right now, light rail picks up passengers in 15-minute cycles during the weekend. The cuts mean that riders can catch the light rail every 30 minutes on weekends, explained

A dispute over the value of a key parcel of railyards land is getting closer to a resolution. An arbitration hearing began Monday over land likely to become the home of a future arena and a regional transit center. On Monday, two weeks of witness testimony began to help determine how much the city of Sacramento should pay developer Thomas Enterprises for nearly 33 acres of prime land adjacent to downtown. The land also holds historic value as the western start of the first transcontinental railroad. The city already paid $55 million for the parcel in 2006 after Thomas Enterprises bought the 244-acre former railyards site. But the city and the developer have never agreed on the parcel's

Capitol Corridor is the vehicle for fun, frolic and a stitch in time on February 28th as CC's annual Stitch ‘n Ride™ event transports knitters and those who love them to Stitches West 2009, the West's biggest and best knitting expo.  What a sentence! Stitch‘n Ride is a non-stop mobile knitfest where knitters and crocheters from Sacramento and the Bay Area can hop on board the Capitol Corridor train, contribute to cancer patients and breeze down to the Santa Clara Convention Center. CC sources say, "The Stitch ‘n Ride is a special dedicated train just for yarn-o-philes that combines fun with charity.  Capitol Corridor is teaming up with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to promote knit

50,000 people a day on average ride light rail. That to me is a success. Of course it can always improve. Gas prices are coming down, but that's no reason not to still take light rail. While light rail may not be the ideal choice for everyone, if you live outside the City of Sacramento and need to get to the center of town, there is hardly a better way to go I take light rail to work often. There is a station about 3 blocks from my home at 23rd and R St. and it lets off right at my office. This makes it an inexpensive and convenient choice of transportation. I often hear people making excuses s to why they shouldn't take light rail. One of the excuses I hear often is that Light Rail is