# Sacramento's "Train To Nowhere"



## WhoozOn1st (Aug 1, 2012)

It actually does go somewhere, just not very far...

New Green Line off to slow start, but RT insists it'll pick up speed

"Sacramento Regional Transit opened the mile-long $44 million Green Line with a fireworks display and speeches last month. So far, however, few people are riding the new section. RT officials say the new section of line is carrying about 150 a day, a minuscule number compared to other trains in their system.

"Hop aboard the train and you'll see why. The train runs through the empty and weedy downtown railyard. Its sole stop at Richards Boulevard and North Seventh Street sits next to an empty lot."

A number of fun comments follow the article, which is more balanced than the above excerpt indicates. Some foward-thinking folks, those Sacramentonians! Team Whooz is hoping to ride the new line when it's in the capital area soon, specifically to get a good look at that old railyard. L.A. Metro also has a Green Line, and though it too has been called a train to nowhere, at least it gets there FAST.







"Light rail's green line makes its inaugural run to Richards Boulevard, Friday, near the planned Township 9 development north of downtown. The line will eventually extend through Natomas and to the airport." Photo by R. Byer.
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## tp49 (Aug 1, 2012)

Few people are riding it because there is nothing up on Richards where the line ends except for CHP HQ, the Office of State Printing and the Greyhound Station is a couple blocks further down the road. This would make more sense if the Township 9 development was developed but there's no activity going on anywhere near the station. Though this is supposed to be the line that goes to the airport... Sac RT and their planning (or lack thereof) never ceases to amaze me.


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## WhoozOn1st (Aug 2, 2012)

tp49 said:


> Few people are riding it because there is nothing up on Richards where the line ends except for CHP HQ, the Office of State Printing and the Greyhound Station is a couple blocks further down the road. This would make more sense if the Township 9 development was developed but there's no activity going on anywhere near the station. Though this is supposed to be the line that goes to the airport... Sac RT and their planning (or lack thereof) never ceases to amaze me.


As I understand things - and the Bee story mentions - the planned development was at least temporarily deep sixed by the recession. In any case I think it's not a bad thing to have the rail infrastructure in place before development occurs. If the sidetracking of the planned development turns out to be permanent, rail in place will likely function as a powerful magnet for other planning and investment to fill the vacuum left thereby.

From the Bee:

"In a few years, the station on Richards likely will front a community of town houses, apartments and offices to be called Township 9.

"The Township 9 developers, in fact, paid for the light-rail station because, they say, light-rail access will be a critical draw for residents and businesses at their mixed-use development.

"Some of the Township 9 housing was supposed to be built already, RT officials point out, but got delayed by the recession."

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Rail naysayers and NIMBYS inevitably whine about the absence of immediate gratification when a new system turns out not to be a magic wand that turns coal into diamonds in the blink of an eye. The benefits of rail accrue over the long term and are quite real, despite myopic yammerings to the contrary, and Sacramentites fortunate enough to possess both memory and foresight know this.


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## Anderson (Aug 2, 2012)

WhoozOn1st said:


> tp49 said:
> 
> 
> > Few people are riding it because there is nothing up on Richards where the line ends except for CHP HQ, the Office of State Printing and the Greyhound Station is a couple blocks further down the road. This would make more sense if the Township 9 development was developed but there's no activity going on anywhere near the station. Though this is supposed to be the line that goes to the airport... Sac RT and their planning (or lack thereof) never ceases to amaze me.
> ...


I think there's a valid complaint to be had here...namely that the line was started without _any_ preexisting development and with the planned developments apparently derailed a few years ago. I went and pulled up a map of the system...it appears that the Green Line is only getting the business that it _is_ getting as a redundant downtown circulator.

I could see this line existing if it went from/to a couple of developed stations and either stubbed out somewhere (which happens sometimes) or had some "dead space" stops along the line. Unfortunately, this line has _only_ one dedicated stop, and it's not even a "blending" line (like Salt Lake City has had at times). But the Phase I here is just woefully insufficient at the present time.

The other bad note for the city, by the way, is that they made a big "to do" about the launch. In light of the flopped development, this is the sort of thing that you should _forget_ to mention to the press.


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## johnny.menhennet (Aug 2, 2012)

Anderson said:


> WhoozOn1st said:
> 
> 
> > tp49 said:
> ...


I agree, but in a few years, this line could be the city's most important. Airport lines always do well.


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## Trogdor (Aug 2, 2012)

I don't know enough about the various requirements regarding funding and whatnot, but it seems like it would make more sense to have the track built but not being operations until development in the area materializes, or when an extension to somewhere actually useful is completed.


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## Anderson (Aug 2, 2012)

Trogdor said:


> I don't know enough about the various requirements regarding funding and whatnot, but it seems like it would make more sense to have the track built but not being operations until development in the area materializes, or when an extension to somewhere actually useful is completed.


Agreed. A stub line might be a bit more excusable if there was already construction (or at least engineering work) in process for the next phase.


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## Bob Dylan (Aug 2, 2012)

It never gets any cheaper to build anything Later, plus Growth allows NIMBYS to oppose all public works projects, especially Transportation! Even the Car Heaven of Dallas is building a Line to DFW and you can get close to Love Field (SWA) on the existing DART Lines! Austin missed the boat when it built the Red Line to the NW Suburbs, now they are talking about building a New Line to the Airport which is in reall need of more Transportation options due to the choked roads leading to it! Build it and they will come!


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## the_traveler (Aug 2, 2012)

"Train To Nowhere" - that sounds like most of my trips!


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## Anderson (Aug 3, 2012)

jimhudson said:


> It never gets any cheaper to build anything Later, plus Growth allows NIMBYS to oppose all public works projects, especially Transportation! Even the Car Heaven of Dallas is building a Line to DFW and you can get close to Love Field (SWA) on the existing DART Lines! Austin missed the boat when it built the Red Line to the NW Suburbs, now they are talking about building a New Line to the Airport which is in reall need of more Transportation options due to the choked roads leading to it! Build it and they will come!


This is true, yes, but there is also a cost to operating an unused/little-used line (or even maintaining unused tracks against rust and so forth) in the interim, and that can get to be more expensive than the cost of the delays in building that segment. And this says nothing of lost political capital from first getting a "bad" line in place and then additionally from having it flop. A badly-designed transit line (or set of lines) can poison the well against improvements for _years_.

(By the way, the irony about the "car heaven" of Dallas is that the spread-out nature of the city is likely driving the popularity of the rail system...nobody wants to shoot $10-15 in gas getting into and out of downtown in heavy traffic, so taking the train becomes a necessity because of the sprawling layout. At least that's where things seem to be headed, and it could ironically force your sunbelt sprawling suburbs to the fore in terms of transit needs simply because the commutes are so blasted long that a surge in gas prices can break peoples' finances there.)


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## Trogdor (Aug 3, 2012)

Anderson said:


> This is true, yes, but there is also a cost to operating an unused/little-used line (or even maintaining unused tracks against rust and so forth) in the interim, and that can get to be more expensive than the cost of the delays in building that segment. And this says nothing of lost political capital from first getting a "bad" line in place and then additionally from having it flop. A badly-designed transit line (or set of lines) can poison the well against improvements for _years_.


A cost that we (thankfully) avoided with the cancellation of the Orlando-Tampa high speed train.

The starter line would have done nothing, and would have given the antis plenty of ammunition against high-speed rail forever.

The one difference in this case is that Sacramento at least does have other light rail lines in service, so those can be seen as more representative of how light rail can work. But still, having a line operating that serves nothing, just because it got built, is a tough pill to swallow.

My caveat in my previous posts about requirements of the funding is that maybe there was some requirement in whatever money was used to build it (Federal stimulus money? Transit new starts money? State money?) that says they must maintain a certain service level on the line once it is built, or they have to pay the money back. This could mean that in order to use that funding source, they have to take the hit on operating it.


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## tp49 (Aug 3, 2012)

This line runs with one single light rail vehicle (109 for those counting at home) and runs on 30 minute headways and not on Saturdays, Sundays or Holidays.

Development of Township 9 has been proposed for at least seven years now and outside of the large vacant plot that the light rail station sits at the south end of nothing has been done there in a long time. The railyards development is at least a decade in the making and those of us in Sacramento has seen how that's gone too.

The biggest thing the Green Line's done outside of giving us a way to get to Greyhound is that they built a station at 8th and H on the east side of the county building. There's been a station at 7th and I since the extension to the Amtrak station was built. It always boggled my mind why they didn't build one on the 8th Street side initially. Thus the new 8th and H station is a good thing it's also used by the line that serves Amtrak.

I'd be happier with the Green line if they at least routed it over the American River and ended it for the time being at Truxel and Garden Highway. They could have built the station into Discovery Park and it would have at least had a large number of nearby apartment complexes to draw ridership from to downtown. It also would have put the most expensive portion (the bridge over the river) out of the way before the cost would have gone higher due to waiting. I very much want light rail to serve SMF as the current transit option (Yolobus) leaves a lot to be desired. For years I've been hearing it would take minimum 20 years before light rail would reach the airport. Honestly they really should have done this before Natomas north of San Juan got all built up. Putting the route in place (and I believe Truxel is still the favored routing but if sactobob is reading this he can correct me as he is more familiar with this than I am) before the development would have saved a lot of time and money in potential lawsuits, etc.


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