Sacramento Transportation

[econgrad]

Originally Posted by wburg

Last night the Preservation Commission held a special meeting about the Amtrak depot and voted to endorse staff's recommendation to choose the "don't move the depot" option over the "move the depot" option. The decision goes to City Council on June 2.

Is this good or bad in your opinion?
(I don't want to tell you my opinion yet because I think we might agree on this one)

[Cynikal]

It's good. The "move the depot" position would never be economically feasible. Just my 2 cents.

[wburg]

It's good. I used to like the "move the depot" option (heck, I argued in favor of it here) but changed my mind after learning more about rail transportation--and about historic preservation. One of the arguments against the move is the risk to the building--not just the risk that something will happen, but because the building wouldn't qualify as a National Register landmark (the NR excludes moved buildings.)

The "don't move" option would also allow more expansion into a depot. The new alignment will result in a depot roughly the size of the one in Los Angeles, and since we're already as busy as LA we're going to need a station of comparable size. One good point mentioned by a city attorney is that federal transportation funds will be used to restore the depot--which means it MUST have a continued transit use. If someone later decides that we should have a little Amshack instead and turn the depot into a T-shirt shop, they'd have to give the money back.

So, this is a win from both an urban planning perspective and a historic preservation perspective. And it's also the cheaper option. Good news all around.

[Web]

Originally Posted by wburg

The "don't move" option would also allow more expansion into a depot. The new alignment will result in a depot roughly the size of the one in Los Angeles, and since we're already as busy as LA we're going to need a station of comparable size.

Amtrak YES but with the RED line and Metrolink also using LA union station it is far busier......

[wburg]

Originally Posted by Web

Amtrak YES but with the RED line and Metrolink also using LA union station it is far busier......

Sorry, should have been "almost as busy as LA," not "already." We're not quite up to LA's numbers, but we're in the ballpark. Of course, LA is spending a lot more than we do per capita on public transit projects.

[econgrad]

Originally Posted by wburg

It's good. I used to like the "move the depot" option (heck, I argued in favor of it here) but changed my mind after learning more about rail transportation--and about historic preservation. One of the arguments against the move is the risk to the building--not just the risk that something will happen, but because the building wouldn't qualify as a National Register landmark (the NR excludes moved buildings.)

The "don't move" option would also allow more expansion into a depot. The new alignment will result in a depot roughly the size of the one in Los Angeles, and since we're already as busy as LA we're going to need a station of comparable size. One good point mentioned by a city attorney is that federal transportation funds will be used to restore the depot--which means it MUST have a continued transit use. If someone later decides that we should have a little Amshack instead and turn the depot into a T-shirt shop, they'd have to give the money back.

So, this is a win from both an urban planning perspective and a historic preservation perspective. And it's also the cheaper option. Good news all around.

Agreed!

[wburg]

City council voted to approve the "don't move the depot" option. Now they can start working on the actual design for the expanded depot building, and begin restoration and repair of the historic depot.

[innov8]

Regional Transit may end light-rail service at 9 p.m. daily

Jul. 25, 2009
Sacramento Bee

The onslaught of bad news for Sacramento transit riders continues: Regional Transit officials may stop running light-rail trains daily at 9 p.m. beginning in January.

It would be the first reduction in train service in light rail's two decades of existence.

Trains now typically run past midnight.

It's the latest in a series of service cuts for a Sacramento bus and rail agency that has struggled through an unprecedented budget crisis.

"It's frustrating, but that is where it is," RT General Manager Mike Wiley said Friday.

His agency already has raised fares and cut bus service several times in the last two years. A previously approved round of fare increases and bus reductions is scheduled for September.

Officials say they hoped those September cuts would finally bring their budget in line. But local sales tax revenue is below expectations, leaving RT again several million dollars short.

To make up the difference, RT also is considering shortening hours on some bus routes in January, and running some buses at 60-minute intervals instead of half-hour intervals.

Sacramento is among California transit agencies hurting on several financial fronts.

The governor and legislators have diverted almost all state transit funds to balance the state budget. A coalition of transit agencies, including RT, has sued the state to recover those funds.

The economic downturn also has caused the major local funding source – sales taxes – to dwindle.

RT has largely frozen salaries and hiring, reduced outside contracts and slowed payments to its pension fund.

The latest proposal to reduce train and bus hours will be a blow to less-affluent people who work at night, advocates say.

Riders at RT board meetings have lamented how difficult it's become to get anywhere anymore; they've pleaded with RT not to cut their bus lines.

The RT board will discuss the plan at 6 p.m. Monday at RT headquarters, 1400 29th Street.

Rocio Lopez, a cashier at Downtown Plaza, typically catches the train home at 8:30 p.m. RT's plan would leave her with no time to do errands like grocery shopping.

"I have no car," Lopez said.

Elvin Lal, a loan officer in San Francisco, often takes the train to Sacramento and catches light rail to his parents' Meadowview home after 9 p.m.

If he can't get to Sacramento earlier in the evening, he says, he'll have to pay for an expensive taxi ride home.

"To cut back on public transit is to (cause) more pollution and greenhouse gas," Lal said. "It's like going backward."

Despite its dwindling operating budget, RT still plans a light-rail expansion starting later this year from the downtown depot to Richards Boulevard.

That will be funded by local Measure A transportation sales tax revenues, approved by voters in 2004 and designated specifically for new rail construction.

The agency also plans to begin construction in the next few years on a light-rail extension from Meadowview to Cosumnes River College. That will be funded by a federal grant for new transit construction.

RT's Wiley said the agency wants to move ahead with those projects in anticipation of an economic turnaround at some point that he hopes will begin refilling the agency's depleted annual operating budget.

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2054831.html

[wburg]

It's ironic that we are finally building transit-oriented development for the first time since the 1920s and now the transit system's operating budget is cut back so far we won't have trains running after 9 PM!

[Web]

Sac's transit has always been 2nd class

and why run the lightrail till 1am anyways? when all the bus lines that connect are basically done by 10pm and now probably earlier.......

I was using transit a lot but had to curtail when I wanted to do anything past 8pm or sometimes 9.....and I live on the 82 line a pretty late running line for this town.

When I go visit relatives and friends in the town I grew up in...transit is still pretty good to 11 and on my line till 1am...(the fare is also cheaper and free transfers). They just got Lightrail in 2004 so they definitely were behind in that arena but it runs basically 24/7 a couple trips from 1am to 5am

[wburg]

Well, you get what you pay for. Properly funded, we could run trains and buses until after 2:00 AM and probably cut down significantly on drunk driving, and provide better commuter service. We have a second-rate transit system because that's all we are willing to spend.

Our transit system was first-class, once...at least until 1943.

[Web]

Originally Posted by wburg

Well, you get what you pay for. Properly funded, we could run trains and buses until after 2:00 AM and probably cut down significantly on drunk driving, and provide better commuter service. We have a second-rate transit system because that's all we are willing to spend.

Our transit system was first-class, once...at least until 1943.

Yep cheap spending gets cheap product.

[travis bickle]

Originally Posted by wburg

Well, you get what you pay for. Properly funded, we could run trains and buses until after 2:00 AM and probably cut down significantly on drunk driving, and provide better commuter service. We have a second-rate transit system because that's all we are willing to spend.

Our transit system was first-class, once...at least until 1943.

Well... we've been down this road a thousand times. But the reality is that you can no longer build a public transportation that is all things to all people. Density patterns and traffic patters are too well established and throwing money to overcome that is simply a waste of taxpayer funds.

So you need to define what you want out of your public transportation. Do you want it to primarily serve middle-class state workers from suburbs to downtown? Then you work with the state to encourage ridership with routes/times and fee structure. Do you want it to serve primarily lower income classes to their lower paying job clusters? Then you encourage creation of these clusters around station/lines to the appropriate neighborhoods and greatly subsidize fares. These are just two examples, but the point is we need to clearly identify the market we want served by public transit.

Too often public transportation advocates think we can create a system that can address every need. We can't. Even if we had all the money in the world, some will forever prefer another form of transit: most likely their own private cars. This, of course, brings us to another (well-worn here) point. You can't force transportation choices by making the preferred choice so intolerable that it is abandoned. You make smart transportation policy by making public transportation the first choice for some because it is the most reliable, safest, most efficient and cheapest form of their available options.

It doesn't take to much traffic relief to greatly reduce congestion. E.g., in San Diego, state furlough days are comparatively congestion free. I'd imagine it's the same in Sacramento.

Limit the scope, but do it very well.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by travis bickle

Well... we've been down this road a thousand times. But the reality is that you can no longer build a public transportation that is all things to all people. Density patterns and traffic patters are too well established and throwing money to overcome that is simply a waste of taxpayer funds.

So you need to define what you want out of your public transportation. Do you want it to primarily serve middle-class state workers from suburbs to downtown? Then you work with the state to encourage ridership with routes/times and fee structure. Do you want it to serve primarily lower income classes to their lower paying job clusters? Then you encourage creation of these clusters around station/lines to the appropriate neighborhoods and greatly subsidize fares. These are just two examples, but the point is we need to clearly identify the market we want served by public transit.

Public transit in Sacramento already does both of these things adequately, at least when properly funded--the problem really is that our transit system doesn't even have the money to perform the tasks we have defined, because the budget keeps getting cut. Sacramento RT certainly doesn't try to be all things to all people: if there's one thing you can't accuse the RT board of doing, it's setting their sights too high.

Building a transit system that is all things to all people isn't the point--building a transit system that is adequate to public need is. Other cities seem to somehow be capable of doing so--Los Angeles and San Francisco are the examples I cite often--and the mechanism they use is called "paying for it." They pay more for their transit system, and in return they have a good transit system. We pay less for our transit system, and so we have a system that it is at its best adequate and at its worst abysmal.

Density patterns are a result of transit decisions. Communities that are automobile-dependent will never become dense enough to later require transit, they will simply leapfrog into new growth areas instead. Without fixed transit routes, there is no way to promote the high-density growth associated with "transit-oriented development," and without the transit, the development will just turn into more low-density car-centric neighborhoods.

Too often public transportation advocates think we can create a system that can address every need. We can't. Even if we had all the money in the world, some will forever prefer another form of transit: most likely their own private cars. This, of course, brings us to another (well-worn here) point. You can't force transportation choices by making the preferred choice so intolerable that it is abandoned. You make smart transportation policy by making public transportation the first choice for some because it is the most reliable, safest, most efficient and cheapest form of their available options.

The assumption here is that not spending public money on the roads, parking and other infrastructure necessary to make automobiles practical is semantically equivalent to "making the preferred choice intolerable," while cutting funds to transit is just fine because "transit can't be all things to all people."

The problem we are currently encountering with Regional Transit is solely due to ongoing budget cuts. Ridership has been on the rise, and people are becoming far more comfortable with public transit--the problem is strictly a fiscal one. Our transit system is collapsing because we won't pay for it, while other cities' transit systems are growing because they will pay for it--even in cities considered automobile havens like Los Angeles.

Building streets and highways and parking is not free, it is just as taxpayer-supported as public transit. People just think of it as "private" because they buy their own cars, but their tax dollars pay for roads and highways. The inevitable consequence of car-centric transit and public-subsidized car cities is continued low-density development.

[travis bickle]

Public transit in Sacramento already does both of these things adequately, at least when properly funded

Well which is it? Does it do these things adequately, or does it need additional funding?

the problem really is that our transit system doesn't even have the money to perform the tasks we have defined

That who has defined? Has there ever been a comprehensive analysis? Has the public ever been asked?

Sacramento RT certainly doesn't try to be all things to all people:

The article quotes people who work in SF and want to visit their parents in Meadowview after 9:00 - if RT wants to position that type of market (through this article - and obviously RT was involved with the message shaping here) as one of the tragic results of funding cuts - sure sounds like all things to all people.

Building a transit system that is all things to all people isn't the point--building a transit system that is adequate to public need is.

Again, " adequate" and "need" by whose definition? Yours Bill?

Other cities seem to somehow be capable of doing so--Los Angeles and San Francisco are the examples I cite often

San Francisco has the density, primarily because of geography. LA has an extensive pub system, yet this very expensive public system still transports a tiny percentage of total trips. For the vast majority of uses, surface streets are still the best option.

the mechanism they use is called "paying for it."

It's hard for you not to get a little pissy isn't it Bill?

Density patterns are a result of transit decisions.

To a large extent, I agree with you here Bill. But the problem is the built environment we have, not the one you wish we had. (try not to play the Rumsfeld card here...)

Without fixed transit routes, there is no way to promote the high-density growth associated with "transit-oriented development,"

I agree with you completely here. I do believe that good development follows transit. But, especially in a bankrupt state, let's get the most out of the routes that exist before we demand additional spending. One way we can do that is through encouraging complimentary development around existing lines.

The assumption here is that not spending public money on the roads, parking and other infrastructure necessary to make automobiles practical is semantically equivalent to "making the preferred choice intolerable," while cutting funds to transit is just fine because "transit can't be all things to all people."

Circular argument here Bill. You really need to break that nasty habit... . The point is you need to attract people to public transit with honey, not vinegar. To do otherwise guarantees failure... as we have so clearly seen over the last 30 years.

The problem we are currently encountering with Regional Transit is solely due to ongoing budget cuts

Solely your opinion Bill. Maybe one shared by other public transportation advocates, but if more people agreed with you, they'd be voting with their wallets. My opinion is that at least as important is service, cost and convenience.

Our transit system is collapsing because we won't pay for it

"Collapsing???" Hmmm Bill... maybe just a little drama there?

people are becoming far more comfortable with public transit

I agree with you here and it's a good thing. But it's not the best choice for most people and if it were, we'd see greater ridership.

Building streets and highways and parking is not free

I don't think anyone here has argued to the contrary (I certainly haven't). Yet you always bring up this straw-man argument. Get some new writers would ya?

People just think of it as "private" because they buy their own cars

I think of it as "private" because I can come and go on my schedule, not just when the bus comes. I can go where I want to, not just where the train takes me. I can take with me what I want to, not just what I can squeeze into the next seat.

We can build a public system that does all of the above for segments of society. We need to define what those segments are. We don't need system (nor could we ever build a system) that serves 100% of the people, 100% of the time (all things to all people). But if we could get a public one that was a legitimate first-choice for 20% of the people, 80% of the time, I think we'd have a total system (including roads and highways) that worked well for everyone.

[Web]

Again....I will use my home town of Minneapolis, Mn.....

I don't need to have a schedule buses run every 5 minutes where I lived....in the evening it was 15 minutes and late night and weekends 30 minutes at most.... and they run till 2am....get most of the bar rush.

No way is that city the most densest around but they do FUND the transit system.......I think 1000 buses to what 200 here???

But then again they also have more freeways and more traffic jams also......

I guess this town is just a cowtown(hard to say this but....._)

[travis bickle]

I don't need to have a schedule buses run every 5 minutes where I lived....

Every five minutes along the entire line? My, now doesn't that sound convenient! I doubt that level of service is provided on every line. Perhaps Minneapolis (love that town btw) has done the work to set market priorities and this very convenient line with superb service is one of the results of that work. Any transportation system that is safe, reliable, cheap and convenient will find ridership: just as yours did in your beloved Minneapolis.

But... I would imagine if your home town were running multi-million dollar deficits in a state with a $26 bil deficit, it might have a little trouble funding all of its public transit as well.

Old habits are hard to break unless you replace them with something much better. Getting people out of street cars and into personal autos in the 40s-50s wasn't too difficult because the auto was a much preferable form of transit (for a variety of reasons), much of that having to do with the personal freedom the auto affords.

To successfully break the present, auto-dependent cycle, you need to present a better solution without artificially constraining the freedom driving brings.

As far as Sacramento being a cowtown... well Web, sorry you feel that way because the bus schedule is too limiting... maybe you should buy a car?

[Mr. Ozo]

Not really sure how it applies here, but when I was in Montevideo Uruguay, the buses came by not every 5 min, but every 3 minutes on the main streets. Not trying to compare that with here, because much less people have cars there. Just saying how great it was to get around on.

Still it seems like if mid sized buses ran up J street every 5 minutes, you'd have a lot more ridership. I suppose street car is the answer, since people are still scared of the bus.

[SactownTom]

If the idea is the get more drivers to use public transit, than it needs to be clean, safe and reliable. Folks will be willing to pay a bit more if it's those things. But if it's dirty, dangerous and sporadic, transit could be free and you would have a hard time getting people to give up their cars.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by SactownTom

If the idea is the get more drivers to use public transit, than it needs to be clean, safe and reliable. Folks will be willing to pay a bit more if it's those things. But if it's dirty, dangerous and sporadic, transit could be free and you would have a hard time getting people to give up their cars.

Which brings us back to funding. If transit agencies can't afford to pay for enough security, maintenance and operators, they can't be made clean, safe and reliable enough. Personally I think every light rail train should have a fare attendant/conductor on the train at all times, in addition to the operator, to guarantee higher fare compliance and stop problems before they start (in addition to roving security staff.) But that means paying two people per train instead of one, which costs more money. Perhaps the move from having a conductor and an operator on streetcars (common until the 1930s) to one-man operation (operator collected fares and operated train, but couldn't keep an eye on passenger safety) may have affected people's perceptions of transit in a negative way. Transit companies liked it because it saved money, but it made people feel less safe.

So in order to make transit clean, safe and reliable, we need sufficient transit funding.

Mr. Ozo: BRT (bus rapid transit) systems are a popular option in the Third World where pay scales are very different, as well as concepts of personal space and comfort (how crowded were the buses, and how would Americans respond to similarly crowded conditions? How was the ride compared to the ride on a streetcar in terms of bounciness and relative comfort?) BRT has been discussed in the US, but it has its disadvantages because it lacks the scalability, permanence and comfortable ride of fixed-rail transit.