Light rail to Roseville ... in 2045
Sacramento Business Journal - October 18, 2002
by Mark Larson
Staff Writer
Picture getting on board a light-rail train in Sacramento that will take you all the way to El Dorado Hills. Nice, but the trains might not roll for another 45 to 50 years, when many of us will be lucky if we can still leave the house.
It might not be until 2040 to 2045 before the Interstate 80 light-rail line connects to the Galleria mall in Roseville. But there could be a new six-lane bridge across the Sacramento River from Richards Boulevard to the Lighthouse area of West Sacramento built between 2025 and 2030, at a regional price of $240 million.
Those transportation projects are just a few of the possibilities projected between 2025 and 2050 on a new list from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, one of the main groups in charge of mapping the area's transportation future so that local roads don't become a constantly congested mess.
The forecast takes up where the SACOG's recently approved 25-year transportation system development plan leaves off. By the time that $22 billion plan expires in 2025, the region's population is expected to have grown by nearly a million people from 2000, to 2.8 million.
But the growth almost certainly won't stop in 2025. By 2050, SACOG believes that the region will have 3.65 million residents, up another 800,000. Keeping the region mobile, the agency says, will require another $20 billion in transportation projects — and could mean running a freeway through Placerville.
But no one foresaw light rail in '65: Ken Hough, a transportation planner at SACOG, said the list is only an estimate of future transportation system capacity needs, and SACOG isn't proposing that any be locked in as essential.
Wendy Hoyt, a Sacramento transportation consultant who hadn't seen the list yet, said forecasting transportation improvements 25 to 50 years off "is pretty tough," given all the unknowns.
"We have no idea what technology is going to bring," she said, or how it might affect transportation demand and patterns. But, she added, "I applaud them for looking beyond the 25-year plan."
Long-term predictions aren't necessarily going to come true, agreed Art Bauer, another Sacramento transportation consultant. In 1965, he noted, no one locally was predicting a light-rail system for Greater Sacramento.
"Light rail wasn't even on the scope," he said. "It wasn't being thought about anywhere."
That said, the SACOG list figures that 21 different stretches of area freeways or highways will need to add lanes, plus build or extend another 18 commuter lanes — for cars with two or more occupants.
The list also anticipates a couple of new six-lane expressways, nine more light-rail extensions, and a new bridge over the Sacramento River at Richards Boulevard.
The total local share of all the projects is about $5 billion, or about one-fourth of the project costs anticipated in the current 25-year plan. But the long-range plan includes only the money from local sources.
Bauer believes future Greater Sacramentans will keep driving cars as a predominant way to get around. But he expects in 25 to 50 years, cars are more likely to be powered by fuel cells and electric motors.
So he sees no future drop in demand for roads. "Of course we'll need roads," he said. "It was key to the Romans and it's key to us."
Trains to a new Southeast Parkway: Other possible light-rail line additions are extensions of the I-80 line from Antelope to Roseville for $80 million, and a Laguna line to Cosumnes River College for $110 million.
The SACOG list foresees a need to extend the Folsom line north into Fair Oaks for $120 million, plus north on South Watt Avenue for $160 million. By 2040, that line is expected to go farther south on Watt to a new Southeast Parkway throughway for $280 million. The Roseville end of the I-80 line would reach the Galleria for another $120 million.
By 2035, the list envisions a light-rail line crossing the American River at Folsom and continuing into Fair Oaks, for $150 million, and another extension from Folsom farther east to Iron Point Road, at a cost of $230 million.
By 2045 to 2050, the Iron Point end of the Folsom line could be ready for the extension uphill to El Dorado Hills for another $180 million.
Not all the new trains would be streetcars. A Union Pacific commuter rail service connecting Sacramento to Lodi and Stockton is anticipated at a price of $150 million.
More lanes: The SACOG list foresees enough demand for two new Highway 50 overpasses for $80 million, plus making the highway a freeway through Placerville for $70 million.
The list shows a possible need in about 40 years to widen Roseville Road, now two lanes, to six, with a commuter lane from Highway 160 downtown to Watt Avenue. Drivers already use that part of Roseville Road when commuter traffic is heavy along Business 80 and Interstate 80. In 35 to 40 years, the list predicts, there will be need for a "new six-lane expressway" connecting North Watt Avenue with the planned Placer Parkway, creating another link between Roseville and Sacramento.
Not impressed: John Gudebski is vice president of the "No Way LA!" coalition, which has fought plans to increase traffic capacity on Watt Avenue. He believes transportation planners want it made into a major north-south corridor.
He balked Wednesday when hearing that the list sees Watt as an eventual north-south connector with some light-rail service.
"That's our ugliest image," he said. "Putting it out that it is a possibility is so scary, because no one is putting out the consequences."
His group wants a bus rapid-transit system on Watt as a mass-transit solution to the street's heavy traffic. Adding light rail on Watt would be costly and wrongheaded, he said, because the cost of buying rights of way in a residential area would be very high.
"That would be the straw that would break everybody's back," he said. "That's as unacceptable as a double-decked thoroughfare."
Previously the coalition protested the Watt bridge-widening project over claims that state environmental procedures weren't followed, but lost.
Gudebski called the SACOG list a trial balloon that relies on current land-use policies, and runs counter to efforts by the 50-member Sacramento Air Quality Transportation Forum to encourage development of a less-polluting transportation system.
"It's working counter to our efforts," he said. "It's discouraging."
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