Quote:
Originally Posted by stepper77
Not one to normally advocate for wider freeways, but, the reality is that traffic between Sacramento and Fairfield are due in large part because demand has overgrown the freeway capacity. In Fairfield things can open up because the freeway lanes expand. There's also always a massive backup at the junction of 50/80 in West Sac before the causeway heading toward the Bay, and frequent backup in Davis heading to Sac as the freeway lanes shrink towards the causeway on the otherside. Most of this traffic I'd argue is Bay Area people travelling through Sacramento to other destinations for the weekend/holiday.
Having said that, I also would support expanding/speeding up Amtrak service between Sacramento/Bay Area. I recently moved to Sacramento from Oakland, where I still work, to buy a house. I take Amtrak from Davis to Richmond and hop on Bart to my office by the 19th Street Bart station. I leave my house in South Natomas at 6:00 am and get to work at 8:20. On the occasions I've driven, I've left the same time and arrived around 7:40 with traffic. I leave work at 5:10 and get home about 7:30-7:40. The train portion of my trip between Davis/Richmond is 70 minutes. Not terribly slow, but, definitely could speed that up. Occasionally, we get stopped by boats passing under the bridge over the straight, by, otherwise, it isn't a bad commute. The wifi and plugs for your laptop (or the comfortable seats to nap) help pass the time. And the trains are pretty full. But, having faster travel times/more frequent service would make my commute more flexible.
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My experience is that W. Sacramento to Fairfield can be stop and go any time of the day and week, but generally worse during commute times. Seems to get worse year after year. Glad to have someone post with experience of commuting it everyday.
There are plans to expand the yolo bypass bridge 1 or 2 lanes in each direction but nothing past Davis that I am aware of.
Cap corridor will always be limited as long as it doesn't have its own right away. I think this project is one that is worthy to spend billions on because it would solve a big issue. I really think if the cap corridor had 45 minute Sac to SF service (or even 1 hour), it would be a very popular route and would probably convince people to give up their cars. Because as you mentioned right now, the train is often slower than driving, and should be the other way around.