Streetcar Feasibilty Study
Several among the blogworld have been posting their thoughts for a while now over what will probably be the next logical addition to the regions transportation scene - streetcars .
The initial feasibility study for a downtown/riverfront streetcar is linked below . It is a bit lengthy but full of all the details such as routes , financing options , travel demand analysis etc .
What im curious about is what you all think about it. Personally I like the routes (esp the placement of the stations along Capitol Mall ) . I would like to see this become a priority . I think that in order for this to become a priority it has to make it into the public discussion as a viable and useful transportation option . The proposal raises many questions - some fun , some serious .
Will people who dont live in the central city really be inclined to care or support it ?
Should the city try to invoke its heritage with a vintage streetcar look or its future with a more modern design ?
Will the streetcars prove beneficial or disruptive to certain areas of the city ?
Are the streetcars going to prove themselves useful transportation options or tourist photo ops ?
It's all scheduled for presentation to Regional Transit and Yolo County Transportation District on May 14, and to the Sacramento city council on May 22 . I will of course try to attend ( work permitting of course ) .
This subject has come up repeatedly in blogs (see below) and I have had several discussions with friends and in and on the street , which I believe demonstrates a real desire for such a system . I think it is a great opportunity for the city of Sacramento and its sister city across the bridge and deserves our support .
Previous discussions :
Arranging Matches way back in June of 2005
Living In Urban Sac in October of last year . . .
I brought it up last October as well . . .
Here is a link to the .pdf detailing the entire study ( 90 pgs )
Posts
9 responses:
Considering 16th street could/should be a main throughway in the next 5 years or so, I would have liked to see a route there, but I guess one at 15th and K isn't bad.
I'm a little surprised (in a good way) how ambitious the initial phase looks. Originally I thought they were just looking to do a line from West Sac across to Capitol Mall. The diagram has the initial routes heading through K Street and around the Convention Center as well.
One concern I have, and I'm probably just not aware if it is even a problem, is having Streetcars and Lightrail on the same streets. It just seems like that could get congested. I guess it could be a just a matter of having RT and Streetcars work together on scheduling.
Of course, not so much an addition as a return...I like the route down Capitol Mall, mostly because interurbans (and, for a few years, streetcars) used to run down M Street. For the same reasons, I lean towards a vintage/reproduction streetcar design, but I wouldn't mind a modern one.
The neat thing is that streetcars are BOTH a useful transportation option AND tourist photo ops.
I recommend Street Smart: Streetcars and Cities in the Twenty-First Century by Gloria Ohland and Shelley Poticha. It collects a lot of information that has been tossed about on the cutting edge of transit policy for a few years, put into a very nice and rather convincing package with lots of nice color photos.
I , i like you LIUS was a little concerned about the bottlenecks that already occur around the J / 12 to 16th area . That would be a lot of things interrupting the flow . That being said Im still overwhelmingly for it .
The routes down Capitol Mall are ideal on multiple layers for me . Logistical , Aesthetically and logically . Considering whats proposed and potential for the area at the gateway to our city it seems like a great locale for a "landmark" station/stop .
Thanks (as always) for the great lit advice Wburg .
As a downtown resident, I would very much support this.
I don't really care if the vehicles themselves were historic or modern, I'm more inclined towards the historic-looking ones but I was in Cologne, Germany last fall and their modern streetcars were very efficient and comfortable... I like the historic ones in SF along Market or along the waterfront..
Once they catch on, I believe they'll be very beneficial. You're always going to have drivers complaining about them, especially at first, when you introduce new fixed-guideway transit like this onto a street (or, as wburg pointed out streets that haven't seen them in a long time).
I personally think that this town is way too easy to get around in by car, so I could care less if drivers are inconvenienced. All those assholes who drive in from 20 or 30 miles out can learn to wait a few extra seconds and share the road with bicyclists, pedestrians, streetcars, etc....
-E
I think the streetcars are a nice idea, but I don't see that they are serving needed areas to make them useful to people living in the midtown/downtown area.
In my mind, If we are to create a more walkable, dense city, we need to provide people with real options to not having a car at all. That means that the streetcar going to Safeway, CoOp, etc. is a lot more practical than getting people to Raley Field.
R Street, 18th and Capitol, J Street out into East Sac, Sutter Hospital and to Sac State, Midtown (esp east of 16th). These all seem ideal for streetcar access.
I would love to hop on the streetcar and be able to do my grocery shopping. But I don't see any current grocery store on these planned routes.
I guess I just wonder who this service is really supposed to serve, and what their level of public transit is currently. I think that a lot of people will just be confused as to the difference between light rail and the streetcar.
I would like to see any new system serve an area that is not very well served by the Light Rail system but still links up with at least 3 stations downtown . Im sure the streetcar frequency would have to be 2 and in some parts 3 times that of light rail to make it a viable option for simple errands and tasks like grabbin a quick gallon of milk at Safeway or a beer at Streets .
I also think that as this moves along they start talking about how it will / should / could integrate with the UP rail yards
For the record , I think I prefer a modern streetcar look .
One thing to remember is that this chunk of plan is a starter line, intended to become the core of an expanded system. Part of the plan was to begin with a five-mile stretch of track that could be built quickly: remember, the idea is to have cars operating within five years. Once the initial section is completed, you have proof of concept and it becomes easier to expand into areas where more people can use it, like midtown Sacramento and the Southport area. The railyards are another future spot--but, the way things are going, in five years there probably won't be much more going on at the railyards than there is now, and initial build-out there is supposed to begin to the west along the riverfront and drive east. The eastern portion of the railyards is supposed to be the population center, where streetcars will be needed most, and they will be a while in arriving.
But if there is a core system in place in 2012, it becomes far easier to run a line north to serve residential blocks being constructed in 2015.
Fast headway times are very important to the streetcar's role as a pedestrian accelerator. Ideally, just as one streetcar vanishes out of sight in one direction, another should just be coming into view in the other direction--figure on 5-10 minute headways at most.
Explaining the difference between streetcars and light rail is something that has proven difficult--as difficult as the difference between interurbans and streetcars. Case in point was the recent article in the Bee, which said that "trolleys stopped running through West Sacramento in 1941." While there were passenger cars powered via trolley poles and pantographs in 1941, these were big interurban cars running to Oakland/San Francisco and Woodland, not local streetcars, and they only went by a few times per day. The West Sacramento local streetcar stopped operating in 1924, when the West Sacramento Land Company stopped subsidizing the line.
Well spoken as always Wburg
I hadn’t given as much consideration to the fact that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step .
Having the system is in place is going to be true test for the operation as a whole . I do think that besides location , frequency is of utmost importance . Like you said as one leaves another should come .
I'd like to second that! Wburg, your comments are excellent, and it reminds me how this system can evolve into a great local resource.
Many thanks for your thoughtful discussion points.
-Eric
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