The SacRT Gold Line follows the route (right of way) of the first railroad in California. The railroad went from downtown Sacramento to downtown Folsom, which is why there's a turntable in Folsom, and the railroad was used as the first segment in the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Thank you for this report. SacRT is a hidden gem. I have been commuting from Elk Grove to Folsom by bicycle and light rail for about 10 years. Service in 2024 has improved dramatically in terms of on-time performance, clean trains and transit agent presence. The new low-floor Gold Line trains are nice but the old trains are better for bikes because they have hooks for hanging bikes. Shout-out to the E-Tran express bus service from downtown Sacramento to Elk Grove that integrates well with SacRT.
I haven’t ridden the system before 2023, so your perspective as a long time rider is refreshing. I’m really happy the system has improved and continues to do so
I’m a Folsom resident, and this was an excellent video, but Glenn station actually has some pretty nice bike trails around it. In fact, the city of Folsom has a pretty big bike network if you look at it on the map! (We don’t talk about East Bidwell)
The best thing for SacRT was the recent extension of the south blue line to CRC. As a student during the time it opened I was able to take full advantage of the Los rios 4 college system and being able to use LRT to go take classes at all four colleges as a broke college kid haha
"Sac used to be known as the city of trees" - Yes and No. The "City of Trees" was never a nickname of Sacramento. City of Trees is a designation given by the Arbor Day Foundation to cities that promote urban forest, many other cities have received this recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation. - River City, Sac Town, and Sac a Tomatoes (Sac-a-tomatoes) are some of the nicknames people have called Sacramento but they are all unofficial nicknames created by locals. The "Farm to Fork Capital" is just some marketing BS that the restaurant lobby got the city to do.
Calling our system robust is far too nice, especially given our terrible frequencies, abysmal land use, and near non existent comms on the part of RT when things go wrong.
The system has good bones. The weird, existing rail right of way path means that the train isn’t slowed by street running or lights for much of its length. There are definitely some improvements that could be made without really large expenditures. The first is to reduce street running in the downtown portion. This would mainly require restricting lanes on Del Paso, 7th, 8th, 12th north of K street and parts of R st so thst it doesn’t share right of way with street traffic. 12th between archives plaza and Quill alley would require more work, or completely closing those blocks to cars. Though those blocks have enough space that shifting the tracks to just one lane, could allow one way car travel with parking and a bike lane or two way travel with no parking and a bike lane. Not sure if you could fit two car directions without a bike lane if you eliminated parking. A little more expenditure could ensure that the trains have light priority everywhere they go through traffic lights. I know parts, like the northern tracks on 12th street have light priority but I’m not sure about the rest of the street running parts of the system. With the shared tracks downtown we’re probably looking at a max headway of 5 or 6 minutes on the outer branches without adding tracks downtown. Stations downtown could see a train about every 2 minutes if headways were minimized. Getting trains more frequent than every 15 minutes between Sunrise and Folsom would likely require full double tracking for that section. Before they concentrate on maximizing light rail headways I think they should look at increasing bus frequencies, especially downtown and those routes that connect to light rail. By making most central and major artery bus routes run at 15 minute or less headways, RT can reduce waiting for your transfer and make trips with transfers faster. This will, of course, require funds for new buses and ongoing funding for drivers and more mechanics. Overall, this is an easier sell, in terms of construction disruption, and is something that can be rolled out in phases, over years. If RT gets funding for large projects, besides the already planned green line, I know RT has been looking at extending the blue line to Citrus Heights, Roseville and Ell Grove. They’ve also studied several major streets in the county, Stockton, Florin, Fruitridge, Arden, Watt and Sunrise for BRT. All would have light rail connections at various points, creating a more integrated system of higher speed, own right of way transit.
15:03 Culdesac, the developers of the first custom-built car-free neighborhood in the country, are planning on building a similar development on a vacant lot around half a mile away from the Mesa Drive/Main Street light rail stop. This is one city over from the development that has been opened. Though even as someone who lives in the Phoenix valley, I’m surprised how many park-and-rides there are. For as much flack as Phoenix gets for car-dependency, with it even being the first commercial testing grounds for autonomous vehicles, Phoenix’s light rail network doesn’t have nearly as many dedicated park-and-rides.
SacRT missed a huge opportunity to expand to the new neighborhoods being built in Rancho Cordova & Folsom. They even already had old decommissioned rail heading in the direction of the new Folsom homes that passes directly through major residential & shopping districts and is literally just a few meters from being connected to the main line at Bidwell street. Now all that traffic is going to be directed onto the already overcrowded Highway 50. Hell, the entire south side of Highway 50 is pretty much undeveloped after you get past Folsom Boulevard. Add a split to the rail there and let a loop go around the Folsom region. They should have learned from the mistakes of when Roseville was booming and they failed to build any rail connections to Roseville, resulting in massive deadlocked car traffic on SR65 going into/out of Roseville every single day. Expanding the rail into those region (or at least buying the land needed in advance) would have encouraged higher-density building. We also still don't have a rail connection to the airport, despite two decades of talk about a new line. Glad you mentioned the tree coverage! It's one of the best things Sacramento does and most of the local new developments are heavily encouraging.
Roseville and Rocklin seriously need better rail connections. The right of way is right there!!! I mean I guess there’s CC but it’s not frequent in the slightest
I saw that they put in some railroad crossing lights and arms near the new homes. They wouldn't spend that unnecessary money if they weren't ever gonna use it, right?
Let's be realistic, the only part of the old Sacramento Valley Railroad ROW that actually deserves revitalization is the area paralleling E. Bidwell near Highway 50. Even ignoring the horrendous amount of poorly placed at-grade crossings that would need to be realigned, the fact that the ROW avoids the Central Business District and the planned Town Center south of 50 like the plague is a dealbreaker. A BRT corridor from Riley St. near Historic Folsom down thru E. Bidwell would be a better investment. I would love to see tourist trains depart from White Rock on the old rails down to the foothills someday, however.
The 48th street station was very convenient for me when I worked out in Rancho Cordova and used light rail to commute from the 4th St/Wayne Hultgren station. Trader Joe's on Folsom Blvd is just a 10 minute walk from the 48th St station, so I could hop off the train on the way home and grab groceries at TJ's and be back on the train 30 minutes later. Sometimes I would get off the train at 23rd St on my way home and pick up library books at the McClatchy library branch on 22nd St and walk home from there. Sac RT is pretty good if you can make it work for you.
I use the gold line to get to and from work way up in placerville! The little el dorado transit bus has its last stop at the iron point station. Then i take the gold line to the mather field stop, and then the 21 bus to the stop closest to my house! It's a long ride but thats what books and music are for, rad to see you covering my local transit!
Nice to see SacRT videos. It is indeed an interesting system that, years ago very efficiently got you from Downtown to Parking lot. In recent decades that has been improved with the line extensions though. It also has a few interesting oddities of it's infrastructure due to how it was built. Too bad the flyovers were not really mentioned that much in the video they really are some impressive structures, and one of the oldest flyovers was not even built for the RT but in preparation for a highway realignment that never happened.
Glenn Station's trackwork is actually for a passing track, bringing the Folsom area up to 15 minute frequencies! City of Folsom is also planning a mixed use development there, with a bike/pedestrian bridge to the American River. I've yet to find any documentation, but I've heard multiple older folks mention that SacRT kept open the possibility to expand the line northwards. That's evidenced in the empty median on the bridge across the river, with part of it being used as an offramp into Historic Folsom which would, in a potential expansion, be how the trains join onto the bridge. Personally I don't think it's destined to happen for a long time though, as the logical goal is to reach Roseville, which is extremely transit averse.
@@todgod Sometime in the next 20 years we ~might~ get Capitol Corridor service to Roseville upgraded to 10x daily instead of the current 1x. Better than existing, but as far as I'm aware there's basically no hope for extending the Blue line east.
16:03 Rancho Cordova lacks a downtown/city center, so the development was pitched as a civic center, then bait-and-switched to residential. I think it’s for the best. The fundamental problem with the Folsom Blvd/Gold Line corridor is that commercial is only on one side, so maximum density is half that of other corridors.
I'm originally from Folsom and follow SacRT but this video was still super informative. One of my biggest gripes was the lack of TOD near stations, but you did a really good job highlighting the TOD along the Gold Line. Definitely makes me more optimistic for the future of rail in Sacramento. Curious if you think a rail spur along Stockton Boulevard would be a good idea. I feel like there's opportunities for TOD along the corridor and it would provide a rail connection for UC Davis Health workers.
Great video, looking forward to the next episode! Wish list: Maybe use a different color for the dot on the map indicating where you are, to make it more visible on smaller screens and also for people with too short attention span. Perhaps mention something about the reused rails. I had a look at the map and it seems like there is a museum train, perhaps, on what I assume is the outer section of a disused railway that SacRT reused the inner part of. Also, this is probably way harder, but perhaps a "possible future" episode at the end, looking at disused and underused rail lines and other possible right-of-ways, and what obstacles and benefits they might have. For example from the railway museum southwards there seems to be a bit of rail and then an long section of empty track bed. Would it make sense to make that part of a future SacRT expansion?
I wish you mentioned at cordova town center, while right next to a massive parking lot there is a path from the station with a convenient connection to the KP international store there, filled with a wide selection of primarily asian foods but also suprsising selection of other foods from many cultures, a short and safe walk from the station.
I forgot to mention Cordova, but my sentiments are about the same as Zinfandel, I will concur I was a little too harsh but at the same time I wish the area was a little more densified. I’m sure the stores there are amazing! I wish I had more time to stop at every station
Add to this the Placer County Transit bus that runs between Watt/I-80 (Northeast end of the Blue Line) all the way out to Auburn with OK frequency. Perhaps lining up the schedules for timed transfers would help a great deal.
In defense of 39th St and 48th St stations, they're both a 5-10 minute walk from the huge UC Davis Medical Center. Without the existing "just ok" transit service and the improving cycling infrastructure in Sacramento, the med center campus would be an even bigger parking lot than it already is
7:25, there's a weird cutout in the sac downtown station parking lot that gets you direct access to old town sac, without having to go around a bunch of streets, not sure why its not publicized
Interesting video as usual. Nevertheless, Sacramento Urban Area was 1 947 000 inhabitants as of the 2020 census... not 500 000 ! Also, the ridership in 2023 for Light Rail was 6,5 Million (ie 18 000/day or 6000/line) which is very few for 3 lines and a ton of miles, which doesn' kick above its weight at all !
Like I said before when you compare VTA LRT to Sac RT LRT, it's rather a win for the 916. I first rode Sac RT trams in 2006 and the Duewag vehicles are already aging. That's one mark against them. VTA wins in terms of vehicle age. In terms of safety onboard Sac RT vs a VTA tram. It's a tie, because I have seen some dank people on both systems. If we shy away from the tram, I have to give a point to the bus system in the 916. I did not have to wait for a bus when I am there. Point reasoning, Yolobus and UC Davis transit are pretty cool lines. 1987 VTA trams also first started service. It's a tie for both the 916 and 408. Additional half point to Sacramento for having a statue of an old UTDC tram that was VTAs. Station design IMO is better than VTA at this time. Half point for good naming strategies. For Transit oriented development, VTA wins because I see more houses and flats nearby stations. SacRT wins because of it's connections to a community college and some very cool restaurants you don't find in the Bay Area. 6 for Sac RT 4 for VTA Sac Valley Station is nice because you get to ride Amtrak San Joaquins down a spur of track you never knew existed. Golden one center was once a beat up mall that was a hotbed for teens committing crimes. If we go outside CA only one tram system is king and that is TriMet Max. I am betting some of you will disagree. I know all this because I got like 3 friends from Sac
Another amazing TOD review video! I looked at the system while watching the video and was appalled to see 30 minute headways starting at 6pm. That is so bad.
Great video! But you're being a lot nicer to SacRT compared to BART. Even the deep suburbia BART stations have a looooooooot more TOD than pretty much any of these stations, not to mention the sheer number of hyper densely developed Bart stations that often get overlooked/forgotten by urbanist/transit tubers who talk about TOD.
It was way cheaper to build than Bart and the sac area is only about a third the size of the bay area.. so a more fair comparison would be with VTA light rail, which is inferior
Whenever you make a true East Coast series of episodes, like I told you many times, starting with PATCO, RiverLine, Newark Light Rail, PATH, Hudson Light Rail and the SIR.
@todgod lol, true, but 2 underutilized systems don't make anything right... Too bad not too many metros in CA of a similar size to Sac have a transit system not based on buses for a truer comparison...so I guess your point is valid about them doing Better...
I’m not sure if I’m picking up on a YIMBY bias towards large scale, corporate & institutional development of large sites near stations, as opposed to improving the SFH neighborhoods with incremental upzoning & mixed use intensification. The former is easier & more fun yet makes for weaker cities after the initial generation of flipping. The latter is filled with nimby’s but will be attractive to many older millennials. I don’t blame you for going all in on YIMBY TODs-especially in California, as a younger person, it’s hard not to get caught in the sledgehammer approach to growing unit numbers at any cost.
I used to date a woman in Sacramento and a few times I took Capitol Corridor and met her at Sac Valley. Other times, I'd bring my bike up on the train and ride from the station to her house. We even went to the rail museum on our second date. I have complicated feelings about her, but we're still in touch and she deserves the best. Also, yeah, I know I'm always popping in these comment sections with stories about women I've dated. I promise I do other things with trains, too.
also a random fun fact: Antioch BART is closer to the nearest SacRT station than it is to Millbrae BART
I love your channel because of Bart facts like this one
37 miles compared to 43, I had no idea
If we were a respectable country, we'd extend eBART from Antioch to Sacramento via Stockton for a true regional rail network.
Wild how wide the Bay Area is 👀
Is Milbrae the western terminus of the BART network?
The SacRT Gold Line follows the route (right of way) of the first railroad in California. The railroad went from downtown Sacramento to downtown Folsom, which is why there's a turntable in Folsom, and the railroad was used as the first segment in the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Didn’t know it was the first railroad! Super cool
Thank you for this report. SacRT is a hidden gem. I have been commuting from Elk Grove to Folsom by bicycle and light rail for about 10 years. Service in 2024 has improved dramatically in terms of on-time performance, clean trains and transit agent presence. The new low-floor Gold Line trains are nice but the old trains are better for bikes because they have hooks for hanging bikes. Shout-out to the E-Tran express bus service from downtown Sacramento to Elk Grove that integrates well with SacRT.
I haven’t ridden the system before 2023, so your perspective as a long time rider is refreshing. I’m really happy the system has improved and continues to do so
I’m a Folsom resident, and this was an excellent video, but Glenn station actually has some pretty nice bike trails around it. In fact, the city of Folsom has a pretty big bike network if you look at it on the map! (We don’t talk about East Bidwell)
Thanks for the input!! I unfortunately wasn’t able to make it to Glenn station because of the closure east of Iron Point
@todgod you reply FAST lol, the three stations in Folsom are connected by a bike trail, so if you ever wanna check them out…
"famously urbanist city of Rancho Cordova" lmao
The best thing for SacRT was the recent extension of the south blue line to CRC. As a student during the time it opened I was able to take full advantage of the Los rios 4 college system and being able to use LRT to go take classes at all four colleges as a broke college kid haha
S-M-U-D is pronounced like S'mud! (think s'mores but with mud lol)
Excellent video!!
Thank you!!
Sac used to be known as the city of trees before they changed it to the farm to fork capital.
More sac lore!
I think city of trees will stick longer than farm to fork capital. It’s more popular
"Sac used to be known as the city of trees" - Yes and No. The "City of Trees" was never a nickname of Sacramento. City of Trees is a designation given by the Arbor Day Foundation to cities that promote urban forest, many other cities have received this recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation. - River City, Sac Town, and Sac a Tomatoes (Sac-a-tomatoes) are some of the nicknames people have called Sacramento but they are all unofficial nicknames created by locals. The "Farm to Fork Capital" is just some marketing BS that the restaurant lobby got the city to do.
You forgot “cow town” a name given to us because we spam cowbells at kings games
Calling our system robust is far too nice, especially given our terrible frequencies, abysmal land use, and near non existent comms on the part of RT when things go wrong.
Well it can't be as worse as VTA.
The system has good bones. The weird, existing rail right of way path means that the train isn’t slowed by street running or lights for much of its length. There are definitely some improvements that could be made without really large expenditures. The first is to reduce street running in the downtown portion. This would mainly require restricting lanes on Del Paso, 7th, 8th, 12th north of K street and parts of R st so thst it doesn’t share right of way with street traffic. 12th between archives plaza and Quill alley would require more work, or completely closing those blocks to cars. Though those blocks have enough space that shifting the tracks to just one lane, could allow one way car travel with parking and a bike lane or two way travel with no parking and a bike lane. Not sure if you could fit two car directions without a bike lane if you eliminated parking.
A little more expenditure could ensure that the trains have light priority everywhere they go through traffic lights. I know parts, like the northern tracks on 12th street have light priority but I’m not sure about the rest of the street running parts of the system.
With the shared tracks downtown we’re probably looking at a max headway of 5 or 6 minutes on the outer branches without adding tracks downtown. Stations downtown could see a train about every 2 minutes if headways were minimized. Getting trains more frequent than every 15 minutes between Sunrise and Folsom would likely require full double tracking for that section.
Before they concentrate on maximizing light rail headways I think they should look at increasing bus frequencies, especially downtown and those routes that connect to light rail. By making most central and major artery bus routes run at 15 minute or less headways, RT can reduce waiting for your transfer and make trips with transfers faster. This will, of course, require funds for new buses and ongoing funding for drivers and more mechanics. Overall, this is an easier sell, in terms of construction disruption, and is something that can be rolled out in phases, over years.
If RT gets funding for large projects, besides the already planned green line, I know RT has been looking at extending the blue line to Citrus Heights, Roseville and Ell Grove. They’ve also studied several major streets in the county, Stockton, Florin, Fruitridge, Arden, Watt and Sunrise for BRT. All would have light rail connections at various points, creating a more integrated system of higher speed, own right of way transit.
@@Cupertinorail VTA sucks but we got bart and caltrain. Sac doesnt have anything close to that
15:03 Culdesac, the developers of the first custom-built car-free neighborhood in the country, are planning on building a similar development on a vacant lot around half a mile away from the Mesa Drive/Main Street light rail stop. This is one city over from the development that has been opened.
Though even as someone who lives in the Phoenix valley, I’m surprised how many park-and-rides there are. For as much flack as Phoenix gets for car-dependency, with it even being the first commercial testing grounds for autonomous vehicles, Phoenix’s light rail network doesn’t have nearly as many dedicated park-and-rides.
Phoenix is working hard on its extensions too! I’ll have to check it out. I’ve ridden it before but not the whole line
SacRT missed a huge opportunity to expand to the new neighborhoods being built in Rancho Cordova & Folsom. They even already had old decommissioned rail heading in the direction of the new Folsom homes that passes directly through major residential & shopping districts and is literally just a few meters from being connected to the main line at Bidwell street. Now all that traffic is going to be directed onto the already overcrowded Highway 50. Hell, the entire south side of Highway 50 is pretty much undeveloped after you get past Folsom Boulevard. Add a split to the rail there and let a loop go around the Folsom region.
They should have learned from the mistakes of when Roseville was booming and they failed to build any rail connections to Roseville, resulting in massive deadlocked car traffic on SR65 going into/out of Roseville every single day. Expanding the rail into those region (or at least buying the land needed in advance) would have encouraged higher-density building.
We also still don't have a rail connection to the airport, despite two decades of talk about a new line.
Glad you mentioned the tree coverage! It's one of the best things Sacramento does and most of the local new developments are heavily encouraging.
Roseville and Rocklin seriously need better rail connections. The right of way is right there!!! I mean I guess there’s CC but it’s not frequent in the slightest
I saw that they put in some railroad crossing lights and arms near the new homes. They wouldn't spend that unnecessary money if they weren't ever gonna use it, right?
Let's be realistic, the only part of the old Sacramento Valley Railroad ROW that actually deserves revitalization is the area paralleling E. Bidwell near Highway 50. Even ignoring the horrendous amount of poorly placed at-grade crossings that would need to be realigned, the fact that the ROW avoids the Central Business District and the planned Town Center south of 50 like the plague is a dealbreaker. A BRT corridor from Riley St. near Historic Folsom down thru E. Bidwell would be a better investment. I would love to see tourist trains depart from White Rock on the old rails down to the foothills someday, however.
The 48th street station was very convenient for me when I worked out in Rancho Cordova and used light rail to commute from the 4th St/Wayne Hultgren station. Trader Joe's on Folsom Blvd is just a 10 minute walk from the 48th St station, so I could hop off the train on the way home and grab groceries at TJ's and be back on the train 30 minutes later. Sometimes I would get off the train at 23rd St on my way home and pick up library books at the McClatchy library branch on 22nd St and walk home from there. Sac RT is pretty good if you can make it work for you.
I use the gold line to get to and from work way up in placerville! The little el dorado transit bus has its last stop at the iron point station.
Then i take the gold line to the mather field stop, and then the 21 bus to the stop closest to my house!
It's a long ride but thats what books and music are for, rad to see you covering my local transit!
Nice to see SacRT videos. It is indeed an interesting system that, years ago very efficiently got you from Downtown to Parking lot. In recent decades that has been improved with the line extensions though. It also has a few interesting oddities of it's infrastructure due to how it was built. Too bad the flyovers were not really mentioned that much in the video they really are some impressive structures, and one of the oldest flyovers was not even built for the RT but in preparation for a highway realignment that never happened.
Glenn Station's trackwork is actually for a passing track, bringing the Folsom area up to 15 minute frequencies! City of Folsom is also planning a mixed use development there, with a bike/pedestrian bridge to the American River.
I've yet to find any documentation, but I've heard multiple older folks mention that SacRT kept open the possibility to expand the line northwards. That's evidenced in the empty median on the bridge across the river, with part of it being used as an offramp into Historic Folsom which would, in a potential expansion, be how the trains join onto the bridge. Personally I don't think it's destined to happen for a long time though, as the logical goal is to reach Roseville, which is extremely transit averse.
Woah that would be amazing if there was transit to Roseville and Placer County!! Where there’s a will there’s a way
@@todgod Sometime in the next 20 years we ~might~ get Capitol Corridor service to Roseville upgraded to 10x daily instead of the current 1x. Better than existing, but as far as I'm aware there's basically no hope for extending the Blue line east.
I'd love for the trolley to extend from Folsom through to Roseville. That would be amazing.
16:03 Rancho Cordova lacks a downtown/city center, so the development was pitched as a civic center, then bait-and-switched to residential. I think it’s for the best. The fundamental problem with the Folsom Blvd/Gold Line corridor is that commercial is only on one side, so maximum density is half that of other corridors.
I'm originally from Folsom and follow SacRT but this video was still super informative. One of my biggest gripes was the lack of TOD near stations, but you did a really good job highlighting the TOD along the Gold Line. Definitely makes me more optimistic for the future of rail in Sacramento. Curious if you think a rail spur along Stockton Boulevard would be a good idea. I feel like there's opportunities for TOD along the corridor and it would provide a rail connection for UC Davis Health workers.
I think a rail spur along Stockton blvd that went into Midtown would be a great idea!!
Hell yeah let’s goooooo SacRT! So excited they’re getting new S700s. The existing rolling stock is ancient and poorly accessible.
Same I’m so happy that Sac is getting new, accessible and attractive rolling stock! They deserve it
I don't personally like the color but aside from that it's definitely cleaner and more convenient for the time being
Great video, looking forward to the next episode!
Wish list:
Maybe use a different color for the dot on the map indicating where you are, to make it more visible on smaller screens and also for people with too short attention span.
Perhaps mention something about the reused rails. I had a look at the map and it seems like there is a museum train, perhaps, on what I assume is the outer section of a disused railway that SacRT reused the inner part of.
Also, this is probably way harder, but perhaps a "possible future" episode at the end, looking at disused and underused rail lines and other possible right-of-ways, and what obstacles and benefits they might have. For example from the railway museum southwards there seems to be a bit of rail and then an long section of empty track bed. Would it make sense to make that part of a future SacRT expansion?
I wish you mentioned at cordova town center, while right next to a massive parking lot there is a path from the station with a convenient connection to the KP international store there, filled with a wide selection of primarily asian foods but also suprsising selection of other foods from many cultures, a short and safe walk from the station.
I forgot to mention Cordova, but my sentiments are about the same as Zinfandel, I will concur I was a little too harsh but at the same time I wish the area was a little more densified. I’m sure the stores there are amazing! I wish I had more time to stop at every station
KP is Goated. It’s nice to be able to have access to the light rail close to the store. The food is good there.
Add to this the Placer County Transit bus that runs between Watt/I-80 (Northeast end of the Blue Line) all the way out to Auburn with OK frequency. Perhaps lining up the schedules for timed transfers would help a great deal.
doco is such a great place to hang out with friends
In defense of 39th St and 48th St stations, they're both a 5-10 minute walk from the huge UC Davis Medical Center. Without the existing "just ok" transit service and the improving cycling infrastructure in Sacramento, the med center campus would be an even bigger parking lot than it already is
7:25, there's a weird cutout in the sac downtown station parking lot that gets you direct access to old town sac, without having to go around a bunch of streets, not sure why its not publicized
Interesting video as usual. Nevertheless, Sacramento Urban Area was 1 947 000 inhabitants as of the 2020 census... not 500 000 ! Also, the ridership in 2023 for Light Rail was 6,5 Million (ie 18 000/day or 6000/line) which is very few for 3 lines and a ton of miles, which doesn' kick above its weight at all !
Iron Point...so close...yet so far... Good thing they started weekend bus services this summer to the station, making the line more user friendly. LOL
That’s good there’s a bus bridge at least for the time being 😟
we need the YARTS and FAX videos now that you're covering the central valley
FOLSOM MENTIONED
RAHHHHH Johnny Cash wrote a song about a prison here!!
SAC TOWN REPRESENT!! Haven’t see. The full video but hope you talk about the trolley car project they are trying to implement
Like I said before when you compare VTA LRT to Sac RT LRT, it's rather a win for the 916. I first rode Sac RT trams in 2006 and the Duewag vehicles are already aging. That's one mark against them. VTA wins in terms of vehicle age. In terms of safety onboard Sac RT vs a VTA tram. It's a tie, because I have seen some dank people on both systems. If we shy away from the tram, I have to give a point to the bus system in the 916. I did not have to wait for a bus when I am there. Point reasoning, Yolobus and UC Davis transit are pretty cool lines. 1987 VTA trams also first started service. It's a tie for both the 916 and 408. Additional half point to Sacramento for having a statue of an old UTDC tram that was VTAs. Station design IMO is better than VTA at this time. Half point for good naming strategies. For Transit oriented development, VTA wins because I see more houses and flats nearby stations. SacRT wins because of it's connections to a community college and some very cool restaurants you don't find in the Bay Area.
6 for Sac RT
4 for VTA
Sac Valley Station is nice because you get to ride Amtrak San Joaquins down a spur of track you never knew existed.
Golden one center was once a beat up mall that was a hotbed for teens committing crimes.
If we go outside CA only one tram system is king and that is TriMet Max. I am betting some of you will disagree.
I know all this because I got like 3 friends from Sac
12:02 lol a friend who works at Caltrans told me this wasn’t a coincidence 😉
Amtrak San Joaquin trains 702 and 703 are through trains to Bakersfield
Another amazing TOD review video! I looked at the system while watching the video and was appalled to see 30 minute headways starting at 6pm. That is so bad.
Yeah it’s pretty horrendous
It’ll be 15 minute headways starting on the 18th
biggest issue is RT has so many stations that with stops every half mile it is excruciatingly slow
Great video! But you're being a lot nicer to SacRT compared to BART. Even the deep suburbia BART stations have a looooooooot more TOD than pretty much any of these stations, not to mention the sheer number of hyper densely developed Bart stations that often get overlooked/forgotten by urbanist/transit tubers who talk about TOD.
It was way cheaper to build than Bart and the sac area is only about a third the size of the bay area.. so a more fair comparison would be with VTA light rail, which is inferior
Whenever you make a true East Coast series of episodes, like I told you many times, starting with PATCO, RiverLine, Newark Light Rail, PATH, Hudson Light Rail and the SIR.
Believe me that’s a goal !
6.5M passengers in a year is low for a system that big tbh...that averages out to just 18,000 rides per day...
VTA’s annual is 4.4M, they got some catching up to do!
@todgod lol, true, but 2 underutilized systems don't make anything right...
Too bad not too many metros in CA of a similar size to Sac have a transit system not based on buses for a truer comparison...so I guess your point is valid about them doing Better...
Rahhh more transit tours
Rah!!!!!
No San Joaquins mentioned :(
Yeah i really the Sacramento Spur more than the Oakland spur
Folsom “premium” outlets
Yeah very liberal with the word choice there
Okay which one is better removing the Origin line. VTA Lightrail or SacRT
It’s a tie to be honest, I’d say VTA is probably better TOD-wise
I’m not sure if I’m picking up on a YIMBY bias towards large scale, corporate & institutional development of large sites near stations, as opposed to improving the SFH neighborhoods with incremental upzoning & mixed use intensification. The former is easier & more fun yet makes for weaker cities after the initial generation of flipping. The latter is filled with nimby’s but will be attractive to many older millennials. I don’t blame you for going all in on YIMBY TODs-especially in California, as a younger person, it’s hard not to get caught in the sledgehammer approach to growing unit numbers at any cost.
I used to date a woman in Sacramento and a few times I took Capitol Corridor and met her at Sac Valley. Other times, I'd bring my bike up on the train and ride from the station to her house. We even went to the rail museum on our second date.
I have complicated feelings about her, but we're still in touch and she deserves the best.
Also, yeah, I know I'm always popping in these comment sections with stories about women I've dated. I promise I do other things with trains, too.
Loving more of the dating train lore, super interesting
Do other things with trains = planning on switching from dating women to dating trains? :D :D
@ damn, you got me 😂
Sac Valley seems infinitely nicer than diridon
Yeah you have to walk a while though. It's definitely larger than diridon
Oh yeah it definitely is, it was remodeled in the past 5 or so years I believe
Yo I second this
i have to disagree, diridon is far less walking to your train, and it has far more services than sac valley
I can’t put down the cup
Ngl this comment got me 💀💀
Massive network…
Second one here!
Howdy!
It's Co-sum-nes, not 'consumer' 😁
I suck at pronouncing things haha
“Chinatown” lmao there is no such thing. Got torn down for the highway and there’s just now a fountain and a memorial remaining
Sacramento: quantity over quality
Sac rt to placerville coming 2048
Don’t stop there: sac to Reno! 👀👀
@@todgod Oh god, riding a U2 or S/200 for hours over the Donner Pass sounds like a nightmare ☠
@Unmannedperson that's why they'd put it along the 50
@@Unmannedperson Yeah it probably might make us sick