May 14, 2008
RT drops the ball.
Tags: sacramento, transportationSacramento Regional Transit has a golden opportunity to raise its profile and it has dropped the ball.
One of the myriad ways CalTrans is suggesting people avoid the whole I-5 mess during the next couple months is by taking transit. Granted, those likely most affected by the construction will be those living north and south of town, and as we well know, RT doesn’t serve any neighborhood very well that didn’t exist prior to the early 1970s (and even then, some of those it doesn’t serve so well). Nevertheless, transit should be one alternative.
RT could take the I-5 lemons and made lemonade. It could work with the North Natomas TMA or on its own to provide additional lines of service into that area. It could put more buses onto some of the main lines affected by the I-5 closure and increase service frequency. If enough people rode these buses and found them useful, perhaps these could become permanent changes. At the very least, RT could be using Fix I-5 as a marketing opportunity — a chance to convince people to ride the bus.
Instead, RT chose to ignore the fruit basket. Like an increasing number of people, I get my information from websites. If I wanted to find out what RT was doing to play its part in helping Sacramento cope with the temporary loss of a major freeway, I would visit www.sacrt.com, and I would find…nothing. As of this evening, RT’s website does not mention the I-5 project. Even when I click on “Rider Alerts,” I don’t find any information.
Area transit services are little better. Yolobus has no information on the I-5 closure, but Etran posted the alternate information for its affected route. Yuba-Sutter Transit has a link to the Fix I-5 project, but, as far as I can tell, no additional information. The North Natomas TMA posted information about how the closure will impact its shuttle service.
With oil prices on a permanent upward trend, and with ridership already way up, here is yet another opportunity to get people to start that arduous cultural shift away from the single-occupancy automobile.
Quo vadis, Regional Transit?
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No RT for Natomas please. We have enough thug life here.
May 15, 2008 @ 7:34 am
yeah, right. Because “thugs” don’t own cars.
May 15, 2008 @ 8:09 am
hm…I recall that Joe Sacramento wrote a rather scathing blog post about what a bad idea Natomas was…but he lives there?
Hm.
May 16, 2008 @ 11:16 am
I never said Natomas was a bad idea. I guess you may have inferred that from my “Rice Paddies for Portland” story since my point wasn’t explicit. That’s fine, I don’t expect everyone to get everything I write. I am not a professional journalist by any means.
My point was that North Natomas has a politically-oriented genesis, and now that it is built out, and filling the coffers at city hall, the city government doesn’t give a crap about it. But don’t believe me, come see for yourself.
When I moved here in 2001 it was extremely promising. I saw the master plan and it consisted primarily of homes, parks, and commensurate and office space. NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE, knew how many high density homes, section 8 apartments, and condos were planned for the area. We didn’t find out until the foundations were going down.
Maybe I should have attended some planning meetings. Maybe I should have demanded to know what was going in across the street in that big empty lot from my home. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Too late now. I learned an extraordinary lesson out of this. And the experience has motivated me to help foster much needed change.
I love Natomas, and I will go down fighting for it.
Thanks for allowing me to express myself here. Feedback always appreciated.
May 16, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
Also, as for RT expansion to North Natomas, residents will NEVER allow that to happen. We are only 7 min to downtown and 10 min to the airport. We don’t need RT. The whole area is already crawling with thugs right now and bringing RT here would turn North Natomas into Rancho overnight. Won’t happen.
May 16, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
Hey Joe — don’t worry about expressing yourself here. I welcome any opinion about Sacramento, even if it differs from my own (but I reserve the right to be snarky about it!).
May 16, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
Joe: The story of Natomas is the story of pretty much every suburb. Suburbs are quite possibly the ultimate disposable consumer product: they are designed to be quickly used and discarded by successive waves of residents, starting with the wealthy and working downward from there.
All in-city suburbs have a political genesis, they are intended to make money for developers (who turn cheap farmland into expensive residential land) while development fees let cities maintain services without raising taxes. It’s called the “growth machine thesis.”
May 19, 2008 @ 10:13 am
I think light rail to the airport makes sense, and going through Natomas is a no brainer.
Of course, the problem with light rail is that RT doesn’t enforce tickets. For example, in the Bay Area, BART terminals have turnstiles and guards. You can’t even board without a ticket. Same for the Las Vegas monorail. Her in Sacramento, you can easily just walk on a train without a ticket.
That’s where the rif-raf comes from.
As far as low income housing, it’s now a CA mandate to build it everywhere. So the only way to avoid it is to move to an older, high-priced, established area that was created before that mandate.
May 26, 2008 @ 10:25 am
“As far as low income housing..the only way to avoid it is to move to an older, high-priced, established area that was created before that mandate.” Not true. There were multiple areas in other districts to put the last 3 low income housing projects. The other district “didn’t want them.” N Natomas is the city stepchild.AND we pay extra taxes for cops and have less than any other part of the city. Woo hoo!
I know, I know, if I don’t like it move. Sigh.
June 02, 2008 @ 6:50 pm