Category Archives: Transportation

NoCal Hoping for Sacramento-SF Train Link

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Plans for a high-speed rail network in California’s Central Valley were delayed Saturday, but further north residents of Sacramento said they remain hopeful that plans to launch train service between the capital and San Francisco would move ahead eventually.

Cabbage growing in California’s Central Valley

Currently, commuters between the cities have to switch to a bus to complete the journey.

In the Central Valley, the  Associated Press reported that project managers cited cost changes and Covid-related delays as the reasons for the postponed opening of a Bakersfield-to-Madera route, a 119-mile stretch of track through some of the state’s critical farming bowl.

Brian Kelly, the project’s chief executive officer, said he would update the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors on plans to open the route by 2023. He also said he would ask for additional funding to cover expected cost overruns from $12.4 to $13.8 billion.

Contour Airlines Bringing Non-Stop Flight Between Sacramento and Palm Springs

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Sonny Bono Concourse at the Palm Springs International Airport. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.


Smyrna, Tennessee-based Contour Airlines is inaugurating a new seasonal route between Palm Springs and Sacramento International Airports. The service begins on September 16 and continues through May 14, 2020.


“We are thrilled to add another fabulous getaway destination, with Contour Airlines,” said Cindy Nichol, Sacramento County Department of Airports director. “This new route is a great opportunity for us to restore service to an important intra-California market that has gone unserved since May 2014.”


The connection to Palm Springs will leave every day at 10:45am. The 90-minute flight gets passengers to the dessert city by 12:15pm. The return flight from leaves Palm Springs at 1:00pm and arrives at 2:30pm.


Thirty passengers will fly on the roomy Embraer E-135 jet. Contour is offering a special introductory price of $99 for the trip.


Contour’s first route from Sacramento was a direct flight to Santa Barbara, which began earlier in 2019. With the addition of the non-stop to Palm Springs, Sacramento now has 41 nonstop destinations from its international airport. Just last week Spirit Airlines began a route between Sacramento and Las Vegas. As July 2019 arrives Sacramento’s international airport offers 175 nonstop flights every day on 14 carriers. In 2018 the airport saw 12 million travelers pass through its doors, a 10% growth over the year before.

Enhancing Transportation Modes

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sacramentoThe first line on the Downtown/Riverfront Streetcar Project is to commence construction thanks to a $30 million state grant the City of Sacramento just received. The goal is for residents to be able to move more freely and easily around the city.  It is hoped that the entire project will be working by 2021, connecting West Sacramento with Sacramento, stopping at Raley Field, the Bridge District, Golden 1 Center, and downtown Sacramento.

Since the state grant was given for this project, it seems there is full support for this system.  There are still more funds to be garnered but this latest grant mans that they are, as Kevin Johnson pointed out “one step closer to our vision of Sacramento 3.0; an interconnected, innovative, transit-accessible city where people live, work, eat and play.”  And as Steve Hansen (member of the Council) added it is part of a battle against “climate change by supporting infill development and supporting transit while also reducing congestion and connecting our city better with West Sacramento…[It] is a huge win for the Sacramento region that will keep moving us forward.”

Testing Transportation

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transportationSacramento does not have the best track record for transportation.  A new report on the condition of the Sacramento area’s transportation needs “shows the slowdown in funding and the need for improvements on key projects.”  With this in mind, TRIP (a nonprofit transportation research group) investigated Sacramento’s “critical long-term projects.”

What one TRIP worker, Rocky Moretti has found is that “too many of the transportation projects that are critical to Sacramento’s future have yellow and red lights.”  What does this mean in practice?  That 15 major projects in the area are either completely without funding or have partial funding available by 2020.  For example: carpool lane construction from Richards Boulevard to Interstate 5; new bridge over the lower American River and Sacramento River; riverfront street car system downtown.  According to Keri Howell, Council member of Folsom City, news from the TRIP report was welcomed, given that it “confirmed what we knew here locally, that 42 percent of the roadways in Sacramento County are in poor condition.”  The sentiment was echoed by Jeffrey Spencer, Sacramento Transportation Authority Executive, who pointed out that “of the large cities in California, we’re really lagging.”

In other transportation news in the region, a vote was held to discuss whether there should be a pilot program by West Sacramento and Sacramento cities to “plan out future transit-oriented development along a proposed streetcar line between the two cities.”  Funding for this is $1.1 million but according to Kacey Lizon, Planning manager for SACOG, this will come from a Federal Transit Administration grant. If the proposal is accepted, the streetcar line will link the two cities’ downtowns. Planning for that would involve: figuring out infrastructure needs, working alongside the private sector, taking into account historic resources and dealing with the possibility that residents will be displaced.

 

Tech Transformation of Transportation

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rent-a-car-1110839_640Sacramento carpooling has not exactly been so technical in Sacramento. But thanks to Open Ride Inc., that is all about to change. Having been beta testing its product for the last three and a half months, this company is seeking to provide Uber-type services, linking up those who need rides with drivers already en route.

Hundreds of customers are using the program. Joel Usher, company co-founder and CEO explains that charges are based on trip length but that drivers can earn up to $0.54 per mile. As for company profits, everyone getting a ride is charged a $2 booking fee and up to three passengers are able to go in one ride.

A couple of months ago, Sacramento starting putting “Alvin” to the test – a driverless vehicle created by an engineering team in Canada before the company’s founders moved to the Bay area. It features a Lidar and the use of a $30,000 GPS, enabling the car to “seamlessly and autonomously navigate a pre-destined path around a crowded area.” According to co-founder Mike Reid, the reason Sacramento was chosen was because it is believed to be a “good proving ground because of its size. It’s exactly what we were looking for during testing.” Given that Alvin was not created for highway driving, DMV regulations do not apply, which, as Reid notes “will really speed up the process of making it commercially available some day.”

Meanwhile, there is currently discussion on whether to add more limitations on rules that control outdoor advertising. Standards would be set about how long the message could be, lighting and transition.