Establishing an alignment between the two seems obvious and it is always disconcerting when it doesn’t happen, especially in the cases mentioned.
Editorial: Not just an afterthought
Make transit part of new cityscape
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, March 15, 2007
Sometimes, delaying action is a good thing. That's the case with the Sacramento City Council's decision to postpone a vote, originally scheduled for Tuesday night, on a dubious set of changes to Regional Transit's downtown light rail stations.
The plan would have moved one station from 7th and K streets to 8th and K and another from the 1000 block of K to the 1100 block. The K Street moves, which would cost an estimated $500,000 each, were initiated by the city's economic development staff as part of an effort to improve and beautify the K Street Mall streetscape.
No one disputes that K Street is due for an update, but it shouldn't come at the expense of transit. As RT's issue paper on the proposed move made clear, there is "no operational reason to move." The stations work well where they are now.
The relocation is seen by critics as a way to placate developers on the 700 block of K Street, who would like to move the light rail station and the loiterers it attracts away from their properties. Not surprisingly, property owners on the 800 block complain that the move would simply transfer loiterers to their storefronts...
…Beyond K Street, Sacramento needs to do what it has failed to do in the past: look comprehensively at transit throughout downtown. For example, when the state built its massive "East End Project," the city put no bus stops at 15th and 16th streets and Capitol Avenue. With thousands of new workers destined for these new state office buildings why were no bus stops included?
There is no bus stop in front of the CalEPA building at 10th and I streets either. CalEPA is the agency responsible for guiding the state's historic effort to fight global warming. More and better transit is an obvious way to take cars off the street and reduce the amount of global warming carbon spewing into our atmosphere. Why don't the state's environmental warriors at CalEPA have a bus stop in front of their building?
