SacRT Receives $35 Million for Improving Light Rail System
Written by Jennifer McLawhorn, Managing Editor
SacRT
SACRAMENTO – The California Transportation Commission awarded Sacramento Regional Transit District $35 million for improvements to its light rail system.
The first grant of $25 million has been awarded to SacRT to allow for the “relocation of the light rail station and tracks at the Sacramento Valley Station to a northsouth alignment as part of the Railyard revitalization program and the future Sacramento Downtown Riverfront Streetcar project, which will offer rail service along 7th and 8thstreets and N Street over Tower Bridge into West Sacramento.”
The second grant of $10 million came from the Local Partnership Program in an effort to reduce Highway 50 traffic and to “support modernizing the light rail station platforms along the Gold Line to meet the height requirements of the new low-floor light rail vehicles.”
Kevin McCarty, Sacramento Assemblymember, said of the project that it will “realign the SacRT light rail tracks [that] will allow the planned Downtown Sacramento Streetcar line to use the Sacramento Valley Station.”
In addition to thanking the California Transportation Commission for the funding, Patrick Kennedy, SacRT Chair and Sacramento County Supervisor, stated that the project “modernizes Hazel Avenue, Aerojet Road, and Folsom Boulevard interchanges with US 50 to reduce congestion and increasing mobility throughout our region.”
So far, SacRT has received “nearly $400 million for the Light Rail Modernization Project, which includes the purchase of new low-floor trains, modifications to station platforms and adding a passing track to provide 15-minute service to Folsom area stations.”
“Future phases of the project include double tracking on 7th Street and a new station at Railyards Boulevard to better serve one of the nation’s largest infill development projects.”
