ECOS gets Light Rail to Run Later

June 4, 2018

Beginning June 17, 2018, SacRT’s Gold Line light rail service to Folsom will be expanded into the late night hours!

ECOS helped bring this about with our Highway 50 HOV lane lawsuit! While we weren’t able to stop extra lanes being added to the freeway, we were able to get the light rail trains that run between Sacramento and Folsom (servicing neighborhoods in between such as the University area, Tahoe Park, College Greens and Rancho Cordova) to run past 7:00 pm! While light rail trains on the Gold Line previously stopped running before 7:00 pm, they will now run until 11:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 9:30 p.m. on Sunday!

More info about the increased service hours at http://www.sacrt.com/apps/folsomlatenight/.

More info about this settlement at https://www.ecosacramento.net/tag/hov-lanes/.

Letter from ECOS to Caltrans re HOV lane settlement

April 30, 2018

Amarjeet Benipal, District Director
California Department of Transportation, District 3
703 B Street, Marysville, CA 95901

Re: Support for reprogramming funds from the Sacramento-Folsom Limited Stop Service and Hazel Frequency Enhancement Project settlement

Dear Director Benipal:

The Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) supports Sacramento Regional Transit District’s (SacRT) proposal for late night service on their light rail Gold Line to Folsom.

On November 16, 2009, following settlement of a lawsuit between Caltrans and the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS), SacRT and Caltrans entered into an agreement to provide funding for the Sacramento-Folsom Limited Stop Service to operate 15-minute frequency service between Hazel and Sunrise light rail stations after completion of the double-tracking project.

Due to financial limitations, SacRT has yet to complete enhancements that would allow for 15-minute service and no construction is imminent. The last train to Folsom departs downtown Sacramento at 6:18 p.m. Because of this limited evening service, many residents along the Highway 50 corridor do not use light rail service for fear of being stranded after work without a transit option. Later service would benefit residents of the eastern part of the county, while reducing congestion and airborne pollutants.

Therefore, ECOS supports reprogramming the 2009 settlement funds to allow SacRT to provide late night service. We ask Caltrans and SacRT to sign the concurrence letter that would allow for this money to be used for that purpose.

Sincerely,

Ralph Propper, President
Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS)

Highway 50 drivers, your daily commute is in for a big change. Light rail users, you too

By Tony Bizjak

April 30, 2018

The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento Regional Transit, for its part, will upgrade its light rail service along that corridor in several ways.

Beginning in June, SacRT will expand night-time service to Folsom until midnight. Currently, Folsom service stops at about 7 p.m. making the rail system unusable for late-hour workers and people going to the downtown arena or other evening events.The agency plans to follow that by adding 15-minute service to and from Folsom instead of the current 30-minute arrivals.

The most notable transit change, though, will be the introduction as early as 2020 of limited-stop express trains during morning and afternoon commute hours on the Gold Line, potentially cutting 10 or more minutes off the trip between Folsom and downtown.

That service is not likely to begin until 2020 or 2021, SacRT officials said.

The plan came together last week when local environmentalists and Caltrans resolved a years-long dispute over the state’s efforts to expand Highway 50, an environmental representative said on Friday.

Initially, the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) and the city of Sacramento opposed adding carpool lanes on Highway 50 in downtown, contending it was a narrow, car-focused and ultimately unsatisfactory solution to east county congestion.

The Sacramento City Council in 2002 voted nearly unanimously against funding to even study the idea. Several council members at the time said HOV lanes – which become regular all-user lanes during non-commute hours – would just encourage more suburban sprawl and more traffic.

More recently, city officials have looked more favorably on the plan, and have cooperated with Caltrans to use some related project money to make improvements to city streets near Highway 50 in the downtown area.

That includes money to turn 14 blocks of Broadway, near the Department of Motor Vehicles headquarters, into a more pedestrian and bicycle friendly street, and build a new block-long street just east of 28th Street between X Street and Broadway, allowing drivers to use X Street instead of Broadway to access the Highway 99 southbound on-ramp..

For its part, ECOS twice sued Caltrans to stop Highway 50 carpool lane plans. The most recent of those lawsuits became the fulcrum for last week’s negotiated deal.

Click here to read the full article.

Help Us Defeat Plans to Widen US-50!

Do You Want More Traffic, Noise, and Pollution in Your Neighborhood?

Local Sacramento residents are taking action on a serious threat to our neighborhoods – CalTrans intends to WIDEN Sacramento’s US-50 through Downtown Sacramento from I-5 to Watt Boulevard. We must act now! Our quality of life and our climate are at stake.

WHY NOT WIDEN THE HIGHWAY?
As concerned citizens, we want Sacramento to be a Green City and a Livable City.
Widening highways makes us just another dirty city because it:
1. Increases noise and air pollution (including greenhouse gases)
2. Induces demand (encourages people to drive more who wouldn’t otherwise). Expanding our freeways won’t decrease congestion.
3. Other local needs should take financial priority.

WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?
Bigger freeways and more cars increase our emissions, making it impossible to do our part to halt global warming. Fact: we cannot meet our regional goals for GHG reductions unless we develop real alternatives to driving.

ISN’T THIS A CARPOOL LANE?
CalTrans is disingenuously calling this project “green” under the guise of a carpool lane. Carpool lanes have been shown to not significantly increase the number of people who carpool or the throughput of people. We support turning an existing lane into a carpool lane, or even turning this proposed lane into a transit only lane.

WE’RE CHALLENGING CALTRANS
With this lawsuit we are demanding that CalTrans acknowledge and compensate for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and traffic impacts that will result from more cars and more car trips on a wider freeway. We want to stop these projects in our area and have the money spent on transportation that keeps our streets livable and unclogged, gives us transit that gets us where we need to go, and helps reverse climate change.

WE NEED MONEY TO WIN
We must raise $11,000 to take this stand to cover our legal fees. You can take the stand with us by contributing online on our “gofundme” page, or by donating to ECOS directly via our website (www.ecosacramento.net) by clicking the donate button. (Just be sure to mark your donation for “Highway 50 litigation” – donations are tax deductible.)

WITH YOUR HELP – WE CAN WIN!

Click here to read more about the project on the Caltrans website.

Click here to read our July 2017 press release.

Click here to read the article published by the Sacramento Bee about this lawsuit.

Would a new carpool lane bring more cars to Highway 50 downtown? New lawsuit says yes.

By Tony Bizjak

July 17, 2017

The Sacramento Bee

An environmental group has sued Caltrans over the state’s plans to build carpool lanes on Highway 50 in downtown Sacramento, saying the state has failed to analyze the health impacts on local residents from potential increased vehicle emissions.

The lawsuit, filed by the Environmental Council of Sacramento earlier this month in Sacramento Superior Court, is focused on the state’s plan to extend its existing Highway 50 carpool system west from Watt Avenue to Interstate 5. The freeway already has a set of carpool lanes running east from Watt Avenue into El Dorado County.

Read the full article here.