Quote:
Originally Posted by NickB1967
West Sacramento was, and in many ways still is, a run-down and relatively impoverished area that still qualifies for Enterprise Zone tax credits.
Chris Calbadon and Co. are not thinking about how to create a trolley car utopia.
They are thinking about how to generate more revenue, make their city more pleasant, and how to turn an abandoned industrial waterfront into something more residential and commercial.
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A streetcar is a powerful tool to do exactly the things you mention in your last paragraph, which is why Mayor Cabaldon is (and has been) one of the most vocal and prominent advocates for the streetcar line between our two cities. And the current iteration of the plan includes a $35 million contribution from the city of West Sacramento--increased from the earlier iteration, because it includes a new spur that will run along the West Sacramento waterfront to the planned streetcar maintenance and storage facility under the Pioneer Bridge. The city of Sacramento's share of the project amounts to $7 million under the current plan. So, really, West Sacramento is carrying five times as much of the fiscal burden as Sacramento.
To repeat: You can't build a transit-oriented neighborhood without the transit, and that means rail. We have tried doing that before, and the results were Laguna West and North Natomas. If you want that vibrant, urban, walkable West Sacramento waterfront, and a re-energized downtown, connecting places where people live in high density with places they want to go and places on the edge of massive new infill construction, a streetcar is a great mechanism to do all of those things.