The City of Sacramento is holding a community open house on the downtown Specific Plan this Monday, October 9, 5:30PM to 7:30PM, in the city hall lobby at 915 I St. The STAR Action Team talked about the abundance of meetings to attend, and projects to follow, and we are not sure which ones will be most important to our transit advocacy. If you attend this meeting, please let us know what you think.

One of the 13 DSP principles is “Nurture a layered mobility network that supports all modes of travel and the transition toward electrified and autonomous transportation modes.”

The primary focus of the plan is to increase housing in downtown, but there are additional goals including a mobility element, Chapter 3.9. The table from that chapter is below.

And each of the goals has several policies, with the transit ones below.

M.6 Transit

M.6.1 Transit Connectivity. Promote transit connectivity with transit stops and stations that facilitate attractive and convenient
transfers between light rail, streetcar, bus services, and that support active transportation connections.

M.6.2 Regional Transit Hub. Preserve and strengthen the role of the Central City as the hub of the regional transit system.

M.6.3 Transit Network Expansion. Support transit network expansion and improvement and coordinate transit planning and operations between transit operators serving Downtown.

M.6.4 Streetcar. Promote visibility and access to the streetcar line, light rail stations and other key public transit facilities through enhanced pedestrian and bicycle connections, lighting, and wayfinding signage.

M.6.5 Transit Vehicle Movement. Prioritize transit vehicle movement over the private automobile on blocks with high transit vehicle volumes, high transit ridership, or high levels of transit delay, implementing exclusive lanes and priority signalization per the preferred transit network.

M.6.6 Development Density and Active Frontage. Encourage dense development with active ground floor frontage adjacent to transit stations.

M.6.7 Transit Stop Structures. Ensure that transit stop structures are transparent to provide visibility to and support vibrant and inviting storefronts.

M.6.8 Streetcar Station Design. Ensure streetcar station design that provides a comfortable environment for waiting passengers without compromising the pedestrian and bicycle travel way. A clear pedestrian path should be available when transit is present.

M.6.9 Sidewalks as Streetcar Station Platforms. Allow sidewalks to serve as station platforms provided that the needs of both the streetcar passengers and pedestrians not utilizing the streetcar service are reasonably accommodated.

M.6.10 On-Street Parking Minimization. Locate streetcar stops and design length of streetcar platforms that minimize reduction of on-street parking where possible.

M.6.11 Access to Transit Stations. Support safe and convenient pedestrian and bicycle access to/from light rail and streetcar
stations while minimizing conflicts between travel modes.

Of course transit should never be considered in isolation, so reading at least the mobility chapter, and perhaps more of the plan, depending on your interests, would be good. The draft plan, and many other documents, are on the Downtown Specific Plan page.

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