Users of the Blue Line light rail station at Watt/I-80, you know that there are significant problems with the station. The elevators are slow, almost always dirty or soaked with urine, and often broken down. The east elevator has been out of service for months, while SacRT provided a bus shuttle between the Watt Avenue level and the light rail level. The stairs are not much better, accumulating trash and urine, steep, dark, and winding which means there is no visibility for people using the stairs. About two years ago SacRT started cleaning the stairs and elevator more often, which has helped but not solved, and very recently started closing the elevator and stairs off operating hours, which has helped some more, but not solved.

The station has long been a hangout for homeless individuals and a criminal element that lurks while doing drug deals and other illegal activity. This came to a head in June when a sheriff deputy was shot at the station.

So SacRT is undertaking a planning process to gather community ideas about solving the issues. The public kick-off is a Visioning Meeting on Tuesday, October 24, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm at Arcade Library, 2443 Marconi Ave, Sacramento, CA 95821. Light refreshments will be provided.

The second event will be a Walking Assesment on Saturday, October 28, 2017, 10:00 am at Watt/I-80 Station. The walking assessment, similar to a walk audit, will be led by SacRT and WALKSacramento.

The re-imagining page also offers a survey. If you want to see ahead of time what the question are, or to discuss them with others, the second and third page of the survey are available.

STAR does not know yet if it will take a position on the re-imagining, but does want to make sure that one option considered is making Watt/I-80 a gated station, where only people who have paid a fare can enter the gates. This is similar to the entire BART network, and the portions of SF Muni light rail that are in the tunnel.

• SacRT