In 2020, the Capitol Corridor, SacRT, and the City of Sacramento received a TIRCP (Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program) grant of $3.9M for planning and construction at Sacramento Valley Station, connections between SacRT light rail and the Valley Rail stations in Sacramento, and a bus layover facility. The grant required a Network Integration Plan that includes these projects and more, including 15-minute light rail service to Folsom, and low floor rail cars on the Gold LIne and the necessary station improvements to handle those new railcars.

The resulting Draft Network Integration Plan has the following information about level boarding. It is not clear how and when there will be a final version of this document.

• Executive Summary: page ES-2: “Station upgrades to allow for level boarding with the new low-floor fleet.”
• SacRT Service Integration Vision: page 7: “Station upgrades to allow for level boarding with the new low-floor fleet.”
• Infrastructure Improvements: page 35: photo of true level boarding used as an example
• Infrastructure Improvements: page 36: To comply with ADA requirements in conjunction with the new lowfloor LRVs, several existing stations must be upgraded with a lowered track profile and / or raised platform height to create an elevation differential from top of rail and permit level boarding
• But then, in a section on time saving rather than station design, the paragraph Light Rail Service Improvements: page 74: “The CPUC speed reductions arise partly from the Gold Line’s station design, with many stations effectively being pedestrian malls, where customers can freely walk across tracks. While SacRT will be elevating station platforms to 8 inches above the tracks, and restricting some pedestrian crossings of the tracks within the stations, the Gold Line will remain fundamentally an at-grade, on-street system throughout much of its operating corridor (e.g., with many uncontrolled pedestrian crossings remaining in the station and at grade-crossings).” A buried admission that SacRT doesn’t actually intend to provide level boarding because it would cause riders to have to walk to the end of the platforms rather than directly across. Ouch.

Why is the Network Integration Plan important? Two reasons: It is apparently the most recent document about implementation of the Light Rail Modernization Project. So far as STAR knows, there are no documents on the modernization plan available to the public. We’ve asked. Second, because SacRT was a partner with Capitol Corridor in the TIRCP grant and the integration plan, we know that the language was vetted by professional rail planners. When the term ‘level boarding’ is used, it does not mean near-level boarding with a step up, it means true level boarding.

STAR has searched past board documents to see if the issue of station design and level boarding ever came before the board. It appears that it did not, but it is difficult to search board documents effectively, so we could have missed it.

For previous posts on level boarding, see tag ‘level-boarding‘.

• SacRT light rail modernization