Officials to Unveil Plans for Sacramento's I Street Depot Options

[NickG]

From the Sacramento Bee:

Plans for a downtown basketball arena may be sidetracked, but city officials have hardly quit in their effort to redevelop the massive downtown railyard.

Today, officials will unveil four conceptual designs for what Mayor Heather Fargo and others say is a more important catalyst project downtown than an arena: an expanded multitransit station around the historic I Street depot.

The full story is here.

[RailHaRRy]

From the Sacramento Bee:

Back-Seat Driver: Consultant floats idea of moving old depot

By Tony Bizjak -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Monday, November 17, 2003

Could Sacramento's big brick I Street Depot actually budge and become the G Street Depot or the H Street Depot?

The historic train station has sat at Fourth and I streets for three-quarters of a century, even as downtown around it changed and transit needs changed, making the station less useful.

Full article here.

[tp49]

I attended the open house the City of Sacramento had on the proposals for the I Street depot held at the Sacramento Convention Center. The main things the 4 proposals had in common were a realignment of the tracks further north of the current alignment (to eliminate the curve just East of the station), some sort of separation of the main from the station tracks to allow freights to bypass the depot also eliminating the need for a crewmember to protect the crossing when trains are boarding, the inclusion of Greyhound into the terminal and the realignment of the on ramps for I-5 at I Street. It was interesting and I look forward to attending the next planning meetings on the proposals.

I did think it was a bit much though to compare the distance between the terminal entrance and the platforms with LAUPT, Grand Central Station, Boston South Station and Washington DC Union, as the capacity at those stations far outweighgs any capacity they could ever hope to see at Sacramento. I believe they did this to show the distance between the currend terminal and any new track alignment but still found the comparisons not really helping them to make their point especially considering the amenities offered at the other stations that are not going to be offered in Sacramento.