Sacramento — University Trolley

Rail Transit Online, January 2005

An electric streetcar shuttle between the campus of California State University in Sacramento (CSUS) and the nearest light rail station at 65th Street is under consideration to help ease the institution’s parking crunch.  University officials weren’t interested in having Regional Transit’s light rail line routed into the campus when the project was being planned nearly 25 years ago because parking was plentiful.  But now CSUS has grown to 30,000 students, faculty and staff, and space is at a premium.  The current administration admits that too much land is dedicated to storing automobiles and it wants to reclaim some of those sites for other facilities.  Looping the LRT line into the university is considered too costly, although it hasn’t been completely ruled out.  “Candidly, we have many other priorities on the table that we haven't even been able to fund yet,” RT General Manager Beverly Scott told The Sacramento Bee. “But I am not one of those fatalists who say you can't ever go there.” 

Instead, a short trolley line may be practical, and discussions on the project are being held between university and RT officials.  “It's very preliminary,” university Vice President for Capital Planning and Resource Development Matt Altier told The Sacramento Bee.  “We're just brainstorming.”  The university plans to poll campus constituencies to determine if there is genuine interest in rail transit.  “If the survey shows (support), then we can get serious,” said Altier.  Meanwhile, two new university parking structures are planned. The first, with 3,200 spaces, will be under construction next spring.