Sac RT’s Sad Sac Route E15, Elk Grove’s Light Rail and Bus Rapid Transit
Without funding, Light Rail and Bus Rapid Transit are aspirational.
Multitasking? Listen to the story.
This week, Sacramento Regional Transit and the City of Elk Grove held a meeting on the options for extending rapid transit in Elk Grove.
The plan options include implementing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Light Rail, or a combination from Cosumnes River College to Kammerer Road. Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, with consent from her city council, will select an option in 2026.
While not as glamorous, BRT is cheaper and easier to implement than light rail. BRT could be done in three to five years, whereas Light Rail is at least a decade away.
Either choice, especially the Light Rail in reality, is aspirational at this point. This project remains unfunded.
It should be noted that Elk Grove taxpayers will be forced to contribute to this project. Could that mean another sales tax measure is on the way?
Regardless, this brings us to another aspect of Elk Grove public transit – usage.
How many people will use either of these services to justify the costs?
We suspect that aside from state and county employees working in Downtown Sacramento, few others use downtown express bus services. And ridership on those routes appears sparse.
There may be some intra-city riders on the Elk Grove BRT or Light Rail lines, but they would have to be travelling between specific stops on the route. Not particularly useful for people who then have to walk over a quarter mile to their destination, much less east of Highway 99 in the city's neglected east side.
I observed an example of this sparse ridership at 7:15 a.m. on Thursday, September 4, when Sac RT's Express route 15, from Elk Grove, slowly passed me in the carpool lane on Highway 99. There was only one passenger on the bus.
This example is not an isolated case either. I have repeatedly seen Sac RT buses traveling up and down Highway 99 and Interstate 5 during commuter hours, with only two or three passengers, for years, especially following the pandemic.
For various reasons, ridership, particularly to downtown Sacramento, is weak. Interestingly, according to Google Gemini, in 2021, SacRT discontinued disclosure of route-specific ridership data (see image below).
A Light Rail or BRT ride, which would include a transfer at Cosumnes River College, would make a ride from Elk Grove to Downtown Sacramento longer than an express bus route because it would have more stops. The only way to increase Light Rail ridership would be to eliminate express routes, which would be discriminatory against east Elk Grove bus riders traveling to Downtown Sacramento, and could result in lower ridership.
This is not to dismiss the efforts to encourage people to leave their cars behind or the need for mass transit. Both of which are admirable goals and should be appropriately planned and implemented.
But there needs to be a reality check for Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and her city council men. Here are a few suggestions for the mayor and her city council before they spring a big tax increase on Elk Grove residents and consumers.
Perhaps he does, but we guess that Councilmember Rod Brewer, a hot-shot elite investor-owned lobbyist, does not use public transit to commute to the Capitol to work his charm. Is he willing to take public transportation?
Probably not, given that he is a lobbyist schmoozing with elected officials and state bureaucrats into the wee hours of the night after the bus service ends for the day. Sacramento is not Manhattan or even San Fransicso with ample public transit hours.
How about Mayor Singh-Allen? Is she willing to take the bus to Regional Transit or Sacramento Transportation Authority meetings?
If the mayor is taking the bus to Sac RT meetings, we sincerely tip our hat and thank her for a degree, however small, of trying to reduce traffic congestion created by the current and past Elk Grove City Councils. How Zen of you!
However, if there were an odds maker at Sky River casino, I would bet an amount equal to the Councilmember Sergio Robles bar tab on any given night that Mayor Singh-Allen is driving her flashy BMW to those meetings.
After all, Madame Mayor is too precious to be seen with public transit riders. They do not offer her anything beyond a vote.
As Elk Grove prepares to select its transit aspirational goal next year, ask the mayor and her city council how much we will have to pay. More significantly, could the transit money be better deployed for more flexible transit options? And are they willing to become transit passengers?
It would be an excellent opportunity for them to do some virtue signaling, but don't count on it. Also remind them of the Empty Sac RT Route E-15 and other express commuter routes running around empty.
