Sacramento RT Light Rail is a light rail system that serves the Sacramento, California area. It consists of three rail lines, 54 stations, and a fleet of 96 vehicles. It is operated by the Sacramento Regional Transit District (RT). With an average of weekday daily boardings as of , the RT light rail system is the sixteenth busiest in the United States.
History
The Sacramento Regional Transit District (also known as simply RT) began planning for a light rail system in the mid-1980s, after the successful opening of the San Diego Trolley in 1981 and amid a surge in light rail construction in mid-sized cities nationwide (Buffalo, Denver, Portland, and San Jose also built systems at the same time).
The first line of the light rail system opened on March 12, 1987. Originally branded as RT Metro, the new line linked the northeastern and eastern corridors which both parallel Interstate 80 and Route 50 respectively with Downtown Sacramento. More specifically, the "starter line" ran between Watt/I-80 and Butterfield stations. The line from Butterfield to the Western Pacific line ran on the former Sacramento Valley Railroad. The right of way between Q and R Streets running from 10th to 17th Streets was a former Western Pacific Railroad branch. The line between downtown and Arden Way employed city streets, then turned on a former Western Pacific spur. At the Southern Pacific right of way, the line turned to parallel it for a few miles before transitioning into the median of Interstate 80.
As light rail ridership increased, RT continued to expand the light rail system. In 1993, two infill stations were added on the existing RT Metro line: 39th Street and 48th Street. In September 1998, the line was extended from Butterfield station to Mather Field/Mills station. In September 2003, Sacramento Regional Transit opened the first phase of the South Line (now called the Blue Line), which was a extension to South Sacramento. In June 2004, light rail was extended from the Mather Field/Mills station to Sunrise Boulevard, and on October 15, 2005, a extension from the Sunrise station to the city of Folsom was opened.
Sometime in the late 1990s, the RT Metro branding quietly fell into disuse. It is now simply known as the RT light rail system.
In December 2006, the final leg of the Amtrak/Folsom project was extended by , to the downtown Sacramento Valley Station, connecting light rail with Amtrak inter-city and Capitol Corridor services as well as local and commuter buses. In 2012, RT completed the first phase of the Green Line. The second phase of the line is planned to reach to the Sacramento International Airport. In August 2015, RT extended service south to Cosumnes River College.
Sacramento RT Light Rail ridership peaked at 16.8 million rides in 2008, but has declined to 9.7 million rides in 2018, a drop of 42% during that period.
System
Lines
Blue Line: North Sacramento–Downtown–South Sacramento
Gold Line: Downtown–East Sacramento–Rancho Cordova–Folsom
Green Line: Downtown–River District
Headways
All routes operate every 15 minutes on weekdays and every 30 minutes at night and on the weekend.
Stations
The stations along the network are open-air structures featuring passenger canopies for protection from adverse weather. Twenty-six stations offer bus transfer services and 22 have park-and-ride lots with a total of 10,113 available parking spaces.
The busiest stations in the system by average daily boardings/alightings are: 16th Street (6,800), University/65th (3,000), Cosumnes River College (2,900), and 29th Street (2,900).
Works of public art included at several stations were developed as part of the RT Public Art Program, and represent an array of media including, mosaics, sculptures, metalwork and murals. Each was commissioned to incorporate an identity and sense of place unique to the neighborhood surrounding the station.
Rolling stock
The LRV fleet is composed of cars from two different builders: 36 from Siemens-Duewag U2A, some of which have been in use since the RT opened and 40 newer ones delivered in 2003 from Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles USA (CAF USA).
The fleet will be further augmented by at least 44 brand new Siemens S700 series low floor light rail vehicles starting in 2022 with plans to eventually acquire 76 units to replace the existing aging fleet as additional funding is secured. 8 more trainsets were ordered in October 2023.