Two Thousand Per Inch

Last night our Mayor, Pat Hume, offered a compelling reason why Elk Grove doesn't yet have light rail service, after some twenty one years years of unmitigated southern sprawl. SACOG, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and the body that renders regional transit decisions, is represented by Yolo, Sutter, Yuba, Placer, and El Dorado counties alongside Sacramento county.

Why will Folsom get light rail two decades before Elk Grove? Because El Doradoan SACOG membership influenced the decision to funnel transit monies in that direction. Why will Natomas and the airport get light rail a decade before Elk Grove? Because Sutter and Yuba county membership influenced the decision to funnel transit monies in their direction. South of Elk Grove, SACOG has no representation. According to Hume, had San Joaquin county been a member of SACOG and had a vested interest in our transit patterns, perhaps Elk Grove would now have light rail service. But that's not the case.

Apparently, the only way we're going to get light rail from Elk Grove to Sacramento is through the relentless march of low density stripmall/exurban sprawl all the way through Galt, through Collierville, through Lodi -- one gigantic suburban slum from Sacramento to Stockton. Once The Southland has sufficient representation in SACOG to influence policy we'll get our precious light rail and not a second before.

Mayor Hume was cognizant of the $1000 per inch cost just to get light rail to Consumnes college. His recognition of this implies to me that light rail will never come to Elk Grove. Three dollar gas, four dollar gas, five dollar gas, six dollar gas...no price point will ever be sufficient to overcome that cost -- the cost reflective of shoehorning in train tracks over existing low density suburban sprawl; the cost of building sound walls to pacify the dozens of suburban residents living four feet from the tracks because we gave developers run of the place; the cost of building a half dozen grade separations because we're so goddamn dependent on private automobiling that we can't accept quarter hour traffic stacking at the crossings. It's a thousand per inch to get it closer to Elk Grove, and my guess is that it'll cost two thousand per inch to get it to the city proper.

I am not holding my breath.