Sacramento's light rail system is beautiful.

Hold up, was I the only one that didn’t know Sacramento had a rail network? 

Sacramento has a light rail system, one that seems to be quite local at first, but is actually very large. For context, Sacramento is the capital of California, and a city of around 500,000 people. It’s not really known, because it doesn’t stand out beside other cities in California such as San Francisco or Los Angeles. You might remember it from memorizing capitals in third grade, but otherwise probably not.

The light rail system also doesn’t really stand out, at least compared to other North American cities, but I think that it’s very interesting that a North American city with a population of 500,000 people has a light rail system. It makes no sense. It’s good, but it makes no sense.

Also, something else weird about the rail system is that it’s so large. It covers 42.9 miles, with 53 stations. Compared to other light rail systems, it ranks high, at 9th place out of around 50 systems in the US, although it doesn’t have great ridership, most likely because of the population density of the city and the surrounding train stops. My best guess is that because of the sporadic nature of the city, they have to lay a lot of track, unlike other cities such as SF or LA.

The system runs pretty normally for such a long system, with around 15 minute intervals for every line per stop, which is pretty good per North American standards, and it has a bus connection. I love it when different modes of transportation are linked, because then I don’t have to walk hella far or bike in the rain, cold, or sweltering heat. I mean, that’s pretty standard, and the bus connections are pretty good, but overall, an average american bus system. 

I like it so much because it shows how light rail can be done in these big, suburban “cities” that have almost no density and are dominated by cars. It’s pretty nice. I hope Sacramento stays like this and I hope that all light rail will be like this.