U.S. 50: Creating transit advocates since 1995

A typical, miserable day on U.S. 50 in Sacramento (photo courtesy of KCRA 3)

Earlier today, I suggested converting the segment of Interstate 5 that cuts off Sacramento’s downtown from its historic riverfront into a linear urban park.

As someone who endured the nightmare of Sacramento car commuting for 14 years, I hope my recommendation, which would likely speed up downtown traffic if implemented in tandem with multimodal transportation improvements, helps save others from the daily ordeal I was subjected to on the U.S. 50 freeway. The chronically congested 50 intersects I-5 at the southern end of the aforementioned downtown segment that shouldn’t exist.

My daily task from September 1995 to June 2009: trekking to and from Sacramento Country Day School, which I attended from pre-kindergarten all the way through high school. Until 2000, the trips originated in West Sacramento, 11 miles from campus. When suburban sprawl began to overrun the idyllic farm fields surrounding our neighborhood, we moved west to Davis, lengthening the commute to 20 miles. Though I could have enjoyed a platinum-rated bike commute had I transferred to a school in Davis, my parents liked the tight-knit environment of Country Day, so in the car I stayed.  

One of my earliest memories of the commute is of a truck crash. The crash wasn’t even on 50, but it blocked all lanes of Business 80, a different freeway, and turned the entire Sacramento region into a parking lot, making me hours late to class.

Things didn’t get any better over the next decade-and-a-half. The sun glared in my face in both directions. Travel times were impossible to predict, yet somehow I was always blamed for late arrivals. In the morning, my dad desperately tried to avoid the congestion (to no avail) by cutting through east Sacramento neighborhoods. In the afternoon, the saintly woman my parents hired to drive me home paid the price for being the only person on the road to adhere to traffic laws, as other drivers regularly cut her off and caused countless near-collisions.

Crippling congestion plagued 50 daily, particularly east of the interchange with I-5. But the delays were just the beginning of the horror. Several notable memories:

• Seeing a totaled vehicle on the opposite side of the road with its side completely torn off, then reading later in the paper that an occupant of the vehicle died in the hospital after the crash
• A merging van coming within inches of striking the vehicle transporting several fellow baseball players and me to an away game
• The sound of our windshield cracking as a fountain of stones spewed from a gravel truck in an adjacent lane
• An infuriated driver fuming on the left shoulder after his car was crunched between two other vehicles during a traffic jam
• Big rigs leaning precariously on a wind-whipped Yolo Causeway (actually part of Interstate 80, just west of the interchange where 50 begins, but it’s all the same) during one of Sacramento’s winter rainstorms

The soundtrack for all of this was NewsRadio KFBK 1530. Every morning, the station’s beloved Commander Bill described the day’s traffic mess to high-energy beats, pumping drivers up for the day’s battle. But for some reason, the commander always neglected to mention the daily disaster on eastbound 50, perhaps because, given we were travelling away from downtown, this all should have been a reverse commute.

These experiences didn’t inspire me to get my own driver’s license – in line with national trends, I waited until the summer after high school, ensuring I’d never have to experience that commute from behind the wheel.

I wasn’t aware of viable alternatives to the nightmare of 50. My exposure to transit was limited to a few BART trips to Bay Area sporting events (from park-and-ride stations, of course) and a day in San Francisco when I was awed by Muni’s street-running trains and convinced my aunt to spend the afternoon riding on them around the city with me. There was occasional talk of starting up a shuttle bus to campus for Country Day students who lived in Davis, but I failed to step up and make sure it became reality. Instead, I made the mistake so common in suburban America: depending on car rides from others.  

But even if I didn’t know it at the time, I was yearning to ditch the car. As soon as I landed in Seoul for a study abroad program two years later and was exposed to first-world transportation, any hope the auto industry had of ever getting business from me vanished.

A typical, miserable day on 6th St NW, part of U.S. 50's route through DC (photo by me)

I haven't escaped U.S. 50. It passes like a dagger through the heart of DC, though in contrast to Sacramento it’s only a surface street. I walk across it pretty frequently, as 6^th Street Northwest – one of the roads it runs on – lies between my office and Capitol One Arena, as well as popular lunch spots in Chinatown. Of course, it’s often a parking lot.

Even though I don’t drive cars anymore, pedestrian-hostile 50 still does everything it can to make me mad. Things really get fun when the highway turns onto New York Ave NE, a six-lane super-arterial with no bike lanes, no bus stops, and ultra-skinny sidewalks.

The people of Nevada have figured out the solution to U.S. 50: Don't use it (photo courtesy of Unusual Places)

Between DC and Sacramento, long stretches of 50 sit empty. Some people insist it’s an idyllic, lonely road – nice experience travel, perhaps. I’ll instead take a page from the anti-transit crowd’s manifesto and call the practically unused, taxpayer-funded highway a boondoggle.

Even in busier Sacramento, a recent attempt to resurface an elevated section of the freeway failed and had to be redone at three times the cost.

Sacramento Regional Transit recently expanded late night light rail service on the Gold Line, which parallels U.S. 50. The upgrade is part of a broader effort to improve the region's transit system (photo courtesy of CBS 13)

During a recent trip back to my hometown, I headed out to Country Day to say hi to my former teachers. This time, I used the transit routes that would have saved me so much stress growing up, but that I never knew were there. 

The system has room for improvement, as the fastest transit option from our Davis home to the campus requires two transfers. But the sense of relief I feel whenever I look down at U.S. 50’s traffic from Sacramento Regional Transit’s Gold Line light rail is incredible.

As my train rolled along, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people sitting in those stopped cars below me will become transit advocates once they discover how good multimodal transportation can be.