One of Sacramento Regional Transit’s new low-floor light rail trains is demonstrated in 2023 at RT’s rail maintenance facility in Sacramento. Construction to accommodate the new vehicles finished early at two stations near C.K. McClatchy High School, avoiding service disruptions during the first week of the fall semester.
Cameron Clark
Sacramento Bee file
C.K. McClatchy High School students, staff and faculty will no longer have to worry about navigating light rail station construction on the first week of the fall semester, according to Sacramento Regional Transit.
Construction at the Fourth Avenue/Wayne Hultgren and City College station platforms was set to overlap with four school days, ending on Saturday. However, crews will be wrapping up on Monday — one day before class starts.
Full light rail service was set to resume Tuesday.
Since construction began late July, a series of shuttles — also known as a bus bridge — has connected the four stops between Broadway and Fruitridge stations. When construction was going to overlap with the school year, RT had notified the Sacramento City Unified School District and created a flyer showing bus shuttle locations, which was shared by the school administration with parents, according to district spokesperson Al Goldberg. Additional transit staff were going to be at shuttle stops to help students and other riders.
Students had been expected to face travel delays with the bus bridge. Instead, they “will have uninterrupted light rail access on the first day of school,” RT said in a news release.
Crews worked to raise the platforms 8 inches to accommodate RT’s fleet of low-floor S700 light rail vehicles. The new trains, which debuted in fall 2024 on the Gold Line, were designed to improve accessibility for riders with disabilities.
RT spokesperson Jessica Gonzalez said in July that more stations in the southern Blue Line corridor, which extends to Cosumnes River College, would close later in the year as RT prepared them for the new trains to enter service in 2027.
Related Stories from Sacramento Bee
The Sacramento Bee
Madison Smalstig covers transportation for The Sacramento Bee. Before joining The Bee, she reported on breaking news, focusing on crime and public safety, in the North Bay for three years. Smalstig is a born and raised Hoosier and earned degrees in journalism and Spanish at Indiana University.