Walkable Midtown locations vs Light Rail access (Sacramento, Alhambra: apartments, for rent)

[Zeromus-X]

I've been looking for apartments in the Midtown area -- basically a box that has corners at 16th & P and 18th & L. I want something that allows me to get places without a car (bars, restaurants, ideally a grocery store/small convenience store, not necessarily retail). Focusing in this area tends to put me in the $1400-$1600/month 1BR price range, which, while doable, isn't really pleasing to my wallet.

I started looking at places along the light rail and it seems that you can cut that price by about 30% and still be within a block of the Blue or Yellow line. But I don't know what places are "good" or "bad", so it's a tough call. For example, Broadway and 21st -- a little south of city center but the Broadway station being within a block of one of the places makes it very appealing (unless we're going to fear for our lives ).

Basically... is the light rail system in Sacramento a decent alternative to walking? Or is it run down and unreliable? Are the stations generally considered "safe" late at night, particularly the ones outside the actual city center area?

[wburg]

You can go outside that small box and find plenty of places in the central city that are close to light rail. Light rail is reasonably useful if you have a monthly pass and can just hop on when you feel like it. During much of the day it runs every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes after about 7 PM, and stops running around 11 PM. So it's not much use late at night, but if you don't feel comfortable walking home you can catch a Lyft or Uber or taxi. The Broadway light rail stop is kind of distant from the southern part of the central city grid; you'd have an easier time looking for a place near the 29th, 23rd, 8th & O or Archives Plaza light rail stops along the Gold Line. The trains tend to run on time and the central city stations all have LED message boards that tell you when the next train arrives, and the two after that. 16th Street is probably the station with the most weirdness at night as it is the main interchange point between Gold and Blue Lines.

There are also high-frequency bus lines along J and L Street that are almost as useful as light rail for getting back and forth and running almost as late. The same monthly pass that lets you ride light rail also gets you on the buses. There is a mobile web app that lets you see when the next bus will arrive at any given stop, taking a lot of the guesswork and waiting out of bus riding. Generally, the central city "grid" is all pretty safe for someone used to city habits, maybe a bit less so in the upper left hand corner (say west of 12th and north of H) but not unreasonably so, it gets a lot of homeless traffic due to proximity to shelters and services north of B Street. Our city councilmember lives in that neck of the woods. But that corner is also farthest from a grocery store.

South of P Street to W, or north of L Street to C, should net you a lot of apartments less expensive than $1400-1600 that are also easy walking distance to entertainment, and not too far from grocery stores (Safeway on Alhambra & K or 19th & S, Grocery Outlet on 17th and Capitol, the Co-Op on Alhambra and S, the planned Whole Paycheck on 21st and L.) There are small convenience stores throughout the central city, which vary from places that sell little more than beer, smokes and snack foods, to specialty markets selling Chinese or Italian grocery items, to a couple of corner stores that have a pretty good variety of items but are more expensive than a supermarket. There are also farmer's markets on the weekends and, from May to November, during the weekday at various places in the central city.

[Zeromus-X]

Thanks for all the information! I'm going to go driving around a few of those areas today.

I'm not married to the idea of living directly in downtown/midtown, but would like to be in an area with walkable bars and restaurants. Are there other areas you might recommend? For example, is there a "walkable downtown" in, say, North Natomas? Carmichael?

[wburg]

Nope, not really, you aren't going to find anything as walkable and livable in close proximity in the entire region that compares to midtown Sacramento. North Natomas is disturbingly unwalkable, the closest thing to a "downtown" is the big string of "power center" shopping malls along Truxel, characterized by its massive parking lots and wide, traffic-choked major streets; I'd imagine walking on the sidewalk to be a sign of suicidal ideation, not a means of transportation. Carmichael is a residential suburb, it has no "downtown" at all, just some business streets along the major automobile boulevards.

If you are visiting Midtown, I'd highly recommend parking your car and WALKING around the neighborhood, or, if you have a bike, cycling around. Driving around Midtown is a very poor way to get a sense of the place--it's really best experienced on foot or on a bike. Also, bring $6 for a daily pass so you can try riding around on light rail or buses and get your own sense of how comfortable you feel on each mode of transportation.

[Zeromus-X]

Spent a few hours walking around there today and, while I'm not sure it really gave me a good feeling for the place (since everything's closed and I passed zero people who were not homeless over the course of a few hours), I did find quite a few places for rent that I didn't see online. I pretty much restricted my walking to the area encompassed by the intersection of [28th and Q] and [16th and L], which seems like an ideal rectangle to be in. I'll be starting the calls tomorrow morning.

Thanks for confirming the lack of "downtown" areas in other suburbs. Coming from Phoenix we had a main Downtown/Midtown area which were mostly devoid of night and weekend life, and then each suburb (Tempe, Chandler, etc) had its own "downtown" areas which were where the activity was typically found. Sounds like the exact opposite here!