Nationals Park baseball stadium in the Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. (Photo: Katy Grimes for CaliforniaGlobe)
Washington DC Sparkles Once Again; Sacramento is a Perpetual Disaster
Sacramento has a lot to learn, starting with rail service to the airport
By Katy Grimes, September 2, 2025 5:50 pm
I was just in Washington D.C. over the Labor Day holiday. I didn’t just fly in to Dulles International Airport and wait for an Uber, I took the Metrorail train from Dulles into Alexandria, VA.
It was fabulous. It was clean, open, well lighted, and the Metro staff was friendly – particularly when I asked for directions where to change trains. Passengers were also friendly. And riding into the Alexandria Metro station was a breeze. The King St. Old Town station even has what Virginians call “Kiss-and-ride,” a drop-off, pick-up area for cars and rideshare services.
“Metrorail provides safe, clean, reliable transit service for more than 600,000 customers a day throughout the Washington, DC area.” I learned that the DC Metrorail is the only rail line in the country that consistently serves more than 10% of the area residents. “The system is the second busiest in the United States, serving 98 stations in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. The Metrorail system has six color-coded rail lines: Red, Orange, Silver, Blue, Yellow, and Green. The layout of the system makes it possible to travel between any two stations with no more than a single transfer.”
I was visiting family. We went to the farmers market held downtown at Alexandria City Hall. We took in a Washington Nationals baseball game – they lost to the Tampa Bay Rays. Nationals Park baseball stadium sits on the Anacostia River in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, D.C. We parked a distance from the ballpark. The streets were clear, there were no homeless encampments, and no passed-out bodies on sidewalks, or drug addled vagrants harassing people trying to get somewhere.
There was no vomit or evidence of human excrement on the sidewalks I walked on. There were no drug addicted vagrants hanging out in front of businesses.
The D.C. police were friendly.
And the National Guardsmen walking around the streets were friendly and very pleasant. Visitors were even taking photos with them.
We walked everywhere, got coffee and food, we went to parks, and to the waterfront park, where at last we encountered one clearly mentally ill homeless vagrant.
Sacramento has a lot to learn, starting with rail service to the airport. (Don’t get me started on California’s High Speed Rail corrupt catastrophe – another article for another day.)
In 1987, Sacramento Regional Transit launched the 18.3-mile Light Rail, connecting northeastern and eastern corridors with downtown. The light rail train system mostly destroyed the bus service, which used to take you nearly anywhere you needed to go in Sacramento County. Instead, the bus service became the feeder for Light Rail which crosses over and disrupts major thoroughfares causing long traffic jams.
SacRT has been promising train service to the airport since… well… years.
Light rail service has been extended 8 times since its inception, including the 2012 Green Line to the River District, supposedly eventually extending the Green Line to the Airport. Regional Transit calls it “A Vision for the Future.”
It’s been 13 years for this vision for the future.
“The Green Line to the Airport is a bold and visionary project that would connect downtown Sacramento to North Natomas and the Sacramento International Airport by light rail—offering a clean, reliable, and sustainable alternative to driving along one of the region’s most congested corridors,” Sac Regional Transit says.
“Bold and visionary.” That’s what losers say when they can’t complete something successfully, or at all.
Sacramento Light Rail has 43 miles of light rail, and 53 light rail stations. DC Metro serves 600,000 customers a day, serving 98 stations in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. My route from Dulles International passed the Pentagon.
Sacramento Light Rail claims “an average of 22,100 weekday daily boardings as of the second quarter of 2025.” What about “passengers”? Most of those 22,100 daily boardings are twice-daily commuters – a trick RT has used for years to boost rider numbers. So, if it is 11,050 passengers, that may explain the empty Light Rail trains I see every day.
Washington D.C. has 689,545 residents and encompasses 68.35 square miles.
Sacramento County has 1,584,104 residents and encompasses 994 square miles.
Should Sacramento politicians ever get their feculence together, we should have twice the beautiful, functional train transit DC has.
Sacramento still has homeless encampments lining our city streets, spilling over into intersections, in city parks, and along our rivers. And Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent $38 Billion on homelessness. Shouldn’t all of California’s drug-addicted homeless vagrants be living in luxury condos by now for that price?
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
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To government, from local to county to state to national, process is far more important than results. It is far more agregious with blue management than red, but red suffers from the same disease. In general, the way I perceive government to work: regardless of platform or electoral fraud, the elected politician has his vision. However the staff, who the politician relies on for advice and to implement his vision, hangs around forever while politicians come and go. If the staff opposes the politician’s vision, they will slow walk his directives, give him bad advice and covertly work for his downfall. As for the bureaucrats, what they appear to do is far more important than what they actually do, their interest is not so much serving the public interest as building empires to be defended at all costs with all the machevillian strife surrounding post augustan, roman emperial throne, sans the ocean of blood. It is difficult to fire government employees, so most of the nonworking bees spend their time on the clock screwing off and planning their vacations. Circling back to the politicians, who mostly seem to be sociopaths, their base interests are to get publicity and channel as much public and private money their way, regardless of ethics.
What’s happening now and has been happening for some time —- in Sacramento, other CA cities, and actually in the entire state of California —- under people like Gavin Newsom & the Gang is CRIMINAL NEGLECT. Spitting on the oath they took when they were sworn into office is NOTHING compared to what we have actually been served up under these cruel and sadistic destroyers. There must be CRIMINAL consequences for what they have done. Waiting not-so-patiently for indictments, arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and prison time with LONG sentences.
As a lifelong Sacramento native, I concur with Katy Grimes that Sacramento has become a perpetual disaster after years of almost complete Democrat control. My grandparents said that back in the day Sacramento had a functioning bus system and it also had street cars that covered the city which were operated by PG&E and other companies. Now Sacramento only has three light rail lines that all end up downtown and as Katy mentioned bus service has became the feeder for light rail. Sacramento’s light rail is really inconvenient unless someone has a need to go downtown. Many of us avoid riding it because of the crazies, homeless and gangbangers that ride it and hang around the stations which can make it an unpleasant and even a dangerous experience.
Found a map of Sacramento’s street car line from the 1930’s that shows that PG&E, Sacramento Northern California Railway, and Central California Traction Company all operated street car lines in Sacramento that also extended out to Chico, Woodland, Oakland/San Francisco and Stockton.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sacramento/comments/aher1q/i_drew_a_map_of_the_light_railstreetcar_network/#lightbox
“Wildfires Destroy Historic California Town as Newsom Leaves State —- Again” (and no one knows where he went)
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/09/03/gavin-newsom-california-wildfires-gone/
P.S. FYI folks —- looks like the entire state of California is on fire, by the way. Just so you know:
https://www.fire.ca.gov/
It’s really smoky and hazy here in Sacramento from all the fires that have seemed to break out at the same time. It’s very strange and almost like it’s deliberate arson. Instead of galivanting around the country preparing to run for president at taxpayer expense, Newsom needs to be hauled before a tribunal and be held accountable for his many crimes against humanity. He and his wretched soul (if he still has one) have a lot to account for!
Heard in passing lightning strikes are blamed for the fires in the northernmost part of the state but I believe a lot of this is arson as we’ve also seen elsewhere. Gruesome released a lot of prisoners over recent years as you know and many of them are arsonists. What a coincidence that some of the most conservative areas of the state are always engulfed in firenados. A pattern has been emerging that aligns with purposeful setting of fires if you ask me. Where were all these numerous and constant fires year round in this state when I was a young girl?
P.S. FYI folks —- looks like the entire state of California is on fire, by the way. Just so you know:
https://www.fire.ca.gov/
He is most likely.already in Chicago to stand in solidarity with americas second worst and incompetent governor and ready to wage battle against the evil orangeman and soon to arrive national guardsmen.
After all the unfortunate lowborn brush okies in Calaveras county do not deserve any support and special consideration.
Newsom is a disgusting pig who can’t get enough of looking at himself in the mirror. He not only doesn’t give a rat’s ass about “unfortunate lowborn brush okies in Calaveras county” (no kidding) but about ANYONE in this state who isn’t some sort of money source or slave of his. And he doesn’t care about them either, just what they can do for him, the Great Newsom. OMG he makes me sick
Rat-Bag Gavin Newscum is a lying, cheating, crooked, slimy snake-oil salesman. Never believe a word that comes out of that scum-bags mouth.
DC and the surrounding areas replete with extremely well paid government workers for whom ‘only the best will do”.
Sacramento is many cuts above LA thus as a west coast and California dweller count you blessings.
BTW if Newsom could run for another term as the governor of California, he’d win.