4th Street Entrance
The south façade of the Sacramento Valley Station was originally conceived as a terminus to 4th Street in the great tradition of civic planning and design for important buildings. In Sacramento, with an ubiquitous grid system, terminal views a few but significant buildings such as the long missed Alhambra Theatre at the end of K Street and the State Capitol along Capitol Mall, figured approximately in such privileged sites, and the new Southern Pacific Station opening in 1926, was the last civic building so located.
In the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, urban renewal ignored these civic processionals with the elimination of the Fourth Street entrance to the station in exchange for a new vehicular on ramp to the new Interstate 5 Freeway.
In the process of reconnecting the links lost fifty years ago, the importance of 4th Street is being rehabilitated with the new pedestrian crossing and new pedestrian-priority walkway to the main station entrance. The front of the station is slowly transforming to a more conducive environment for pedestrian access for patrons of the station and further improvements are being advanced to provide street level access through the block bordered by I Street and J Street that would connect to the west end of the Entertainment Sports Center development.