Project Background
In the early 1990s, rail service began on the Capitol Corridor, a commuter rail line between Sacramento and the Bay Area. Offering a convenient alternative to driving on increasingly congested freeways, the Capitol Corridor offers up to sixteen round trip trains per day. Presently the Capitol Corridor stops in downtown Suisun City, its only stop in Solano County.
During the 1990s, the City of Fairfield began to work with the Solano Transportation Authority and other communities in Solano County to develop a plan for additional Capitol Corridor stations in the county. Through this effort, the cities of Fairfield and Vacaville agreed to jointly develop a new station at the southeast corner of Peabody Road and Vanden Road in northeast Fairfield. The station would serve commuters in eastern Fairfield and all of Vacaville, which has no land directly on the rail line. Service to the Suisun station would be unaffected by the new Fairfield station.
In 1999, Fairfield acquired land for the station and began the process of designing and constructing the station. Peabody Road was elevated to improve safety and eliminate the surface road crossing. In addition, construction of a major regional connecting roadway, Jepson Parkway, began east of the station and is underway in late 2019.
The Station opened to the public in November 2017, and regular service on the Capitol Corridor line continues. For a look at train schedules, visit https://www.capitolcorridor.org/schedules/
Specific Plan Project
Prior to adoption of the Specific Plan and the subsequent annexation program, the land around the train station, including the station site itself, was largely unincorporated. Much of the land was undeveloped, and developed property is primarily used for industrial uses such as rock crushing, vehicle dismantling and warehousing. All land around the train station site was previously within the City’s urban limit line and designated for future annexation and urbanized uses by the City’s General Plan. As a part of the most recent General Plan update in 2002, the City designated some nearby land for transit-supportive uses, including medium and high-density housing to the south, and office uses to the southeast and north.
Following the 2002 General Plan update, staff concluded that a more thorough planning effort was needed to ensure that the City maximized opportunities created by the new train station. In 2005, the City Council directed staff to prepare a Specific Plan for land within approximately one-half mile of the station site. This included land within about a ten-minute walk to the train station. In 2008, the City Council expanded the area to be planned eastward to North Gate Road.
