The transcontinental railroad, celebrating its 140th anniversary today, was the audacious dream of a handful of Sacramento merchants who pledged their small fortunes. The push from Sacramento over the Sierra Nevada was accomplished by the backbreaking work of thousands of laborers, mostly immigrants from China. And it happened after bank failures, a financial panic and the Civil War.

Two days before the May 10 Last Spike ceremony, where east and west were joined at Promontory Summit in Utah, a celebration in Sacramento drew thousands from all over the region. Their banners celebrated "The Enterprise of California, the Energy of Sacramento."

We need similar enterprise and energy today to reclaim the Sacramento River waterfront as a historic, cultural and recreational hub for the region.

Unlike San Francisco, Sacramento is unlikely to have a catastrophic earthquake to undo the freeway that separates the city from its waterfront. San Francisco tore down the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake and launched a waterfront renaissance. The three-mile stretch from Fisherman's Wharf to South Beach now is a mecca for pedestrians, historic trolleys, living spaces, and cultural and entertainment attractions.

In Sacramento, Interstate 5 remains a great physical barrier between downtown and the river. But The Bee's own Eleanor McClatchy and other civic leaders did the region a big favor, fighting to move the route three blocks from the river, saving most of the Old Sacramento historic quarter.

In doing so, they sowed the seeds for developing the beauty of the waterfront in Sacramento and West Sacramento as an attraction for residents and visitors. Since the late 1960s we've seen the creation of Old Sacramento as a state historical park; the arrival of the State Railroad Museum; the docking of the Delta King riverboat, the creation of a pedestrian/bike trail, Raley Field and more. What's missing is a way to tie both sides of the river with a transportation network that moves people without adding new traffic congestion.

Here's my dream.

Let's make it a priority to link both banks of the Sacramento River with a streetcar system.

Other cities have seen the value of a transportation network in reclaiming their waterfronts. In Portland, Ore., for example, a streetcar line began with a study in 1990, groundbreaking in 1999 and opening in 2001. And just at the end of April, the city received federal funds to build a three-mile extension for a riverfront loop – across Broadway Bridge in the north, along the east side of the Willamette River, and then across the river once again to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Savannah, Ga., just opened a streetcar line in its historic district last year. It was a five-year effort. A big plus to this project is that the streetcars are fitted with an onboard generator fueled by used cooking oil from Savannah's restaurants, eliminating the need for unsightly overhead wires.

In the Sacramento region we have many noteworthy arts, cultural and sports venues, but they're "scattered and developed in isolation." That was the conclusion of a January study, "Planning for Civic Amenities in the Sacramento Region," commissioned by Valley Vision, the American Institute of Architects Central Valley and Urban Land Institute Sacramento.

This is especially true of the waterfront, where facilities are strung out along a three-mile stretch of the Sacramento River. We need to tie together the river's attractions with easy access, building on existing and historic rail lines. I envision three stages in creating a transportation loop:

Stage 1: Expand use of the existing rail excursion line that runs south from Old Sacramento along the Sacramento Southern rail line.

Introduce a streetcar on this rail line that would make a series of stops from the Sacramento Zoo to the proposed Sacramento Docks area that will have housing, shops and a relocated California Auto Museum (formerly the Towe) north of the Pioneer Bridge, to the Crocker Art Museum to Old Sacramento to the railyard's historic Central Shops, which are to become home for a rail technology museum and a marketplace.