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By BOB NORBERG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Postponing construction of stations in Petaluma and Novato is among the $88 million in cost-saving measures the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit board is expected to approve Wednesday as it moves forward with plans to open an initial line in 2014.
The SMART board also is expected to approve the sale of construction bonds, which are estimated to raise $161 million.
Even with the cuts, however, there is potentially a gap of $21 million between SMART funds and the cost of building and operating the line over the next two decades.
“All of this is projection and estimates,” SMART spokesman Chris Coursey said. “There are those who believe that if we can get these construction contracts out right away, the construction market will give us savings also.”
SMART is searching for additional funding from other agencies, Coursey said. It is currently in discussions with the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, Transportation Authority of Marin and Sonoma County Transportation Authority, he said.
Hard hit by a recession that has depressed revenues from a quarter-cent sales tax, SMART has been forced to scale back its plans to build a 70-mile commuter line from Larkspur to Cloverdale by 2014. It now plans to start with a shorter line running from Railroad Square in Santa Rosa to downtown San Rafael in 2014 and expand it to the full route some time in the future.
SMART could save $16.8 million by deferring the construction of stations at Corona Road in Petaluma and Atherton in Novato. It still plans to build primary stations in both cities as part of its initial rail line.
Additionally, SMART could qualify for $22 million in regional funding by postponing the Corona Road and Atherton stations. Both are located in areas with little existing or planning housing. By removing them, the rail system’s remaining stations would meet MTC housing density guidelines
Other cost-cutting items include reducing the funding for the pedestrian-bicycle path by a third; building a smaller maintenance facility and possibly moving it from Santa Rosa to Petaluma; rebuilding rather than replacing the bridge over the Petaluma River; and buying 12 trains instead of 18.
The meeting is at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors chambers.
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@Phil – I actually think SMART is getting their house in order – David Heath used to be the Head of Finance for the City of Santa Rosa, and I believe left because he couldn’t deal with the bull around here. I wouldn’t doubt that he wasn’t part of the reason the prior director of SMART resigned. I know there is an effort to try to repeal this thing, but I don’t know if that is possible at this point (would it take a 2/3 vote, or just majority? What happens once bonds are sold, and contracts have been signed for rolling stock, etc?), so I believe this is going forward. If that is the case, then it is clear that some things need to be cut. I’m not an expert. I’m hoping that SMART will hire those folks, and along with public comment, make sound decisions. Sonoma County developed along this rail line, and it makes sense to continue that trend. You’re right about destinations also being important, and I couldn’t say if it makes more sense to have a stop at Atherton for the business there, or to have one at Cotati for SSU. Frankly, I’m somewhat surprised that Santa Rosa would only get two stations when smaller towns like Novato and Petaluma and RP/Cotati would get two…
@John Bly – The airport might make sense at some point, but the actual passengers flying out of that airport is still pretty low, and how many would actually use the train, then take a bus from there to the airport (unless you think they should change the ROW…?) I would think the business park up there would use it more.
I do not understand the thinking to include cotati station right next to RP station while no station at Atherton in this reduced plan. That makes no sense. Also, how did the overall plan neglect a station at Sonoma County Airport? The Alaska/Horizon flights are nearly full these days! I have done my share of “SMART bashing” but since it is moving forward, rather than bash it, I would prefer to give it the best chance of ridership usage as possible. Missing one of the main people mover points in the Northern reach of the railway seems like a correctable oversight based on the increased air travel. Build an inexpensive stop at the soco airport!
@Reasonable-
I appreciate your logic as to preserving the character of the county, but I think that you’re only really focusing on one aspect of the equation- points of embarkation. It’s not enough to just put people into the system, they need a destination to make it a serviceable and convenient mode of transportation that takes them where they need to be. Right now, with an abbreviated line, it’s anticipated that SMART will carry about 2500 round-trip passengers daily. All arguments of such a low number aside as the basis for justifying something that’s going to cost around $500,000,000 for just Phase I- that number, based on Fireman’s Fund’s contribution alone, according to the company’s figures of 300 employees who reside in Sonoma County, all of whom will receive incentives to use the train, you loose a daily round-trip ridership of 600 passengers. With that number, taken against the whole, you now have a massively subsidized system that less than 1000 people will use with any regularity…maybe, if it works as planned. The premise behind the relief of congestion, as clearly stated in the text of Meausure Q, is lost. By keeping a station a such as the one in Cotati, only 1.5 miles away from RP, in lieu of one at Atherton, you’ve now taken a short local drive for some, and turned it into a 30 mile commute on 101 for 300 others. So much for the good intentions of the voters, decreasing GHG emissions and alleviating congestion…all trumped by a funding decision based on density, not transit needs, quality of life, or the environment, all things that Q was supposed to address, first and foremost. On top of that, you’ve effectively taken virtually all transit viability away from Novato, and you’ve also essentially given Marin as a whole a completely unusable system which they’re forced to subsidize entirely for the benefit of Sonoma County. I mean honestly, what’s left, and why bother? You have: 1) Hamilton, about 6-7 miles away from the San Rafael terminus and already well served with an existing bus service that’s much more user friendly in terms of convenience and routing. Forget everyone in the city north of there- they can either get on 101 and drive there, or they can get with the program and move. No, this station is entirely about housing density, not common sense, intellect, best planning considerations, feasibility, the people of Novato, or even those who need to get to work in Novato (Lori, and at least 299 others that come immediately to mind). 2) the Marin Civic Center, a mere 2 miles from downtown San Rafael, also already well served by bus service, and most certainly more of a destination for workers than a starting point for people living in the area (many of whom actually do need to get to SF), 3) Central San Rafael, the end of the line. Sure, at that point you might get a few reverse commuters, but that’s hardly the problem that SMART was conceived and touted as solving, not to mention, using that as the basis for rider subsidies quickly takes what already fits the definition of a boondoggle, and turns it into absolute fiscal insanity for which no funding source in the world would give SMART a dime.
This is not a transit “solution”, it’s a transit fallacy and a redevelopment boon. And no, that was NOT what Measure Q was in the eyes of the people who voted for it in good faith. It’s time for SMART to abandon their arrogance and do the right thing by voluntarily getting their house in order, then, and only then, allow the people to vote on this project for what it really is and what it’s become.
@Cognitive Dissonance
Tried to answer your question offline but your email address does not work. Send me an email or post a comment with a working email address and I will answer your question.
Ted Appel
WSC Moderator
@Phil – it is only reasonable to not go ahead with those stations where the density is less, if there is not enough funding to do it all. If so doing, raises the density to a level that means that MTC will kick in some funding, all the better. The population of Sonoma County will certainly increase over time, and to preserve the over-all rural character of the County, we need to encourage higher densities in some of our cities, and protect the rural areas as best we can. Marin County is able to claim that it cannot grow any more because of water restrictions. It is the only county in the state that is not required to show where its share of the growth will occur. Let’s build the railroad, and put the increased housing around the stations. This is the best plan for protecting the overall character of our beautiful county.
This needs to go back to the voters for approval of all the changes from what was on the ballot.
Lori-
That’s it in a nutshell. The Cotati station is only about a mile and a half away from the RP station. That one should be right up there on the chopping block, long before Atherton. That is, if it was really about serving public transit needs, and not actually about easily achievable housing densities.
@John and Reasonable-
Do you realize that the argument has now changed from one of the merits of the train as a transit option to that of the seemingly new issue of the density required to make it happen? Where in Measure Q was that cited as the metric for whether people got a station or not?
Now relevant to the discussion, but telling as to how this project and its priorities have taken on a much different perspective than that which the voters approved. If I’m following this correctly, since most of the world’s successful rail transit programs revolve around urban environments, we need to be become one ourselves for this to work as planned? Now I know that wasn’t in Measure Q.
Where in this full text of Measure Q does it say that the stations and services people approved in 2008 were contingent upon meeting the TOD density requirements of the MTC? And where does it say that when SMART ran out of money (which they always knew they would), it became necessary for us to accept them selling our souls to make their “vision” happen. What station along the entire line actually does currently meet the requirements for 2800 units within a 1/2 mile radius? Who’s to say if any of them ever will? “Someday” seems to be more and more the key element in keeping the faith in a $1.5 bil plan. It’s the only thing consistent in SMART’s entire “vision”. That’s called a dream, and “reality” is when you have the money to pull it off…without conniving to get it. That’s called “theft” and “deceit”, and it looks like that’s their plan and our future.
Smart is an assault on the people, and the MTC is now the de facto dictator and herdsman. A policy that was once sold to us as a transit measure for the benefit of all county residents, regardless of proximity or geography, is now showing its true intent…what they call “transit communities”, I instead chose to call transit gulags.
So…exactly where is the truth as we now know it, as opposed to the ponies and rainbows we were sold?
http://www.smartvoter.org/2008/11/04/ca/sn/meas/Q/
@FUBAR
Bike path? We could have had a bike path from Eureka to San Rafael on the cheap.
@John, I get about 4.4 units per acre – 2200 / (3.14 x .5 x .5 * 640) = 4.38, which falls into the middle of the Low Density category of the City’s General Plan. There are 5 more dense categories in the GP, including Transit Village Mixed Use, which has a 40 unit / acre minimum. I’m using current City numbers, and one of the reasons why the Jennings site was deleted in favor of the Guerneville site was because of the greater number of residential units.
I also live in Sonoma County because of its rural feel, and the only way to maintain that is to let certain areas become more urbanized, since we are required by law to show where in the County we will put our share of the population growth. If we have to have the growth, let’s put it near these stations, so they don’t all have to be on our roads. Or we turn the whole County into a continuous sprawl like LA.
So far all we have paid for is the “SMART” staff’s sense of entitlement. Including the ridiculous retirement plans that mirror the other public agencies.
Also, the talk of population density around proposed stop locations is absurd. The Atherton stop is literally 100 yards away from a company that pulls 60% of its staff from Sonoma county and espouses “Green” based business initiatives.
Bottom line, “SMART” is a swing and an miss and should be stopped. It is time to acknowledge it was never going to be profitable or be able to generate enough ridership to make subsidization a plausible option.
@Reasonable- I’ve done the numbers- if the entire radius was residential, it only amounts to 5 units per acre. That’s very reasonable- the problem is that most the stations have other uses, both commercial and municipal, eating up much of that space, and driving densities way up.
I don’t know where you get your figures, but the Final EIR that SMART produced based on 2006 Dowling & Associates numbers puts “current” units for Jennings at 1909 and Downtown SR at 1643…. with a mid-range build out of 2510 and 2242 units, respectively. While it’s possible that since that time thousands more have been built, I kind of doubt it.
Maybe the numbers you cite refer to population of the station area?
And even if Downtown SR becomes a destination, the TOD requirements are still in place- it has to be zoned/built out to that spec.
Regardless, think of the area around Coddingtown- The Jennings/Guerneville station is almost completely surrounded by appartment complexes. Now transplant that to EVERY station along the line- Cloverdale, Windsor, Healdsburg, Corona Rd….. that’s what every little town in Sonoma County would have to look like to meet the requirement.
Thanks, but no thanks. I live in Sonoma County because of it’s rural feel and small town charm- because it hasn’t been urbanized like much of the Bay Area…. and I’d kind of like to keep it that way… at least somewhat.
Even if that means (heaven forbid) that I have 10,000 square feet of suburban yard of my own.
Well this sucks. That means I won’t be able to use it. And I was definitely planning to use the train when it went in. Unfortunately, the Atherton stop is where I work. If it were the Cotati station they skipped, I’d still be willing to drive to the next closest one. But dropping me off 3 miles from my office without a way to get there doesn’t help me at all.
@John Galt – you would be amazed at how big 1/2 mile radius is. There are currently over 1900 residential units within a half-mile of the downtown Santa Rosa station, and 100s more were in the planning stages before the housing crash. There are over 4000 units within a half-mile of the Guerneville station. Besides which, the downtown station will more likely become a destination, not a departure point.
@Common Sense – only a small percentage of 101 traffic north of Petaluma goes to SF. Most of the traffic goes to Sonoma and Marin towns/cities.
Is the SMART train a scandal in the making? The SMART Board has been at it for 8 or more years spending millions of tax dollars. What have they got to show for it? Where has the money been spent?
The PD reports millions spent and millions yet to be spent. There is a huge deficit admitted to by the Board and the bureaucrats planning this whole project. The exact amount varies with each day it seems, but it is in the millions of dollars.
There are budget deficit projects, cost overruns, guesses and speculation about the actual costs that have been and will be incurred. None of this, that I have found, includes the actual maintenance and ongoing costs to run the thing on a day to day basis. They continue to guess as to how many will ride this reduced train with fewer trains, stations and end points.
After 8 years there is little to show for any progress made on this boondoggle. To date what has been generated are more reports on costs and projections and more consultant and employee costs. And of course, sales tax collections.
It is time for an in depth investigation by the Grand Jury and the Press Democrat.
This SMART thing doesn’ pass the smell test.
The whole high speed rail is a joke. There was a recent article in Forbes about this fascination with rail by the left. Every single train in the world runs on government subsidies and in the red. These SMART jokers think that all this money pouring into this project is a good idea, amazing. I just can’t believe how foolish voters are.
My economics instructor has this great story about a house exchange with a spanish professor. Jack goes to spain, takes the car out for some sight seeing, goes to buy gas, and after the sticker shock, uses public transportation.
After he came home to the states, he realized he had to buy a new van, it was fairly new a year ago, but when the professor saw how cheap gas was, he drove it from Alaska to Cabo San Lucas and as far east as Yellowstone.
It is all about were you want to spend your tax dollar subsidies.
The information on all the changes from what was promised to the voters is contained in the packet as well as costs and cost overruns.
http://www.sonomamarintrain.org/userfiles/file/Board%20Workshop%20Agenda%20Packet2.pdf
Instead of taking the bike lane out, take the train out and build the bike lane.
When are people going to realize that this isn’t Europe and we aren’t Europeans. And as difficult as it may be for some to comprehend, many of US don’t want to be Europeans.
But the “progressives” with their infatuation for all things NOT American really don’t care. They know what’s best for us and they’re going to ram it down our throats even if they have to lie to get us to go along. “The end justifies the means”.
This can be voted out in 2012 we still have time!
The $22 mil shortfall, even after cutting the other $88 mil, is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we’re going to discover…and what SMART already knows, and has since before the voters were intentionally duped with the same bad math and outright omission of relevant facts that we’re still seeing now. Numbers don’t lie, but they sure do. But why change when you have a plan that’s worked so far? Keep chanting the same mantra and eventually everyone will become a believer…never mind those facts getting in the way of the will of the “enlightened visionaries”. They’ll mete out the continual stream of bad news in little bit-sized pieces for public consumption just small enough to keep the still gullible from choking, but the assumption is that they hold us hostage and we’ll just take it, because, after all, it still must be what the people want, even though it’s nothing like what we were promised. Transit policy (aka development policy) a la Stockholm Syndrome.
All of these people need to get fired today. Now that’s SMART.
With just a few more cuts the SMART Board will have a train set that will fit on a nice piece of 8×10 plywood in my garage. It will look nice running around the Christmas Tree too. The kids will love it.
The only problem is the cost. How many monopoly billions?
@ John
2,200 residential units within a 1/2 mile radius? Are you kidding me ? How can they do that in Santa Rosa ? The Station Area
is surrounded by “historic” neighborhoods
and a mall. I wounder how many people who voted for “SMART” knew about this. I sure
did not.
I voted for a train not this fiasco.
Since 2004 the Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association has warned the voters that SMART’s train system would be too expensive, carry relatively few people and will not substantially reduce traffic congestion on Highway 101, would not be convenient and will not take people directly where they want to go. Sorry to say, but the Taxpayers’ Association was right and the voters were wrong. Do you have to live with your costly mistake? Maybe not, you voted them in and you can vote them out.
@Greg- what they didn’t explain to you is that the MTC espouses “Transit Oriented Development”- their guidelines for this type of project is 2200 residential units within a half mile of each station! That’s super high density- if I wanted to live like that, I’d be living in San Francisco. But hey- that’s the vision that these folks have for our communities anyway, so their happy to take the money.
@CommonSense- This thing was never slated to break even- mass transit ONLY pays for itself in Japan. Everywhere else in the world, it is subsidized. They originally thought that rider fares would cover 31% of operating cost- now they are estimating it at 23%… maybe. That’s dismal by any standard- for reference, Bart does much better at 64.5%:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio
Oh, and the ridership never was that impressive anyway. Shortening the route takes it from an estimated 2500 round trips daily down to 1430 round trips…. hardly enough to save any polar bears, or help the rest of us breeze through the Novato Narrows.
@Shelby- there’s another item on the agenda about voting to keep THREE health care plans available for employees… cause I guess that one is not enough… So come to the meeting to express your displeasure with their generous compensation.
Sitting back hearing about SMART is like knowing there will be a train wreck, seeing the makings of a train wreck, and allowing a train wreck to happen…either the voters in Sonoma and Marin are going to be slack-jaw fools standing at a platform waiting for a train that will not come or will be throwing good money after bad money…like BART, MUNI, CalTrains, Golden Gate Transit, and every other public transportation failure …all the while the funds sucked from roads, schools, and other infrastructure..but hey, you now got your North Bay money pit
Not bad, 12 empty trains instead of 18. That’s a start can how fast can we get to just having the empty tracks???
Maybe SMART can revisit building a depot at the Sonoma County Airport-Let’s just put a sign up like a “bus stop” and save money!
“Additionally, SMART could qualify for $22 million in regional funding by postponing the Corona Road and Atherton stations. Both are located in areas with little existing or planning housing…”
So by serving even fewer potential riders than the ever-dwindling number SMART said they will serve, they qualify for more grant money. 50 years from now, when the SMART tracks are still sans choo-choos, the above paragraph will stand as a textbook example of Liberal logic at its most twisted.
So many questions come to mind after reading this article. How is the $161 million in construction bonds estimated? If there is an estimated remaining $21 million operating shortfall, even with the estimated $161 million in construction bonds factored in, then how does this train opearte at anything but a loss for the first 10 years or more? How will it increase revenues via ridership if it’s limited to an area between Santa Rosa and San Rafael, as it will be of minimal use or any to those going into SF because it’s not going to Larkspur? I thought the main intent of the train was to reduce traffic on 101, how will that be anything but minimal given the current route? And if it operates at a loss over an extended period of time, how does that get the initially intended amount of rail completed after the fact? Don’t get me wrong, trains are great and I’ve used them in other areas that I’ve lived. However, the geography of those areas was different and the commute ridership was all but guaranteed. It doesn’t appear that this train will be able to cover it’s costs and/or have a maximum impact on commuting within the first decade of completion or, if ever. How is that a SMART train?
The people at Smart have the IQ of a box of rocks
Probably the best cost cutting would be to fire everyone involved.
I have not heard anymore about
cutting the pay and benefits of the
“SMART” Staff. Whats up with that?