Even though funding shortfalls have made it uncertain when commuter trains will reach Healdsburg, Windsor and Cloverdale, SMART is planning express bus service to link those communities with the train in Santa Rosa. One board member predicted the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency would start construction north of Santa Rosa in two to three years.

The six-month effort to force an election to repeal the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit sales tax officially ended in failure Monday, clearing the way for the district to accelerate plans to build its two-county rail line.

Opponents of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train apparently have failed in their attempt to force a repeal election on the sales tax that is the agency’s major source of funding. Marin County numbers won’t be available until Monday, but the Sonoma County figures fell well short of the threshold for a ballot measure. RepealSMART vowed to start a new petition drive next week.

Facing a Friday deadline to turn in petitions, opponents of a Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train are still not sure if they will be able to force an election to repeal the SMART sales tax. RepealSmart organizers think they have collected close to 15,000 signatures, but the threshold they must clear is disputed.

Windsor’s train station doesn’t have passenger rail service yet, but it’s already dictating how the town will grow over the next 20 to 25 years. Town planners have come up with a blueprint for development in a half-mile radius around the station, which is considered integral to a transit-oriented future in which people live and work within walking distance of trains and buses.

If commute rail service begins in late 2015 as planned, it will be the first North Bay passenger service in six decades and the fastest. Train service would operate with computers controlling the signals, switches and communications to run five two-car trains at 30-minute intervals on a single track that will require passing on strategically placed sidings.

Repealing the tax that funds efforts to build the SMART commute rail line in Sonoma and Marin counties is a bad decision, says Lisa Wittke Schaffner, CEO of the Sonoma County Alliance, and Gary Helfrich, executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. If the repeal effort succeeds, they say SMART still must honor $200 million in contracts, forcing residents to pay for something and getting nothing in return.

Opponents of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit’s plans are recruiting paid signature-gatherers in a last-ditch effort to get a measure on the November ballot to overturn the commute line’s sales tax. RepealSMART organizers also said Thursday they are intent on gathering 40,000 signatures by Jan. 27 to force SMART directors to set the election.

The SMART concept we passed in 2008 and the SMART reality today are two very different truths. We are only getting one-half the train and one-third the bike path that we voted for in 2008, says John Parnell, founder of Repeal SMART. He says the group will not be able to gather 40,000 signatures to repeal the quarter-cent sales tax — but will pay $1 for each valid signature in an attempt to get the measure on the ballot.

Repeal SMART co-founder John Parnell has conceded that volunteers are not likely to get the number of signatures SMART contends is needed to force a repeal vote. So the group is offering to pay workers $1 per signature.