SMART GM skill sets match district needs

The selection of a new general manager for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train and pathway may just be well-timed.

It comes as longtime SMART chief Farhad Mansourian marks his 10th year in the helm. He can look back at having accomplished a Herculean task of essentially rebuilding tracks from Larkspur Landing to Windsor and launching a public transit service that’s proven itself a faster and reliable means of getting up and down the Highway 101 corridor in Marin and Sonoma counties.

Mansourian has also set the stage for SMART to take over freight operations on its tracks and the wheels are in motion for planning work and funding for possibly extending SMART service east, providing relief for motorists now stuck on the oft-jammed Highway 37.

Mansourian’s reputation for getting things done was exactly what SMART needed to get the trains rolling. He lived up to his professional promise, in some cases facing and clearing difficult political hurdles that arose as SMART progressed in restoring passenger trains to a long-shuttered rail line that links Marin and Sonoma counties.

He and the team he built turned years of planning and public debate into action with SMART’s green-and-silver railcars providing dependable service between Santa Rosa and Larkspur.

They even weathered COVID-19, a historic challenge in which SMART saw reduced ridership while continuing to provide limited service amid responsibilities to comply with strict public safety standards.

Earlier this year, Mansourian announced his plans to retire, starting a search for his successor.

That search ended last week with the SMART board’s hiring of Eddy Cumins, the chief operating officer at the Utah Transit Authority, that state’s largest transit provider and much larger than SMART in scope and service.

Cumins may be exactly what SMART needs right now.

He brings broad experience in running public transit, from trains to buses. While Mansourian

was a builder, Cumins appears to be well-equipped to move SMART ahead in its success as an operating transit system.

SMART’s success in building daily ridership is pivotal in its ability to win public confidence to secure voter approval to extend the bi-county sales tax that serves as its financial backbone.

The 2020 voter rejection of a proposed 30-year extension of the tax was a political setback for SMART. It sent a clear message that voters wanted to see SMART carrying a lot more riders before they are ready to support such a long extension of the tax, which expires in 2029.

SMART’s sluggish response to requests for daily ridership figures severely undermined public confidence and support and helped fuel wellfunded opposition to the tax measure.

Cumins’ arrival offers SMART a fresh start, at a time when it is getting restarted as we appear to be past days of pandemic lockdowns. Catering future service to post-pandemic realities will not be an easy task.

Cumins’ job will be steering SMART’s resumption of service and building ridership and public support to levels where voters will back extending the bi-county tax.

He also needs to guide SMART’s progress in keeping its voter-endorsed promise of completing its parallel pathway.

We also would like to see economic equity become a more important goal in building ridership.

“I think people want

SMART to be successful and I just want to be part of that,” he told the IJ. He will start on Nov. 29.

Farhad Mansourian deserves praise for successfully building and launching a promising transit system and Cumins’ arrival, bringing his professional experience, provides promise that SMART will live up to — and maybe exceed — public expectations.