North Bay rail service ready to roll
After years of delay, SMART trains to start carrying passengers next week
A nearly decadelong wait for the SMART train, a rail service for North Bay commuters, is almost over. Starting next Friday, trains will carry passengers between Sonoma County and San Rafael.
Federal railroad officials gave their stamp of approval to the Bay Area’s newest transit system late Wednesday, and Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials are eager to start rolling.
“We’ve been ready to go for a few weeks now,” said Farhad Mansourian, SMART’s general manager. “We’re going to start right after we hold a ceremony to celebrate. It’s going to be the best party ever in the North Bay.”
The train will mark the return of commuter rail service to the North Bay after nearly 60 years. For now, it will carry passengers between the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa and downtown San Rafael, stopping at eight stations. But plans call for the line to eventually stretch from Cloverdale to Larkspur.
Full service will begin at 12:49 p.m. next Friday, after a 9 a.m. opening ceremony at the Santa Rosa Downtown Station. Fares will be free the first day, and 50 percent off through Sept. 4. One-way fares, payable by Clipper card or a smartphone app, range from $3.50 to $11.50.
Voters approved a quartercent sales tax to build SMART nine years ago, and trains were initially expected to begin rolling down the tracks in 2014. But a series of delays, caused by everything from a sales tax repeal effort and troubles with locomotives
to fights over station locations and, finally, the wait for federal approval of a new type of train control system, pushed back the opening.
The advanced system is designed to prevent head-on collisions and accidents caused by unsafe speeds, but it needed approval from the Federal Railroad Administration. In the meantime, anxious SMART officials scheduled a series of abbreviated, and low-speed, preview rides. Thousands of people, many of them standing, took advantage of about a dozen free roundtrips on the two-car forestgreen trains.
Now, officials said, they’re ready for the real thing — 34 trains each weekday, and 10 on weekends.
“We are ready to roll,” said Debora Fudge, chairwoman of the SMART Board of Directors.
Already, SMART is planning to expand. New stations are under construction in downtown Novato and North Petaluma, and a 2.2-mile extension to Larkspur, where commuters will have a short walk to Golden Gate Ferry’s boats to San Francisco, is expected to be completed by 2019.
Next up is an extension north to Windsor. SMART officials are seeking funding, some of which could come from a regional bridge toll increase.
SMART has spent about $500 million building the commuter railroad. It’s the first passenger rail line in the counties since the Northwestern Pacific Railroad ceased service in 1958, slowly crushed by the Golden Gate Bridge.
But now, a Highway 101 commute is a daily slog, with low speeds and stop-and-go traffic. SMART is designed to offer an alternative, but how many people will ride the system regularly remains an open question.
Based on the enthusiastic response to the preview trains, Fudge predicts the trains will be a success.
“I don’t think we need to convince people,” she said. “We’re expecting full trains from day one.”