Judy Arnold Pleased with Most Developments from SMART Meeting

Judy Arnold, the Marin County Supervisor from Novato who serves on the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit board of directors, said she was pleased with several developments from Wednesday’s SMART board meeting in Santa Rosa.

Most of all, she got her wish after two years of asking: SMART board meetings will be webcast starting this spring.

“I think it’s the biggest capital project in Marin and Sonoma counties and the public is interested,” she said. “We need to be transparent. That’s really important to me. They deserve to be able to tune in and watch, especially because all the board meetings start at 1:30 (p.m.).”

Arnold said she has asked since she joined the board two years ago that meetings be webcast just like most meetings of boards of supervisors, city councils and town councils because so many people who want to follow the proceedings of the rail transit board can’t make it to the board meetings.

Arnold said a ridership survey that so many members of the public had asked to see was not as complete as she’d hoped. It had been five years since a preliminary train ridership survey had been done as part of the environmental impact report, and citizens told the board they wanted updated numbers. The same firm, Dowling Associates, was hired again for the job.

The 20-year forecast shows that approximately 5,050 riders would use the commuter rail each day in 2035 along the 70-mile line between Cloverdale and Larkspur factoring in the completion of Caltrans’ Novato Narrows widening project of Highway 101. Eight miles of 101 is to go from four lanes to six lanes between Novato and Petaluma at cost of $718 million, according to Caltrans.

If the highway project isn’t done, the number is expected to be as high as 6,550 daily rail riders.

In the initial operating segment between Santa Rosa and San Rafael — which is SMART’s first priority — the number of riders is estimated at 4,818 per day in 2035 but just 2,860 in 2015, the first full year of rail service.

Arnold questioned the consultant when there was no difference in ridership on the Santa Rosa-to-San Rafael line with and without the Novato Narrows project, which is already under way.

“He said, ‘Yes, I know, that’s not clear,’” Arnold said. “To me, the Narrows will make a big difference. I think they tried to do this (survey) very fast … so to me the ridership numbers have not really been flushed out yet.”

Arnold said the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is checking all aspects of the ridership survey and there is improved communication with MTC. She said she was also happy with the “green” aspects of the station designs, calling innovative and exciting, and also pleased with a report on value engineering that finds ways to cut costs without sacrificing quality.

In a financial report to the board, SMART Interim General Manager David Heath said lease revenues from freight rail service on the same tracks and funds from future transit formula grants have been eliminated while parking revenue is now included in financial forecasts.

Slumping sales tax revenues have left SMART with a projected shortfall of between $62 million and $125 million just for the initial Santa Rosa-to-San Rafael line. “There remains a significant funding gap, and staff will present a base case that it considers to be the most probable forecast of revenues and expenditures,” Heath wrote. “This model also will include pessimistic scenarios that take into account the stress of weaker sales tax forecasts similar to the MTC lower-range and lower ridership revenues in the event that those projections fall short.”

The full SMART board staff report is available for download on the authority’s website.