Meeting on SMART Station Design Set for 5 p.m. Thursday

Whether or not the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit can round up all the money it needs to get its 70-mile commuter train project going, planners are moving forward with the design of train stations along the route.

l will be the place to offer suggestions and get some answers at 5 p.m. Thursday when SMART holds a two-hour community workshop on station design.

Design consultants will join SMART staff to talk about the progress of the two Novato stations, one on the north side of the city and one on the south side. They are scheduled to be operational by late 2014.

The northern stations is to be built at Atherton Avenue and North Redwood Boulevard, just east of the . headquarters and just west of Highway 101. The southern station is to be built in a city-owned area of Hamilton north of Main Gate Road and south of North Hamilton Parkway.

Each city along the route is getting a maximum of two stations as part of the plan. It was left up to the city of Novato where to place the stations, and the Novato City Council decided on the two locations in April 2009.

The SMART board of directors decided in November to focus on rail and station construction between San Rafael and Santa Rosa to address a projected funding shortfall. Although the Measure Q sales-tax increase was passed by voters in Marin and Sonoma counties in 2008 to partially fund the rail line, SMART expect a $350 million shortfall from the original plans that called for a 70-mile line between Cloverdale to the north and Larkspur to the south.

On Wednesday, the SMART board heard reports on expected ridership, tentative station designs and value engineering. Of the stations, Marin County Supervisor Judy Arnold said, "I think they will be very well received because they are very innovative."

The Novato meeting is part of a series of workshops about stations. Petaluma will host a meeting Feb. 23 and San Rafael will have one on Feb. 24.