I still haven’t heard from SMART’s general manager, to whom I submitted some questions almost two months ago. I was told that all information for the press must come from him. Is SMART unable to afford a replacement for the very helpful information officer, Chris Coursey? What does this tell us about its transparency?
Since I posed questions in my February 2012 column, we have one answer: The Repeal SMART forces didn’t get enough petition signatures to put the measure on the 2012 ballot. But there are still plenty of questions that need answers.
Oddly, when I ask people about SMART, the general response is that they love trains and that SMART is a “done deal.” There seems to be a widely held belief that SMART will significantly relieve congestion on Highway 101; that it’s a fully designed, comprehensive transportation system; and that the quarter-of-1 percent sales tax increase approved in 2008 is enough to fully fund it. What if these beliefs are just plain wrong?
SMART’s own EIR predicts train ridership will have minimal impact on Highway 101, reducing peak travel by only one-half of 1 percent, while increasing traffic congestion around train stations. Why do pro-SMART letters and articles repeatedly talk about relief of traffic congestion?
Is SMART a comprehensive transportation system? The pitch to voters in 2008 was certainly comprehensive: service from Larkspur Landing to Cloverdale, trains running every half-hour during commute times, bicycle and walking paths galore, shuttle buses to take riders from Larkspur Landing to the ferry, shuttle buses in other cities to get riders to and from homes and work places, Wi-Fi, food service and so on.
But now, SMART is a pale shadow of the proposed system. The start of any service has been delayed to perhaps 2016. Now the talk is about the “initial operating segment” (IOS), from central San Rafael to Santa Rosa, about half the originally proposed length. The number of train cars has been reduced to 12—just six two-car “trains” holding 78 passengers per car.
Was SMART ever a viable transportation system, based on ridership projections versus cost? The ridership projection for the full system was an average of 5,000 per day, using 18 train cars. Compare this with CalTrain, which runs on a system of similar length—70 miles for the original SMART proposal versus 77.4 miles for CalTrain, from Gilroy to San Francisco. CalTrain has more than 90 train cars carrying an average of 41,000 passengers daily, with separate tracks for north and southbound trains. Much of the SMART route is single-track.
Digging deeper, take a look at SMART’s “Revisions and Corrections to the Draft EIR,” a document pertaining to the full original proposal. Check out Appendix I, “Travel Demand Forecasting Report,” and, more specifically, Figure 5.4-1, “2025 Peak Ridership for Proposed Project (Cloverdale to Larkspur).” This document estimates the passengers getting on and off at each train station in both directions, and the number of passengers on trains between each station during commute hours. The numbers are pitifully small: heading north, 46 passengers getting on in downtown San Rafael, 49 at the Civic Center, 14 in South Novato. Heading south: 97 passengers getting on in Cloverdale, 223 in Healdsburg, 423 in Windsor, 324 in north Santa Rosa, 36 in downtown Santa Rosa, 42 in Rohnert Park. Most of the projected commuting is within Sonoma County; the projection of passengers crossing into Marin County from Sonoma County during commute hours daily is only 230.
Travel time from Santa Rosa to San Rafael is currently estimated at about one hour. Is this reasonable? Will there be enough double rail sections to let trains from both directions pass one another? In case of delays or mechanical breakdown, will the whole system be affected? Will the promised shuttle buses provide substantial help to riders who need to get from train stations to jobs and schools? Will they be affordable, given SMART’s history of lavish pay and benefits?
And then there’s the hornet’s nest of taxes, bond issuance and actual costs for even the downsized IOS. What if SMART got voters to approve the tax in 2008 by promising the moon but minimizing the actual cost of the system? For that matter, who knows what the actual cost of the reduced system is? In 2008, the full system was projected to cost $541 million. By 2010, cost overruns had pushed the projected cost to $695 million. Has there been any firm financial update since 2010? Is the cost for a reduced IOS more like $360 million or $400 million or more? Is there a firm projected cost for “Positive Train Control,” a federally required and very expensive safety feature?
Most important, has any such government project ever actually come in on budget? Hasn’t the projected cost of California’s high-speed rail tripled? Why did SMART fire David Heath, the former CFO and interim general manager who had a history of excellent financial management when he worked in Santa Rosa? What if SMART was never adequately funded based on the sales tax and other known sources of funding? What if SMART doesn’t qualify for more federal transportation and Metropolitan Transportation Commission dollars partly because the system is so small and population density along the train route is so low? Is it true that SMART has been turned down for federal dollars three times?
SMART has blamed downsizing on a decrease in sales tax revenue due to the recession. But shouldn’t the recession, theoretically, result in much lower engineering and construction costs, offsetting the decrease in sales taxes? Shouldn’t the recession, and persistently low interest rates, lower the cost of issuing bonds for construction? What if the projections of sales tax revenue were too high to begin with? What if backers of SMART were and are primarily concerned with making the project appear “fully funded,” not just to convince voters of the project’s validity, but (more important) as a condition imposed by other government sources (such as the MTC) to provide supplemental funding?
Final question (for now): What if even the downsized SMART system won’t work financially without another sales tax increase?
