Back on Track

by Judith M. Wilson

November 21, 2012
in Feature, Monthly

NorthBay biz checks in with SMART and gets a progress report.

When the final train chugged out of Tiburon in 1967, it was one of the last gasps of the North Bay’s railway era. The railroad business had been failing for decades as cars and trucks became the preferred mode for transporting people and cargo, and trains as a major form of transportation were gradually disappearing into history. Or so it seemed.

Fast forward 45 years, and train travel is on its way back, as SMART (Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit) brings new life to the former Northwestern Pacific Railroad line that runs through Marin and Sonoma counties and prepares the North Bay for a railroad renaissance designed, ironically, to get people out of their cars. “Any time we can take cars off the road, it’s a positive,” says Valerie Brown, a Sonoma County supervisor and chairman of SMART’s board of directors. She believes mass transit will make it easier for people to travel through Marin and Sonoma counties and says, “The train is one of the ways we can move people and reduce greenhouse gases.”

Laying the groundwork

Getting SMART up and running has been a slow process. The California legislature created the new rail district in 2003 to evaluate, plan and implement passenger rail service in Marin and Sonoma counties, and Measure Q made it to local polling stations in November 2008, asking voters to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase for 20 years to fund SMART. The measure required a two-thirds majority and passed with 69.6 percent favoring the train (and accompanying bicycle and pedestrian path), but in the lead-up to the election, the measure faced substantial opposition from some residents, whose concerns included the beliefs that SMART would be too expensive, cause environmental damage and fall short in serving the needs of Marin residents.

Even after Measure Q passed, SMART continued to be a contentious issue for some, as opponents attempted to overturn it, although ultimately without success, when a petition drive launched by an organization called Repeal SMART failed to collect enough signatures to force an additional referendum on the project. Its activism did, however, change the approach to the initial bond sale. (The bond sale was conducted in a two-phase approach that let SMART take advantage of historically low interest rates and avoid costly delays by selling the bonds in the originally planned time frame, but was structured so that proceeds were placed in escrow as the SMART board waited to learn the outcome of the attempt to place a repeal measure on the ballot.)

Meanwhile, over time, the weakening economy had its effect. Although SMART’s mandate is to build 14 stations and run trains along a 70-mile line from Cloverdale to Larkspur, reduced sales tax revenues (resulting from the economic downturn) forced the rail district to scale back and restructure its plans to construct SMART in two phases instead of doing it all at once. Phase 1, which connects the district’s two major employment centers and is expected to serve approximately 80 percent of the full project’s potential ridership, includes nine stations and 38.5 miles of track from North Santa Rosa at Guerneville Road to the C. Paul Bettini Transit Center in downtown San Rafael, is moving forward and is scheduled for completion in late 2015 or early 2016. Phase 2, which will complete the route north to Cloverdale and south to Larkspur Landing, must wait for funding.

“A phased approach is judicious,” says Brown. “I think we’re going to see it all come together in a more positive way.”

The second stage of the bond sale for Phase 1 (where the initial, short-term bond proceeds were remarketed in a long-term fixed rate mode) finally went ahead in April 2012 with a AA rating from Standard & Poor’s and an A rating from Fitch, and it proved to be attractive to investors, doing better than expected and providing $171.2 million in financing needed for the construction of the train and an adjacent multi-use pathway. “Investors were very much into buying our bonds,” says SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian, who commented that, in these days of low interest rates, it was an opportunity to make some money. He explains that in this type of bond sale, investors extend a loan, and a trustee for the borrower pays them back, with interest, directly from sales tax revenue over a designated period of time. “They grill you and make sure you’re in a position to follow through and pay back the money,” he says, but the risk is low because the payback comes from a voter-approved sales tax, which he describes as very secure money.

The next step was soliciting bids for construction, and the weak economy once again played a role when a lack of work increased competition among construction companies. The resulting favorable bids let SMART negotiate contracts to fully fund construction of Phase 1 at a savings of $14 million less than engineers’ estimates. This savings was used to expand the Phase 1 scope to include restoration of the Novato north station and extension of initial train service to the Guerneville Road station in Santa Rosa. The district awarded a $103 million contract to Stacy and Witbeck, Inc., and Herzog Contracting Corporation, a joint venture based in Alameda, for Phase 1 construction in January 2012, and SMART was ready to roll.

Making progress

“The first phase of construction is underway,” says Mansourian. In April 2012, SMART purchased property from the Sonoma County Water District and the county of Sonoma for a maintenance and operations yard in an unincorporated area near the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa. In May, workers began building bridges, improving grade crossings and replacing the 100-year-old rail line along the dormant, publicly owned right of way that once was the Northwestern Pacific Railroad line with new, 1,600-foot lengths of steel rail, concrete ties, ballast and track switches. “There’s a lot of construction activity and a lot of jobs,” says Mansourian.

He adds that construction, inevitably, has an impact on communities, but he believes SMART has done an outstanding job working with local agencies and communicating with the police, fire departments and ambulance services to let them know when and where to expect closures and for how long. “We’ve taken the utmost care to minimize impact,” he says. (You can go to www.sonomamarintrain.org and click on “Construction Updates” to find out where crews are working.)

He appreciates the patience of North Bay residents but also adds a word of caution that railroad tracks can be dangerous places and aren’t a safe place to play. “Safety is huge, so please help us educate your families—especially young children who’ve never seen a train running on these tracks,” he says. SMART launched a new rail safety education effort at the start of the school year, including distribution of safety tips to all K-12 schools in Marin and Sonoma counties. This effort encompasses more than 100,000 students in more than 100 public school districts, as well as dozens of private schools.

Projections show current rail construction being completed by the end of 2013 and work on the extension from Civic Center Drive in San Rafael to downtown lasting until mid-2014. Meanwhile, in the Midwest, work is starting on 12 railcars—five two-car sets and one extra set for backup. Before reaching a decision on railcars, SMART’s board of directors and a group of citizens looked at a variety, taking into consideration efficiency and compliance. Although electric cars were an option, “An electric vehicle just wasn’t doable,” says Mansourian. As a result, “SMART decided to look into the most efficient diesel unit.” He reports the committee chose the cleanest, most efficient railcar, which turned out to provide both the highest technical score and the lowest price.

Sumitomo of America/Nippon Sharyo USA won the contract to manufacture diesel multiple unit railcars with efficient engines that will lower particulate emissions and greenhouse gases, and the Nippon Sharyo USA passenger railcar factory, which will produce the railcars and create 250 jobs, celebrated its official opening in July 2012 in Rochelle, Ill. The railcars are scheduled to arrive in Sonoma County for testing on the tracks in mid-2013.

The stations come next—and they won’t necessarily be in the same spot as the depots of the old days, because, Mansourian says, many don’t work logistically. Whereas passengers used to have to climb up to board the old trains, “We want to have what we call ‘level boarding,’” he says, explaining that stations will be situated to make it easy for people such as those using wheelchairs or pushing strollers to enter the trains. SMART has also worked to place stations where municipalities want them as the schedule and other requirements allow. The Rohnert Park City Council, for example, asked that SMART move its proposed station from one end of town to the other, and the district complied with the request in cooperation with the city as it initiated and completed required studies and reviews. “We do our best to do what our partners want in their communities,” says Mansourian.

In addition to the train, SMART’s mandate includes construction of a parallel bicycle/pedestrian path, which is on the same timeline as the rail line in places where it’s adjacent to the tracks. “In most cases, we’ll be timing path construction to follow the track replacement to avoid damage from the heavy equipment used for track construction,” says Carolyn Glendening, who’s responsible for SMART’s community education and outreach. The paths are eligible for their own funding sources rather than being completely dependent on SMART, so some portions are already complete.

The mile-long, multi-use path through the rehabilitated Cal Park Tunnel, which extends from Larkspur Landing to San Rafael, is a joint project of SMART, local jurisdictions and the Marin Bicycle Coalition. As such, it’s received funding that included grants from Caltrans and the State of California (in addition to half the total funding from SMART). The Class 1 path, which has a solid barrier to separate it from trains, opened in December 2010 and has surpassed expectations for use, reports Mansourian.

A vision for the future

Marin County Supervisor Kate Sears, who serves on the SMART board of directors, inherited her position in May 2011, when Governor Jerry Brown appointed her to fill the late Charles McGlashan’s seat on the Board of Supervisors. She was interested in being on the SMART board because she’s concerned about transit issues in Marin, but she was skeptical of SMART at first—especially when funding was cut back and it became clear that SMART would be unable to be completed in one phase.

She began to see progress and realize the benefits of a rail line, even a reduced one, however, and although she still believes it’s important to complete Phase 2 as soon as possible, she’s enthusiastic about development so far. “It’s amazing the progress that’s been made,” she says, giving Mansourian, who worked for the county of Marin for 31 years before being tapped for SMART, much of the credit. “He’s doing a fantastic job. He’s a super executive director,” she says, pointing to the benefits SMART has found in the financial downturn, and adding, “I think we’re in a really great position.”

Sears is concerned about the increasing congestion on Marin County’s roads and wants to see mass transit work better. “We have some significant traffic challenges,” she says, adding that she believes the train can be part of the solution and that commuters in both directions will benefit. While much of the focus is on getting passengers to the Larkspur Landing Ferry terminal for the leg to San Francisco, she observes that not everyone commutes to the city. Rather, some Marin residents go north, and many Sonoma residents travel to jobs in Marin, so the train will work both ways. “You have plenty of residents all along the line who’ll use the train,” she says, adding that she believes, once SMART starts running, people will see that their options have increased and eventually modify their behavior to use the service.

She also meets people who are excited about riding the train for its own sake, including people who are saying, “I’d go and park in Larkspur and ride that train.”

Although Sears represents District 3 in Southern Marin, which lies beyond the SMART line, she sees her constituents benefiting. She envisions SMART as “the backbone for an expanded shuttle service,” which would let Marin residents make connections and use public transit more readily. “It’s an opportunity to have a really good system of local shuttles…if we could find the money,” she says.

Funding will continue to be an issue, and it’s destined to be an ongoing challenge. “No transit system in the United States pays for itself,” says Mansourian. Fares alone won’t be enough, so the quarter-cent sales tax is also intended to help pay for operating costs (in addition to repaying the bonds). After its 20-year term expires, Mansourian anticipates a favorable public view toward renewal because people tend to support special taxes when they see the benefits, which he expects SMART to deliver.

The excitement builds

Sonoma County’s Supervisor Brown has been a SMART booster from the beginning and is enthusiastic about the prospect of train service. “I remember walking precincts for the tax measure, hoping it would be supported and that we’d someday have a commuter rail,” she says. Now, observers can see construction crews at work and tangible progress, and, she says, “People are really excited. The closer we get to seeing the train coming to fruition, the more interested people are going to be. It’s such a victory for Sonoma and Marin counties.”

Trains have their fans, and the interest is definitely there. Fred Codoni of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society is one SMART supporter who looks forward to riding the train. He worked for 32 years as a department head with Southern Pacific Railroad and its subsidiary the Northwestern Pacific Railroad until he retired in 1988. “I supported SMART through its several attempts to obtain voter approval,” he says.

“SMART is doing some things right, especially in the area of track construction, with concrete ties and continuous welded rail to ensure a smooth ride,” he adds. He has reservations about the choice of railcar, however, and is disappointed that the line won’t continue to the ferry terminal at Larkspur Landing in the beginning. Even so, he says, “I look forward to seeing SMART succeed and riding its inaugural train. I remember riding the Northwestern Pacific electric interurbans in 1940 and hope to be part of the revival of passenger service after more than 70 years.”

The anticipation is building. “There’s a train coming to town,” announces a billboard with a picture of a 21st century SMART railcar at the future Marin Civic Center station. A sleek, new, environmentally friendly train providing a gridlock-free way to travel through Sonoma and Marin counties has a lot to recommend it. It’s a new chapter in the North Bay’s railroad history, and SMART hopes everyone will take advantage of it and hop on board.