Staff Report
Article Launched: 06/29/2008 12:02:36 AM PDTThe problem is that we have put ourselves in a box with few alternatives. Electric-powered cars and readily available affordable biofuels are decades away and there’s only an inadequate transit network to pick up the slack.
Like most suburbs, the North Bay built its public transit for those too old, sick or poor to drive; the so-called “transit dependent.” With the exception of Golden Gate’s well-conceived bus and ferry commute to San Francisco’s Financial District, local bus service was never envisioned to provide Sonoma and Marin residents with a practical way to travel within or between the two counties.
The truth is you generally can’t get from here to there by bus and when you can, it’s inconvenient.
Even if auto commuters decide en masse to convert to transit, there isn’t capacity to carry them. The current scheme was built to transport a relatively small number of riders. While current buses and ferries can handle a few more passengers, neither Golden Gate, Sonoma nor Marin Transit is prepared for a major influx of patronage.
I had thought that the one valid objection to building SMART (Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit) was that potential ridership would be insufficient to justify its cost. Foolish me. Now, the concern is whether SMART will have sufficient capacity to meet demand in a world of $5-$6- or even $7-gas.
Unfortunately, Americans were so welded to their auto-centered lifestyle that they trusted the Bush administration to get us out of this hole with promises of cheap Middle East oil. As a result, we have frittered away eight years with nary a step taken to devise alternatives.
Funding new methods of mobility or technological innovation will be the major quandary. There was a time when we could have imposed a gas surcharge to pay for these internal improvements.
Instead, we thoughtlessly allowed the money generated by the four-fold petroleum price increase to fund Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. We ended up using the cash to sustain tyrants rather than preparing us for a petro-doomsday.
Don’t think Barack Obama will turn this mess around in a nanosecond. It will take a decade to bring any meaningful solution to fruition.
North Bay leaders now need to do their part extricating us from this morass by devising a midrange transit strategy designed to get average folks conveniently to jobs, schools and shops.
That was Golden Gate Transit’s mission in the early 1970s, when it went into the transbay bus and ferry business. SMART is part of the solution, but by no means the entire answer.
Now, with oil at $140 per barrel, we must bring in experts to draft a workable scenario to move us within and between Marin and Sonoma without being tied exclusively to the gas guzzler.
Expect more of these letters as the price of fuel goes up. Fuel prices will go up, and will also tie in to the for FOR SMART. Don’t forget it will also allow a 70 mile walking, biking path.
With the price of gas expected to reach $6.50 a gallon by year’s end, it’s time those civic leaders opposed to multi-modal rail and SMART step up and really level with the public about their reasons for opposing rail. Unless those explanations get better than “those pesky horns” on grade crossings or obtuse environmental claims that lack grounding in truth or reality, our civic leaders better put the lawsuits and possibly their careers aside, get on the bandwagon and do everything in their power to get multi-modal rail on the track in the Marin-Sonoma corridor. That means it’s time for the budget-strapped city of Novato to end its childish, costly suit against the North Coast Railroad Authority.
Time for the Marin County Board of Supervisors to retract its amicus brief and support SMART by declaring the proposed funding with “most-favored priority status.”
It’s time Larkspur’s city council provides germane arguments opposing SMART or get on board with a co-located ferry-rail transit hub.
The objections are petty compared with the value and advantages that multi-modal rail immediately provides, plus the opportunities future enhancements SMART will encourage, such as inter-city tram and trolley services.
Transportation experts agree that current energy and economic conditions will affect permanent social changes regarding public transit. Across America, transit ridership is up 40 percent and residents of Denver call riding their new light-rail system “The New Patriotism.”
Marin County leadership needs to help get us back to the future, and rail puts all of us on the right track.
Steven Pointer
Seamless train-ferry link
Walter Strakosch (Readers’ Forum, June 19) rightly argues that the more convenient a transit connection is, the more acceptable it will be to commuters.To push his idea further, why not have the SMART cars load directly to ferries, which would carry them to San Francisco and offload to rail connections in the city?
In the early 20th century, rail cars for both freight and passengers were ferried from San Francisco to Marin.
The same idea could be applied to Michael Rex’s and Allan Nichol’s proposal to revive trolley lines in Marin (IJ, April 10).
Stuart H. Brown, San Rafael
Prop. 13 and SMART
Denver, Colo. has recently completed a brand new rail transit system of $57 million and 57 stations.Voters have approved another 122 miles of track. They are making a mark on reducing petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Marin?
Marin has not.
Obviously, the voters in Denver are more ecological and smarter than those in Marin.
Oh, wait a minute.
Denver residents are not handcuffed by Proposition 13. Proposition 13 has deprived Californians of their right to tax themselves and has destroyed California’s infrastructure.
Repeal Jarvis-Gann and restore “one man; one vote.” Repeal the right of a small minority to preempt majority rule.
Jerome J. Ghigliotti, Novato LARKSPUR
Seems a shortage of rail cars made them unable to borrow one to show off at the Sonoma-Marin county fair.
But the agency couldn’t get its hands on one to show Marin voters what they could be riding.
SMART spokesman Chris Coursey said it hoped to borrow a train from The Sprinter, a new San Diego County service that runs between Escondido and Oceanside, but it didn’t have a train to loan SMART.
After its sales tax measure lost in 2006, SMART officials decided that they needed to do a better job of showing local voters what the train would look like. They wanted to bring the train to the county fair.
It was going to cost an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 to pull off, but it never got that far because they couldn’t get their hands on a train.
Instead, SMART will bring a small model of the train to the fair.
doing a search today for SMART stuff, came across a nicely done SMART 2008 website.
Beats the FUD the Bull/Mike Arnold puts out.
1) SMART has dropped biodiesel as an alternative.
2) The article failed to mention freight, freight noise at night, and gravel mining on the Eel River, subsidized by SMART because it subsidizes freight operations. (This will matter by the fall.)
3) SMART shuttles are a joke. There are only 9 shuttle buses to be funded. They will pick people up at train stations, but not take them there. (Documented by Larkspur City Council and SMART Working Group.)
4) Imagine what $500 million would do for Golden Gate Transit services. Lower fares and more service, with hybrid buses would take far more cars off the road, reduce global warming emmissions at far lower cost than the train could ever hope to achieve.
5) SMART’s 6,000 ridership figure is made up. It did not account for HIGHER FARES it would need to charge to pay for its own diesel based fuel (which currently costs more than gasoline.)
6) According to SMART’s recently released financial plan, rail will not be running until the fall of 2014. (They can’t afford to start it sooner and must save our tax dollars to fund the boondoggle.)
7) There are no major employers in Marin or Sonoma counties to compare with shuttles serving Caltrain. Just look at the numbers. That’s why ridership is so low. (Only 240 Sonoma residents forecast to take 7 trains in the morning to Marin. Only 55 people expected to take SMART to the ferry.)
Folks, the SMART Board is misrepresenting what the train can achieve and how much it will actually cost in order to con you into voting for the tax measure. It’s that simple.
Posted by Tired of the Bull, a resident of another community, on Jun 20, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Replies, including mine.
Tired of bull offers only critique by taking things out of context, and providing misinformation, and offers no real solutions. Typical of the highway lobby. Here is the truth:
1. SMART is still open to biodiesel, but more likely will use new emerging hybrid-electric engine technology. The climate protection campaign recently endorsed SMART and encouraged them to take advantage of this technology which is already in use and fits well with SMART’s railcar design.
2. SMART shuttle plan is extensive, to places like Santa Rosa JC (where 10,000 Marin students commute daily) to Santa Rosa Airport where we can take a direct flight to LA, to Northgate Mall, to ferry, to Civic center etc. see here Web Link for more. But once SMART is up and running, other places like Copia in wine country, Infineon raceway etc. will offer their own shuttles for customers and employees. In the South bay, this is exactly how it works and most ridership for Caltrain comes from shuttles.
3. Freight is in no way dependent on SMART to operate north of highway 37. Any efficiencies that come from operating passenger rail too is a good thing!
4. Status quo- buses and cars on our already crowded highways, isn’t working. Spending more money on buses alone won’t work either. You’ll never convince as many people to give up their cars to ride buses that get stuck in traffic as rail that zips along comfortably and reliably quick. That means, while SMART cuts Marin and Sonoma’s emissions, a similar investment in buses alone actually increases them! And SMART will encourge more bus usage…See here:
SMART is projected to produce a net increase in total bus ridership on both Marin and Sonoma County routes, mainly by boosting local connecting service to stations more than it reduces ridership on inter-county routes. Compared with the Express Bus Alternative
evaluated in SMART’s EIR, the SMART rail project would result in 1,000 more daily bus transit trips on Sonoma County routes and 4,000 more daily bus trips on Golden Gate and Marin County routes. On the other hand, the EIR found that the Express Bus Alternative would siphon more heavily from existing inter-county routes, bring fewer riders to connecting routes, and would actually result in a net increase of 58,000 lbs per day in greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s all about sustainable choices for our future and for our children. Today’s IJ noted Marinites could save about $4,800 per year in Marin county by living in a transit-option-rich neighborhood and now there are special mortgages for people who choose to. You can save over $10 on a single ride on SMART. Come on people, do you really want to continue relying on ever-expanding highways that fill to capacity in a few years as our only option? It’s time for a change.
Posted by Tired of Status Quo, a resident of another community, 1 hour ago
Bull Mike Arnold, you get such a spaz when anyone defends it.
1) Could, meaning it doesn’t have to be in the plans. Could also run on electricity, powered by solar, wind etc. Expensive, but could. An interesting side effect of you all going to renewable energy down there and if it runs on electricity, it would run on renewable energy.
2) Ok so it didn’t mention freight.
A) You didn’t mention that the farmers are screaming to have it back to reduce feed costs. Which would either reduce costs to consumers, or allow the farmers to stay in business, or both. Apparently you don’t care about the average consumer or the farmer.
B) Noise. You failed to mention that people get used to the noise. It has been shown time and time again.
C) You fail to mention that the mining on the eel river has been going on for over 90 years at the Island Mountain site. The site that you all froth about. The gravel/rock has to come somewhere to build your upgrades to 101, sidewalks, building foundations, building themselves. So in reality you want to push the mining to somewhere else far and distant. By doing this you push the energy needed to transport this up, thus pollution, and costs. So the costs of buildings, including low income, sidewalks, and highways goes up. Again you don’t care for the consumer.
3)
a)You fail to mention that many stations are collocated with or with in easy walking distance of transit centers. Shuttles are not as needed to be funded by SMART as you are trying to imply.
b)There is room by that same link to allow bicycles on the trains, or to park them at the stations. Thus buses or car parking not needed, nor shuttles.
c)You fail to mention that there is other rail transit being proposed, that can also feed SMART. Such as the Petaluma Trolley, and another one down in Marin. Thus increasing ridership.
A link to your 9 shuttles.
4) a)Imagine what 800 million will do if we didn’t have to spend it on the Novato Narrows. That is ok right? We are spending over one billion in improvements to 101 yet none of them require CEQUA or EIR for the entire route. Which the Arnold’s are trying to force NCRA to do. Hybrid buses will still not get the efficiency of the train.
b)Your beloved 101 was closed down twice in recent memory. 1st time because of two youth in “love”. 2nd as what do to talking on a cell phone? That means even the buses were delayed. When you keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, your a fool. Keep relying on the highway, seems to be your best solution. Another way to put it, all your solutions is akin to putting all your eggs in one basket, the highway.
5) Diesel engines get better MPG than gasoline. This is due to their increased efficiency. So you your difference may not matter. Your buses still as a majority, use diesel. The buses will always have a higher rolling resistance than trains. The problem is the rubber tire, vs the steel wheel.
b) Your right the 6,000 figure maybe wrong, with the cost of fuel, it maybe higher. Most likely it will be higher.
6) You would prefer it to be never.
7) You keep citing ridership forecasts, yet many ridership’s of old and new rail transit exceeded projections. They are designed to lower(conservative) than actual.
Posted by Capdiamont, a resident of another community, 22 minutes ago
Ch-ching at the gas pump could mean choo-choo for commuter rail
by Peter Seidman
Pacific Sun Staff
The stratospheric increase in gas prices is starting to change transit behavior across the country. Proponents of the commuter rail line between Marin and Sonoma counties may get a boost from that same stratospheric increase when a new sales tax measure for the rail line goes on the ballot in November.“Four-dollar a gallon gas certainly got people’s attention,” says Chris Coursey, community outreach and education manager at Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit. And in the coming years, “Four-dollar gas may seem quaint,” says Marge Macris, co-chair of the Marin committee, and the joint Marin and Sonoma committee, both of which are aiming to push a ballot measure over the top in November.
Voters in the SMART district, which includes Marin and Sonoma counties, three times have turned down an increase in sales tax to pay for the system. But a look at gas prices shows that at least some of those voters might look at train transportation with a fresh eye.
In 1990, when the first proposal to run commuter trains between the two counties was on the ballot, the average price of a gallon of gas in the Bay Area was $1.05. That’s according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The next time a sales tax hike for trains was on the ballot was in 1998, when the average price per gallon in the Bay Area was $1.42.
Skip ahead to 2006, the last time a sales tax measure (one-quarter cent for 20 years) was on the ballot, and gas prices hit an average of $2.36 a gallon in the Bay Area.
Anyone who drives knows the cost of a gallon of gas now is in an even pricier neighborhood, at around $4.50 a gallon. And it looks as though it goes up almost every day.
That kind of dramatic increase in gas, even from 2006 levels to today’s cost, could push more voters in the SMART district toward thinking that setting up a train system for the future transportation portfolio in the North Bay might not be such a bad idea. Riding the train, they might think as gas prices rise, is better than paying $100 for a tank of gas.
It’s not yet certain that SMART actually will put another sales tax proposal on the November ballot, but it’s highly likely. The SMART board is scheduled to meet next month, when board members will make their final decision. If they go ahead and vote to proceed, it’s a sure bet that when SMART mounts an election campaign, gas prices and pocket-book issues will play a larger role on SMART’s persuasion agenda than they have in the past.
There’s statistical evidence that gas prices have hit a level at which motorists across the country are changing their driving habits. This month, the American Public Transportation Association released data showing that “Americans took 2.6 billion trips on public transportation in the first three months of 2008. That is almost 85 million more trips than last year for the same time period.”
President of APTA, William W. Miller says one of the main causative factors for the increase is clear: “There’s no doubt that the high gas prices are motivating people to change their travel behavior. More and more people have decided that taking public transportation is the quickest way to beat high gas prices.”
Of all forms of public transportation, according to APTA, light rail showed the biggest increase in ridership. That category, which includes streetcars, trolleys and “heritage trolleys,” increased its ridership in the first three months of this year by an average of 6.1 percent over the same time period in 2007.
The second largest increase in year-over-year ridership came on commuter rail systems like SMART. The commuter rail lines had a 5.5 percent average year-over-year increase in ridership numbers for the first three months of this year.
When looking at all forms of public transportation, says APTA, ridership on public transportation is at its highest level in 50 years.
At the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District, an increase in ridership also is evident this year. Although ferry ridership has fluctuated due to a ferry in dry dock for service, bus ridership shows some interesting spikes. In February, for instance, ridership increased 10.4 percent over numbers posted for the same month in 2007. In April, the increase in ridership was 11.5 percent.
Spikes in gas prices probably played a significant role in transit riders’ rationale for taking the bus. Although some months show relatively modest declines in ridership, the overall bus ridership trend at Golden Gate is upward.
The environmental impact report for the SMART proposal included conservative ridership figures, says Coursey. The proposal calls for a rail system between the two counties that will feature rail service along 70 miles of Northwestern Pacific track from Cloverdale to Larkspur Landing, with 14 stops along the route. SMART would run 14 round trips during weekday commute hours.
After the election defeat in 2006, SMART proponents pushed forward a proposal for an additional weekend service that, if approved by SMART and voters, would run four trips on the weekends. That addition would add an element of leisure transportation between the Larkspur Ferry Terminal and the wine country that could garner votes, especially in Sonoma County. And there are Marin residents who think taking a train up to Sonoma for the day sounds like an attractive mini-getaway.
The SMART environmental report estimated that about 5,300 passengers would ride commute trains each day. That number, say opponents, is way too low to justify the cost of the system. But, says Coursey, that 5,300 number was estimated in 2005, when gas was about $1.55 a gallon.
Using a conservative forecast, Coursey says, SMART estimates that when gas reaches $5 a gallon, ridership will increase to 6,000 riders a day. “And for each dollar that gas goes up there’s another 15 percent to 20 percent increase in ridership.” And if public transportation ridership patterns continue to their upward swing, those numbers could be even more beneficial to commuter rail systems like SMART.
But opponents are firm in their criticism that spending public money on a train system is spending money on an inefficient form of transportation that’s “really 19th century technology.” That’s what Joy Dahlgren of Marin Citizens for Effective Transportation says. The organization was on the leading edge of the opposition in Marin in 2006, when the proposed sales tax measure failed by just 1.3 percent of the total vote in both counties. (It actually passed the critical two-thirds margin in Sonoma County, but failed in Marin, dragging down the total vote count.)
Dahlgen says trains made sense in the past, when large numbers of workers commuted from outlying areas to a single large factory, for instance. Even today, the Altamont Commuter Express system is successful, she says, because it goes to Silicon Valley. Marin and Sonoma counties just don’t have the kind of population and the kinds of large workplaces to support a train-based commuter system, she adds. Buses are much more efficient. Dahlgren also says a much better use of public funds would be to increase the fuel efficiency of automobiles.
But, say SMART proponents, Marin and Sonoma counties should have both a bus system and a train system, and increasing fuel efficiency stalls progress in the long run.
“Even if you increase fuel efficiency significantly,” says Marin Supervisor Charles McGlashan, who’s also chair of SMART board, “if you don’t deal with congestion, and people live farther and farther from where they work, it completely cancels out the benefits from more fuel efficient vehicles. History bears that out over the decades, when people obtained more and more fuel-efficient cars, they moved farther out, and our climate gas footprint has gotten worse and worse.”
And as for a lack of large employers along the rail line, McGlashan points to Firemen’s Fund, Autodesk and the county’s Civic Center building in rebuttal. With shuttle buses taking people from their workplace to train stations, local traffic could decline in congested areas like downtown San Rafael, say SMART advocates. Dahlgren says she doesn’t trust employers to actually provide those shuttles. But SMART proponents say the proposed train system already has commitments from some of the major employers.
Creating a public transportation system that includes buses and trains is the best way to plan for the next 50 years when it comes to regional transportation in the North Bay, say McGlashan and other SMART proponents. That’s true, says Macris, and she adds another element to the equation. When SMART proponents begin putting a campaign strategy into practice, “We’re not just going to use an environmental argument or just use an economic argument. I think it has to involve both of those, as well the whole social equity idea that people need another way to get around.” The strategy, she adds, mirrors the Marin Countywide Plan, which has three tenets: environment, economy and equity. “I think that SMART fits that very well,” says Macris, who is a former Marin County planning director and current co-chair of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative.
One of the added benefits of a train system, say SMART advocates, is that it would promote transit-based housing development along the rail line, locations ideal for affordable housing.
Citizens for Effective Transportation and other critics maintain their objection based on the expense of an investment that, they say, will bring insufficient return. They point to increasing cost estimates, which now peg the train system at needing $1.6 billion to become reality. That’s $200 million more than previous estimates.
But SMART backers say the increased cost is to be expected, the same way cost increases come along with almost any major proposed project that gets stretched out over years. Increases in materials, labor and all the elements that go into building a train system have risen over time—-just like gas prices.
The increased estimates are reasonable, says Coursey. The original projected revenue estimates in the environmental report were conservative, and SMART should see more money coming in via the sales tax hike than envisioned in the projections.
The environmental report for the rail system projects no growth in sales tax for the first three years and “ramps up to about 4 percent over the course of the 20-year period” of the tax, according to Coursey. Marin sales tax revenue has averaged an annual increase of about 5-percent. In Sonoma County, the annual increase has averaged 6 percent. Looking at the numbers that way, enough revenue will come into SMART to make the project work, say SMART officials.
Dahlgren doesn’t buy it. “The sales gas isn’t going to be sufficient to pay for the services they’re promising. This is both dishonest and risky because these things tend to be bailed out.”
That argument raises a question: Is spending public money on a transportation system that uses trains a good investment for the future of the North Bay—-even if additional public money is required? Obviously Citizens for Effective Transportation and other SMART critics think it’s unwise. But proponents of what’s called an intermodal transportation picture for the North Bay think otherwise.
In addition to holding the promise of reducing freeway traffic congestion and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the possibility of stimulating affordable housing along the train route, a commuter line would add another transportation mode for the two counties, another transportation alternative that could serve the area into what seems to be an uncertain gasoline-based transportation future. Call it insurance. You have to pay for it, but it’s handy when you need it.
Talk about the county placing a sales tax measure on the ballot to help pay for a wide variety of services, including open space maintenance, farm preservation and wildfire safety, has created the possibility of competing tax measures on the November ballot. But it now looks as though the county’s tax measure won’t be ready for November. To complicate matters, the governor has sent up a trial balloon, lifting the possibility of a one-cent sales tax.
Nevertheless, SMART intends to continue on the route it began traveling in 2006, and the board in all probability will vote to proceed with putting the sales tax measure on the November ballot.
“It’s not just a dollars and cents issue,” says Macris, referring to global warming, congestion and affordable housing. “We have real problems [in the North Bay], and we all have to recognize that we need to change the way we operate, and (SMART) is one thing we can do.”
Going on the November ballot is critical, says McGlashan. “It’s our last, best chance for a long time. It’s do or die.”
One little thing about gauge in railroads and BART. Gauge is the distance between the rails. BART has an odd ball gauge, it doesn’t connect to anything in the SF Bay area. Any connections to it, people have to transfer. SMART will use standard gauge trains, meaning it can connect to most freight or passenger railroads in the US. I think John McCarthy wanted the SMART to connect to BART at the stations so people could easily transfer, not the trains themselves.
I agree with John McCarthy in Wednesday’s Marin Voice column that SMART must connect with BART.
The primary factor that keeps me from voting for SMART is that the rail gauge does not match BART and would never have the possibility of connecting to BART in the future, either to the Concord station as suggested in the column or to the Richmond station.
Marin and Sonoma county residents need to be able to travel to the East Bay, Oakland and San Francisco airports and other Bay Area destinations, not just to the Larkspur Ferry. Residents and workers from other areas also need access to us.
Sue Chelini, Mill Valley
By JOHN McCARTHY
Article Launched: 06/18/2008 12:03:18 AM PDTThe basic premise of SMART is to get people onto public transportation and out of individual cars on Highway 101.
A third choice is to build SMART in three phases.
The first phase is to build the Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Windsor, Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati and Petaluma portion. This already has the necessary two-thirds voters support of Sonoma County residents.
Building it first would be a tremendous help for the general public to have local public transportation and for shopping; for students to get to Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa and Petaluma and Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park.
On weekends, the train could be competion to the Napa Wine Train based on the wine and restaurant success within Sonoma County. It would serve as a good case study for the actual construction and operating cost of the train(s).
The second and third phases would involve extending the line from Petaluma to Novato and from there to Black Point or Port Sonoma Marina and to the Concord BART Station.
At Black Point or Port Sonoma Marina the Golden Gate Bridge District could open a third ferry terminal with a direct connection to the Ferry Building. In the past, the district has been able
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to acquire modern boats which are largely paid for by local and federal funding.This location would also give Sonoma and Novato residents a shorter commute to a ferry terminal.
It would also reduce peak parking demands at Larkspur Landing. Although this writer expects ferry ridership will increase due to rising gas prices.
The third phase would be to run SMART to the nearest BART station in Solano County which is the Concord BART Station. That way, people from Marin or Sonoma going to work in the East Bay and San Francisco, would have a true connection to a proven public transportation system.
Plus with wireless access on both SMART and BART travel time could be used in a productive manner.
Which of these is Phase 2 or Phase 3 would be a function of public approval of the project, performing the necessary preliminary engineering and the environmental assessments, and the raising of the funding.
Since Sonoma County, Novato and Solano County all appear to be pro-growth, this approach may be of great economic interest to each of them.
For the rest of Marin, it should result in fewer vehicles originating from Sonoma or Northern Marin and feeding into an already overwhelmed Highway 101.
John McCarthy of San Rafael is a civil engineer who has lived in Marin County for over 30 years. He regularly rides the Larkspur ferry.
Published: Thursday, May 1, 2008
Editor: Kendall Haven of Fulton took strong exception to Alfred Bulf’s letter praising SMART (“Noise assault of trains,” Argus-Courier, April 24). Mr. Haven seems intolerant of all noises emanating from anything train. Train whistles. Train clickety-clack. I take strong exception to Mr. Haven’s strong exception.
Train whistles and clickety-clack are among the all-time best sounds. Songs have been written extolling the wailing of the train whistle. People take their children to see a train roll by. Mr. Haven, living up there in Fulton a stone’s throw from the train tracks and the freeway, seems not to be bothered by the sounds of the freeway. The constant urban rumble we all hear, folks, is the sound of cars and big rigs on our streets and freeways. Most of you, Mr. Haven included, seem to have stopped hearing it. Now, there’s something to complain about.
No, Mr. Haven, the biggest complaint I have for SMART is that they aren’t BART (BART is smart, but SMART ain’t BART) and that they haven’t been able to talk Marin County into the 21st century.
Tim Hurley, Petaluma
Published: Thursday, May 1, 2008
Editor: Alarming statistics about air horn noise from rail, cited by a letter writer from Fulton in the April 24 Argus-Courier, ignore the startup plans for SMART rail. These plans include the establishment of quiet zones in the cities served by SMART. Quiet zones eliminate air horn warnings at crossings.
The completely independent startup of NCRA freight service, which might occur this year, will not invest in quiet zones. We can all live with the small startup of freight deliveries of livestock feed to help keep our dairy and poultry industries viable. If voters, in the meantime, pass the SMART rail ballot measure in November, they will have launched a quiet zone process that will control noise for both freight and passenger rail.
Voters have many environmental and transportation reasons, this fall, to vote for the SMART rail and trail measure. Controlling air horn noise of both passenger and freight trains becomes a SMART startup dividend.
Lauren Williams, Petaluma
Published: Thursday, May 1, 2008
Editor: Kendall Haven of Fulton, in the April 24 Argus-Courier, attacks the train horn noise by NCRA freight trains and SMART passenger trains. His letter compiles a tissue of outright misinformation and distortion of fact.
n NCRA plans six trains each day, not 16. NCRA states that anything more than six is highly speculative. More than six depends on rebuilding the railroad through the Eel River Canyon, which is very problematic.
n Federal law, 49 CFR 229.129, provides that train horns produce a maximum 110 decibels of noise, not the 120-144 dB Mr. Haven claims. And that 110 dB is measured at 100 feet, not 120 per Mr. Haven.
n Mr. Haven says 100,000 people would suffer from this noise. SMART conducted extensive tests using federal noise criteria. The SMART FEIR, pages 4-55, found that 280 residences would experience severe impacts, and that an additional 540 would experience impacts less than severe. 820 residences can’t hold 100,000 people.
n SMART stepped up to the plate on the horn noise issue two years ago. SMART has earmarked funds to pay for quiet zones so that trains don’t have to blow their horns at crossings. NCRA’s plan to do likewise was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger, but SMART remains steadfast.
n Mr. Haven’s solution is transit buses. Commuters are abandoning Golden Gate commute buses in droves. GGT commutes have lost 25.1 percent of their riders in three years. Yet traffic across the Golden Gate Bridge is flat, a 1.8 percent increase over the last five years. At the same time, GGT ferries gained 28 percent despite fares 63 percent higher than the bus. SMART opponents claim that express bus is cost-effective. It can’t be cost-effective if nobody rides.
n Ferry ridership proves that quality transit service attracts riders. SMART will offer a quality of service buses cannot match. The cost of gas has already swelled SMART ridership projections. To meet greenhouse gas reduction goals, we will have to curb driving and that further raises ridership for SMART. In fact, taking SMART will get most commuters to work faster than driving.
Allen Tacy, Petaluma
Walter Strakosch
Article Launched: 04/28/2008 12:12:15 AM PDTLet’s be clear: The rail line has been there 125 years and was operating until 2001. The freight service then was temporarily shut down but never abandoned (important point). Because some investors believe the line again can be viable, and have money to put it into operating condition, it will carry freight again.
The track is owned by SMART (a public agency) north to Healdsburg (which by law must provide trackage rights to the North Coast Rail Authority) and by NCRA beyond. Arnold’s column states “This illustrates one of the many ways SMART is connected at the ‘hip’ to NCRA.” He infers a vote for SMART will make freight operations more intrusive on residents, citing noise, engine pollution, delays at grade crossings - you name it.
If the planned November sales tax vote fails, SMART probably would step out of the picture and the NCRA can operate when it pleases - and after the hard time Novato and Arnold have given it, it could just do that. That means freight over the old track without “quiet zones” and at anytime. Freight trains operate over thousands of miles of track at all hours, and if Novato were allowed to control train times, why wouldn’t other towns? It’s not realistic.
However,
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if SMART passes it will replace its old track with new ties, ballast and wielded rail, significantly diminishing sound from the rail vehicles. SMART also will help local governments convert existing sensitive crossings into quiet zones (no train horns). NCRA has no requirement to do this. SMART also will control the entire dispatch (freight and passenger) and, I expect, be considerate of Novato and other cities on these issuesAnother black hole issue that Arnold brings up is pollution.
That becomes a non issue thanks to the self-propelled rail cars that SMART will use. Starting in 2011, new rules require the use of ultra-low emission diesel engines. It has been shown that the “exhaust” particle levels of these engines is even lower than the particle levels in the air entering these engines. Combined with ultra-low sulfur diesel, that will make the SMART train an extremely clean vehicle. Wouldn’t 200 people in rail cars, rather than in autos, be a significant environmental plus?
With the commitment by NCRA to use a similar type of technology, air quality doesn’t seem to be the issue that Arnold makes of it. Perhaps the Marin Citizens for Effective Transportation should redirect its efforts at getting more smog-belching tractor-trailer trucks off Highway 101 - such as those freight service may replace - but it appears that is not what his group is about.
We hear constantly from SMART naysayers about grade-crossing delays when trains pass. With SMART that could be 30 to 45 seconds. At a traffic light you stop from one to three minutes, but that seems OK. A two-car SMART train carrying 200 people, which may take that many cars off the roads, however, is not OK to naysayers. Go figure.
Another issue is the possibility of impeding emergency vehicles. We have thousands of rail crossings in this country and I have yet to hear this brought up as a “life-and-death issue.” The rail car pass-by is brief, and freight in the foreseeable future of six daily trains, is also a relatively small impact.
Yes, a vote for SMART, with the North Coast Rail Authority as a participating partner, will be a vote for a more fluid and vibrant North Bay. Bet on it.
Walter Strakosch of Mill Valley is a member of Friends of SMART. He had a 40-year career in transportation.
