SMART bike and pedestrian path safe from budget cuts - for now

Mark Prado
Marin IJ, July 21, 2010

The bicycle and pedestrian pathway portion of the SMART rail project is safe - for now.

On Wednesday the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit Board of Directors approved a response to the Marin Civil Grand Jury, which suggested delaying the $91 million path as a way to help close a $155 million shortfall the project is facing in a report issued last month.

The board said it won't implement the recommendation but added it was "premature to defer any part of the project" in its response to the jury.

"Measure Q was the train and the pathway both, that's what the voters voted on and it can't simply be peeled away or delayed as the grand jury suggests," said Andy Peri of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, adding that building the projects separately would be more costly.

Added Jack Swearengen, chairman of the Friends of SMART: "Delaying the bike path would be a mistake. SMART was sold as a multi-modal transportation system. That included rail, bus connectors, bicycles and pedestrians."

SMART board members agreed it was too early to make decisions on the project until the financial picture is fully understood. That will happen after analysis is done later this year.

"It is premature for us to make any decisions and it is mandatory we have all the numbers," said Judy Arnold, Marin supervisor and SMART board member.

Barring an unexpected financial turnaround or an influx of new dollars, SMART officials will face difficult decisions about how to implement the project as the work moves forward.

Voters in November 2008 approved a quarter-cent sales tax for 20 years to help finance the $540 million project linking Larkspur and Cloverdale and points in between. But the downturn in the economy has left the project without full funding and the ability to borrow the needed money, making it difficult to finish the project by 2014 as promised.

Since announcing the shortfall in January - brought on by a drop in sales tax revenue - the rail has enlisted the help of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area's transportation planning and funding agency, to find dollars, but the shortfall still exists.

In addition to delaying the bike and pedestrian pathway, there also have been suggestions that towns in Sonoma County at the northern end of the 70-mile line, such as Cloverdale, see service delayed until money is found.

SMART board member Carol Russell of Cloverdale seized on the grand jury report findings that the rail line be kept intact.

"We were pleased and heartened to see that the recommendations did not include truncating the line, although we are saddened by the fact that it had to include the possibility of delaying the bike and pedestrian portion," she said Wednesday. "I wanted to emphasize our interest in making sure that we get 70 miles of train."