Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) board of director members held a community listening session for Healdsburg residents last week in an effort to garner feedback and questions from locals regarding the future of the SMART train in Healdsburg.
The special forum is part of a series of virtual sessions taking place this month to address the train’s future in north county locations, like Cloverdale and Healdsburg.
SMART board member and Sonoma County District 2 Supervisor David Rabbitt said of the Wednesday, Sept. 23 meeting, “We’ll take all of the comments, summarize those, bring them to the board and compile them in a package, and ultimately this will be used to advance new policy or to address new issues that were brought up by our customers and county constituents.”
Those on the Zoom meeting call included various SMART board members — such as Joe Naujokas — SMART engineers, SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian and Healdsburg Mayor Evelyn Mitchell and Healdsburg Councilmember David Hagele.
“To reinforce the mission of this discussion, it’s for us to really listen to you. This is your train that your taxpayer money is paying for, you have voted for it, you have voted for the people who run it and this is the beauty of a public run entity is that it really is the public who is the primary stakeholder,” Naujokas said.
He said now that the agency is more or less stabilized for the moment, it’s time to reach out, extend the line and deepen its roots within the community.
“This is one of those opportunities for us to do that,” Naujokas said.
One of the most burning questions of the evening was, “When will the train get to Healdsburg?”
Francesca Whitcomb is a SMART train commuter, but lives in Novato and works in Healdsburg at the Healdsburg Unified School District. She takes the train as far as she can and makes her way to work via other modes of transportation, but would like to be able to take the train all the way to work. The timeline for the arrival of SMART in Healdsburg is still unclear but completion of the station in Windsor is a bit closer on the horizon.
Yet, the topics asked about the most included cost savings ideas — including a change in tracks and rail ties — and interim solutions for getting the train to Healdsburg sooner, including bike path connections, electric bus bridges or even a temporary station south of the Russian River bridge.
Councilmember Hagele said, “There is a lot we’ve been doing here in Healdsburg to prepare for the eventual arrival of SMART, including integrating the tracks into our brand new roundabout.”
He opined that it will be important to look at creating a train station that is north of the bridge.
“There’s a number of high-density residential projects that have already been approved that are going to be built and I think it’s really important to stay focused on a station north of the bridge. It is important that the SMART train cross the bridge just from a walkability standpoint, whether it’s at the new farmers market that we’re looking at or at the existing train station, it’s important to have it in a centrally located place. If not, we’re looking at people hoping in their cars to drive to the station,” Hagele said.
Others echoedp Hagele’s point about having the station north of the bridge, however, some participants advocated for two SMART stations, one across the bridge and one further north in town either near the community center or the Montage resort.
Corazón Healdsburg CEO Ariel Kelley said while two stations would be ideal for the community there would have to be several planning conversations with the city in conjunction with SMART. She said the more clarity about SMART’s goals and objectives, the better.
“We’re having a lot of conversations in Healdsburg about land use planning and the locating of housing in various areas … and there has been conversation about relocating the depot from its current land location, north of the bridge but south of the Plaza, to potentially the city-owned lot adjacent to Hotel Healdsburg in the Plaza,” Kelley said. “And then there is also another conversation about a northern station near the Healdsburg Community Center and so while I think having two stations would be ideal for the community and I think would serve the variety of needs that we have, I think that getting a clearer picture on those stations and what the options are will play a large role in a lot of other planning conversations that will need to happen in
conjunction or after that, that will have a domino effect in other parts of our community.”
Resident Kenneth Munson echoed Kelley’s thoughts and said it would be helpful if SMART participated in the city’s master planning.
“Long-range planning is important. SMART should participate in the city’s master planning of the town that is hopefully happening soon,” Munson said.
Another popular comment during the session was the need to have a safe and aesthetically pleasing bike and pedestrian path on the Russian River bridge as well as additional bike path connections to the station.
Others had some creative ideas such as creating a mixed-used building either near or built atop the station to create public transit-oriented housing.
Rick Coates suggested considering hydrogen powered trains as a green option over the current diesel run engines. One viewer asked about the possibility of public/private partnerships with entities like wineries in order to share costs and create a connection to local businesses.
Now that the SMART board members have the resident’s feedback they’ll work on compiling all the information they’ve collected so far from both the Cloverdale and Healdsburg listening sessions and report back to the full board. They’ll also use the information to inform future policy and plans and to address resident concerns and questions.
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Residents pitch ideas, questions for the future of SMART in Healdsburg - Sonoma West
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