After a tumultuous 2020 — from a failed sales tax extension to the coronavirus crisis — SMART plans to use the next five months to strategize how to bring riders back and chart a course for the post-pandemic future.
Issues slated for discussion include changes to fares and train schedules; potential rail extensions north and east; the acquisition of North Bay freight hauling services; customer marketing; and the expansion of bicycle and pedestrian paths.
“We are getting ready for going back to a new normal, so we want to get ready and receive your direction, your feedback as well as members of the public,” Farhad Mansourian, general manager of the rail line, told the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit board on Wednesday.
The board intends to address the laundry list of issues over several months of meetings starting on Feb. 3 and ending with the adoption of the 2021-2022 fiscal year budget in June.
Like other Bay Area transit agencies, SMART saw a precipitous ridership drop after the pandemic began. While SMART has adopted new safety standards — more frequent train cleaning, the installation of hand sanitizer dispensers and the addition of ultraviolet lights to disinfect airflow — ridership hasn’t come close to pre-pandemic levels.
In December 2019, SMART had just opened its new downtown Novato and Larkspur stations and was averaging nearly 2,400 passengers per weekday, some of its highest ridership numbers since launching in August 2017. A year later, weekday ridership averaged about 340 riders, a decline of about 86%, according to the latest data.
The dramatic drop resulted from stay-at-home orders; SMART cutting weekend service and more than halving daily trips on weekdays, from 38 to 16; commuters opting for cars on virtually traffic-free highways; and a general lack of public trust in the health safety of transit.
The rollout of vaccinations in the coming months should bring new life to the economy and transit, Mansourian told the board. But how quickly and to what extent riders will return to transit is still unclear.
Petaluma resident Diana Gill has used SMART to commute to her San Rafael teaching job for the last three years to avoid Highway 101 traffic. She said she’d rather take a 20-minute train ride than sit in traffic for 45 minutes in her car. While Gill continues to ride the train, some of her colleagues who used to ride SMART have opted to take their cars now that traffic has lessened significantly amid the pandemic.
“It doesn’t take 45 minutes anymore,” Gill said. “There’s not a lot of traffic because people are working from home now.”
In April, the SMART board plans to discuss a marketing campaign to restore ridership. Board member Debora Fudge of Windsor questioned whether the board should discuss marketing strategies sooner to attract people who stopped riding after the shelter-at-home order last month.
“I still have people saying, ‘I didn’t know I could ride the train now,'” Fudge told the board. “As much as we’ve been doing, there are still people that we’re not reaching that used to ride that haven’t been riding lately because of the shutdowns.”
Board member Chris Rogers of Santa Rosa said he feels less optimistic that riders will be waiting to return. However, he said the district could have joint messaging with the vaccination efforts by offering free train rides to those who show proof of vaccination.
Others, such as board vice chairwoman Barbara Pahre of Napa County, urged patience before beginning a marketing campaign.
“I think we’ve been caught so many times setting up expectations that we can’t deliver, and I think that comes back and hits us in the face,” Pahre said. “I agree that we need to be reasoned and not get too excited until there is an honest end in sight.”
While grappling with the pandemic, SMART has also sought to determine why voters shot down its March 2020 ballot measure to extend its quarter-cent sales tax for 30 years. The tax measure fell well short of the two-thirds majority needed from Sonoma County and Marin County voters. The original sales tax passed in 2008 is set to expire in 2029 and makes up about half of the district’s revenue stream.
Throughout 2020, SMART held forums with various communities across both counties as well as interest groups such as cyclists to determine what the public wants from the agency. Mansourian said the agency plans to review all the comments and discuss plans to put those ideas into effect.
Board member Damon Connolly, the Marin County supervisor representing San Rafael, said SMART’s efforts to build out a bicycle and pedestrian path along its tracks will be the “backbone of any future success,” including at the ballot box whenever SMART attempts another tax measure. While cycling groups had backed SMART’s original sales tax measure in 2008, many did not support the 2020 tax extension because of criticism that SMART was not giving the path more funding priority.
Connolly suggested forming a subcommittee specifically to discuss the path with stakeholders.
In April and May, Mansourian intends to have the board discuss future extensions of its passenger rail and its planned acquisition of North Bay freight hauling operations.
SMART plans to extend north to Healdsburg and Windsor and has been eyeing a potential eastward service expansion to Suisun City parallel to Highway 37. SMART might also get federal approval for its takeover of North Bay freight hauling operations from the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. between Napa and Windsor.
The proposal, which received state approval in December, would also have SMART take ownership of 21 miles of rail from Healdsburg north to the Mendocino-Sonoma County border.
One decision the board must make is whether to operate freight hauling in-house or contract the service out to another operator, Mansourian said. The board is set to meet on May 5 to discuss those options.
Eris Weaver, executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, cautioned the board on how it prioritizes spending of its tax dollars.
“As you look at adding freight service or adding passenger service to the east or things that were not part of the original measure, I think if any of those projects end up being built before the path is finished that you’re going to have a lot of people really ticked off about that,” said Eris Weaver, executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition.
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SMART plans for future after coronavirus pandemic - Marin Independent Journal
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