Archive for the ‘North Bay’ Category
November 2008 Election: Yes on Measure Q (Sonoma & Marin Counties)
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| Courtesy of SMARTTrain2008.org. |
In 2006, voters in Marin and Sonoma Counties very narrowly turned down a 1/4-percent sales tax whose proceeds would fund Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), the project that would rehabilitate the 70-mile right of way (formerly of Northwestern Pacific) between Cloverdale in northern Sonoma County and Larkspur in Marin County. This year, that project is once again on the ballot in the form of Measure Q, again as a 1/4-percent sales tax requiring 2/3 approval for passage. SMART would operate DMUs (essentially, light diesel commuter rail) every 30 minutes at peak, with limited weekday and weekend service, comparable to the Sprinter in Oceanside-Escondido. The project also includes a pathway for cyclists and pedestrians along the right of way. The train would not connect directly to San Francisco, a fact that has prompted opponents to dub it the “train to nowhere.” But this claim is really without basis considering North Bay commute patterns: in 2000, a little over 75% of Sonoma County home-based work trips remained in the county; for Marin, a smaller percentage but still over half of home-based work trips remained inside the county. More trips still were carried out between the two counties, but still without a bay crossing. San Francisco is not presently the predominant travel market, and it won’t be in the future either, as this trend is expected to solidify and strengthen as new jobs are added to the North Bay. Even though most SMART riders will not be riding the train to Larkspur to transfer to a San Francisco-bound ferry, we still might wish that the Larkspur station had been brought all the way to the ferry terminal, and not a shuttle ride or ten-minute walk away. Nonetheless, we’re excited by the possibility of trains returning to grace the North Bay’s landscape of town centers and verdure pastures. Just like downtowns emerged on the Peninsula along the Southern Pacific right-of-way between San Francisco and San Jose, so, too, towns in the North Bay were developed along the Northwestern Pacific right-of-way. In that sense, SMART, just as Caltrain currently does on the Peninsula, would provide convenient service to North Bay downtowns. SMART is a worthy project, and North Bay voters are encouraged to vote Yes on Measure Q for SMART.
A SMART Pipe Dream
Please click here to read the previous post, which adds a bit of context and motivation for this post.
Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) will likely be going up for the ballot again this November. Most recently, in the November 2006 election, the Measure R quarter-cent sales tax for SMART failed — falling just short of the required 2/3 of votes in both counties, despite cleaning up with 70% of the votes in Sonoma, a county whose rapid growth calls out for a rail line to channel sustainable development patterns. The plan for SMART is to operate DMUs (possibly light DMUs, use of which would require approval from the FRA) along the old Northwestern Pacific Railroad right of way, a roughly 70-mile, generally single-tracked route with passing sidings, running from Cloverdale in northern Sonoma County to Larkspur in Marin County, serving North Bay downtowns, including Santa Rosa and San Rafael, and within shuttle access of other employment centers. The plan also includes a pathway for cyclists and pedestrians along the right of way. The southern terminus is a quarter-mile from the Larkspur ferry terminal, where riders can transfer from the train to a ferry for San Francisco via a connection that is not nearly as seamless as it should be for a regional connection point. Naysayers — headed by Mike Arnold and his gang, the Marin Citizens for “Effective Transportation” — emphasize that the route is predicted to capture just 5,300 daily riders and hence is not cost-effective as measured on a per passenger basis. (Of course, the original ridership forecasts date from when gasoline cost half what it does now. And prices were still substantially lower than they are now even when the updated forecasts were released, thus not weighing the potentially powerful persuasive effect of $7 per gallon gas.) In the interest of keeping this post to a reasonable length, we will postpone more detail about the actual SMART proposal and its opposing forces for another day, taking it here as a given that the project should be built. This post is meant to be about brainstorming and fun pipe dreams, not politics.
June 2008 Election: State Legislature Roundup
This post will provide some information on the Democratic primary for the California legislature campaigns. The blurbs that follow are essentially endorsements, but I hesitate to use the word “endorsement” here, because to my mind, use of that word ought to be supported by a fuller discussion, drawing on a large range of issues. Because this blog has a relatively narrow topical focus, I wasn’t sure what the interest level would be outside of that focus; in any case, there did not turn out to be time to put together a more complete discussion.
It probably goes without saying that my that my opinions about these these candidates are based on more than just their records on transit and planning issues — in fact, that may have only been a small part of the equation. But I figured that if you are reading this blog, you are probably interested in the candidates’ perspectives on these topics — particularly because in campaigning, these issues often get lost in the shuffle, even though some of us find them to be extremely important. So that is the focus of these blurbs, as a starting point; readers are of course encouraged to research other issues they care about. This post does not pretend to be a thorough or equal discussion of all candidates campaigning for the same position — nor is this a complete list of all races. Candidates are after the jump.
