SMART Rail Project Crosses Key Hurdle to Build Southern Leg

Nineteen months after a campaign to eliminate the quarter-cent sales tax in Marin and Sonoma counties to pay for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train failed to get on the ballot, SMART officials announced they'd cleared a key hurdle in getting its southern-most leg built. The exclusion of the San Rafael-to-Larkspur section from the first phase of the project was a central argument made by the RepealSMART group at that time.

If the new leg gets built, it will allow Rohnert Park and Cotati residents to take the the SMART train from their respective towns to the Larkspur Ferry service into San Francisco, a oft-repeated promise by local officials in the run-up to the 2008 passage of the sales tax measure.

"When we started this process some said it couldn't be done," SMART board chair Judy Arnold said in a statement. "But here we are, and it's because every board member representing every community is determined to complete the entire project to both the north and to the south in the shortest time possible. We're set to work with our other regional partners to get this done."

SMART officials said Tuesday that the Federal Transit Administration had determined that the commuter rail project, originally planned to extend from Cloverdale to Larkspur, is eligible to enter the project development stage for the "Small Starts" program and is able to apply for a federal government grant for the work. SMART officials said its inclusion in the program allows them to use a $2.5 million federal grant to pay for environmental and engineering work for the San Rafael-to-Larkspur segment.

SMART officials said that the Small Starts program requires a funding plan that includes non-federal money to which federal construction dollars can be allocated. Matching funds are required, and can come from local, regional and/or state funds. Local funding beyond the minimum makes a project more competitive in the federal process, they said.

SMART has estimated that the San Rafael-to-Larkspur leg will cost around $35 million. The $360 million San Rafael-to-Santa Rosa portion is under construction and is expected to be finished by early 2016. 

Mainline track construction is finished between Guerneville Road in Santa Rosa and downtown Petaluma, and construction south toward San Rafael will continue next year.