Trains will begin carrying passengers Thursday as part of a soft launch of service that will be free. SMART rail officials expect trains to be crowded as the system works its way toward daily commuter service.
“It won’t be perfect, but we want to see how it goes and hear from the public,” said Jeanne Belding, rail agency spokeswoman.
Based on more than 1,000 responses from the public in recent weeks, SMART developed a schedule of preview rides that will build in the coming weeks.
SMART will kick off a trio of public preview rides in the coming days, including service tied to the Marin County Fair.
On Thursday, SMART will offer round-trip rides between its Rohnert Park and Marin Civic Center stations. Trains will depart southbound from the Rohnert Park Station at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. Trains will depart northbound from Marin Civic Center at 4 p.m., 6 p.m., and 8 p.m. Trains will likely be available at other times as well on Thursday, but SMART wanted to set some type of schedule the public could rely on.
“People will be packing the trains,” said Belding, noting each two-car train set can carry as many as 300 people. A more detailed schedule will be given to passengers on Thursday.
On Saturday and July 4, SMART will run one train on each day from the Sonoma County Airport Station to the Marin Civic Center for the Marin County Fair. A third train might be added if demand warrants it, Belding said.
Space is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. All trains depart promptly.
For the time being, passengers shouldn’t expect a full-fledged commute service that will be reliable enough to get them to work. That would come later, possibly by next month.
The preview service will be free. Another free period will ensue once service officially starts, and then it will be half price until Labor Day, rail officials said.
The Federal Railroad Administration must approve SMART’s Positive Train Control safety system before the agency gives the agency final approval to operate full commuter service.
“We expect that very soon,” Belding said.
Schedules for upcoming preview rides will be issued later this week. More information is available at sonomamarintrain.org.
Commuter rail service in Marin has been a long time coming. Plans for BART in Marin unraveled in December 1961, when San Mateo County pulled out of the plan, saying costs were too high. With San Mateo out, the tax base to support the BART plan was weakened. Marin’s small population could not provide adequate tax to support the project, and it was asked to pull out.
But in the 1970s, the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Authority and the Golden Gate Bridge district took control of the existing Northwestern Pacific Railroad right of way. It was turned over to SMART when the agency was established by the state Legislature in 2002.
County voters rejected rail tax measures in 1990, 1998 and 2006, but in 2008 approved Measure Q, a quarter-cent sales tax over 20 years to help fund the train.
The initial phase will take passengers from San Rafael to Santa Rosa, but there is money to complete construction of SMART’s rail extension from San Rafael to Larkspur by 2019. Cloverdale in Sonoma County is the planned northern terminus, but funding still must be found to get there.
“We knew this day would come and it took time, but we wanted to do it right,” said Judy Arnold, SMART board member and Marin supervisor. “It’s a relief to see this starting.”
©2017 The Marin Independent Journal (Novato, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
