SMART Regional Rail Leads Bay Area Transit Ridership Pandemic Recovery

Despite Success Regaining Passengers, Sales Tax Sunset Puts Future at Risk

SMART DMUs at Cotati station. Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District photo.

SMART, a 45-mile diesel-powered regional route that is the San Francisco Bay Area’s newest rail line, is enjoying the best post-pandemic ridership recovery in the region. In 2023, SMART, which stands for Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit, carried approximately 750,000 riders, the most since the service began in 2017, and is on track for 850,000 passengers this year.

That is more than triple the loads handled during the worst years of the pandemic, when annual ridership fellow below 250,000. SMART had a 124 percent ridership recovery ratio between October 2019 and October 2023, which made it the only Bay Area transit agency to grow its passenger count over that period.

Despite its success building ridership, SMART’s future outlook is cloudy. Although it has obtained funding to build an 8.8-mile extension, the quarter-cent sales tax that funds 41 percent of its operating budget expires in 2029. If the tax is not extended there could be storm clouds instead of blue skies in SMART’s future.

California established a new transportation district in 2002 to oversee and implement development of passenger rail service in Marin and Sonoma Counties. The area, known as North Bay, had not had passenger trains since the Northwestern Pacific Railroad ended service in 1958. Since then, Highway 101, which parallels the rail line, became one of the most congested freeways in the entire Bay Area.

In a 2008 referendum voters in the two counties approved by a two-thirds majority the sales tax and planned 70-mile rail line and parallel paved trail for pedestrians and cyclists. The tax supports operations as well as interest payments on the $200 million of bonds sold to finance the rail line’s construction.

The newly formed Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District acquired the 70-mile former NWP route between Larkspur and Cloverdale with the intent of operating both passenger and freight service. Passenger service between San Rafael and Santa Rosa, a distance of 43 miles, commenced in 2017. A two-mile extension to Larkspur, where the station is a quarter mile from the ferry terminal, opened in 2019.

Today SMART operates 38 trains on weekdays and 10 on weekends between Larkspur and its northern terminus in Santa Rosa, adjacent to the Charles M. Schulz – Sonoma County Airport. As of third quarter 2024, it carried, on average, 3,400 weekday riders. The line uses 18 Nippon Sharyo DMU (diesel multiple unit) rails cars that operate in pairs with seating for 300 passengers.

SMART plans to fill roughly half of the 25-mile gap between the current end of the line and Cloverdale by 2028. An extension from Santa Rosa to Windsor is scheduled to open in the first half of 2025. In October, the agency received the go ahead for another 8.8 miles of rail line to a point 3.3 miles beyond Healdsburg.

A new $81 million grant from California’s Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP), plus $188 million in previous commitments from the state and federal government, will pay the project’s $269 million estimated cost. Construction is expected to begin in 2026 and be completed in 2028.

The Healdsburg extension will leave just 13.2 miles of track to reach Cloverdale. SMART’s draft strategic plan calls for completing the line by 2030. However, it has no funding for that project. In addition, the Cloverdale extension was excluded from Plan Bay Area 2050+, the updated regional transportation and land-use plan developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments.

That decision disappointed proponents of the extension to Cloverdale. Its residents have been paying the SMARTrain sales tax for almost two decades and have nothing to show for it. The train station the city built in 1998 in anticipation of future passenger service has no passengers to serve.

Currently SMART is working with the City of Cloverdale and Sonoma County on federal grants to complete planning for the remaining segment. Given SMART’s uncertain financial future and the anti-transit posture of the incoming Trump administration, there is a strong possibility that funding is several years off, at best.

At this time, SMART leadership cannot say how the service would remain financially viable after the sales tax expires. Their goal is to gain enough taxpayer support by 2027 to conduct a referendum on a sales tax extension. “We want to make sure we’ve done enough to ensure we’re successful,” said general manager Eddy Cumins. “Right now, I don’t have that timeline.”

Since joining SMART in 2021 Cumins has focused on building ridership. He lowered fares by 40 percent, suspended station parking fees, restored weekend service and added weekday trains, and introduced a monthly pass based on a three-day a week commute. Youth and seniors can ride for free. SMART is addressing the “last mile” challenge with on-demand shuttle services to the Sonoma County Airport and Larkspur ferry terminal.

In 2020 SMART conducted a referendum on a 30-year sales tax extension of the but did not get the two-thirds majority it needed for the measure to pass. However, this year the California state legislature amended SMART’s founding legislation to require a simple majority, which will make it easier to extend the levy beyond 2029.

Even with the lower vote threshold, extending the tax will likely depend upon how well SMART serves and communicates with the public, markets its benefits, and manages its budget. Critics like Mike Arnold, a Marin County resident and economist, charge SMART’s marketing strategies are being subsidized through the sales tax, which is paid by residents who work from home and don’t ride the train.

They also point out that fares cover only a tiny portion of SMART’s operating expenses. However, most transit agencies rely on public support to keep fares affordable and service accessible.

SMART future growth might not be limited to the Cloverdale extension. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has proposed adding passenger service to a 41-mile SMART freight line between Novato and Suisun City. The track, which links Marin and Solano Counties, runs parallel to heavily congested Highway 37.

The east – west freight route was included in the Federal Railroad Administration Corridor Identification and Development program. This makes it eligible for a $500,000 grant for initial planning. The line was also included in Caltrans 2022 state rail plan. Preliminary estimates for the project range between $780 million and $1.3 billion.

The project, which Caltrans is spearheading, reflects the state’s vision for “an integrated, seamless rail network.” Passengers would be able to transfer at Suisun City to Amtrak Capitol Corridor trains, which run between Sacramento, Oakland, and San Jose, and connect with Amtrak’s national network.

Skeptics are bound to say it will never happen, but SMART has a history of defying those bleak predictions. "Everyone said, 'You'll never get to Larkspur.' SMART got to Larkspur. 'Oh, you'll never get to Windsor.' SMART will be opening in Windsor next year. And now we have the funding to go to Healdsburg," said SMART Board Vice Chair Melanie Bagby. "So, I think it's pretty evident that we're on a trajectory to complete the vision of the voters for SMART."

SMART has accomplished much over its brief lifespan, including building 28 miles of paved pathway along its right of way with another 9.6 miles under construction. The multi-use path constitutes the southern segment of the 307-mile Great Redwood Trail, which connects San Francisco with Humboldt Bay.

With the pandemic receding in the past, the agency is well positioned to build a constituency to support the rail line well into the future. Even though Healdsburg and Cloverdale are small cities, completion of the extension could spur development just as it did more than a century ago along the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) elevated line through New York’s Queens County.