SMART gets $2.5 million for commute-rail work

<p>The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit district has received $2.5 million in federal funds for preliminary engineering and environmental work on its planned commuter rail line.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>The funds were in the Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus bill, which the Senate passed on Sunday, according to Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma.</p><p>Woolsey said the bill also contains $2 million for the Golden Gate Bridge District's retrofit work, and $500,000 for the Petaluma Health Center renovations.</p><p>SMART, which is being funded primarily by the Measure Q quarter-cent sales tax measure passed by voters last year, has begun engineering work on rail cars and on the 71-mile line that stretches from Cloverdale to Larkspur.</p><p>Service is scheduled to begin in 2014.</p><p>The funds will help bridge the long-term $155 million shortfall SMART faces because the economic recession has weakened the bond market and depressed sales tax revenues.</p>