SMART preps for launch, without firm start date

After years of track work, bridge construction and train testing, these final months are the most crucial, and SMART officials will not peg a date for the launch of service.|

Eight years after Sonoma and Marin County voters passed a sales tax measure to fund a commuter train service, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency is just months from bringing passenger rail to the North Bay for the first time in nearly 60 years.

But, after years of track work, bridge construction and train testing, these final months are the most crucial, SMART officials say, and so much of the final work is unpredictable that they will not peg a date for the launch of service.

“For the grand opening, we envision having several celebrations throughout the alignment in different communities,” Jeanne Mariani-Belding, SMART’s community outreach coordinator told the agency’s board last week during an update on work still to go. “We’re looking forward to getting a firm date so that the community can get excited about the new service.”

But with more high speed train testing to come, and regulatory approvals still needed, Farhard Mansourian, SMART’s general manager would not provide a firm date for the start of operations beyond saying the agency is working to be up and running by the end of the year.

“There is no date yet,” he said in an interview. “It would be premature to give a date with many things out of our control.”

Work on the 43-mile tracks from San Rafael to north of Santa Rosa, including 63 road crossings, is largely complete, Bill Gamlen, SMART’s chief engineer told the board.

“Reconstruction of our railroad is substantially complete at this point in time,” he said. “We are currently wrapping up station construction.”

There initially will be 10 stations between San Rafael and the Sonoma County Airport, including one in downtown Petaluma. A second Petaluma station on the city’s east side was part of the original plan, but postponed due to the recession.

Mansourian said talks are continuing with the owner of a property at Corona Road and McDowell Boulevard about building a station at the site. He said he expects a development agreement within the next 30 days. Such an agreement would likely involve trading a station at the Corona Road site for development right to a SMART-owned parcel near the downtown station.

Outstanding issues include clarity from the city of Petaluma on the type of development permitted at the downtown property and the cleanup of contaminated soil at the Corona site, Mansourian said, and he does not expect the station to be ready for the start of service.

Next month, SMART will begin testing their diesel trains at high speeds along the entire system. Until now, the trains, which can hit top speeds of 79 mph, have only been operated regularly at high speeds on the stretch between Novato and Petaluma, though SMART conducted one high speed test through Rohnert Park recently.

After high speed testing is complete and federal railroad regulators give their approval, SMART will begin simulated service, in which it will run empty trains on a fixed schedule along the line, stopping at stations as if passengers were on board, Mansourian said.

“We need to do that for weeks, if not months,” he said, raising the specter that SMART will not be ready to launch by the end of the year as officials have repeatedly stated.

But, Mansourian said crews will be working around the clock in the next three months, and he remains optimistic that they can meet their self-imposed 2016 deadline for launch.

“I won’t give that up until the afternoon of Dec. 31,” he said.

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)

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