In search of an east Petaluma SMART station

There’s a train coming to town. Unfortunately, for now, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train is only coming to the west half of the town.

Farhad Mansourian, the general manager of SMART, has called the commuter train system “a game changer.” We support the SMART train as a way of alleviating congestion on Highway 101 and saving greenhouse gas emissions, but more needs to be done before the transit system changes the game the way BART did in the 1970s.

In Petaluma specifically, more effort is needed to find funding for the second train station on the eastside, which was part of the original plan when voters in Sonoma and Marin counties approved Measure Q, the sales tax measure that funds SMART, in 2008.

The SMART rail authority as done a good job of picking up the pieces since the financial crisis in 2011 ate into sales tax projections and forced several parts to be stripped from the project. Envisioned as a 70-mile commuter line and bike path from Cloverdale to the Larkspur ferry terminal, the initial segment was scaled back to Santa Rosa to San Rafael. The second station in Petaluma, planned for Corona Road and North McDowell Boulevard, was removed from the project’s first phase, as was most of the promised bike path.

Since then, SMART has been able to extend the first phase, which is expected to begin service in late 2016, north to the Sonoma County Airport. The agency recently received federal funding in President Barack Obama’s budget, which we hope Congress approves, to extend the southern end of the line to Larkspur.

Meanwhile, Petaluma is left with the one station on the westside at the site of the historic rail depot on Lakeville Street. The station has about 50 parking spots, and no more parking is planned in the area. In order to make SMART a true “game changer,” the system needs to be convenient enough for a large number of passengers to ride. Hopefully, the westside station will spur the city and developers to add some transit-oriented development in the vacant property between the rail station and the Petaluma River. More housing and more jobs near mass transit means fewer car trips, less traffic and cleaner air.

But that development won’t happen at least until the train is up and running next year. A better idea to get more Petaluma residents riding the train is to build a station with parking on the eastside, where the city’s large business parks and housing tracts are located. The planned Corona Road station was to have parking for 350 cars. Now there is talk about putting Petaluma’s second station at the north edge of town near Ely Road and Old Redwood Highway. This location would be less convenient to eastside residents and commuters - except employees of SMART, whose headquarters is across the road - but it is better than no eastside station.

In an online Argus-Courier poll, 63 percent of respondents said they would not ride SMART to and from work, and a majority of them listed the reasons as a lack of convenience and a lack of parking at stations. If SMART can’t get people from door to door each day, or at least provide parking at one end and buses at the other end, then people will continue driving their cars on congested highways next to empty train cars. We would rather see full train cars.

The first sleek green and gray SMART cars were christened at a well-attended ceremony in Cotati two weeks ago. On the way from the factory in Illinois, the SMART cars passed through Petaluma. They crossed the Petaluma River on the old Haystack Bridge and traveled along Hopper Street before briefly pausing at the historic rail depot next to the half-built commuter rail platform. Then the cars continued under the freeway and right on through the eastside without stopping until they reached Cotati.

We hope that the officials overseeing SMART exert the same effort to fund an eastside Petaluma station as they did to extend the rail line to the north and south. Many eastside residents and commuters don’t want the train to pass by without stopping for them.