Guest Opinion: Corona Road the best option for second SMART station

We write in response to last week’s editorial.|

We write in response to last week’s editorial. We urge the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit authority to do everything it can to keep its east Petaluma station at its long-planned convenient location on Corona Road. Moving the station a mile north to the Adobe Lumber site on Old Redwood Highway would be unfortunate from the standpoints of economics, the environmental benefit and potential east Petaluma SMART riders.

The owner of the Adobe Lumber property, which also owns several nearby office buildings, is apparently offering to build SMART a station “for free” to enhance the value of its office building portfolio. But such gifts are seldom free. In this case, the owner wants to offset its costs with the right to develop about five acres of valuable SMART property adjacent to the historic station at Lakeville Street and East Washington Street.

The long-planned Corona station site was identified in SMART’s 2005 environmental impact report, so it’s what voters expected when they passed Measure Q in 2008. It benefits everyone because of its proximity to residences with potential train riders, and because it is on two major arterials, Corona and North McDowell, giving easy park-and-ride access to the train for thousands of people, including SRJC students.

By contrast, the Adobe Lumber site is horribly inconvenient for east side residents who would like to ride the train to Marin. They’d have to drive ten minutes or more in the wrong direction to get a train. (The downtown station isn’t much of an option for them because that is not planned to offer much parking.)

In addition, choosing the Adobe Lumber site would reduce SMART’s environmental benefits because stations in residential zones attract more riders than those in commercial zones, and because there is no opportunity for transit-oriented development near the Adobe Lumber site.

The Adobe Lumber site is also mostly in the 100 year flood plain. Technically, SMART is exempt from having to comply with the City’s zero net fill requirement in the flood plain. But it would be terrible if SMART worsened flooding for at-risk areas by importing fill to create a station.

The Corona site does have minor soil contamination issues, but the property is now under contract to a developer who is well aware of those issues and plans to deal with them. More importantly, SMART’s platform could most likely fit in SMART’s existing right-of-way, and parking there need not be owned by SMART for its riders to use it. Thus, any liability for soil contamination on the site could remain with the owner.

Part of SMART’s promise is to promote pedestrian-friendly mixed use neighborhoods around SMART stations. The City of Petaluma envisions Theatre District-type development near the downtown station, for example.

The City recently completed a planning study, funded primarily by a $240,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, to update planning around the downtown and Corona SMART station sites to achieve that kind of pedestrian-friendly mixed use in those areas. SMART commented on the study, but never advised that it was thinking of abandoning the Corona site. To do so now would be a sad waste of taxpayer funds.

Conversely, the Adobe Lumber area would never support either mixed use development or housing. It is at the edge of Petaluma’s Urban Growth Boundary, and the nearby properties inside the UGB are already fully developed with office uses.

It may very well make sense for SMART to use its downtown property as leverage to help achieve an east Petaluma station. But there is no reason to use the downtown property only to achieve a station at the Adobe Lumber site. SMART’s downtown property could equally be used to achieve a station at Corona. We encourage SMART to proactively pursue this possibility.

The selection of Petaluma’s east side SMART station is far more important than checking off a box on a to-do list. It will impact this community, as well as SMART’s success, for decades. We understand the time sensitivity and the need to resolve this issue quickly. We encourage SMART to work with the City of Petaluma to achieve the long-promised goal of a SMART station at Corona Road.

Mike Healy is a member of the Petaluma City Council and a former SMART director. Steve Birdlebough is a longtime member of the Friends of SMART.

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