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SMART
Novato Stops Funding of Downtown SMART Station Thanks to One Complaint
One simple Fair Political Practices Commission complaint stopped Novato city council from making a multimillion dollar mistake funding a downtown SMART station. SMART has not committed to service this station - Novato already has a station planned at San Marin.
Due to 83% of SMART being a single track line the train has very limited headway so it cannot easily be delayed by additional stops. Most likely alternating trains would have stopped at San Marin and Novato, possibly fewer.
Station advocates claimed that the station would stimulate economic activity. If they mean shopping then SMART's draft schedule reveals that if trains alternated that during shopping hours service intervals would likely have been:
- 2+ hour service intervals weekdays
- 4+ hour service intervals at weekends
What shopper is going to gear their schedule around that? To achieve reasonable train ridership requires high frequency service so riders don't have to worry too much about planning around the train - they can count on a train coming along within say 15 minutes. A 2+ hour interval means the person's entire day would have to be scheduled around the train.
Novato Station Advocated for Pushing High Density Development
A letter from the well-meaning Jack Swearengen, chair of "Friends of SMART" sent to Novato's mayor encouraged the council to fund a new station in downtown Novato saying that the station will drive high density transit oriented development. The letter also mis-states that the station, served by a 19 liter diesel train, will somehow reduce greenhouse gases.
The letter claims:
"SMART is the best land use planning tool that we will have in our lifetimes....That means concentrating development near stations"
Additionally the presence of a new downtown SMART station is near certain to have led to the Association of Bay Area Government raising Novato's Regional Housing Needs Allowance. This is a quota forcing Novato to plan for new housing units. Cities that fail to meet the quota are routinely sued by groups such as Urban Habitat. Both Pleasanton and Menlo Park lost suits because they failed to plan to meet these quotes costing the cities millions in settlement costs and legal fees.
The May 9th Novato City Council Vote
At last night's vote the Novato city council vote to fund a new downtown Novato SMART station came to a 2-2 draw. Previously the council had voted 3-2 to approve the funding mechanism for the new station. However councilor Eric Lucan recused himself. I received this in an email from Eric explaining what had happened:
"Nothing changed or shifted my position. After the first vote in early 2016, an FPPC complaint was filed claiming I had a conflict of interest. 1 year and 3 months later, the FPPC still has not gotten to the claim. I tried to request advice for the item last night, but was denied guidance from them because of the outstanding claim."
So the one person who filed that FPPC complaint deserves ALL the credit. Just by having one FPPC outstanding complaint Lucan felt obligated to recuse himself.
The vote drew a tie and the station funding measure did not pass.
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