Now that SMART’s tax extension measure is on the March ballot, the hype from rail proponents and General Manager Farhad Mansourian is in full gear.
The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit project was an uneconomic dream in 2008 and still is.
Long before 2008, SMART staff had been told by its own consultants that a quarter-cent sales tax was insufficient to fund both construction and rail operations over a 70-mile line. In 2008 the board and many local supporters perpetuated the myth and conned unsuspecting voters. Taxpayers are now paying for these lies.
SMART’s ridership is terrible, averaging less than 2,500 riders on weekdays. While Mansourian refused (until last week) to release detailed ridership data, monthly ridership published online by the Federal Transit Administration demonstrates ridership has actually declined a bit in the past 12 months. Proponents have the chutzpah to argue SMART is in its infancy and voters need to “give it a chance” by approving a 39-year tax.
Trains that fail to serve a high density employment center have zero chance of impacting peak hour traffic. They simply don’t, and can’t, carry many commuters close to their jobs that are dispersed across two suburban counties. SMART’s high operating costs are then distributed over few riders leading to enormous taxpayer subsidies. Every rider on SMART now costs taxpayers over $50 and every round-trip costs over $100. By this measure, it is the most cost-ineffective transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area and the most cost-ineffective rail system in the nation.
Understating costs seems to be in the agency’s blood. It promoted a 70-mile rail line 11 years ago and, to date, it has built only 45 miles. Now it admits what was obvious years ago: It can’t complete the line.
It cost $55 million to extend the line 2 miles to Larkspur. The new schedule indicates long and variable connection times between train arrivals in Larkspur and ferry departures and even longer times between ferry arrivals and train departures. Commuters are learning quickly about these poor connections. That’s why additional ridership will be on par with the SMART staff’s own forecast in which it calculated the extension would generate an additional 231 riders, 16 years from now.
If the agency were really transparent, as it repeatedly claims, it would disclose the number of riders on each of the 38 trains. It won’t. Why? It doesn’t want voters to know how many trains are nearly empty.
SMART is causing gridlock in downtown San Rafael. During the peak hours, crossing guards are descending four times per hour on five cross streets used daily by 90,000 vehicles. Central Marin residents are not happy being stuck in traffic. The silence by Marin’s political leadership is deafening.
SMART’s latest misleading claim: If the measure doesn’t pass we’ll have to make cuts in service. Win or lose, the measure doesn’t change the agency’s revenue stream for nine years, so how could a loss in March cause cutbacks? The financial reality: SMART can’t afford the 38 trains they’re operating on weekdays without draining financial reserves. Cutbacks are coming no matter what.
SMART’s ballot measure begins with the words “to continue to relieve traffic congestion.” Does anyone still believe such nonsense?
Before voters provide another penny to this dysfunctional and untrustworthy agency, SMART needs to come clean with the public. Taxpayers deserve to know the truth about its ridership, costs and traffic impacts in downtown San Rafael. It should be obvious to all that such reforms won’t occur without holding the agency accountable. The way to do it is to vote against Measure I this March.
Mike Arnold, of Novato, is a local economist and lecturer in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Dominican University.
