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If Measure Q is repealed, are we still on track to pay $200 million in obligations — with no train waiting at the station?
Repeal effort barrels ahead—but what are the consequences of cutting off funding for the SMART train?
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pponents of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit passenger train system have always bumped up against a solid barrier: In 2008, 69.5 percent of district voters cast ballots for Measure Q, the quarter-cent sales tax that serves as the financial foundation for the rail line. Almost as soon as election officials certified the vote, opponents began a relentless campaign to kill the sales tax. SMART opponents formed RepealSMART, a coalition focused on taking the sales tax measure back to voters. The group is collecting signatures and has until Jan. 28 to gather enough names to qualify a repeal measure for the June or November ballot. But as with almost everything SMART, it’s not that simple. When voters approved the measure, which
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will—unless repealed—remain in effect for 20 years, they voted for a rail line that would stretch from Cloverdale to Larkspur and could count on revenue from sales tax to cover a major portion of costs. In Marin, 62.6 percent by Pe te r of voters approved the measure; 73.5 percent of Sonoma County voters did so. The larger number of voters casting affirmative ballots in Sonoma County reflects a longstanding split between the two counties. Sonoma has been more amenable to a rail line than Marin, and voters there have been more willing to pay for it. In 2008, rail proponents managed to clear the magic two-thirds margin, but they did so right as the worst economic downturn since
the Great Depression hit the country. The economic slump crushed sales tax projections for the nascent transportation district. That, combined with overly optimistic estimates about the scope of needed construction, Se i d m an forced SMART to rethink its strategy. That kind of reassessment is common in the railbuilding business; it’s not unique to SMART. When SMART took a hard look at its options, board members decided to tackle construction of the rail line in phases. The first phase, a section from Santa Rosa to San Rafael, would cost about $360 million. Money from the sales tax and revenue from bonds could cover the cost, along with an infusion of cash from government transportation
programs. It was a scaled-down version of the system that could, SMART said, be running by 2015 to 2016. That was later than the complete system was supposed to be running, but a train line between the two counties would run, proponents said, and would be the start of the rail line as first envisioned. Opponents say they voted for an entire rail line, not just a first phase with completion at some undetermined date. Clay Mitchell, co-chairman of RepealSMART, says about 200 volunteers are gathering signatures to place the repeal measure on the ballot, and the effort is running on about $15,000 in donations. Mitchell insists the repeal effort isn’t intended to derail SMART but to take the funding mechanism back to the voters to determine whether they want to,