SMART settlement paves way for bike, pedestrian path

by Derek MooreThe Press Democrat | December 1, 2015 | Updated 22 minutes ago.

Cycling advocates say a last-minute agreement hammered out with Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials will prioritize a bike and pedestrian path that voters demanded in 2008 when they approved construction of the commuter rail line.

The agreement, brokered by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, calls for establishing a list of higher priority pathway segments and identifying funding sources for those projects.

Cycling advocates had been threatening to sue SMART over a section of pathway planned in San Rafael, a dispute that more generally speaks to concerns the rail agency is failing to meet its obligations to build the promised network. The agreement, for now, appears to have mitigated those concerns.

“Overall, this is a very, very positive development. It increases hope that the path will actually be built,” said Gary Helfrich, executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition.

Farhad Mansourian, SMART’s general manager, called the agreement a “win-win.”

“We need to all be on the same page. By coming up with a priority list, we can focus our effort and go get money for those projects,” he said Tuesday.

However, a finished pathway running the length of the rail line is likely years or decades away — if ever it becomes reality. A critical selling point for a quarter-percent sales tax to pay for commuter rail, the pathway is now being built in chunks by a variety of entities and as funding becomes available.

SMART has not constructed any of the pathway. Other agencies, including Caltrans, have completed shorter sections, including along Highway 101 south of Petaluma.

The rail project also has been scaled back, with the first 42-mile segment from north Santa Rosa to downtown San Rafael scheduled to debut in late 2016.

As he has with other SMART projects that have yet to materialize, Mansourian blamed the recession and funding shortfalls for impeding pathway construction. He said the rail agency currently is short $200 million to complete the entire Larkspur to Cloverdale project, about $50 million of which he said represents costs for the pathway.

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“For the same reason we’re not in Windsor, or Healdsburg, or Cloverdale, we’re not able to build as much bike pathway. We don’t have the financial ability,” he said.

He cited permitting issues as another barrier to pathway completion, including with the section in San Rafael that was the focus of the dispute leading to Huffman intervening.

Tensions flared earlier this year over the roughly mile-long section of the pathway intended to be built along the track west of Highway 101 in downtown San Rafael, between Second Street and Andersen Drive.

Mansourian said several regulatory agencies refused to sign off on SMART’s plan to run the pathway atop a newly constructed drainage ditch and culvert along the agency’s right-of-way. The alternative plan called for routing the path onto surface streets, a plan cycling advocates denounced as a danger to the public.

“We reached the point where we felt for us to advance the pathway message, we had to do it by considering filing a lawsuit,” said Jim Elias, executive director of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition.

The group had until Friday to file the suit. Huffman, contacted by representatives on both sides, convened a meeting at his San Rafael office on Wednesday to mediate the dispute. Under the agreement, SMART will work with officials from the city of San Rafael and Marin County on designing the pathway. Project funding is anticipated to include $1 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.