Railfans are not anti-bicycle. Far from it. A bit of foresight and planning could have avoided this conflict. What with the its FRA-related problems with NWP-NCRA how could SMART not be aware that a sscond track might be the only sure-fire way to resolve the issue There is always the possibility that the FRA might tighten their policy even further. Accidents happen.

And how could they not be aware of the obvious public interest in real mass transit? There is certainly a cadre of BART faithful in Marin County that regularly writes letters to the editor advocating their favorite transit system over SMART. What BART did to rip a ROW in the East Bay in the early sixties would never be permitted in the North Bay today. However using the 101 corridor would be possible but very expensive - south of Larkspur it is the only available route for mass transit. There is some parallel between the loss of the NWP ROW in Southern Marin and what SMART is proposing to do now with the northern section. The whole idea of saving the ROW was to avoid having to start from scratch. Building light rail to San Francisco will be very expensive, but well worth it in view of the fact that the rest of the line will be much cheaper to construct because we already have the ROW. SMART needs to think long and recognize that mass transit in the North Bay is inevitable and plan accordingly.