To continue the Santa Clara analogy, what the North Bay wants and needs is a VTA not an ACE.

The folks who concocted SMART turned a deaf ear to the idea of real light rail from the beginning. Professional railroad people in general have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the concept of electrification. They have not escaped the influence of 100 years of defamation of electric railroads by the highway lobby. Look at how long it has taken to get Caltrain SF to San Jose electrified. Even now I won't feel secure until the catenary is up and energized.

100 years ago both Marin and Sonoma Counties enjoyed electric rail transit, at a time when the population was much less and the average person could not yet afford to own an automobile. Now SMART is telling us that we are so poor that the best we can get is a doodlebug.

SMART suffers from many shortcomings but there are two that are highlighted by recent events. Other than the disaster in LA. One is the Sonoma to SF commute, which is dying as we speak. Personal experience with this: in June I took advantage of the free transit day to go to the City. There were 4 GGT #73 commute buses in the morning. Last week I took the #73 to go to a retirement party in SF - there are now only 3 #73 runs scheduled in the morning. And this is at a time when people are supposed to be flocking to public transit due to high gas prices. Golden Gate Transit is systematically cutting out runs due to falling patronage. At this rate there will eventually be hardly any commute service left.

Secondly there is the issue of the ferryboats, so much beloved in Marin County. There is a reason why the ferryboats disappeared when the bridges opened. They are expensive to operate. For obvious safety reasons they require a large onboard staff and they consume mass quantities of fuel - the faster they go the more they burn. An indication of just how costly the ferries will be in the future is that GGT was unable to get a bid they could afford on a new high speed boat. So they are proposing to purchase a mothballed ferry from Washington State and and rebuilding it. The first question that comes up is how come Washington State is mothballing ferryboats?

Projected SMART and GGT ferry fares will have to much higher to continue operation, even with a sizeable public subsidy. Ridership will be very disappointing, just as with the current GGT commute buses.