Buried in this Marin Independent Journal SMART article is a little nugget of gold from the recent SMART board meeting/political theater puppet show where SMART says they will close the existing 1.5 hour gap between the 5:29 and 6:59 commute trains!
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www.marinij.com]
No explanation how they will do this, or why it hasn't been filled already. Or why it existed in the first place.
The timeline given for the gap-filling is around the revenue service openings of the Larkspur Extension and also the Novato Downtown Station.
This little gap has been the subject of a lot obfuscashun by the SMART management team, a lot of wool pulled over the eyes of the sales-tax paying public, nearly all of whose members do not ride SMART.
So why have they suddenly shifted on this issue and decided that fixing the gap would be a better strategy than just misleading and tricking the public about it? The latter strategy worked well for many many years. Is it that the sales tax renewal that will be voted on in a matter of weeks is bringing scrutiny to past SMART promises and follow through on those? Or is it a way of instilling confidence in the public that SMART is willing to stop misleading them and fulfill basic commitments? Or maybe it's just another cynical ploy that is a carrot to get the public to vote yes on SMART's sales tax renewal--a carrot that will decompose before the public's eyes in late November?