But in 2008, advocates for a commuter-rail line stretching along Northern California’s coast from Larkspur to Cloverdale got their wish. Measure Q received the required two-thirds majority, thus imposing a sales-tax hike on two counties just north of San Francisco. Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) finally had a revenue stream.
Then what happened? Michael J. Coffino’s The Great Train Heist: The California SMART Taxpayer Rip-off (Skyhorse Publishing; 216 Pages; $32.99) provides a comprehensive, if maddening, answer. Hired by a “Sonoma County family with a multigenerational history and deep roots in the community,” the author was asked to “shine a light on the … story from conception to current operation, a story we believe the public deserves to hear.” His completed assignment is part policy analysis, part political intrigue along the lines of All the President’s Men.
As the 20th century ended, commuter rail experienced a boomlet. Nostalgia for trains, fears of “global warming,” and consistently worsening urban traffic justified a broad, if usually quixotic, desire to “do something.” San Diego’s Coaster, Seattle’s Sounder, Utah’s FrontRunner, the New Mexico Rail Runner Express, the Music City Star, Orlando’s SunRail — metro elites stumbled over one another to launch, in the Federal Transit Administration’s description, their own “electric or diesel propelled railway for urban passenger train service consisting of local travel which operates between a central city and outlying areas.”
SMART’s groupies sold their proposal with the standard pitches. Impressive ridership. Fewer automobiles on congested highways. Multiple environmental benefits. But Coffino’s research shows that right from the start, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District was a poor prospect for train travel. The proper density didn’t exist — “the counties of Sonoma and Marin do not contain a critical mass of residents faced each day with deciding whether to take their car or public transit to areas where a substantial concentration of employment, businesses and schools are located.”
