Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District leaders face a precarious future even if ridership eventually returns to pre-pandemic levels.
SMART’s Achilles’ heel is its present business model. The transit agency incurs high operating expenses against a relatively light passenger load, producing a low farebox recovery ratio. The agency’s budget is dependent on a one-quarter-cent sales tax that expires in 2029 unless a supermajority of voters approves extending the tax’s duration.
Renewal of that sales tax stands a far higher chance of passage if the two-county district can demonstrate to North Bay voters that it is a model of fiscal efficiency. SMART must set a new goal: Lowering costs while providing the same or better service to the traveling public. The reality is the Marin-to-Sonoma County rail line must decrease overhead costs by operating with fewer employees.
It’s been suggested that all Bay Area transit agencies merge based on geography or function. The idea is that regional consolidation eliminates expensive duplicative overhead. Operationally, it could facilitate coordinating bus, rail and ferry transfers.
That approach hasn’t gotten far. Each Bay Area transit agency has its unique source of outside funding. That cash is essential since no public transit provider in the world operates solely on its farebox to fund the difference between expenses and passenger-generated revenue.
The unsolvable dilemma of merging all transit providers under one umbrella requires crafting one unified method of tax funding. Currently each transit agency has its own tax and auxiliary revenues sources to fund their expense-farebox deficit. To change, they’d all need to obtain two-thirds voter approval to adopt a new unified tax. That’ll never happen.
Another consolidation stumbling block often overlooked is that politically selected transit directors are loath to give up their posts as a regional merger requires. While few directors earn more than a per-meeting stipend, they all treasure the prestige that comes with board membership.
There’s an alternative that doesn’t require multiple local ballot issues to revise transit’s multiple funding models. It also allows each agency to retain its independent board providing oversight and maintaining local control. It involves contracting out an agency’s operations.
SMART’s 11-member board should consider contracting with Golden Gate Transit to manage and operate its trains. The agency already has full management capabilities and a 50-year record of running first-class buses and ferries in the North Bay. Adding a Larkspur-Windsor rail component to its management portfolio isn’t a huge stretch.
With SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian scheduled to retire in December, there’d be no need to recruit his replacement. Instead use the management in place at Golden Gate supplemented by a new “rail division” manager.
To run a 46-mile line reporting just 2,100 pre-pandemic weekday passenger boardings, SMART has 136.5 full time-equivalent employees. After recent cutbacks, 103 are in rail operations, seven devoted to capital projects and 26 in administration.
Once the three-mile extension to Windsor north of Santa Rosa’s Sonoma County Airport station is completed near year, further expansion projects should be on hold until SMART’s long-term finances are solid.
At a minimum, contracting with Golden Gate should decrease SMART’s administrative and capital projects department headcount.
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I recently wrote that on Marin Municipal Water District’s five-member board of directors the four-year terms of incumbents Jack Gibson and Cynthia Koehler expire in 2022. I overlooked Larry Bragman whose term also is up next year. Bragman represents Fairfax, San Anselmo, San Geronimo Valley and Larkspur.
Three out of five incumbents simultaneously on the ballot presents a unique opportunity for voters to decide MMWD’s future direction. It’s a choice between staying the course with the three incumbents or crafting more durable sources of additional water through desalination, raising dam heights, increasing reservoir capacity and grey water reclamation.
