A state plan could put a SMART train station in Solano County and create the first passenger rail service along the traffic-plagued Highway 37 corridor.
The plan would create an east-west connection for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system, which runs passenger trains along Highway 101 between Larkspur and Santa Rosa.
Passengers would be able to travel from the Novato-Hamilton station through Sonoma and Napa counties before arriving in Suisun City. From there they would be able to connect to the larger Capitol Corridor network to Sacramento and San Jose as well the national rail system.
The proposal is part of the draft State Rail Plan 2022. The plan is expected to be released in February and will undergo a 60-day public review period, according to Caltrans spokesman Matt Rocco.
Novato Councilman Eric Lucan serves on the SMART board and a multiagency committee formed to address traffic and flooding on Highway 37. Aside from Marin residents being able to connect to the Capitol Corridor, one of the main benefits of the project would be to provide workers a route that bypasses vehicle traffic entirely, Lucan said.
“To provide options for those workers to be able to get to their jobs here in Marin and Sonoma County is a really important piece of our local economy,” Lucan said.
Daryl Halls, executive director of the Solano Transportation Authority, said Solano County is known for its relatively affordable housing compared to the rest of the Bay Area. More than 100,000 workers commute out of the county to jobs in Marin, Sonoma, Napa and San Francisco, with many using Highway 37, he said.
The new SMART station is included as part of a proposed Solano transit hub project being considered in the state plan. The hub would also include more frequent Amtrak train trips along the Capitol Corridor, bus stations and a pedestrian tunnel linking the Fairfield and Suisun City downtown areas.
A study of the hub project by the Solano Transportation Authority last year found the best location for a SMART station would be at the Suisun-Fairfield Station along State Route 12. The SMART station is estimated to cost about $8.9 million, not including the track improvements on the east-west rail corridor, according to the study.
The plan also examined the possibility of a second SMART station in Cordelia near the interchange project connecting Interstate 80, Interstate 680 and State Route 12. That station would likely be planned after the Suisun City station and would be subject to approval by Fairfield as part of its general plan update, according to Halls.
The project is still is a “ways out,” Halls said, as the state plan envisions completing the Solano hub by 2040.
The Solano proposal follows a separate 2019 state-funded study by SMART. The study found passenger rail service on the 41-mile route to Suisun City would be feasible along the existing east-west rail corridor. SMART estimated the costs, including rail improvements, would range from $780 million to $1.3 billion depending on the options.
“I think the challenge for SMART is coming up with a funding plan, how to build the capital infrastructure first,” Halls said. “And of course the hard part is the operating dollars and can we convince the state that this is part of the State Rail Plan and that the state should invest in this as kind of an extension of the plan. Until we can answer those questions it’s kind of hard to answer.”
SMART spokesman Matt Stevens deferred comment until the state plan is released.
David Schonbrunn, president of the Train Riders Association of California nonprofit group, said he and his organization have long supported a passenger rail connection along Highway 37. However, Schonbrunn said he would prefer to see the rail service started as a pilot project first and disagreed with the “gold plated” cost estimates from SMART.
“Do it as inexpensively as possible and show the demand for the service,” Schonbrunn said. “Once you decide we really want to have a top notch system here, you can pay for a contracting firm, clean up the roadbed and relay the track.”
Highway 37 has about 40,000 vehicles per day on average, with most traffic traveling west in the mornings and east during the afternoons. The highway bottlenecks from two lanes to one lane each way along a 10-mile stretch of the highway from Sears Point to Mare Island, increasing travel times by 30 minutes during the morning commute and up to 80 minutes during the afternoon commute, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
Commission spokesman John Goodwin said Highway 37 is “one of the Bay Area’s most important transportation challenges.”
A collaborative of four county transportation agencies, Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has been planning to address the highway’s short-term traffic issues and long-term threats of sea-level rise.
A short-term proposal is to add one to two lanes in each direction in the bottleneck to reduce traffic congestion.
The new SMART connection could play a role to address traffic congestion, Goodwin said.
“What’s most important to my mind is that it would establish a transit option in this corridor where there isn’t one now, period,” Goodwin said. “There is no scheduled bus service along the corridor. There is no regularly scheduled transit service in the Highway 37 corridor.”
The highway, which has already been subject to flooding, is also under significant threat of sea-level rise. In the long term, transportation officials say, the highway will need to be elevated.
State officials have proposed implementing a toll on Highway 37 to begin funding these projects.
Caltrans is set to hold a public hearing on the Highway 37 proposals on Jan. 25. More information can be found scta.ca.gov/projects/highway37.
More information about the State Rail Plan 2022 update can be found at 2022californiastaterailplan.org.
Source: www.mercurynews.com