[BATN] Sonoma-Marin rail ridership estimate questioned
2/23 Santa Rosa Press
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Published Sunday, February 23, 2003, in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Will rail lure riders?
Optimistic prediction at heart of $200 million regional transit plan
By Spencer Soper
The Press Democrat
The vision of a Sonoma-Marin commuter train rides on a prediction
that it would draw more passengers than rail lines serving much
larger cities such as San Diego and San Jose.
But critics don't buy the numbers, and say basing the rail system on
such an optimistic forecast would be a ticket to disaster.
The $200 million plan envisions transit hubs from Cloverdale to San
Rafael, linked by a 68-mile commuter train running along the spine of
the North Bay on now unused railroad tracks paralleling Highway 101.
It is built on a study that predicts the trains would attract 5,090
riders a day in a two-county region of about 750,000 people, lured by
easy parking at stations and trains running every 30 minutes during
rush hour.
Yet, that ridership is 60 percent more than the actual passengers on
a commuter train from Stockton to San Jose, an economic engine in the
heart of Silicon Valley. And it is slightly higher than the ridership
on the commuter train running from Oceanside to San Diego, the
nation's seventh-biggest city.
"We're confident the numbers are realistic," said Sonoma County
Supervisor Tim Smith, co-chairman of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail
Transit District, or SMART <http://www.sonomamarintrain.org>. "The
proof will be in the pudding once we get the system up and running,
assuming we can do that."
The district intends to ask voters for sales tax support late next
year and hopes to put trains on the tracks by 2007. It is headed by
political leaders from both counties who are pushing ahead this year
with environmental studies, looking for more state and federal money
to help build the system, shopping for trains that could carry
passengers and planning for stations along the rail line.
But critics say the proposed train is a gamble based on projections
that don't account for North Bay demographics. The small cities
strung along Highway 101 have no major downtowns, and the rail line
will not make it to San Francisco.
Most other successful rail systems in the country feed a big city.
"The problem with this train proposal is that it stops in San
Rafael," said Marin County Supervisor Susan Adams, who thinks
improving bus service would be a better investment. "Having a train
that goes from Cloverdale to San Rafael isn't going to be the
regional transportation solution we're looking for."
The validity of the study is important because it helps local
leaders, who plan to ask taxpayers for help, to decide if rail is
worth the investment.
It would cost $200 million to buy trains, build stations and upgrade
the railroad tracks. Operating the North Bay commuter rail would run
$9 million a year, with $3 million coming from train fares and $6
million from taxpayers, according to the district.
But the actual ridership on other commuter rail systems in
metropolitan areas with populations exceeding 1 million raises
questions about the patronage forecast.
In San Diego, 4,800 riders a day board the Coaster's 42-mile route
from coastal suburbs to the city. Downtown San Diego has about 75,000
jobs, several times more than downtown Santa Rosa and San Rafael
combined.
The Altamont Commuter Express, an 86-mile line from Stockton to San
Jose, drew 3,178 daily riders last year. It serves an area with 3.7
million people, more than five times the 700,000 people in Sonoma and
Marin counties.
The San Jose train drew more riders before the economy tanked, but it
still never averaged more than 5,000 a day.
Perhaps a better comparison is Metrolink's San Bernardino-Orange
County line, a suburb-to-suburb train like the one proposed for the
North Bay.
It averaged 2,900 weekday riders between October and December, far
less than the Sonoma-Marin train projection. Its 100-mile route
between San Bernardino and Oceanside also runs through an area far
more populous than Sonoma and Marin. San Bernardino, Riverside and
Orange counties have a combined population of 6.1 million people.
Carl Schiermeyer, the consultant who did the ridership forecast for
the Sonoma-Marin train, said there is a simple explanation why he
predicted it would attract such a large ridership: He assumed it
would be a better service than trains in San Diego, San Jose and
Orange County.
For instance, the Stockton-San Jose system runs only six one-way
trains a day, three west in the morning and three east in the evening.
The Sonoma-Marin train would have up to 16 one-way trips each day,
with trains leaving every 30 minutes during peak commute hours for
optimum convenience.
It would primarily serve commuters heading south in the morning and
north in the evening. But it would also have northbound morning
trains to capture the reverse commute and midday trains to
accommodate varying work schedules, which the San Jose train does not
offer.
Every station would have plenty of parking, and shuttles would bring
commuters to nearby jobs within minutes of them getting off the train.
Sonoma and Marin are ideal for rail because the train tracks hug
Highway 101, the main north-south corridor close to job centers in
Santa Rosa, Petaluma and San Rafael, Schiermeyer said. A fast and
convenient train will act like a vacuum, sucking commuters out of
their cars and into coaches, he said.
"If you have enough service where there's potential ridership, you'll
capture the ridership," Schiermeyer said.
Helping matters is consistent freeway congestion. Trains would make
the trip from Santa Rosa to San Rafael in 55 minutes, compared to 80
minutes by car during the morning rush hour, train planners say.
But some rail critics say it's not so easy. Providing shuttle
connections from each station to jobs -- a key assumption in
Schiermeyer's study -- will be problematic because the jobs are in
every direction, they say.
"What kills the train in suburbia is the trip from the train station
to the job and the trip from the house to the train station," said
Novato resident Mike Arnold, a critic of the Sonoma-Marin rail plan
who maintains the ridership forecast is inflated. "If you start
adding that stuff up, the car will be faster every time, even with
traffic."
Already, some of Schiermeyer's assumptions are unraveling.
There is no plan to build parking at the downtown San Rafael station,
which Schiermeyer predicts would be one of the busiest for the
reverse commute.
That lack of parking will take a significant bite out of ridership
and fare revenue. Train planners say they hope to compensate for the
lack of parking with shuttle service to the station.
Critics say it'll take a lot more than parking and shuttle buses to
make the rail plan work. The fatal flaw for the Sonoma-Marin train is
that it doesn't go to San Francisco, they say. For that reason,
critics have dubbed it the "train to nowhere."
A big-city destination is the key ingredient for nearly every other
successful commuter rail system in the country. With large
concentrations of people surrounding a dense urban center, areas like
New York, Boston and Chicago are perfect for commuter trains.
Frustrating traffic jams and a lack of city parking leave commuters
with no other choice but to ride mass transit.
Indeed, rail can move a lot of people. The Long Island Rail Road, the
busiest commuter train system in the country, hauls nearly 350,000
riders a day.
Since the early 1990s, commuter trains have gained a stronger
foothold on the West Coast. As affordable housing on the suburban
fringes sprawls ever further from good-paying city jobs, commuters
are looking for ways to avoid congested freeways.
But the new commuter trains in California serve big markets.
"Rail works really well in highly populated areas ... but in the
suburbs it just doesn't work," said Elizabeth Deakin, director of the
University of California Transportation Research Institute based at
UC Berkeley. "Rail doesn't make sense in Marin and Sonoma counties
because they're too spread out and the downtowns aren't that big."
But local rail proponents say suburban commuters are starting to get
big city headaches. Population doesn't matter. If the highway is
clogged and downtown parking is a hassle, people will ride the train,
they say.
"The growth is happening in the suburbs. It's changing. You can't say
rail only works if you have a radial system into a downtown core,"
said Lillian Hames, project director for the Sonoma-Marin rail
system. "If there are no constraints, like parking in downtown or
congestion on 101, you wouldn't get the ridership. But if you have
those constraints, people will ride the train."
Local rail planners hope to extend service to a ferry landing for
connections to San Francisco, but those plans are preliminary.
Sonoma and Marin are not alone in their pursuit of trains. There are
more than 20 proposed new commuter rail systems in the country,
according to the American Public Transportation Association. From
Alaska to Georgia, transportation officials are trying to get people
off the highways and onto tracks.
But in smaller markets, it has proven difficult to convince voters
and politicians to support taxes or tolls for a train system that
only a limited number of people will use. Since 1990, three sales tax
initiatives that included money for rail have failed in Sonoma County
and two measures have failed in Marin.
Local officials want to put another rail sales tax to voters in 2004.
They have produced three ridership forecasts since 1997 to make their
case that the North Bay would use commuter trains. But the results
have widely varied.
A 1997 study said trains running from Healdsburg to a Larkspur ferry
landing would get more than 20,000 riders a day.
That study assumed trains would run all day and new homes and
businesses would be concentrated around train stations.
Three years later, a different study said a commuter train from
Cloverdale to San Rafael would attract 2,900 riders a day, a fraction
of the previous forecast.
Schiermeyer did the latest study, which projects 5,090 daily trips,
75 percent more than the 2000 forecast. He assumed people would be
willing to drive farther to the train and a larger percentage of
commuters would use it than the previous study.
Local transportation officials have expressed confidence in
Schiermeyer's projections, citing his success in predicting the
ridership on other systems and his forecast method specifically
designed for commuter rail. But they acknowledge the numbers are
preliminary and could change.
If SMART can't afford to buy as many trains as projected and can't
provide frequent service, if it can't schedule convenient shuttle bus
connections to jobs or if it can't create sufficient parking at train
stations, ridership would go down.
These factors are being examined in greater detail as part of an
environmental study expected to be finished later this year, rail
planners say.
Even if the revised projections show a smaller ridership, commuter
rail is still a good investment, Sonoma County Supervisor Smith said.
"I do know this: Unless we have various modes of transportation,
we're going to remain in gridlock," he said. "Not utilizing our north-
south rail corridor is almost criminal."
News researchers Michele Van Hoeck and Teresa Meikle contributed to
this report. You can reach Staff Writer Spencer Soper at 707-521-5257
or ssoper [at] pressdemocrat.com
[BATN: See the complete "16-Apr-2002 Ridership Report" at:
<http://www.sonomamarintrain.org/documents.asp>. See related story
published 4/21/02: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/6133>.]
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