ACTION: The Future of Commuter Rail in the Bay Area: SMART

Are you from the San Francisco Bay Area?

Are you a fan of commuter rail?

For those of you in the East Bay and San Francisco area, do you ride BART, and love it?

For those of you in the North Bay, counties Sonoma and Marin, Sitting in your cars and buses for hours on end on one of the most congested highways in Northern California, do you Envy BART?

If you do, look below the fold for the first of many pre-election awareness and action calls for the future of commuter rail and alternative mass transit for the North Bay.

I present to you a series of resources and action-calls on The Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District's proposed commuter rail line: The SMART Train.

Jump for the bright future of commuter rail in the Bay Area:
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Some of you may be asking, what is the SMART Train? First I think we better start with the Sonma-Marin Area Rail Transit District. The SMART District is a transportation district that was formed in 2003 by California State Assemby Bill 2224.

The Board and its staff are charged with the task of

planning, engineering, evaluating and implementing passenger train service and corridor maintenance from Cloverdale to a Ferry Terminal that connects to San Francisco.

In essence, the SMART District has proposed

rail service along 70 miles of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad alignment

and

building a new bicycle/pedestrian pathway linking [those] 14 rail stations.

To do such, they have gone through rigorous efforts to get a 1/4 cent sales tax levied in both Sonoma and Marin Counties, in an effort to raise the money necessary for the planning, implementation, and start up of service throughout a 20 year period.

Obviously, here in California, a sales tax is one tough cookie to get passed by a general vote. They need a super majority to have this tax measure pass.

In fact, this issue has been on the ballot before, 2 years ago. Despite the tireless efforts of the staff, nay sayers, NIMBYs, and a a couple of flubs here and there made the SMART tax, then Measure R, miss its required super majority by fewer than 2 percent.

That cannot, and hopefully will not happen again this year.

Stick with me North Bay Kossaks as I explain some fundamentals about North Bay life to those with a general interest in commuter rail.

The North Bay is a beautiful place to live. We who're lucky to live here count our blessings everyday. But if there is one thing wrong with the Counties we call home, it would be the traffic. We have only one main strip of highway (Highway 101), and this single corridor services any and every major city and town North of San Francisco. Millions of people live in our two counties, and on top of thousands of people commuting via Highway 101 into San Francisco each day, there is also torrents of inter- and intra-county commuting. Per SMART's website:

ranked by Caltrans as one of the most congested freeways in the Bay Area.

As such, Highway 101 has a degrading effect on the environment, on our pocketbooks, and on our quality of life.

This 1/4 cent sales tax increase will be on the Marin and Sonama County ballots again this year as Measure Q. The staff has worked incredibly hard over the past two years to shore up the proposal, and have done their best to address the issues the public cared most about two yeas ago. They have provided a number of EIRs (Environmental Impact Reports) that thoroughly examine potential benefits and maleffects of the proposal, and the net result is that this train can and will be a huge help for the North Bay.

It will lessen our environmental impact (kinda important since Marin claims to be one of the greenest counties around).

It will provide a cheaper alterntive for commuting (4$ for a one way ticket, or the same amount you'll pay to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, think of the money saved on gas!).

It will be a huge improvement for commuter's lives (howabout a 45 minute train ride, with the ability to rest, work, or enjoy one's self, rather than spend 1.5 hours in traffic).

This thing has to pass!

That's why I write here, on Daily Kos, to see if I can whip up some support for the future of commuter rail in the Bay Area.

And for the next 28 days, I will be posting this call to action in an effort to raise money, raise awareness, and stir voter turnout for this very important commuter rail referendum.

29 DAYS TO GO!

Take ACTION:

JOIN THE MAILING LIST
Get up to date on whats going on with SMART through their mailing list!

DONATE
Fork over some cash if you believe in commuter rail!

VOLUNTEER
Give up some of your valuable time to phonebank or help the campaign gain the 66.7% of the elctorate it needs to win!

ENDORSE
An easy way to show a little bit of support, for those of you swamped by other more urgen endeavors!

WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Get some easy and cheap positive press out there for SMART!

JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP
Another EASY way to show support for those of you crunched for time or money, or for those of you only mildly interested because you don't live in Sonoma or Marin Counties.

Get INFORMED:

Go to the Marin Independent Journal's Website (the local newspaper for Sonoma and Marin Counties), and check out the archives for past and present information and opinion iece written about SMART. This is a Great way to get up to speed with what's going on in this last month of the campaign.

Check out the SMART District Website. They have tons of information including the EIRs and a series of White Papers that answer detailed questions.

Also, Check out the SMART Campaign Website. They are another source of information.

I will be posting again, hopefully everyday up until election day, to remind everyone interested that there are ways they can help get Measure Q, the future of commuter rail in the Bay Area, passed on November 4th!

Here's to Commuter Rail! Here's to SMART!

Let's make the SMART choice guys and gals. Lets pass Measure Q!

/SystemAnomaly

Crossposted at Daily Kos