Letter Sent to the Santa Rosa Council
Posted by scta | Filed under SMART
“I attended the study session on SMART at the 3/15/11 city council meeting, and was appalled to hear that the anticipated ridership for the initial 37 mile linkup was 2,900 with growth to 4,800 by 2035. Also projected for the full 70 mile line when/if finished was 5,300 – 6000. According to the 2010 census, Santa Rosa has a little over 167,000 residents right now. By 2035, who knows? The point is that these ridership figures are a very small percentage of residents here in our city and in Sonoma and Marin counties. If those projections prove correct, that would make no real dent in auto traffic. And yet the S.R. city council insists on continuing to support this extremely expensive project. This, frankly, defies logic. Oh, also the Operations and Maintenance Facility that is being planned for Todd Road is fraught with problems. The COST of building the facility itself is prohibitive. And the question of using eminent domain to obtain the land also raises ethical questions and potentially costly legal challenges. Please reconsider your support and come out on the side of common sense. The SMART train project should be spiked before one car is built or one rail is set. Voters are waking up to the boondoggle that this project has become, and the city council must also.
“Sincerely,
Kirstin
Santa Rosa, CA”