For the Marin Civic Center, there are plans in progress to redevelop the nearby Northgate Mall into a smaller commercial footprint with thousands of residential units. It could actually become a major center of residential/commercial activity located not too far from a SMART station - about the same distance as Larkspur station to the ferry. All they need to do is upgrade Merrydale Rd as it currently doesn't even have a sidewalk south of the US 101 overpass.

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Woah! Just reading up on this right now! Thank you for telling me about this. Also found this funny quotation from the article: "Critics, mostly neighbors of the site, said some buildings would be too tall for the residential neighborhood and worried about traffic and noise." LOLLL Link: www.marinij.com/2023/07/16/san-rafael-sets-next-hearing-on-northgate-mall-redevelopment-plan/

@davidjackson7281

10 ай бұрын

@@todgodClassic Nimbys. That shopping center's parking lot would be full with thousands of shoppers. Residences would be much less busy. Marin's population has been stagnant for decades. Hardly anyone wants any kind of development.

@foxgloved8922

10 ай бұрын

I’m local, I would love it if Northgate became housing. The mall has been basically dead for a decade. Plus, I’d much rather this than further encroachment into the wild and farm land.

Local historian near Petaluma here! Incredible getting recommended a video about my local train lol. There's a fun story about why the Downtown Petaluma station is so far from the city center and it goes back to when the tracks were first built in 1870. The San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad, owned by Peter Donahue, was the company that build the right of way from Petaluma through Healdsburg that SMART still uses today. However, when building to Petaluma the city didn't want big, loud steam locomotives passing through Petaluma Boulevard and asked Donahue to move it a couple blocks away. Annoyed that the residents wouldn't let him build the train tracks how he wanted, Donahue decided to strip the city of its proposed station altogether and moved it across the Petaluma River where it is now.

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Ok that’s pretty funny! Thank you for the context behind the station’s placement

@PseudoFiction

10 ай бұрын

petty rich white men strike again! wonder if the city would ever consider a shuttle tram or streetcar to the station

@trigger1557

11 күн бұрын

I actually think this station is the most hilarious name now i think about it although its not wrong but it is on the other side

"drunken wine moms" lol, you described my sister. Two more Bay Area commuter rail services you might check are ACE Train and the Capitol Corridor.

I used to live in the Napa Valley, where I was raised, and I remember how happy I was when the Vallejo-SF ferry opened up, which I used on weekends off to visit San Francisco. SMART looks amazing. I actually when I was in college, before I got my car, would bicycle with my friend from Napa to Santa Rosa Plaza, usually over the Spring Mountain road pass down into the Valley of the Moon, and we'd return on HIghway 12 via Sonoma. We planned our rides when we'd knew we'd have a rare north tailwind going home, and we made the 45 mile ride from Santa Rosa to Napa in two and a half hours, which amused some drivers who passed us. Before the Vallejo Ferry, I used to drive to the Larkspur Ferry into San Francisco. I love the history of your video. I was raised in Napa of the mid 60's to the 70's. It was not a huge tourist draw, few hotels, no six flags in Vallejo (which used to be Marine World in Redwood City--the animals were moved by barge to Vallejo, the surprising new home or the park). I also would take BART to San Francisco, usually from the Walnut Creek station, riding with my Dad to his office in Walnut Creek, he would drop me off at BART so I could enjoy the city while he worked for the US Government in Walnut Creek. I would come back to Walnut Creek and he would pick me up. I was in my mid 20's then, and that gave me the yearning to Eurail thru Europe, which I did three times from 87-91. SMART reminds me of those European trains. I agree with you--a SMART extension to Napa County would be cool, but Napa has bus service now to the Vallejo Ferry, so it does have a connection to San Francisco.

I'm pretty sure the Smart Connect shuttle at the airport is an on-demand service (similar to an Uber pool) so you wouldn't have to wait more than 15 minutes

God, those trains and the stations themselves really look great. Would love to experience this in person one day.

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

What high tax revenue does to a system

TODGod upload and I just got back to the crib with food. Today was a good day🙏🏾

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Yooooo hahahaha. I'm glad I can provide the background video for your dinner bro! Also shoutout to your growth man you've been killing it!

Imagine if this line extended to SF and got connected to Caltrain. Regional rail potential locals can through run to SMART and express over new tunnel or bridge to capital corridor then new tracks to the wine country

@davidjackson7281

9 ай бұрын

There are three ferries from Marin to SF.

@teuast

16 күн бұрын

@@davidjackson7281 Imagine if SMART went to Salesforce Transit Center and connected to Caltrain.

Me and my buddy started our SMART ride from Novato San Marin. We parked near Gnoss Field (not even at the park and ride) and walked and it was some kind of ass!

Actually, the NWP had a three times per week train from Eureka to Willits, until April 30, 1971

That Orange shuttle van in your video at the airport station is an on demand shuttle that can take you from the train station to the airport or anywhere else nearby you don’t have to wait 2 hrs. They leave when your ready

It wouldn’t be too difficult to build a station next to the ferry docks, I’ve seen rail wyes built in Seattle. It’s literally all it would take. Also, SMART should go bigger, and by bigger I mean rebuild ALL tracks that used to belong to the North Pacific Coast Railway and build replica station buildings from the 1890’s or even 1870’s. If they can ethically do it, I’d be really impressed. Oh, and yes, a good dose of express trains would be great. (I don’t live in Wine Country, but I love trains, and I use Capitol Corridor a lot since I go to college in the Bay Area)

Nippon Sharyo DMUs are the same ones used on the Union Pearson Express in Toronto! I mean it does make sense the trains look phenomenal, Nippon Sharyo have built the THSR 700T for Taiwan HSR, as well as several Shinkansen trainsets like the E2 series, N700 series, 200 series, 500 series, and even the very first generation of Shinkansen, the 0 series back in 1964. Yes they've built Gallery cars as well butttt I can't blame them for it when that's what Metra wanted. Nice to see transit-oriented developments in the works for these places! In their pre-TOD state, this reminds me a lot of the Montauk Branch when it comes to walkability from being nonexistent like Speonk or Westhampton, to not even a crosswalk or basic sidewalk at a touristy station like Montauk. Patchogue is the San Rafael of the Montauk Branch as it serves as an important hub for Suffolk Transit, it's a short walk to Main Street where all the action is with great shops, the brewery where Blue Point beer is made, a performing arts center, and restaurants (during certain summer nights, Main Street is closed to cars for a pedestrianized festival). And Patchogue participates in Suffolk County's bikeshare program.

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

The long island railroad is something that I would love to travel and check out! I love the influence of NYC’s rail on its suburbs

Hey man! I'm the cyclist who met you on the SMART train heading North when you were filming. Great vid!

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Yooo yeah i took a lot of what you said for this video! Thanks a lot for telling me about your system :)

@riverbull5112

10 ай бұрын

@@todgod thanks! Glad I could be of use - I am currently riding on the SF ferry as I type this, would love to see a video about that! The SF ferry terminal is just something else :)

I use SMART to commute to Santa Rosa, so I'm glad to see it be given some attention. Something you didn't mention about the San Marin station is that in addition to being the least busy station, since the single-tracked system wasn't designed to have two stations in that section it throws off the schedule by singlehandedly adding 5 minutes to the journey between Cotati and Hamilton, and increases weekday headway from 30 minutes to 32 minutes. Its for this reason that when the Novato Downtown station was in construction the original plan was for trains to alternate between it and the San Marin station so they could keep their original schedule, but in the end the SMART board decided the Novato Downtown station was too important to deny full service. My hope is that they reduce the San Marin station to exclusively weekend service after they open the upcoming Windsor and Petaluma North stations, at least until the corporate office gets reoccupied or some sort of development occurs there to make it worth serving. Maybe by then they can modify the tracks to be able to serve it without messing up the schedule.

From news reports I note that Austin Texas is proceeding with its stage 1 Light Rail Connector plan, a smidge less than 10 miles long and at a cost of $5billion for a street running tramway. It makes SMART seem an absolute bargain, unless Austin intent to gold-plate the rolling stock.

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

I personally don’t like street-running tramways. I think BRT is more efficient, runs faster, and is by far less expensive

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@todgod Oh no! Not BRT. BRT is a transit hack that doesn't work in metros with expensive labor. There's studies on this. For the moment our transit planners are successfully ignoring this research, but watch then starting to whine about the cost of running BRT as soon as it opens! We need to avoid BRT at all costs. There is no economic case for it over full light rail. As long as you give it dedicated lanes, light rail is always superior to BRT from both a rider and cost perspective. The only advantage BRT has is that it's 20-30% cheaper to build. But you pay for those "savings" in spades from the increased operating costs. Even the fake "American BRT" (read "express bus") is way more expensive to run than light rail!

@fenlinescouser4105

10 ай бұрын

@@todgod If you find yourself with an hour to spare and can tolerate a Zoom interview then there is a useful YT presentation on developments designed to reduce tramway costs titled Introduction to BCIMO and the VLRIMC: Very light rail and its relevance to low cost railways Institution of Mechanical Engineers - IMechE Although 2 years old and developments have advanced significantly since it is a good introduction to the subject.

@grahamturner2640

10 ай бұрын

@@todgodthe advantage of trams is that you can couple trams together, so at the same frequency, you can have way higher capacity for the same number of drivers. An articulated bus might hold 150 passengers at most and have 1 driver, while a typical LRT tram can optimally hold around 160 passengers, and can be coupled together, so you could easily have tram setups that hold around 500 passengers. I wonder how BRT is faster.

@grahamturner2640

10 ай бұрын

I don’t understand how Austin can have such an expensive system, and that’s coming from someone who lives in the Phoenix area, where light rail costs have ballooned. Simple extensions (e.g., the Gilbert Road extension) used to cost $100 million/mile, but new extensions are costing closer to $250 million/mile. For the Metrocenter extension, it does have a half-mile bridge that has a station with a parking garage connected to it, and in Seattle, elevated light rail seems to cost around $300 or $350 million/mile, though the $250 million/mile price tag makes way less sense for the South Central extension. The only part of that extension that would be expensive is downtown track rework, but most of the 5 miles is a simple tram extension with features similar to the Gilbert Road extension (that one had a special roundabout and a park-and-ride). I doubt construction in Texas is significantly more expensive than in Phoenix.

I'm going there next year, good to know this exists!

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Have a blast!

There we go! There's that new video 😁We appreciate you sacrificing for the common cause! (Seriously, though. Thanks for the video!)

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Hope you enjoy it! First of many coming soon :)

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@todgod Immaculate job! Perfect overview! Looking forward to the next one! (I notice that there's some well-deserved love there for the North Bay train in this video. Give us some love in the rest of the Bay too! Our clunkers are not all bad, and not even all clunkers these days 😁)

I think it should be noted that the Santa Rosa station was within downtown before they bulldozed a chunk of it for hwy 101 back when it was a regional rail station (watch Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt")

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Disappointed but not surprised 😔

@robertfansler7800

9 ай бұрын

The area around the Santa Rosa station was industrial, with the Grace Brothers Brewery on the east and an ice house on the west side of the tracks. It also was the local “wino-slum” area when I was young. Just north of College Ave. there was a remnant of the Sonoma Valley line crossing Hwy. 101 (between SRJC and SRHS) that served a warehouse area on North Street.

Never thought of taking any north bay trains. Might give it a try. Also if you make a video on the ferry lines that would be epic

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Excellent idea!

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

Imagine if this thing took you through downtown Sonoma and straight to the Napa Wine Train station! I'd make that trip like twice a month! And then all those people wouldn't have to drive tipsy/drunk after the wineries! The Wine Train would have to buy a whole fleet of trains with restored Pullman coaches!

Hold on... you've covered VTA, Caltrain and SMART, and will cover Muni and BART. But what about the Altamont Corridor Express and all the expansions they are planning?

Just ride smart over summer break. Great trains and very clean but pretty slow in some areas. Great video.

A Californian "Winelander" train. that would be a very useful tourist experience. But this would be far more useful if it ran every 30 minutes all day 7 days a week. Higher during peak periods.

Honestly the way they did larkspur station and ferry is probably the best it could of been. That shopping mall is actually really great and has a lot of community stuff going on in it. I see that area as a big win. San Rafael if also a big win especially with the parking garages. Yeah parking garages suck but you know what also sucks, having to Uber or walk 2 hours from anywhere nearby to San Rafael and then having to park on the street and causing congestion and chaos. For the area it’s in I think it’s well designed since so many people have to be car dependent in San Rafael and Marin

Nice video! I hope you can do ACE sometime (after BART and MUNI of course)

The Marin Co Civic Center probably actually get a lot of traffic. Licensing, county courts, county records, county jail, county fairgrounds, and a public library are all housed there. It makes sense to have your traffic court easily accessible by transit lol.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

Yeah, but it's so freaking far and has such awful pedestrian access! They need to completely rebuild the streets in that area and throw in some housing and retail on all those empty lots. It feels like entering from the backdoor, or even from the trash chute right now! I tried to convince some friends to take the ferry and the train to check out the "Gattaca building" and they all refused to do on my, quote "toy train." This station needs to feel like you're entering through the front entrance!

@jacobbyers7914

9 ай бұрын

GATTACA fans too lmao

@TohaBgood2

9 ай бұрын

@@jacobbyers7914Literally wanted to take my friends by train there from SF and they refused because there "didn't seem like there was a station there based on google maps satellite view"! They need to fix this station and surroundings!

congradulations on graduating!🎊i just started college in san jose, i hope i get to ride smart sometime soon.

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

That's great !! You'll have a blast in college :) Trust

@crazyasiandragon-5491

10 ай бұрын

@@todgod I trust :)

The Rohnert Park planned development looks interesting. That station will be a wasteland until sufficient infill occurs. Larkspur station is SO on the wrong side of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. What a missed opportunity there. A bit of tunneling just east of the existing parking lot underneath Larkspur Landing Circle could have brought it back on the surface at the Ferry Terminal. Yes, it would add another 250 million to the overall cost but the residents of Marin and Sonoma counties are RICH. I agree with you that it should go further into Sonoma county. It should one day terminate in Vallejo with a connection to BART's upcoming Vallejo station (currently only exists in my mind).

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

A SMART connection to Vallejo would be honestly breathtaking

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@todgod Wine Train first! I want to be able to take the ferry to Napa! That would be incredible!

@GoldInforcer

10 ай бұрын

The distance from the Larkspur train station to the ferry terminal is such an unfortunate series of compounding missed opportunities. There used to be a wooden train trussell where the pedestrian bridge over Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is now. In 2003, it was damaged when a truck towing construction equipment accidentally damaged the bottom of the trussell and instead of repairing it for future train or bike use the Larkspur city council decided to tear it down. Later when planning its train station, the Larkspur city council commissioned a study to redevelop the Larkspur Landing area into a fully transit-oriented development with retail space, affordable housing, and improved connections between SMART and the ferry. However, Marin County had to live up to their NIMBY reputation and residents caused that plan to end.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@GoldInforcer Those Marin NIMBYs are legendary! They can oppose a 100% affordable assisted senior housing development for blind veteran amputees and still somehow keep that smug hippie smile on. Like it's nothing! Like they're "saving their community from evil developers". I'm pretty sure that both the Livable California founders are from somewhere around that station, both the former oil exec and the millionaire "retired librarian" lady.

I work at that Starbucks in Santa Rosa !!! Airport and aviation !!! :))))

Great job on the story. The ferry used to be rail connected. Check out the first Dirty Harry movie. He is standing on the tracks before jumping on the bus roof! The old Richardson quarry is Larkspur Landing now.

@todgod

Ай бұрын

Dirty Harry? Hell yeah

Very well done, like your content.

@todgod

2 ай бұрын

Thank you!

This video is so good! 😊

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Thank you!! 😊😊

They should extend it to San Francisco using the lower deck of the Golden gate bridge like BART would've.

@davidjackson7281

9 ай бұрын

lol hahaha what lower deck? Come visit sometime and ride the three ferries from Marin.

@theoneandonlysuperlegendary

9 ай бұрын

@@davidjackson7281 no the lower deck of the Golden Gate bridge was proposed for trains and BART was originally supposed to use it. The ferry service is expensive and infrequent.

@davidjackson7281

9 ай бұрын

@@theoneandonlysuperlegendaryThe proposal was infeasible. Marin's low population would never support BART.

Nifty stuff, perhaps I'll purposefully land in Santa Rosa for Christmas [instead of Oakland or San Francisco] just to try it out for my vacation [I grew up in the East Bay]. I've ridden through the hill tunnel in Larkspur a few times on bike, but given how crappy the lane on the Richmond Bridge is, I don't do that very often. Too bad there're no plans to extend into Sausalito or Mill Valley. Oh well. Greetings from Texas.

That's very fun to ride on.

LOL I voted for the original tax resolution when I was living in Marin Co. But I moved to the East Bay by the time it opened. I was DETERMINED to drive there and get my free ride on Opening Day since my taxes paid for it! 🙂

As an outsider watching from Australia I think that the logical extension would have been further south, Looking the Gmaps you could follow the old RWO as far south as Manzanita without much difficulty although the last mile to the ferry slip in Sausalito could be a property acquisition nightmare, maybe an intermodal for BRT across the bridge into San Francisco proper? or move the ferry terminal further up the bay? I am assuming that the SMART is part of a system that is for moving commuters across into the City so I may be wrong. but +1 for the Napa plan, seems like a no brainer even if the distance through fields and marshland would mean a very small concentrated catchment in Napa itself. anything that keeps drunk people off the road would be a boon to the local economy.

I love smol trains :)

Wow quite a few comments here hopefully I don't repeat what anyone here mentions. Honestly I doubt it because likely going slightly off topic here. For what it's worth I honestly envy those within Sonoma & Marin Counties that have such a system like this. Just me the only downfall be the connectivity of having to get to a station within those communities served & forced to drive your own vehicle majority of the time. With no feeder bus connection other then that small shuttle to Sonoma County Airport. For a long time I've hoped there be a similar service to the defunct Calistoga-Napa-San Francisco electric interurban that served Calistoga to the Vallejo Ferry Terminal. I know there was some talk of it before though population density I suppose not as large as Sonoma or Marin County to warrant such a service. The VINE bus that operates between Vallejo & Napa alone takes so long it's much faster even on the congested 29 that rare do I opt for the bus sticking to my car instead.

my local train. been on it a couple times and its nice. Lol yeah not much to do near that windsor spot but its not far from the theater and the huge new brewery there.

What they really need to do is extend Caltrain under the bay to Sausalito and then connect it to Smart and electrify the whole line from Cloverdale to Salinas.

never seen a channel with so few vids just smash it out of the park with each one. if you're going to get around to doing BART and haven't completed a script yet, my partner and I are very active with TOD activism in Berkeley, and if you want some color or some help on the research we'd be happy to help.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

Lol, since you're from Berkeley and seem like a nice person let me abuse that a little. What's going on with that huge transformer at Ashby? Should we oppose it? Will that screw everything up and delay the Ashby redevelopment? Or can it actually be moved with no negative impacts? That thing is sooooo chonky! It will take up so much street frontage with ugly fences. But if it delays Ashby even more then I want to know to keep my mouth shut. Let me know.

@harktischris

10 ай бұрын

@@TohaBgood2 the real sense i get is that BART is already getting ready to walk away from Ashby because it's a death by a thousand cuts (e.g. city air rights negotiation as well). I don't like the transformer either, but if there were another feasible alternative that would've been cheaper and/or met less opposition BART would have proposed it. Plus, at the end of the day what we need is hundreds of new housing units there, including lots of subsidized units. At some point we have to say "this is good enough" and push to actually get homes built in a climate-friendly location.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@harktischris Ok, gotcha then. I'll learn to like it! We'll put a nice mural over it. It will be great! Ultimately, with sooooo much housing at stake there this is not that big a deal. I can't believe that the crazy NIMBYs at North Berkeley are moving faster then Ashby. That's not what I expected would happen at all. Let's go "dense transit village with housing and a nice public plaza" then!

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

I would love to do BART but I want to really have that video just be super in depth as the system is large and is filled with a ton of history, I really don’t wanna drop the ball on it but we should keep in contact.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@todgod BART is truly a complicated topic in terms of TOD. There is a ton of TOD that was built from the very beginning. They've been at it for 50 years, waaaaaaaay longer than basically any other system in the US. At the same time, there were two types of stations - "destinations" and "origins"/bedroom communities. In effect only the destinations had stuff built next to to the stations. The designated trip origin stations had just parking lots and single family homes. This is what they thought future travel would be. Suburbanites driving to the stations and taking BART to the downtowns. A ton of present day commentators say that "BART built no TOD back in the day". That's not true, or rather only half true. A ton of TOD was built at the destination stations. In San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and in a few other places they did built both a ton of office/commercial and a ton of housing. But the origin stations got a giant parking structure at best. All of this changed about 20 years ago when BART started to fill up its parking lots at the suburban stations with housing and retail. This is the so called "station village" doctrine that they have now. Millbrae is probably the latest incarnation of this concept. It consists of a pedestrian plaza with a ton of restaurants and small retail, housing on top, and some office/hotel development a short walk away. It's really not a bad concept. Reminds me of the Japanese train stations but a little less dingy. Implementation is everything, of course, but the idea itself I think is a winner. Good luck! This is a big project! Maybe even worth a few parts based on the eras of BART TOD or based on the station type.

Visitor from PNW. I’ve played tourist last year and again recently, taking ferries from Oakland and Sf to Larkspur, then the train to Santa Rosa. Loved the ride and the scenery. But 2 comments: 1) Track extension should have connected to ferry terminal; 2) Even worse - There is no mention, no signage whatsoever for train once off the ferry. I was aware of where the station was generally supposed to be, but not being local I found it confusing trying to find the station. Here it is a year later and still no signage. The system has now been running 6 years. No excuse for this oversight. What gives?

YES number 3 is here!!! :)

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

YUHHHH! Took a minute my bad

@hpuser333

10 ай бұрын

no worries, its been a nice build-up to muni and bart, my two most frequented lines. :) @@todgod

Please do bart Transit system video next

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

BART's for sure a video I've been filming and planning out for months :)

Fully in agreement on the opinion of SMART expanding eastward. Even if it only went as far as only Sonoma or Napa that would mean a beautiful ride across the wetlands and hills of the San Pablo bay. A journey worth traveling just for the scenery alone.

I disagree that it's "okay" for the frequency to be basically just hourly. As noted, the population is over 700k which absolutely is enough to warrant at least 2tph throughout the day and they could consider an express during peak periods, especially as it gets longer. If change is ever to happen, it is vital that we all do a better job of demanding more and it certainly is not too much to expect that a region with more residents than some entire states to have at least two trains per hour.

@TheDGund

10 ай бұрын

It's mostly hourly because there aren't enough riders wanting to travel the route of the train. While full trains could support the system, recent report showed tickets support only 4% of regular operating costs while 96% comes from taxes on residents.

@MarioFanGamer659

10 ай бұрын

@@TheDGund That's an interesting point considering that there are far more rural lines out there in Europe with more frequent service. Then again, these lines also exist in regions with fewer motorways when the US adopted a strong car first policy, discouraging the use of PT.

@TheDGund

10 ай бұрын

@@MarioFanGamer659 Following the local news on SMART ridership has been a fascinating ride all on its own. There are lots of people using the 101 Sonoma-Marin transit corridor, but they don't want to use the SMART train to do it. Whether that's something to do with the train or the people is an ongoing debate in these parts

@dkdoodle

5 ай бұрын

@@TheDGund I live here and for me it just doesn’t go anywhere useful. If I need to go into SF the commuter bus is easier, with different lines direct from each town so fewer stops on the way, more frequent departures, and doesn’t require transfers.

I used to live in the Coddingtown apartments and worked in San Francisco. I would have loved taking SMART to the Larkspur Ferry. The one third mile walk between the train platform and the ferry would be nothing compared to what I walked between the San Francisco ferry terminal and my office.

At least you pronounced Petaluma correctly.

any plans to talk about ace in the bay area/san joaquin region? I'd love to see a tod analysis for that agency

@todgod

6 ай бұрын

It’s on the back burner for sure. It’s white interesting considering they have future plans for an expansion westward to Dublin so that there can be an intermodal station there. But nothing is confirmed

People need to stop being so obsessed with the costs of these projects so we can just get them entirely funded and built once and for all. The problem with SMART is that there aren’t enough stations. Ultimately, these things only work if they can take people from where they are to where they need to be on the schedule that they have. With that said, the Larkspur station is in a terrible spot for making connections between the train and the ferry. It’s crazy far and even more so when the weather is bad. BUT, the station makes sense where it is there if the line continued south with a stop at The Village shopping mall, and then continued to Larkspur downtown and then through a restored Alto tunnel into Mill Valley downtown. How cool would that be?? Except there is absolutely no discussion on taking the route further south. None. I’m not even talking onward to Sausalito and San Francisco (although those would be doable and have been planned out in the past for a Bart extension). The Hamilton stop makes a lot of sense when you consider the entire ex-Air Force Field is in redevelopment so there’s more housing to come. In fact, that stop has been proposed as the terminus for a line extension that would take you to Solano Cty. The Santa Rosa Airport stop is ridiculous. It is so far from the airport and a shuttle is pretty much not-existent to make it convenient. There are major airlines that fly out of that airport (Avelo, United) so it could be a super convenient connection but not how things are setup right now. For Windsor, I think the station has been completed for some time now but the SMART timeline for getting the rail work completed is just super glacial. It’s important to get all the way up to Cloverdale IMHO because of the (more) affordable housing options that those areas can offer. This is pretty small train project given the established right of ways. As per usual, in California this has to be take forever to get done. SMART isn’t doing itself any favors since they stopped all regular communication with the public some time ago. Do they even have a marketing communications staff at this point?? I’m sure they probably need another leadership change.

When we rode it shortly after opening, having taken the ferry from SF, there were absolutely no signs telling you how to get to SMART from the ferry. There were also 3 employees on the train, including a security guard (!). And even with that almost every senior citizen tried to steal a free ride. “What? I thought it was free”. It’s a good start, but there’s a lot that needs doing

@justudi4339

13 күн бұрын

It is free for seniors

Nippon Sharyo?! I haven't heard that since the Blue Line to Long Beach. Those are pretty old cars now

Rebuilding the Larkspur station at the Ferry Building should be done. The Staten Island RR in New York has a well designed transfer that serves as a good example. I think that this could cause ridership to 2x as not only would it help SMART but it would help GGT ferry service. As for expanding north I think that the way to go about it is to use cheaper materials like wooden ties and operate the line at lower speeds as a line to Ukaiah would probably be primarily for freight instead as the train would be slower than a bus. Edit: I know eastward expansion is a topic discussed but this would definitely be more expensive as to make it good new cut offs would need to be built as the existing slow freight alignment is horrendous.

I want the train to go all the way up to eureka.

There are a few places you can bike to from a couple stops, especially for gamers, in Navato the Take Two Ent owned and sister to Rockstar Games and Zynga, 2KGames/2KEnt is located in Navato kinda near the Downtown Navato station, then not far from the San Rafael stop is 1 of only 3 state of the art, fully Digital 3D Motion Capture Studio in America and 1 of 7 in the world is located there, the other 2 are in L.A. & N.Y., also 2 of the 3 are both owned by Sony Corporation of America, the one in L.A. is owened by Sony Ent of America/Sony Picture Studios, the other in San Rafael is owned by Sony Interactive Ent/Playstation Worldwide Studios in San Mateo, this one is used by every major Gaming developer, publisher and company in the world, there booked out 2yrs in advanced, companies like 2KGames Ent, EA Games, Acclaim/Blizzard, Rockstar Games, Ubisoft, Activation, SquareEnix, etc... and i cant remember what stop it is but one of them in-between Navato and San Rafael you can bike ride from and get to the famous Skywalker Ranch & Studios in about a 30-45min,

Not directly related but are there any plans to connect San Rafael with Richmond by rail? Yeah i know horribly expensive, I am just interested

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

Actually, yes. Theoretically, the Richmond Bridge is due for a replacement just like the eastern span of the Bay Bridge was. It's the same type of bridge. The new Richmond Bridge is supposed to have room for a rail link. But the local NIMBYs are already trying to kill that. So if you're in the area, get involved in that planning process and give them hell! But be prepared for the long slog. This is going to be a multi-decade planning process.

@xderleonx7227

10 ай бұрын

@@TohaBgood2 ok thx. Nah I am from the other side of the globe so that wont work I guess

@crazyoncoffee

9 ай бұрын

My dream as a San Rafael resident was always a red line bart extension to San Rafael

Thank you for your superbly executed video. I appreciate your analysis, and I would hope that much additional TODs come to fruition. As for the Larkspur Station, I hope that the line can be extended to the ferry station. Most people will not or cannot walk that remaining distance. I am watching from Middelburg in the Netherlands. Albeit a Dutchman, I grew up in the Bay Area. Although transport offerings in the Bay Area have increased in the last 50 years, there is much work to be done. Here, I can easily catch the train to most places in the Netherlands. What a joy! Finally, "Congratulations!" on completing your university studies. (I went to UCB.)

HE HATH RETURNED.

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

AND I WILL STAY. IM NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

Great video; don't forget you could also make a video on ACE (and also maybe capital corridor) since most of the stops are in the bay

Can you take your bike on Smart?

@todgod

10 ай бұрын

Yep! It’s super convenient to do so

Wow less than 3k riders per day, that's rough only time Caltrain has been that low was those first few months of the pandemic. While San Rafael seems like the place to serve as a jumping point to San Francisco and other areas, 3k a day doesn't sound like there's really that much usage of it. Still pretty much car-centric based off the GG bridge numbers (roughly 45k cars going south per day). The downside of these low numbers is that without ridership then the service really doesn't get much in the way of expansion, i.e. more frequent trains, and really becomes a money pit that's hard to sell to voters to increase taxes/fees/etc for.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

ACE and the Capitol Corridor had low ridership when they started off too. It needs time to grow and gain a ridership as people figure out if it works for their commute. It looks pretty promising. Only a few years old (plus pandemic times) and it's already got thousands of daily users! That's literal thousands of cars off the highway!

@qjtvaddict

9 ай бұрын

Well it’s not much better than the express buses to SF which are more frequent and serve more places

@dkdoodle

5 ай бұрын

@@qjtvaddict exactly the bus is easier, fewer stops, and no transfer to ferry.

How reliable are the Ni[ppon Sharyo DMUs? Toronto's Union Pearson Express uses the 18 of the same DMU cars in 2 or 3 coach consists on services to the airport every 15 minutes. Here, they have been found to be somewhat unreliable, and with the planned electrification of GO Transit (GO stands for Government of Ontario) will be replaced by conventional bilevel GO train cars hauled by electric locomotives at even higher frequencies in the next decade. I would think that SMART should be every half-hour in my opinion, maybe they want UPX's Nippon Sharyo DMUs when we electrify?!

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

The Bay seems to be extremely fond of the Stadler trains lately. Caltrain and ACE are getting them, and there's another order for the Caltrans pool of cars that might go to some more Bay rail agencies. It's more likely that they go with Stadler going forward. Plus, Stadler claims that they can just swap out the middle power unit car/thing for either catenary or catenary+batteries when the time comes to electrify.

@jacktattersall9457

10 ай бұрын

@@TohaBgood2 True, though Stadler trains are really great for low-platform systems like CalTrain and Government of Ontario Transit (GO Transit) -- how I wish GO was going to get FLIRTS and KISSES instead of electric locomotives but that's life when you have a thousand bilevels.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@jacktattersall9457 We have those same Bombardier bilevels all over the Bay Area with various operators. They're not bad at all. I like them enough to sometimes skip a Caltrain train with the stupid "Kinky Sharyo" Gallery cars to get on one with the Bilevels! Like if I'm already at a café waiting for the train and the next one is a Gallery car one, I just keep drinking my coffee for another 15 minutes until a Bombardier one shows up. Screw it 😁 GO will be fine. They have a solid expansion plan, even though they _just_ _couldn't_ _help_ _themselves_ from making some typical North American Rail (TM) mistakes. Such is life. Thank god that they're doing something, and that that something gives you like 80-90% of what people wanted. It will be a lesson to all the other commuter rail-to-regional rail transition stragglers. And by that time maybe the nicer Stadler trains will become more of a standard for former commuter lines that are upgrading to regionals. So congrats on the big upgrade! It's fine.

@jacktattersall9457

10 ай бұрын

@@TohaBgood2 Altamont Commuter Express is seriously getting Stadlers, I though that was Amtrak California?!

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

@@jacktattersall9457 Well... They're getting hydrogen ones unfortunately. For now anyway. The ACE does have electrification and speed increases planned, and Stadler claims that it's very easy to swap out the power cars for pure electric at any point. So hopefully they can get rid of the hydrogen in the not too distant future. I'm assuming that by Amtrak California you mean the Amtrak San Joaquins. (Amtrak California is the statewide rail operator). They're getting more intercity-oriented Siemens Venture trains like Brightline and VIA. Those are already delivered and have been testing for a couple of years. They are supposed to start operations right now sometime. They promised Summer-Fall '23 It's still unclear what the Capitol Corridor will do. For now, they are absorbing all the available Bombardier bilevels as they're increasing service. There was talk about them getting more FLIRTS. That Stadler order has a lot of options for more equipment that they can exercise. But for now they're loading up on other equipment from the common Caltrans pool for some reason. (Caltrans is the state DOT. It jointly owns half of Amtrak California alongside Federal Amtrak. They hold all the California state rail equipment on their balance sheet.)

It'd be cool to ultimately see an expansion to Napa/Vallejo and maybe someday to Sausalito and then somehow to SF (Key System 2 anyone???). Also kind of hilarious that with all that taxpayer money they didn't just start with electrifying the line.

@KaiWritesCode

9 ай бұрын

Yes, why did they rebuild the line and not relectrify it?

@jacobbyers7914

9 ай бұрын

@@KaiWritesCode No clue, maybe because of the tracks being shared with freight?

Why stop at Ukiah. Go all the way to Eureka. I want to ride the train through the Redwoods.

One of the few high level platforms in the west coast

Your history is way off. The NWP mainline has had rails its entire existence and ran passenger service till Amtrak took over. Freight has never stopped running but after major track issues service was cut from eureka to Willits in the 90s and then to Schellville in the early 2000s. Northwestern pacific was split between ATSF and SP later being only SP until 1984 when it started a hot potato of different operators. I expect one day they will reach Willits, it would double the total system length to around 140mi. Its not so much commuter rail as regional rail/short distance intercity. The 40mph average speed is decent and will likely increase on the northern segment. SMART doesn't run enough service to justify express, they need to standardize on every 30 min service 5am to 10pm. The east west route right now sucks, it goes out of the way and avoids Vallejo and American Canyon. the SR37 expansion between Sears Point and Vallejo needs to be replaced with a rail line.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

There is no chance that the local NIMBYs let it run from 5am or every 30 minutes. Unfortunately, our legal process is basically set up for obstruction. You need overwhelming support for anything to push it through. And lately SMART's opposition has been extremely successful at undermining support for SMART. It was based on issues that they created for SMART through their own obstruction, but that was kind of the whole point.

@G-546

10 ай бұрын

A further northern Segment would likely struggle to boost the speeds as it has more complicated geography and since it would be used significantly less I doubt the tracks would be built to the same specifications. I think that what SMART should do is have tracks cleared for higher speeds like 110 or 125 MPH between Novato San Marin and the Petaluma river bridge and between Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. Currently in some sections Smart also isn’t allowed to use horns which is a safety issue IMO and grade separations should be under heavy consideration.

@gdrriley420

10 ай бұрын

@@G-546 South of willits the geometry is fairly simple, with little freight you can also happily push superelevation, we also shouldn't be scare to realign a few sections if needed, it was built when cut and fills were hard. Its unlikely they would have benefited much from above 90mph. above 90mph crossing requirements get more strict and above 110mph you functionally can't have them before at 125mph grade crossings are banned. No horns as part of quite zones is a good thing, we overuse horns they should only be used on passive crossings and when there is a safety issue.

@davidjackson7281

10 ай бұрын

Averaging forty mph is not nearly fast enough even with closely spaced stations. A suggestion was made to have a golf cart shuttle for the 0.7 mile from the train to the ferry. A morning and evening express train should definitely be offered. The frequency of headways increases as the demand increases or vice versa such that trains every 30 minutes may be possible during commute hours. Didn't realize the system cost around $950 million. Lost count around $650 million. An extension 22 miles to Napa or 35 miles to Suisun City for $1-2 billion has been suggested. Might as well upgrade the existing ROW. Besides increasing the population reach it would then connect to all of the Caliifornia and National Amtrak routes. There have been popular trains from Sacramento to Sears Point for race events. The bridge replacement to Healdsburg is very costly though it is a nice touristy town. Cloverdale doesn't have the populaton to actual justify the extension unless there are development plans to increase the population from 10,000 to 20,000 or 30,000. Sonoma County has lost about 25,000 in recent years. But it would be unfair to those two communities in the planned and voted for route who pay sales tax to finance the train. The overall length of the system could increase from 45 miles to about 107 miles.

@G-546

10 ай бұрын

@@davidjackson7281 only justification for going to Cloverdale would be if they added freight services too for logging. Expanding east to Solano county is a good idea but definitely needs a lot of studies into possible alignment changes and service patterns. Another less talked about idea is connecting to Amtrak and BART at Richmond if the Richmond San Rafael bridge is rebuilt. The Richmond San Rafael bridge is pushing 70 and the old Bay Bridge east span was replaced just before it turned 80. It’s unknown if a new bridge is needed but a new bridge should definitely include rail with the possibility of extending to SF via a new SF - Alameda tube.

"Two wealthiest Bay Area Counties"??? Based upon what criteria?

@davidjackson7281

9 ай бұрын

money

@davidjackson7281

9 ай бұрын

Marin per capiita wealth is close to San Mateo. Sonoma not so much. Correct on one of two counties so that's good. Perhaps when combined they are wealthier than any other two bay area counties. Marin is the state's richest county.

@MrMarkOlson

9 ай бұрын

@@davidjackson7281 Check again. Marin is 3rd in the state, behind Santa Clara and SM. Seven of the top ten counties in the state are in the Bay Area, yet Sonoma county is not among them.

@davidjackson7281

9 ай бұрын

@@MrMarkOlsonMy source is wikipedia. Marin is tops.

@MrMarkOlson

9 ай бұрын

@@davidjackson7281 And what ranking is Sonoma County on Wikipedia? Marin was indeed tops for a long time. I think that time has passed.

I love your thoughts here. I have family living right by the Santa Rosa station - working at the teen center. They have events a few times a year in SF as it is the main entertainment destination. They have considered SMART every time because they can park at their facilities and take the train, but the ferry + train takes about 2.5 hours including travel to the area and they have ruled out the option as opposed to shuttling people to SF via a bus. Ridership shows this is the decision many make.. at less than 3k daily riders a day. This train could use a strong $10-12b investment.... add additoinal tracks to enable higher speed express trains to the terminus (route needs to be faster than driving, given the sprawl of the counties), add a connection under the bay to SF or connect up with Amtrack routes in the East bay for Oakland connection. Otherwise, it'll take decades of development before SMART can get riders from TOD. So much potential but only if the cities turn around from their NIMBY roots and allow for growth. It's a pipe dream at this point.

Thank you for posting this. I'm glad the YT algorithm made this appear. Santa Rosa/North Bay is my hometown, though I moved away in 2004. I'll be visiting family at the end of September and using the Ferry and SMART to travel up to Santa Rosa. Should be fun. TODGod, love your pronunciation of Rohnert Park and Cotati. As usual, natives pronounce things a bit different. Seen it in the Midwest. Seen it in Texas. And good to see a multi use development in Rohnert Park next to the station. I've seen this kind of thing in a few places in the Midwest, though it's rather novel for Sonoma County. Much of Santa Rosa is still a "small town". Single family homes have been the de rigueur in most of Sonoma County, through out the 70s, 80s, and 90s, due to it being rural. Apartments were the exception. As with much of the US. Kudos and keep up the good work!

This rail line should actually be named the DUMB line. It had commuter rail service when the population of the area was way less, but it was discontinued by the NWP (Southern Pacific) because it didn’t make economic sense after major storm damage occurred to the line in the Eel River canyon. Finished lumber products coming from Eureka and Ukiah kept the railroad operating economically. After the lumber industry closed, it was a major money drain. As a former PV owner, I rode our car “Tamalpais” from Napa Valley junction to Healdsburg in the early 1990’s as a fundraiser for Napa County Library.

When SMART construction was under way, someone drew a map with a rail line connecting Novato to Fairfield/Suisun City, and a real CA rail network is all I can think about ever since...

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

It needs to happen!

Great video and the line seems nice but it represents the reason why you don't have good transit. The US was always somewhat fragmented but this keep getting worst. A good transit system is just that, a system. It requires central planing, connections and integrated fares but you keep building, when possible, different systems by different agencies with different fares and no planned integration (which does exist in some place but due to the fragmentation rare). A rail system cannot rely just on TOD, but on other parts of a system that feeds passengers to it from a local system, that can be a subway, tram, BRT or regular buses, depending on size and even a small place should have basic bus service that enables people to get to the center and to the train station. Integration one of the most important things for a successful transit system, even with low frequency, that can be dealt with by coordination between the transport means, which should be fairly easy in small places.

If u ask me transit system is outdated

I was impressed with Smart but my ride was not smooth it was quite bumpy actually.

Sorry guy, your dates in the first part are wrong. Sonoma-Marin had passenger service into the fifties. The P&SR was electrified from Petaluma to Sevastpol and Santa Rosa plus a branch to Forestville. The NWP was electrified from Sausolito to San Raphael and a branch to Fairfax. I recommend you do some research before posting. I cannot click like, but not quite click dislike.

Checking in from San Rafael - thanks for making it impossible to drive easily around town! Traffic is a joke. It's shocking more accidents haven't happened on the tracks. Also you see the cars go by and there are NO people - literally. I took the train one time - I was the only person in the car. The train ends too far from the ferry too. Have yet to meet a Marin commuter who actually likes this money sucking calamity.

@topsnek4603

10 ай бұрын

Downtown San Rafael is already difficult to drive around because of all the single direction streets. A train crossing two streets every thirty minutes to an hour is a negligible difference.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

And I saw the highway with only three cars the other day. Should we tear down the highway? No one was using it when I saw it that time? Yes? Should we start the bulldozers right now? Also, how come highways are free to use? Were they free to build?

Almost $1 billion and that train does not go anywhere. Post pandemic and all the crime around the Bay Area. Nobody rides it or BART any longer.

@TohaBgood2

10 ай бұрын

Lol, about 200k people use BART every day. And SMART is back to its pre-pandemic ridership and it keeps growing. Bud, you need to get out of your right wing bubble. There's a whole world out there.

@kevinkevin6806

9 ай бұрын

I’m just stating facts. I’m not sure what being a right wing or left wing has to do with any of this conversation. I saw a really good video and I used to ride BART every day. But since I live in the Bay Area and take BART I’m fully aware of what the environment is. It’s just an opinion so calm down tough guy. Remember, this is public form so don’t get your feelings hurt and you don’t have to like what everyone else says. I’m sure you’re from the world where everyone gets a trophy, but out in the Bay it don’t work like that

@TohaBgood2

9 ай бұрын

@@kevinkevin6806 You're not stating facts and that's precisely the problem! What you said was a lie, unless you claim that you were ignorant about what BART and SMART's ridership actually is. And if you don't know what it's actually like then why mislead people? Say that you don't know and move on. Or say nothing, 'cause you know, you have no idea what you're talking about, right? SMART is almost fully recovered to pre-pandemic ridership and BART carries literal hundreds of thousands of people every day. BART carries more people over the Bay than the Bay Bridge. Our entire region would completely choke in traffic without BART. The 80 would be full all the way to Sac and you wouldn't be able to drive anywhere! You'd just pull straight from your driveway into a slowly-moving parking lot of a street!

@qjtvaddict

9 ай бұрын

@@kevinkevin6806ok old man

Cannot believe you found anything redeeming about this colossal hunk of crime and grift, It cost wayyyyyy too much, nobody rides it, goes nowhere, didn't relieve traffic 6 cars... The whole SMART team needs to be JAILED! As a Marin resident... I found this whole project straight CRIMINAL!!!! They didn't even use local construction... There were 100s of used trains they could have used but HAD to molest us citizens... For new cars no-one rides... I will be happy when its SCRAPPED

nice channel, sadly youtube implemented a sub limit :( how many subs i have on my channel = how many people i can subscribe to ): KEEP DOING GOOD WORK, i will intentionally comment on all your vids till i get another subscriber, TODGod! - by: mico st⭐ar holo, a man.