Thumbs up: SMART on the right path

A funding shortfall left the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency largely spinning its wheels on a promise to voters to create a bike path roughly paralleling the commuter rail line connecting Sonoma and Marin counties. But now that promise is back on track.|
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

SMART on the right path

A funding shortfall left the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency largely spinning its wheels on a promise to create a bike path roughly paralleling the commuter rail line connecting Sonoma and Marin counties. But now that promise is back on track.

SMART has now received federal environmental clearance for 36 miles of the pedestrian and bike path.

The clearance will allow work to move forward on 6.2 miles of the pathway, including portions in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park, which had already been approved for construction. It also will allow SMART to seek more federal funding in addition to the $7.46 million it has already secured for pathway construction.

Nearly 10 miles of pathway have already been completed or are nearly finished. Large gaps still exist in the pathway, but, as SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian said last week, the federal clearance will “dramatically” speed up the process to seeing the path built. “This is the fruit of three very hard years of work,” he said.

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