SMART ridership hits record high, punctuating end of transit agency’s pandemic-era slump

On a Thursday morning that vacillated between clear, misty and socked in with fog, a handful of people boarded the No. 6 train at the Larkspur Sonoma-Marin Area Regional Transit station, only after about 100 deboarded.

The popular rail commute, like the car commute, is southbound in the mornings and northbound in the evenings.

Abby Torrez, 27, said she has been riding SMART since its beginning in 2017. At first she would take the train if she were running late or had missed her bus, about once a week. Back then, she wasn’t making enough money to ride SMART five days a week.

During the pandemic she worked from home, like so many others.

“But at the start of 2022, that’s when we went back to the office. And that's when I started to use it a little bit more,” she said. She now takes the train about three times a week.

The post-pandemic return to normalcy ultimately contributed to 2023 being a record year for SMART as the agency said it saw its greatest number of passengers.

“The increase in ridership indicates that SMART is a vital part of the transportation network in Marin and Sonoma counties and continues to meet new needs in the community as people return to transit post-pandemic,” said Julia Gonzalez, spokesperson for the transit agency.

SMART, which runs from Larkspur to the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport, moved 750,016 people from January 2023 to December 2023. In 2018, the first full year of service, SMART transported 717,021 people. The agency launched mid-2017.

The 2023 ridership is a 4.6% increase from 2018, despite dropping 65% from 2019 to 2020 amid the pandemic.

“People are riding SMART because the system is reliable, convenient and safe,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said SMART beat its “boardings” goal by 8% for fiscal year 2023, which runs July 2022 to June 2023 for the agency. Fare revenues were $517,636 in that time, representing a 40% increase from the previous year.

The transit agency has seemingly made it through its pandemic-induced slump.

In 2020, people who could work from home did. But designated “essential” workers, like grocery store employees and many other low-wage earners without private transportation, still relied on public transportation.

Ridership didn’t show positive growth until 2022. That’s when Torrez said she got back on SMART.

Ridership grew that year by 121% – numbers ballooned to 498,566 from 225,636 in 2021.

The next year, in 2023, people continued to ride the train and numbers ticked up 50%.

Having only been in operation for 6 1/2 years, and having weathered a mighty blow by the coronavirus pandemic, the train system is now making a comeback.

Tom Kavanaugh, 63, is another legacy SMART rider. He remembers when the system first opened its doors.

“It was pretty quiet on the trains until it started to catch on,” he said.

SMART has particularly been a hit for bicyclists, too. A longtime bike commuter, Kavanaugh said once he could bicycle from his house in San Anselmo and then catch the train to Petaluma, “that’s when I got on board.”

Bringing bikes onto SMART, with limited restrictions, was a major selling point for multi-modal commuters.

Bicyclists using SMART increased 48% from 2018 to 2023, according to data from the agency. And fewer SMART bicycle riders left the transit system in 2020 than overall riders — by a factor of 10 percentage points.

In 2021, SMART cyclists saw a 7% increase in ridership compared to a 6% decrease of general ridership.

Kavanaugh said he remembered when ridership was high just before the pandemic. Then everything stopped, like a great pause. He said he took four or five months off from riding the train, but “came back as soon as it felt comfortable to do so.”

Weekly ridership hasn’t reached the high watermark set in February 2020, the month before lockdowns went into effect. A weekly average of 2,981 people rode SMART that month.

Before then, an average of 2,847 people rode the transit system every week in January 2020. The second highest monthly average ever behind February.

It’s now halfway into the agency’s 2024 fiscal year and ridership weekly averages are surpassing the previous years — already 22% higher.

Gonzalez said the transit service is currently tracking 14% over its current fiscal year ridership goal.

Kavanaugh noted his “counter-commute” northbound and surmised the southbound morning route would be busier. It was.

Students are among the biggest contributors to SMART’s growing ridership.

At 7:20 a.m. Jan. 17, the doors of the No. 4 northbound train opened at Petaluma station and a flood of young people boarded, turning the car into an ephemeral Hogwarts Express. Many disembarked just one stop later at Cotati.

At the downtown Santa Rosa stop, a yellow school bus was waiting at 7:45 a.m. where students disembarked and walked straight onto the school bus.

Matthew Coronado, 19, started riding SMART for about a year, since June 2023. He said his car broke down and he needed an affordable transportation solution. He said he learned about the rail service from a friend.

Coronado rides SMART from San Rafael to Petaluma where he attends Santa Rosa Junior College. He also takes the train to work, which makes him a daily weekday rider while he saves up money for a new car.

But even when he gets a new car, he said, “I do think I (will) still ride SMART, because the commute is really expensive.”

Before he spent about $70 a week on gas. In the future, he said, he’ll probably park his car at a SMART parking lot and then finish his commute by train.

“It's a lot less stressful, because I don't have to worry about, like, if there's traffic,” Coronado said. Also it’s clean, smells good and is safe, he said.

During the train ride he usually naps or does his homework. He hasn’t seen much movement on his grades while commuting by train but, “I've been to school more on time, though. Because it's a set schedule.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area’s transportation authority, and Clipper, the card based payment system needed to ride SMART, recently expanded their Clipper START program a “pilot program to provide single-ride discounts to eligible riders,” according to their website, to include more transit agencies and establish a uniform 50% discount across 23 participating transit services, including SMART.

Leslie Lara-Enriquez, a spokesperson with the commission, said the pilot program has been extended a third time since it began in 2020.

Applicants to the program must be ages 19-64, be a resident of the nine-county Bay Area — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma — make 200% of the federal poverty level or less, or $30,120 for a single person, and not already have an RTC Clipper card for people with disabilities.

John Goodwin, another MTC spokesperson, said the income threshold is “a matter of considerable discussion at the commission level,” he added, “you can say there's certainly some political impetus to adjust that threshold.”

But both Lara-Enriquez and Goodwin said it is MTC’s goal to make the Clipper START program permanent. First, however, they have to find the money.

Lara-Enriquez said the MTC’s reduced fare pilot program will end June 30, 2025.

As the train drew closer to Torrez’s stop, she said she’d like to see more stops added to the SMART system, and wants students and seniors to ride the transit system for free.

On April 1, 2024, Gonzales said, seniors and youth will be able to ride SMART for free until June 30, 2025.

SMART also offers 50% discounts for riders with disabilities and who are a participant in the Clipper START program.

“A new station in north Petaluma will open at the end of this year,” and “we anticipate offering passenger rail service to Windsor by the spring of 2025,” Gonzalez said.

This will increase the miles of track by 9 1/2 miles, so Torrez’s requests are already in the works.

Kathryn Styer Martínez is a reporting intern for the Press Democrat. She can be reached at kathryn.styermartinez@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5337.