Cost of new SMART rail crossing in Santa Rosa increases 50 percent

The cost of building a rail crossing near Coddingtown has increased sharply, to $2.25 million, and some Santa Rosa City Council members were none too pleased with the explanation Tuesday.

The city originally had estimated that building the ground-level crossing over the tracks at Jennings Avenue would cost about $1.5 million.

The city pursued that option, which state officials initially opposed, because it was by far the cheapest way to keep the historic crossing point - between a school and dense residential area - open to pedestrians and bicyclists.

But the total cost of the work increased nearly 50 percent after the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Authority said it would cost $760,000 to reprogram its train control system to account for the new crossing, according to city staff.

That didn’t sit well with Councilman Gary Wysocky, who called the cost increase “wrong” on Tuesday and suggested that SMART’s project cost estimates in the past have been questionable.

“To me, this is SMART taking some overhead out of our pocket,” Wysocky said, and urged staff to be “skeptical” of SMART’s billings for the work.

Councilwoman Erin Carlstrom said she was uncomfortable contracting directly with SMART for the work because the city of Santa Rosa doesn’t have a representative on the SMART board. Carlstrom sought nomination for a seat on the board in 2015 but fell short.

City Manager Sean McGlynn said he, too, was surprised to see how much extra money SMART was requesting. But he said he also appreciates that the timing of commuter rail cars is a “precise science,” and SMART needs to integrate the new crossing into its system.

“We’re doing, frankly, a very invasive move in a highly calibrated system,” McGlynn said.

The additional integration costs include connecting to existing power and fiber optic lines and conducting computer models for all 47 miles of the initial rail corridor.

The revised total cost of the work includes $1.1 million for the crossing itself, $760,000 for the SMART integration efforts, and $430,000 in sidewalks, road, and light improvements in the area.

The city opted to contract with SMART to have its contractor do the work to save money and time, said Greg Dwyer, a city civil engineer. The work is expected to be done by the time fare service begins, now expected by late spring.

The costs would have been lower if the city had approval for the crossing earlier and it had been incorporated into SMART’s plans from the beginning, McGlynn said.

The recent delay in the start of SMART service actually works in the city’s favor because if trains were running by the end of the year as originally expected, the cost of the work would likely have been higher, Dwyer said.

The council voted for the contract 7-0.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.