Community Corner

SMART Planners Grapple With Rohnert Park Train Station Site

At a community station workshop last night, only one design was presented.

At the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit station workshop last night Feb. 16, planners for the 37-mile high-speed train that would take commuters from downtown Santa Rosa to central San Rafael, presented plans for the Roberts Lake station in Rohnert Park, despite agreeing to study alternative sites.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night at a special meeting to ask train planners for a feasibility study of two different stations — at either the site or near the Public Safety Department.

But only the Roberts Lake site was presented to the community last night.

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"We just found out about this," said Chris Coursey, community outreach manager for SMART. 

“Frankly, SMART likes the idea of moving the train station to the intersection of Rohnert Park Expressway and the rail line,” said Pat Barnes, deputy city engineer for Rohnert Park. “One thing they don’t want to do is build two stations in Rohnert Park, or build one and tear it down to build another years down the road.”

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SMART planners estimate they’ve sunk in between $50,000 and $70,000 studying the Roberts Lake Road site; and it’ll cost an additional $10,000 to look at the alternative station. Cost to the city is $0.

“This is something we’re going to analyze,” said John Nemeth, a rail planning manager. “It may make more sense to move the station to the State Farm location; there’s also a decent amount of property next to the library.”

SMART planners said above all, it’s the price tag that matters.

“SMART has it’s financial challenges,” Coursey said. “We’ve gone to thinking Measure Q sales taxes would bring in $890 billion over 20 years, down to $660 million today.”

The intersection of Rohnert Park Expressway and the railroad tracks could be cheaper, planners said.

“We don’t know yet, but it could make a difference if the city made their piece of property available to us,” Nemeth said.

The two locations rail planners and city officials are throwing around flank eachother. Rohnert Park owns one of them; the slab of property on the north side of the railroad tracks, near City Center Plaza. And the other, State Farm, is still up in the air.

"State Farm may be the most exciting, but we don’t really know what the future of State Farm is going to be, so it may not be feasible," Barnes said.

The Council on Tuesday also voted down a station area master plan grant of $500,000 that included a $100,000 match from the city. It would have paid for the study of residential or mixed-use development in a half-mile area surrounding the station.

Staff recommends the Council keep with the current site, but ask SMART for the feasibility study; and forego the station area master plan based on the cost to the city and other more important projects, Barnes said.

Barnes laid out a  that he said the city has indicated are more important: The Northeast Specific Plan, the Northwest Specific Plan, the Wilfred Dowdell development, University District Plan, Southeast Specific Plan and attracting new tenants to Sonoma Mountain Village, amongst others.

The entire Council agreed. 

Editor's note: the decision to think about moving the SMART station from Roberts Lake Road unfolded during the Feb. 7 City Council meeting..


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