The currently planned SMART line, while a much-needed addition to our region’s transportation mix, is inadequate as a car replacement. The trains will run every 30 minutes during rush hour, once in the middle of the day, and not at all at night. This is well below the generally accepted 15-minute minimum for show-up-and-go service that you would get on BART. To bring SMART up to that level of service will require an investment, but not as dire an investment as typically thought.
The easiest problem to solve is that of mid-day service. SMART should just run trains during that timeframe, problem solved. Freight could roll during the unused nighttime hours.
The problem of long headways, however, is a physical constraint. SMART operates on a single-track corridor with sidings to allow trains to pass one another as they move in opposite directions. The double-track segments will make up about 17 percent of the corridor, but that’s just enough to allow 30-minute service and not much more.
There are two ways to fix this. SMART could double-track the whole line, or it could increase the number of sidings to match the level of service it wants to have.
Double-tracking: Expensive and possible
To double-track, California law requires a 44-foot right-of-way: 15 feet from the track’s center (centerline) to the edge of the right of way, 14 feet from centerline to centerline and 15 feet on the other side. SMART’s corridor typically includes a mixed-use path as well, which is another 12 feet wide, bringing the preferred right-of-way width to 56 feet.
While most of the right-of-way is wide enough for two tracks and the path, in three locations – Petaluma, Novato, and San Rafael – the width available drops to 50 feet and the mixed-use path will need to be moved to a parallel street. Still, in each of these segments it’s trivial to double-track. In San Rafael, however, we face a different situation. The right-of-way narrows to 30 feet from Puerto Suello Hill to the Downtown San Rafael station, substantially less than required by California for a second track.
Thankfully, the segment is short enough that it doesn’t need one. The 1.8 miles will take about 2.5 minutes to traverse. If we include a 2-minute pad and schedule our northbound and southbound trains to arrive at San Rafael at the same time, there will never be any conflict and therefore no need for a second track.
This solution does introduce some constraints on future SMART operations. Dwell times would need to be introduced to ensure punctuality at San Rafael. Headways could never be less than 7 minutes at current speeds (2.5 minutes for the southbound train to clear plus 2.5 minutes for the southbound train to clear plus 2 minute pad). It might be possible to double-track the tunnel, which doesn’t need as much width, and squeeze out another minute of headway, but by then there would be other problems of capacity that could be solved more cheaply.
The cost-per-mile of double tracks varies from project to project. A double-track project in Carlsbad had a cost of $9.68 million per mile; another project in New York State had a cost of $5.28 million per mile (PDF); and a third in Florida gave about $5 million. These give an estimated cost of between $284 million and $549 million. The lower figure is more in line with industry standards, and it’s roughly half the cost SMART will spend on physical rail on its existing right-of-way.
Sidings: Doing it cheaper
At 15-minute headways, SMART will have at most six trains going in each direction once it reaches full build-out. If they stick to precise scheduling, they will pass at six predetermined points. Under the current plan, SMART will run 30-minute headways under a similar scheme, with only three passing points of 4 miles each. At that 4-mile standard, we would need another 12 miles of track (another three sidings) to permit 15 minute frequency. While my original assumption was for 56.7 miles of construction (70.5 miles minus the 1.8 mile Puerto Suello segment minus 12 miles of passing track), with this dramatically reduced need for new tracks we can shrink the cost by a similar margin. Rather than cost $284 million, 12 miles of track will only cost $60 million. Our 7-minute maximum headway will need another 24 miles of sidings on top of that, another $120 million. So for almost half the cost of our full double-tracked system SMART could build the infrastructure needed for exactly the same product.
California regulations treat sidings differently than regular two-track systems, and pegs the minimum width of the right-of-way at 50 feet, rather than 44. While that means the sidings will interfere with the mixed-use path in the narrower segments of the right-of-way, moving the path is far cheaper than extraneous track.
Though this doesn’t give SMART operational flexibility to raise and lower frequencies or speeds at will, the currently planned system doesn’t either. Any changes in frequency or speed will require some capital investment to ensure passing tracks are where they need to be.
The last piece to the puzzle, rolling stock, costs slightly more than the tracks needed. SMART's Nippon-Sharyo DMUs cost $6.67 million per two-car train. At my proposed 15-minute headways, SMART would need 15 trains, 9 more than currently on order, at a cost of $60.03 million. At the maximum service of 7-minute headways, SMART would need 28 more trains than currently on order at a cost of $186.76 million.
The next logical steps – electrification to speed trains, grade separation to eliminate street crossings and automated trains to decrease costs – would squeeze more capacity out of the line, but that’s beyond this exercise.
A high-frequency project is for a Phase 3, not for the current IOS. SMART has yet to prove its worth to the North Bay, and the North Bay has yet to prove it can support a rail line. The density of jobs, residences and activities is currently relatively low near the planned stations. The capital improvements needed are expensive, as are high frequencies, and it’s not clear they would be worth the investment. SMART can’t write off that possibility, however, and needs to engineer its tracks to allow double-tracking in the future. Though it styles itself a commuter rail, SMART could be the primary transit artery for Sonoma and Marin, and it needs to be ready to fill that role if it comes. Until then, the least it could do is run trains whenever it can: 30-minute headways, all day, every day.
A version of this piece appeared on The Greater Marin in two parts: speculating on the possibility of double-tracking, and an update on how to do it cheaper with sidings.
"SMART has yet to prove its worth to the North Bay, and the North Bay has yet to prove it can support a rail line." Phase 1 isn't even implemented yet and we're arguing about what a waste of money it is? Have a little patience and stop acting like my 6 year old (are we there YET?!).
I think that the people of Marin got taken, now the downsized SMART is not expected to be running for at least 4 more years. Are we there yet ? NO, and I don't give a flying flock. We probably will never be there, I'm glad that I did not vote for SMART. We here in Marin are just going to have to "take it as a burn".
"Maximum throughput for each direction = 16 trains per hour " 16 trains per hour = 5 minutes per train. You were talking about 15 minutes per train, then 7.5 minutes. Now 5 minutes. I think you go carried away here. <g> Assuming between stations there is one siding in the middle, I don't see how more than 1 train can be run in the opposite direction. Unless you are talking about multiple siding between stations. Then you're tuning the railroad into a giant game of chicken. Cue up the Casey Jones song. And there goes any chance of running at high speed. Curves require slowing and switches are curves. And where are you going to put those 16 trains when they get to Larkspur or downtown San Rafael? Most stations are about 10 miles apart. At 40 mph, that distance takes 15 minutes. At 44mph, SMART's guestamate speed, just over 13.5 minutes. So 5 miles in 7 minutes. Until a train reaches the siding, no other trains can run in the opposite direction. I really don't think having trains leave the station under 20 minutes apart can be done safely, unless you park trains while the conga line goes in the opposite direction. This isn't even factoring in level crossings, bride speed restrictions, city speed limits, or other track restrictions.
Makes you wonder why. Replacements or expansion? Just like MEA is going to Richmond, I think the SMART board has visions of going to Vallejo and Ukiah. The model for the Japanese bullet train was lie about the costs, get the project half built, sink the project deep in debt, then come back for the other half of the money. "Do you want to throw away hundreds of millions." The problem is we don't have the population density or a two track system.
I'm talking theoretical maximum at this point. Tight scheduling could keep the trains going at such headways. Average distance between stations is actually something more like 5-6 miles until you get north of Santa Rosa, but sidings can easily be used for such frequent headways. Certainly cheaper than double-tracking the whole thing. You would need 68% of the right-of-way double-tracked, using the 4-mile standard. Such arrangements are common in other places that care about things like cost control, and there's no reason it can't work here. As I said in the article, sidings make higher system speeds impossible without further track building. Every segment would have a speed limit and trains would need to stick with those speed limits to stay with 30 seconds of their schedule. As for where we'd put the trains - we'd put them going in the other direction. At 7.5 minute headways, trains should be leaving to go north every 7.5 minutes, too. At most you'd have two trains in Larkspur at a given time - while they're idling to to time themselves properly for the northbound trip.
I think David is an entrepreneur, he is going to be the CEO (el Heffe) of a new train building conglomerate called "East Coast Trainhuggers, LLC" They are the group of investors who will build the new SMART subway from Healdsberg to San Rafael. They are in the works with the president to get a $300 billion grant to modify the SMART train to be more like an efficient east coast train transit subway system. Money is no object for trains, the federal reserve will just print up whatever David feels is needed. And this endeavor will make a profit off of the fares and electricity generated by the solar panels above 101 all the way from Healdsberg to San Rafael. David expects that in 10 years, there will be 10 million commuters riding the subway from Healdsberg to San Rafael each day, and on the weekends, the subway will be used to whisk the wealthy Marin residents up to the new casinos and wineries in Sonoma county. David says "I have a dream !".
I'm guessing that most of the opposition to this comes from people who never have to go anywhere further than the local coffee shop. NIMBY meets NIMI (not in my interest). You all are certainly entitled to your opinion, but in the absence of a problem every solution looks too expensive. If you don't think transportation in the North Bay is currently a problem, then rage on. If you do think transportation in the North Bay is a problem and just think SMART is the wrong approach - propose an alternative.
On to SMART: One thing I believe should be addressed is the particulate matter (i.e. pollution) that will be pumped into the air. Say what you will about clean diesel, etc. A clean diesel train is not the same as a clean diesel car. I think people have this image of the trains shutting down their engines when they move to the sidings to wait for passing trains or at the stations. IF you take the ferry you know what i mean. The Cat Ferries use a k50 engine variant (https://marine.cummins.com/marine/public/productListingAjax.action?friendlyUrl=/Propulsion/K50) that are diesel and run constantly all day, shutting off only after the last run of the day. If you have ever been on the back deck of the ferries when they turn around and start their run from SF you have seen the huge plume of exhaust. And these are IMO2 engines ( http://www.dieselnet.com/standards/inter/imo.php )
You can argue that industrial ground transport engines are held to a stricter standard and that may be the case. But I lived in SF for 10 years on a Clean diesel bus line. Every month I would have to clean my exterior window and sills of the thick black particulate matter created by the bus line When a train pulls out of a station or siding, it experiences it biggest pulling load breaking the inertia of the rest of the cars. So maximum exhaust will be created during these times. Think of the particular matter (again - pollution) in downtown san rafael the terminus for the Smart line. At any given point during the day, there will probably be at least one train in the station with its engine running. Think of the houses that will be near the sidings. THINK...
I started the blog because nobody else was filling the role I saw. DC can learn a lot from Marin's largely successful approach to development, and Marin can learn a lot from DC's experiments with sustainable urbanism. I want to know, how can those lessons be applied to the small-town centers of Marin? How can small-town centers reemerge in the suburbs of DC? I stay in touch with news sites, email subscriptions, my family - parents, sister & brother-in-law, grandmother - and friends. It's not ideal, and I do miss things as a result, but I figure me writing about it is better than nothing. If you do think I have sinister motives, it's better to prove that my ideas are sinister rather than I'm sinister. That way opponents will have the intellectual underpinnings to fight off whatever it is I'll reveal when I show my true Agenda 21 proposals or whatever. It also makes for a better discussion, and maybe something will rub off from both sides to the other.
I just did a piece on my blog regarding pollution removal near freeways, and the same thing will likely work for train tracks. Growing ivy on the fences will cut down between 40% and 60% of the PM from the air, though most of these areas already experience high levels of PM because of the freeway's proximity. Whether SMART will undertake pollution mitigation, though, is another question.
Hire Me! I'm always looking for consulting work in communications and policy and specialize in the kind of analysis you read on The Greater Marin. If you need a friendly, knowledgeable hand to help guide you through that project, drop me a line at theGreaterMarin [at] gmail.com. You do not publish in the Independent Journel as you have to provide your address and phone number to prove you live in Marin. This is a weakness of the Patch system.
Growing ivy on fences will not cut down pollution from trains one little bit, I'm sorry to say. And the ivy will not negate the noise of metal wheels on metal tracks, (it doesn't matter if they are welded or not), the vibrations, the sound of the engines, the sounds of the enunciators (electronic bells) at each gate crossing, the screeching sound of train brakes and the soot and stench of "clean diesel" engines, horns or no horns, it doesn't matter David, it seems to some of us that you might think the people of Marin are not so smart if you think that we like your "new age urbanist" jive. I posted a link on the Lucas Valley Rd. thread, but I don't know if you viewed it. I wish everyone would view it, it is a very short piece about a few things that we have fought off, but it gives a good example of how we feel in Marin, so here it is: www.tamvalley.org/TamValleyHistory.shtml
The article I reference on diesel pollution is summarized here: http://dirt.asla.org/2012/08/15/green-streets-cuts-pollution-more-than-previously-thought/ Older research for highways is here: http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/appcd/nearroadway/pdfs/baldauf.pdf Other info is readily available if you look for it. Noise pollution is another concern and yeah, ivy won't help. Those solutions are structural (things like welded tracks) and policy (quiet zones, speed limits), among others.
I'll have a lot more time once my girlfriend is halfway around the world, and I want to dive into the bus plans and politics of Arlington and Fairfax, Virginia, which stand to lose or win the most from investments in transit in the area. That's where the lessons from Marin can come most in handy: how to build and maintain a place's character, how to do low-rise downtowns, how to structure a bus system around nodes and arterials like the Hub and Sir Francis Drake, and so on.