Quote:
Originally Posted by SkahHigh
How useful is SMART without the Larkspur station?
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I'll admit the Larkspur station gets riders all the way to the ferry, where the ferry gets riders all the way to downtown SF, gets north bay commuters to there and home later probably quicker. There's around 600 thousand jobs in downtown SF, there's 130 thousand jobs in Marin County and 250 thousand jobs in Sonoma Counties.
You might also find this study interesting.......
https://www.spur.org/sites/default/f...owntown_SF.pdf
There's almost as many jobs in the two north bay counties combined as there is in downtown San Francisco. Job growth in the suburban areas of the SF Bay area is increasing while the number of jobs in downtown SF has declined, at best has remained steady. There will be commuters who will take the train to the ferry, but they can also take a bus.
So I really don't think there will be that many commuters riding the trains to the ferry. The extension to Larkspur will increase the likelihood over time of seeing more reverse commuters from the ferry to the train to north bay.
Without Larkspur, the train could survive just accommodating north bay commuters within the north bay. That's why they decided initially to drop Larkspur to save on money, and get to it later.