A new SMART station in Geyserville took a major step from possibility to reality this week when the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit Board of Directors approved the Geyserville Station Project and added it to SMART’s program.
The August 19 decision means SMART can now move the station into regional planning, project development and the search for funding. It is an important distinction that the vote does not yet authorize construction; additional funding and implementation steps will still be required before work can begin.
Still, for a community that has been bypassed by passenger rail for nearly 70 years, the vote represents a significant milestone.
SMART is planning the station near Highway 128 and Remmel Road, using its existing railroad right-of-way within the Geyserville Urban Service Area. The location is close to the center of town, existing homes and businesses, and connecting transit. Plans envision a passenger platform and shelter along with bicycle parking, vehicle parking, bikeshare and opportunities for better bus, bicycle and pedestrian connections.
The station would be part of SMART’s continuing northern expansion beyond Healdsburg toward Cloverdale. Rather than treating Geyserville as a detour from that goal, SMART proposes dividing the roughly 18-mile Healdsburg-to-Cloverdale extension into two approximately nine-mile projects. The agency believes those smaller projects could compete more successfully for grants while ultimately completing the voter-approved rail connection to Cloverdale.
A Project Driven by the Community
The approval follows years of local advocacy. Geyserville originally could not receive a SMART station because state law restricted stations north of Healdsburg to incorporated communities. Geyserville is unincorporated. Community interest helped lead to a change in state law in 2024 that made a station possible, and SMART subsequently included pursuing a Geyserville stop in its strategic planning.
That community enthusiasm was difficult to miss at SMART’s August 10 meeting at the Geyserville Oriental Community Hall. SMART staff presented the plans, answered questions and talked with residents about the station location, the extension to Cloverdale and what rail service could mean for the community. In an informal show of hands that evening, nearly everyone in the room indicated that they wanted a station in Geyserville.
The broader public outreach showed much the same result. SMART reported that, as of August 13, 90 percent of respondents to its community survey supported adding a Geyserville station. Staff described the feedback received at meetings and through the survey as overwhelmingly supportive.
There are good reasons for that enthusiasm. Rail can provide residents and workers with another alternative to Highway 101, connect people with jobs, education and health care, and make it easier to reach Geyserville without a car. SMART’s analysis notes that Geyserville has more than 1,000 jobs and that the overwhelming majority are held by people who live outside the community, many in places already located along the SMART corridor. SMART also estimates that switching a trip from driving to SMART can substantially reduce transportation-related carbon emissions.
Better Connections, and a Responsibility to Plan Carefully
For Sonoma County, expanding public transportation is something to celebrate. Giving people realistic alternatives to driving is central to reducing vehicle miles traveled, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and creating a transportation network that works for more people.
But transportation and land use are inseparable. A train station can make a place easier to reach, and that accessibility can bring new economic activity and new development pressure. In a community as small and distinctive as Geyserville, those changes deserve careful attention.
The goal should be to connect Geyserville without encouraging the kind of outward sprawl that consumes agricultural land, increases infrastructure demands and ultimately creates more driving. New investment should strengthen the existing community rather than push development farther into the surrounding rural landscape.
That means Sonoma County should pair the station with strong land-use planning: keeping future development compact, protecting agricultural and open-space lands, improving safe walking and bicycling connections, and ensuring that station planning does not simply produce a large parking lot designed around bringing more cars into town.
There are economic opportunities as well. Easier access could bring customers to Geyserville restaurants, wineries and businesses and give workers another way to reach their jobs. SMART specifically identified improved access to businesses, jobs, education, health care and other opportunities among the station’s potential benefits.
The challenge will be ensuring that those benefits strengthen the people and businesses already there rather than gradually displacing them or changing the character of the community beyond recognition.
The SMART Board’s approval is therefore good news, and the beginning rather than the end of the conversation.
Geyserville now has the opportunity to become better connected to the rest of Sonoma County while demonstrating that improved transportation does not have to mean uncontrolled growth. With thoughtful planning, strong protections for surrounding agricultural lands and continued community involvement, the station can become part of a transportation future that gives people more choices while preserving the qualities that make Geyserville worth connecting to in the first place.
