As I have said many times, each public transportation agency is responsible for their own piece of the puzzle, but NO ONE is responsible for making the pieces fit together. There are many instances, such as a train arriving five minutes after a bus departs, where connections between different agencies are impossible. A person just trying to get somewhere can easily conclude it is easier to drive their own car.

The two counties immediately north of the Golden Gate Bridge have a plan to fix this dilemma. The project is called MASCOTS, an acronym for Marin-Sonoma Coordinated Transit Service Plan. From the start this was not to be yet another study collecting dust on a shelf, but a plan that actually would be implemented improving local public transportation and giving people a viable alternative to driving.

Marin and Sonoma Counties are served by the SMART train operating along the US highway 101 corridor between Larkspur in Marin County and Windsor in Sonoma County with eventual service to Healdsburg and Cloverdale. The counties are also served by Golden Gate Transit’s (GGT) route 101 bus from San Francisco to Santa Rosa. Except during COVID, SMART has enjoyed continued ridership growth since its opening in 2017. Some of this growth, however, came at the expense of GGT bus ridership as many prefer the train to the bus. It made little sense to have two parallel transit services serving the same population centers. The strategy behind MASCOTS was to redeploy resources such that duplication was reduced and frequencies were increased.

Specifics of the plan call for GGT buses to be cut back to San Rafael. Since the San Rafael bus transit center is just across the street from SMART’s San Rafael station, transfers between the two are easy. To make the transfers viable, schedules between the two agencies will be coordinated to eliminate instances where one is leaving just before the other arrives. Connections between services will increase to hourly all day with 30 minutes during peak periods. In addition to SMART and GGT, four local city bus services are also part of MASCOTS and will adjust their schedules to connect with SMART trains where the services meet. The plan is slated for initial implementation in April 2026.

To give Bay Area public transportation a test (pre-MASCOTS), I recently used three transit services to attend RailPAC’s Northern California luncheon get together in downtown Oakland. I used SMART from Windsor to San Rafael, connected across the street to GGT’s bus to the East Bay, and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to Oakland. While taking longer than driving, the trip was much less stressful and cheaper. Full round-trip fare is $33.70; however, my senior fare was only $10 (there are some advantages to getting old!). Driving would be over $40 just for gasoline, parking, and bridge toll and does not include all the other expenses that come with car ownership.

MASCOTS has the potential to increase public transit use significantly by making viable connections between different agencies. If it proves successful, and there is every indication it will be, MASCOTS will become the example other metropolitan areas should follow to convince people to leave their cars at home.