Today marks the debut for the trains of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, which is launching free preview service as a way of introducing riders to the North Bay’s newest transit system. SMART officials had expected the launch to happen last year, but ran into delays while testing the trains. The extra wait represents just a fraction of what has been a lengthy timetable for developing the system, whose governing district formed 15 years ago. The Monitor covered the creation of the district and its early plans; with those plans now finally coming to fruition, we thought it might be interesting to take a look back at those formative days (click on the image below to read the original article from the Monitor archives).
