As Bay Area public transit struggles to deal with shrinking commuter demand, one agency is about to expand its service.  

It's the result of a study showing that people prefer to take a train rather than a bus, and it's creating an opportunity to reorganize how people use transit up and down the Highway 101 corridor.

All roads in the North Bay lead to San Rafael, at least for most of the public transit providers. The San Rafael Transit Center is one of the busiest in the Bay Area, second only to the Salesforce Center in San Francisco.  

The hub is the meeting point for Marin Transit, Golden Gate Transit and the SMART commuter train line.  

"It's already very important and will continue to be important," said Paulo Cosulich Schwartz, spokesperson for Golden Gate Transit. "And we're actually undertaking a project to redesign and relocate the San Rafael Transit Center to accommodate a growth in transit service."

That growth may be a case of addition by subtraction. A recent study shows that transit in the North Bay has a lot of duplication of service.  

For example, Golden Gate Transit has buses going clear up to Santa Rosa, the same service area as SMART. It also has stops in the same urban areas as Marin Transit.  

So, a new plan has been developed called "MASCOTS," short for Marin-Sonoma Coordinated Transit Service, that will, hopefully, cut out the redundancy.

"MASCOTS really refocuses Golden Gate on the regional trips," said Marin Transit Planning Director, Cathleen Sullivan. "So, Golden Gate will have fewer stops and really focus on express service and getting people between major transit hubs in Marin County, into San Francisco and into the East Bay.  And Marin Transit will really refocus OUR resources on making sure the local stops are covered."

"One of the most interesting findings of the study," said Cosulich Schwartz. "Is that 70 percent of Marin/Sonoma travel to San Francisco originates from San Rafael or south."     

So, Golden Gate will focus on that area, limiting its service only up to Novato, requiring travelers to use SMART from any place farther north.  It's only happening because SMART, after some initial bumps along the way, has proven itself to be a fairly popular transit option.

"We're seeing that in our ridership numbers right now.  SMART is experiencing record ridership. People have embraced that this as a very reliable way to get around.  It's economical, it's a green alternative.  It's just an easy service to use," said communications manager Julia Gonzalez. "We too, here at SMART, have tried to stay agile in response to changed commute patterns, where people are maybe commuting to work part of the week.  Maybe doing a two-three split, three days at home and two days in the office. We've tried to stay agile by creating monthly passes that take into account that you're not traveling, necessarily, five days a week."

Because of MASCOTS, SMART will see an increase in service of nearly 20 percent and will begin hiring new people to begin training almost immediately. The hope is that the coordinated effort will not only provide a less confusing system for riders but also save some much-needed money for the operators.

"It's not just happening here in the Bay Area," said Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesperson John Goodwin. "This is happening in metro areas all over the country, that the old model for operating transit, the different business models, are under a great deal of pressure.  Transit agencies all over the region are re-examining decades-long service plans because the travel patterns have changed in a big way all over the Bay Area.  And at the same time, transit agencies are strapped for operating cash, so they need to operate more efficiently."

Except for the planning process, the new program shouldn't cost anything. In fact, it should save money. And the cost of expanding SMART is expected to be covered by the increase in ridership, after the MASCOTS plan goes into effect, sometime in April.

In the meantime, are being planned with the first on Tuesday, July 22, at 5:00 pm at the Marin City Library.