Sonoma and Marin County transit activists met up in Santa Rosa on Saturday, August 9, to see the newly installed wayfinding signage and experience the walk from the SMART station to Santa Rosa’s Transit Mall on one of the hottest days of 2025.
Led by Kaleo Mark of Seamless Bay Area, about 20 participants in the “Good Signs and Good Times” walking tour gathered at the station. The new signage was installed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in collaboration with transit agencies in nine Bay Area counties. Santa Rosa, in Sonoma, is one of the test sites for the designs. The city redesigned and refurbished its Transit Mall last year to improve connections and amenities for bus riders.
Like most public spaces in Santa Rosa, the SMART station features human-sized Peanuts characters. The station is located in Railroad Square, which has been redeveloped into a charming “old-town” style shopping and dining area. The Transit Mall is on the opposite side of Highway 101, a six-lane freeway that serves as a barrier between Railroad Square and downtown Santa Rosa. The quarter-mile walk from the SMART station to the Transit Mall follows a fast-moving traffic route under the freeway, requiring pedestrians to cross traffic at a stop sign, and then walk downhill and uphill. A few blocks through mostly empty office buildings gets the transit user to the place where the buses hang out.
Participants in the Seamless tour came from as far away as New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Marin County. There were also members of North Bay Transit Riders (NBTR), Bikeable Santa Rosa, and Santa Rosa YIMBY. Other co-sponsors included Transbay Coalition and Friends of SMART. NBTR and the Transbay Coalition also helped program the event.
Members of the group were positive about the new signage and the increasing coordination among Bay Area transit agencies.
The group walked back to the SMART station via the Prince Memorial Greenway, a trail along Santa Rosa Creek. After walking a mile in the summer heat, beers and margaritas at Chevy’s next to the SMART station made for a satisfying Happy Hour conclusion.
Here are some other images from the event:
