15 May 2013

Apply for the Tacoma Transportation Commission


Do you think that you have what it takes to help plan Tacoma's transportation future? If so, Tacoma needs you to apply for the Transportation Commission.

The newly formed Transportation Commission will advise the City Council on transportation-related matters, including bike, pedestrian and mass transit-related planning initiatives, as well as other issues - like parking and ADA issues.

This new transportation commission will probably be integral to development of the comprehensive transportation plan in the coming months and will help to guide what priorities get called out for Tacoma in Sound Transit 3 and enhanced Pierce Transit bus service in the city.  

Because of the critical nature of the commission, I am encouraging readers to suggest multiple individuals for appointment in the comments.

I will probably be seeking a seat on the commission, but I am open to working with others in Tacoma's sustainable transportation sphere to ensure that bike/ped/transit gets a strong majority on the commission.

From the City of Tacoma:


...

The commission will consist of 11 members - nine voting members appointed by the City Council who are City residents, with representatives from each of the City’s five Council Districts, who bring a range of perspectives and expertise that focus on the City’s long-term vision for mobility options throughout the City, and two non-voting members appointed by the City Manager. 

It is recommended that the members appointed reflect the following categories of special interest/discipline: professional engineering sector, construction/private business sector, bike and pedestrian/mass transit sector, planning/urban growth sector, environmental/sustainability sector, general community and ADA community.

Regularly scheduled meeting dates and times have not yet been established for this commission.
Applications must be submitted to the City Clerk’s Office by Friday, June 21, 2013. To apply, please visit cityoftacoma.org/cbcapplication or contact April Larsen at (253) 591-5167, City Clerk’s Office, Room 220, Municipal Building, 747 Market St., Tacoma, WA 98402.

06 May 2013

Confronting Councilmember Boe's C1 Claims

Tacoma Link at Commerce St. Station (Photo by Chris K.)
I hope that this is the last time I speak of Councilmember Boe's arguments against E-1.  I find most of them shaky at best and dead wrong in many cases.  You might be asking the question, "Why do I need to address his arguments even though a decision has already been made?"  My response is, because it's important to speak truth to power and it's important for Tacomans to not have any lingering doubts in their minds about the decision that was made.

I want no one, several years from now, to go "if only we had chosen to build a hybrid route to the East Side."  When someone says something like that in the future, please refer to this post so that others can remember, "Oh that's why we didn't do that."

I liken this post to Ben Schiendelman's 2008 critique of the never-built Green Line monorail in Seattle.

Each of Councilmember Boe's comments are in bold and italicized.  They were initially covered on Exit133.

E1 is not part of a long-term plan

Sound Transit's Long Range Plan
Includes Tacoma Link expansion to
Tacoma Community College
There was city-wide light rail feasibility planning conducted by the City of Tacoma in 2006-2007. The study looked at technologies, grades, zoning, and costs.  The results of the study indicated three primary alignments that made sense as part of an initial expansion of streetcar/light rail: 6th Avenue via Stadium Way, Martin Luther King from Division and MLK and Portland Avenue via Puyallup Avenue. 

After the study was concluded, several neighborhood councils fought to have an $80m Tacoma Link light rail capital contribution included in Sound Transit 2 in 2008. It was anticipated that the extension would be along Stadium Way to Tacoma General, with some level of extension afterwards.

A light rail connection along Stadium Way to Tacoma General is included in Transportation 2040 (as project 5459), the regional long range transportation planning document, as well as in Sound Transit's 2005 long range plan.  The Division Avenue to 19th segment along MLK Way was not programmed in, and thus is not exactly a regional project, but the only other corridor that was was B1 (PSRC project 4075) and seven of nine Councilmembers didn't even mention that that corridor existed in this process.  Funny that.

Anyways, since that time there hasn't been any actual planning done by the City because we handed off the study process to Sound Transit essentially in mid-2010. David Boe has been sitting on the Tacoma City Council since 2010. Where was the initiative by the Tacoma City Council before this time to engage the public with a long term transit planning process? It's not like this is anything new. Tacoma Link has been in operation since 2003. We have been doing studies for how to expand it since 2004. This argument that there has been no long range planning done has the caliber of some arguments that I have heard come out of Congress.

Light Rail design is a heavy transportation option – the system we have is for going fast on flat ground

Trolleybuses are used in Seattle and San Francisco
 for steep grades that streetcars can't handle
There used to be 125 miles of streetcar lines in Tacoma.  The pre-1938 streetcar system carried 30 million passengers a year, compared to 10 million served by Pierce Transit today and 15 million at Pierce Transit's peak.  Historically, we adapted to the city's topography using a combination of different technologies. For traversing the city's steep slopes we used a cable car loop, that I have been describing in blog entries and emails to public officials since I learned about it close to seven years ago.  Streetcars operated on relatively level grades and were integrated by the east-west cable car loop.  The analagous modern transit technology for dealing with steep inclines in excess of 8.5% nowadays is the electric trolleybus, currently in use in Seattle and San Francisco.

You can’t go directly south from Hilltop – the E1 route cuts off half the city – we’re painting ourselves into a corner for long-term planning

E1 opens up B1, retains C1 and G1, and enables Tacoma Ave.
Where exactly are we painting ourselves into a corner in this? By expanding double-track to Division Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, we are then capable of expanding westward to TCC via 6th Avenue, or we could spur again down Tacoma Avenue from the Stadium District, or if we double-tracked all the way to 19th St., we could create a bridge across the valley to the Lincoln District and beyond. It's not like Portland Avenue is going anywhere. We still need to address single track sections on Pacific Ave and S. 25th before proceeding with any kind of streetcar buildout on the East Side of Tacoma.  If we don't, then we will make it difficult to maintain service frequency because of bidirectional train conflicts.

At least going to the lower Portland Avenue center builds towards a long-term plan – the best option from a planning standpoint

Expansion to Portland Avenue is not the best option from a planning standpoint. The Eastside has a steep slope to its west side, which makes system expansion (west) to the rest of South Tacoma technically infeasible aside from S. 38th St.  How is painting further expansion into a non-expandable corner the best long term plan?  There are several one-mile extensions of rail that make sense from a ridership and development perspective off of E-1.

The goal of Sound Transit is to be regional player in transportation – MLK and Stadium are both located in downtown Tacoma – connecting the Eastside to downtown makes it more of a regional connection

That doesn't make any sense at all. Arguably the most “regional” connection was to extend Tacoma Link to Fife where we would run light rail through swaths of vacant land and industrial area, which in Councilmember Boe's mind would be ripe for transit oriented development with the right zoning.

MLK and Stadium are neighborhood mixed-use centers – an Eastside expansion could get you to a community mixed-use center – there will be pressure will be to upzone neighborhoods around the Link, where as the Lower Portland area is already a community mixed use center, with better ability to accommodate big buildings

There may be pressure to upzone Stadium and MLK and any areas that get rail. This much is probably true. The CCX zoning that Boe refers to here does have higher height levels, but only a difference of twenty feet. During the environmental analysis, if we determine that an additional height bonus is better, we could implement station area zoning for transit oriented development that could exceed existing heights for zoning. This is a reasonable change, given appropriate processes.

The Urban Land Institute said don’t get tied into the north/south corridor, but instead focus on east/west connections and getting up the hill from downtown

The ULI is right in this case. E-1 isn't the best way to scale the hill to connect the Downtown core. A better method would be to use high frequency buses with electric motors, but that doesn't invalidate the ability of the project to stimulate development along the MLK corridor.

There is no real development benefit to going up Stadium Way, other than getting up the hill to Stadium

You don't get development from rail in the absence of stations. You just don't. Ride Central Link in Seattle and take a look at what single story development and off-street parking lots still exist between the long distance between stations on their light rail line.

Getting to Stadium is of prime importance. It is the densest area in the County, if not the State, outside of the City of Seattle. Stadium is zoned for dense, mixed use development, and has several opportunities for infill, which will make the neighborhood contiguously urban and more livable and attractive.

C1 gives the potential to look at feeding in block by block for potential development

Are there any developers assembled, besides the Tribe? The proximity of this land to the noise and nuisance of the freeway doesn't make it the most desirable.  The presence of one rail station connecting Tacoma Dome Station to Lower Portland Ave may not be enough of an economic boost.

Only one entity has come forward towards partnering on funding, and that’s for the C1 option – the project will require such a partnership, and here we actually have an interested party

Both the B1 and E1 options have a significant capability to raise funds via LID for their last-mile segment of the rail extension. B1 and E1 both have taxable property value in the range of $600m in an area ¼ mile along their mutual corridors beyond Division and MLK. The Tribe is offering $12m, when the needed local match will be undoubtedly higher.

E1 doesn’t relieve, but instead creates congestion – rail where freeway entrance ramps come into the city will create congestion

There is no station programmed or even considered along Stadium Way. With 12 minute headways, streetcars would travel along the corridor every six minutes. If the signal timing is synchronized, there won't be any impact as streetcars will travel with the existing lane of traffic. This is one of Boe's poorer arguments.

The original Link wasn’t laid out as a system, it was put in as a shuttle – we’re expanding off of a poor decision from a long-term standpoint – going to only E1 adds another poor decision on top of that

The original Link was a starter line. It was meant to get us ready for an extension up Stadium Way. That the City designed the monster that is Tollefson Plaza or didn't adequately vet where the stations were placed doesn't really have anything to do with how the route was configured for expansion.  Additionally it has little relevance to how we're going to be connecting Downtown Tacoma and Tacoma Dome Station to other parts of the City.  This argument is sounds a lot like sour grapes, to me.

C1 doubles capacity for people arriving at events at the Tacoma Dome and Convention Center – we need to look at ways to leverage investments in transportation to help these City assets, including connections to hotel rooms

How does David Boe justify that we are “doubling capacity” for people arriving at events at Tacoma Dome and the Convention Center? An additional direction of travel would be supported to Tacoma Dome during special events, but does that additional direction have sufficient nominal demand to support service over the remainder of its period of operation during the day?  How much hotel space does Councilmember Boe think is viable in the Lower Portland Avenue Mixed Use Center that would be accessible from the single station on E 29th St.?

By expanding Link to Stadium and MLK, the areas with the greatest existing and future residential and commercial density, we have the ability to expand access to those events to local residents. There is still plenty of vacant land for hotels in Downtown Tacoma or on many potential sites along light rail on an E-1 corridor.

C1 has ability to take the development pressure. This will create gentrification. Rents will go up. Some businesses will have difficulty staying where they’re at.

Wherever rail goes, there will be some level of displacement. It isn't like that isn't going to happen to residents on Portland Avenue, either. However, development will not occur without sufficient ridership and residential and commercial demand. Ridership levels on C1 aren't as high as they are projected to be on E1 or B1.

We need to have a vision that says Tacoma can see development like Portland’s Pearl District – C1 has that potential.

The Pearl District had brick warehouses that were easily rehabilitated and converted into mixed use buildings. Portland Avenue does not have that kind of building stock that makes it easy to flip such buildings. Instead, new construction has to stand on its own, which will mean excessive amounts of parking so that banks will finance the projects, as well as a focus on market-rate tenants, which will have to charge high prices for goods and services.  The Pearl District and gentrification are practically synonymous.

Tacoma Transportation Commission on Agenda

Councilmember Ryan Mello (District 8, At-Large)

Tacoma City Councilmember Ryan Mello is sponsoring a resolution for the creation of a city Transportation Commission.

The purpose of the commission would be to advise the City Council on transportation-related matters such as short-term and long-range transportation planning; compliance with local, regional, and federal transportation regulations; bike, pedestrian, and mass transit-related planning initiatives; and parking and capital improvement plans.

The Commission will consist of 11 members from all five City Council Districts.  Nine of the eleven will be appointed by the City Council, and will bring a range of perspectives and expertise that focus on the City's long-term vision for mobility options.  The remaining two representatives will be appointed by the City Manager.

Additionally, it appears from the language in the resolution that the existing Parking Management Advisory Task Force and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Action Committee are proposed to be somewhat merged as Technical Advisory Groups or TAGs to provide input to the overall Transportation Commission.

This is pretty exciting news.  It's a good first step towards a comprehensive transportation master plan that includes transit as a much stronger component than in the past.  If this passes, the next step will be to determine a slate of individuals who are competent, knowledgeable about a particular field of transportation, and are capable of thinking long term about the City's needs.

The resolution is on the Tuesday Council agenda as Resolution 38669.

Who wants to serve on the City's Transportation Commission?

01 May 2013

Single Track & TIGER grant for Hilltop Streetcar?

Streetcar Route Map 2009
Tacoma TIGER Grant Application
Lewis Kamb at the News Tribune did a fine job of live tweeting (@lewiskamb) and reporting from the TNT on Council's 8-1 decision to stay with Martin Luther King Jr. Way as a corridor for light rail expansion in Tacoma.


Was there a little drama yesterday?  Yes. 
 But it didn't change the core dynamic that a majority of Councilmembers were confirmed to support MLK yesterday --- and further, that E-1 has been the plan all along since at least 2009.

An amendment to the resolution for the H-2 hybrid failed on a 5-4 vote, with Boe, Campbell, Woodards, and Lonergan in support. 

Anders Ibsen and Ryan Mello both indicated that they could not support the amendment, citing the need to keep the project cost competitive.  The Mayor talked about how light rail on Hilltop will help to change the perception of the neighborhood and connect the hospitals.

 

Looking at Single Track on MLK

While most of the Council was enthusiastic in their support for MLK, the project still needs another ~$30m to be fully funded as a double-track extension, thanks to Sound Transit's cut to the Tacoma Link budget.

A Local Improvement District for the Martin Luther King / Hilltop neighborhood has been talked about, but never at that level of scale.

As we move into environmental review and conceptual design, it's worth looking into building the Martin Luther King segment south of Division Avenue as single track with passing lanes.  A 2009 streetcar engineering study completed by Parametrix and paid for by the City of Tacoma indicated significant cost savings in the realm of $14m for a single track alignment on MLK versus double track.

Making such a design consideration would save the Hilltop neighborhood half of its potential contribution to the project.

DOT TIGER Grant Application

In 2009, City Manager Eric Anderson and his staff submitted an application for a $38m TIGER grant to the Federal Department of Transportation for the Stadium Way segment of track.  Applications for the newest round of Tiger Grants are due on June 3rd, so we would have to move at lightning fast speeds to get them in on time.  Now that Alternatives Analysis is more or less complete and a preferred alternative is all-but secured, it would be an opportune time to resubmit our application for a grant.