Tacoma Link at Union Station
Source: Flickr Mike Bjork
Source: Flickr Mike Bjork
The engineers that are redesigning Stadium Way need to know whether or not to design streetcar tracks into the project. The half mile link between Old City Hall in Downtown Tacoma and Stadium High School is both the current terminus for Tacoma Link, and apparently is in need of reconstruction. According to Tacoma’s City Manager Eric Anderson, speaking at a City Council study session earlier today, the City has received a grant to rehabilitate the corridor and reconstruction of Stadium Way is slated to begin in 2011. However, construction on the road cannot proceed without having the track question settled.
In order to solve the track question, Tacoma needs to solve the question of where an extension of Tacoma Link should go and if it should use Stadium Way. The City Manager will be requesting direction from the City Council in December on how to proceed. The CEO’s of Pierce Transit and Sound Transit and Eric Anderson think that a community stakeholders group should come up with a recommendation about how to go about extending Tacoma Link. This process will empower the City Manager to appoint a number of individuals from throughout the City to examine alignments, come up with:
- route principles,
- design standards,
- project goals, etc.
It was explained at this meeting that in order to take advantage of federal funding the City and its partners would need to go through Federal Alternatives Analysis, which would require at least two years of lead time. Since the City only has about six months to come up with a decision, it will be necessary to come up with a local funding match for Sound Transit’s $80 million. Thankfully though, Joni Earl, Sound Transit’s CEO told the Mayor Strickland and the City Council today that the City does not need to match Sound Transit’s Link extension contribution dollar-for-dollar, in order to unlock those capital funds.
Discussion among Councilmembers centered around pushing for alignments in their own districts. Marty Campbell spoke in favor of an extension to Salishan, Lauren Walker to Tacoma General and down Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and then there was David Boe who thought an extension along Jefferson Ave. would be a great idea. ...
Anyone else want to serve on the streetcar alignment stakeholder group?
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Up Stadium/Division to Tacoma General -- it'll get more use that way, which will lead to extensions elsewhere. Extensions to Salishan or MLK would receive less general use. If it doesn't bring development to those places, the streetcar would probably be viewed as a failure -- it doesn't need that burden up front.
ReplyDeleteRed herring. Tracks won't be laid for a long long time. Move on with fixing the Stadium Way area while the "where" of the streetcar gets answered. Personally, as much sense as it makes to extend up Stadium Way with th eLINK line - I would really like to see the Market Street/St Helens Ave corridor with a line.
ReplyDeleteUmmm. Jefferson Ave seems to be smack dab in the center of the current alignment. I'm not sure how that would work. It could be a gentle enough slope to get up the hill though. Salashan goes away from the employment centers, doesn't seem like there would be enough density to justify that route. Crawling up the hill to TG and connecting to or intersecting with the proposed MLK line makes a ton of sense IMO only of course. I'd like to see it go as far up 6th ave as possible myself. As far as getting up the hill, Morgan makes a great point. I'd like to see the bus barn relocated out of prime real estate, then run link through the bus barn space up St Helens with a stop in the middle of the hill to serve the city muni bldg, condos, psp etc.. Of course without knowing how much any of these routes cost, it's hard to pick the best one just yet. My route may be too expensive to be financially feasible.
ReplyDeleteNice update on this btw.
Chris
ReplyDeleteAny chance that u got a feeling of the sincerety of Eric Anderson or the council members to get a plan in place within 6 mos? That's not very much time for the political sausage making machine to do it's thing.
I gotta say that it seems a little disingenous if the council members are already lobbying for their own dstricts. If I were to suggest that t-link should come to the north end first, it would be fair to question my motives. Whichever route that serves the most riders has to be among the highest of priorities here.
Tacoma1-
ReplyDeleteWe've heard this all before, but the thing is, that everyone was at the table this time (Joni, Lynne, Eric and Council). I think that those who know what they're talking about are mostly in agreement that streetcars need to be put where they can do economic development in a cost-effective manner.
It'll probably all come down to money. What can we complete for $160m or less? What's the best we can do with that? How many mixed use centers can we link up for that much money? I think there's plenty we can do. I knew Marty and Lauren would give their two cents, but David Boe's comments struck me as a little off kilter - kind of in the vein of "Why don't we build a monorail?"
What was actually one of the more fascinating things about the meeting today was how much Council was adamant about the alignments of potential streetcar lines and yet many couldn't care less about the second presentation on the bus system redesign - which is still in bad shape.
Extending Link up Stadium Way to TG is the obvious, most direct route for extension, and one that seems to me to be the best. I would hope that it wouldn't cost $160M and it could go even further, or extended from the south end as well to benefit two sections of Tacoma.
ReplyDeleteI do recall a David Boe presentation on Exit133 showing how, from an architect's perspective, there are complications with the slope and curve of Stadium Way for a light rail line. He had it elevated above Stadium to address those concerns, and maybe that also keeps it away from car traffic (and gives it one sweet view).
Another idea I've liked is to simply move the northern Link terminus a block north to the Old City Hall/Elks Temple area, and then use the Spanish Steps and an elevator to get people up a block to Broadway, where a lighter-weight, lower-cost streetcar would extend from there to TG and further into neighborhoods. Boe's analysis showed that a Broadway route would be easier and cheaper to engineer. Of course, those streets were recently improved and we'd be tearing them up again, while tracks on Stadium would be integrated into an already-planned future tear-up.
TG makes sense to me as well, and so does a further extension to 6th Ave.
ReplyDeleteWith all do respect though, I think that David Boe's concept of elevated rail on Stadium Way would significantly outstrip Tacoma's ability to fund the project. Elevated guideway on a steep slope is a lot more expensive than at-grade rail with dedicated right of way.
Transferring at the Elks building was done in the past. Although I don't know how the ST Board would feel about funding a two segment extension... with another maintenance facility.
Personally, if I came in via Sounder, I would hate to have to transfer at the T-dome station, then transfer again at the Elks bldg, just to
ReplyDeleteget up to TG. That sounds pretty inefficient to me.
But coming in on sounder, then hopping on link within minutes (no waiting 30 min for a bus connection) ll the way up 6th ave, then either walking the rest of the way or transferring to one of many new cross town bus routes that feed riders to and from link sounds pretty sweet.
Yeah, I know a second transfer would suck, I'm just trying to think of ways to afford as many miles as possible. I do like the future scenario you described. I'd rather think about streetcar system design from the Tacoma resident's perspective, where you're walking or taking a short bus ride from your Tacoma residence to your nearest light rail station, and riding the Link to your job in Stadium (TG) or downtown, or to the Dome to catch the Sounder or ST bus to your job up north. From either perspective, the key of course being that the car gets left at home, and maybe that second car isn't really necessary.
ReplyDelete