Tacoma Link to Shutdown for VP Biden's Visit

Sound Transit is tweeting that due to Vice President Biden's visit to UW Tacoma on Friday, October 8th, Tacoma Link service will be out of service from 6:30am to 1pm. 10:30am - 1pm (source: Sound Transit).   No word yet if buses will be serving stations or if passengers have been given notice.


Update: Pierce Transit will be modifying routing for all buses on Pacific Avenue for the same time period.  More information here via PDF: http://piercetransit.org/alerts/pac_ave_detour.pdf

VP Biden apparently isn't popular enough to get
the kind of Tacoma Link service Lady Gaga got.

The directive for this probably comes from on high, Secret Service style, but one really has to question whether it makes the Vice President any safer.  Buses operate alongside UW Tacoma closer to the venue where he will be speaking and they don't run on rails.

This situation is likely to make a number of downtown commuters unhappy as yet another alternative to paid parking is removed.  Since paid parking went into effect parking spots have opened up far beyond the 15% vacancy rate that was were desired (as covered on TacomaUrbanist).  At Tacoma Dome Station parking availability is down and ridership on Tacoma Link is up, but we don't know much for sure since those statistics are not out yet.

Please share this post with as many people as you can as this is the first we have heard of this kind of impact from the Vice President's appearance.  As always, we will keep you posted.