New Tacoma Link Stop = Grocery Store?

Photo by Chris K. - Tacoma Link at Tollefson Plaza (2006)

The City of Tacoma is considering investing $135,000 to construct a new stop for the Tacoma Link streetcar along Commerce Street between S. 11th St. and S. 12th St. The addition of a new stop would represent the first major physical change to Tacoma Link since it was brought online in July 2003.

This would be the sixth stop along the 2.6-km (1.6-mile) route - reducing average stop distance from 520 meters to 430 meters (Or 1/3 mile to 1/4 mile). It would provide more convenient service to the Tacoma School of the Arts, the newly restored Pacific Plaza / Washington State Attorney General's Office, Restaurants on the Broadway Plaza, the Downtown Tacoma Post Office and other businesses in the International Financial Services Area. It would also leverage improvements the City is making to the pedestrian hill climb from Pacific Avenue to Broadway Plaza at S. 12th Street. Word has it that this stop addition is a prerequisite to attract a high end grocery store to Pacific Plaza as well.

Other Impacts

Sound Transit staff indicate that Tacoma Link has a 7-1/2 minute run time. With 10 minute vehicle headways, timed signals, and single track along the southern portion of the route, this doesn't leave much room for error, and leaves even less time to add another stop to the northern section of the route. In fact, if a streetcar doesn't make the precisely-timed lights, Tacoma Link simply drops a trip, lengthening vehicle headways to 20 minutes. The Tacoma City Council will likely be confronted with a choice to either return full traffic signal priority to the streetcar (and potentially drop vehicle headways to 13 minutes) or to forgo the addition of the stop entirely. This is a bellwether decision that will indicate how far Council is willing to go in terms of implementing some sort of Transit-First policy.

The stop is to be in the form of a sidewalk bulb-out as seen on the Portland Streetcar. Its presence will inevitably cause conflicts with existing Pierce Transit bus routing between S. 13th and S. 11th streets. This puts greater pressure on PT to move the much beleaguered Commerce Transfer Center to another location.

There's a lot of other news that's developing in Tacoma politics concerning an extension of Tacoma Link, including an application for a federal grant through the FTA/EPA/HUD "urban circulator program" and a citizens initiative for matching funds this November. The Pierce County bus system redesign to be released to a citizen review committee next month is likely to take the form of a grid system (about time). More announcements to come, as usual.

How Pierce Transit could learn from Tacoma Power

Pierce Transit could learn a thing or two from Tacoma Power. As a public utility, Tacoma Power has built and maintained a rock-solid electricity system that provides power to over 150,000 customers spread across urbanized Pierce County. To accomplish this feat while accounting for differences in costs to serve various customers, Tacoma Power has a rate structure in place that takes into account geography and land use. Areas outside of the City of Tacoma, where densities tend to be lower and more infrastructure is required (in the form of power poles, transformers, and substations), customers are required to pay higher rates for electricity.

On the other hand, the now 30-year-old Pierce Transit charges fares and taxes at equal rates for different geographic areas and provides service mostly without respect to geography. This is despite the fact that characteristics of land use and distance greatly impact transit's ability to serve riders. For instance, on Tacoma's 6th Avenue, where there is a moderate degree of density, mixed uses, short blocks, and connected pedestrian streets, ridership is healthy and service is cost effective at less than $3/rider. However, in other parts of Pierce County where the exact opposite is true, where low-density single use zoning, cul-de-sac's and the automobile are the rule, transit service is very expensive to provide. It costs taxpayers $6.31 a rider for a route on South Hill, $10/rider for Gig Harbor, and $17.34/rider for Ft. Lewis. An important calculation to understand here is that in order for the agency to come up with enough sales tax revenue to replenish the subsidy of every single rider on a bus route on Ft. Lewis, someone else in Pierce County needs to purchase the equivalent of a used car. (~$2,887)

Since the costs and supply and demand are so mismatched, Pierce Transit has become a two-tiered system that provides an expensive and geographically disproportionate subsidy in areas that yield only minimal social benefits and then another system in urban areas where underfunded and perpetually late buses are bursting at the seams, leaving mothers and infants stranded because a standing-room-only bus is too full to fit the baby stroller onboard.

This begs the question of "What is Pierce Transit trying to accomplish as an agency?" and "Who are they trying to serve?" In their present mode, it seems like they are trying to reach every single passenger they can, by practically ignoring whether geography, the built environment, and land use stack the deck against ridership. Their target passengers at present are essentially those who will use the system for what it is and likely have no other choice. That kind of a situation is problematic, since it caps ridership growth and encourages existing riders to choose a more convenient mode as quickly as they can afford it.

An alternative policy choice might be to do, as Tacoma Power does, and actually pay attention to geography and land use when locating service and facilities - placing them where supportive policies and infrastructure exist and where ridership is likely to grow along with future economic growth. In that type of a scenario, operating subsidies actually decrease rather than increase. Another step further than just paying attention to geography and land use, Pierce Transit could actually be a voice for the good land use policies that make public transit work better.

Think for a moment if inclusion in the 'core' Pierce Transit service area worked a little like "fair trade" agreements. In order to be served by fixed route service, municipalities and the County would need to meet certain (land use) standards to ensure that public funds aren't being used to subsidize riders who would be better served by paratransit anyway. Imagine then if levels of fixed route bus service were provided according to a set of publicized criteria that encouraged a mixture of uses and more density, a reduction or removal of parking requirements, and inclusion of sidewalks and roads with bus priority. Local governments across the County might actually sit up and listen and make different choices about their policies and investments.

2010 Tacoma Transportation Calendar

Looking at 2010

2009 was a banner year for changes in land use policy in Tacoma (pardoning the Luzon, of course). Mixed use centers got a boost in density, part of Downtown Tacoma was freed from parking requirements for new development and new parking meters were approved last year to go in this spring. This year is sure to be a fulcrum for transportation policy in Tacoma. It will be important to be sufficiently organized at our level to take advantage of State and Federal funds for transportation alternatives in 2010 and beyond.

2010 South Sound Transportation Calendar

January 1st

• ORCA Transition Complete for Pierce Transit, with a few exceptions (Pierce Transit)
• Draft Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan Open for Review (CoT Mobility Master Plan)

January 5th - New Tacoma City Council sworn in, two new appointments will be made later. I'm sure some announcements will be made by the Mayor as to her plans for the City.

January 11th - First Pierce Transit Board Meeting of the Year

January 28th - Transportation Choices Coalition Lobbies for Transit in Olympia

February - A USDOT decision on the TIGER grant in February could cut years off the opening of Link’s S. 200th St. Station. This could have an impact on how soon Central Link can get to Pierce County. (Seattle Transit Blog / Transportation Choices Coalition)

March - Conceptual Plans for Pierce Transit Redesign Completed (PTTomorrow)

April

• Parking Meters go into service in Downtown Tacoma (Exit133)
• Pierce Transit returns to community with system redesign alternatives (PTTomorrow)
• Tacoma Link Alternatives Analysis is set to begin
  

June - Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan Presented to Tacoma City Council (Mobility Master Plan)

Summer 2010

• D-To-M Street Sounder Extension Construction Begins (Sound Transit)
• Martin Luther King Jr. Way LID proposal submitted to property owners (no streetcar funds are included in this proposal at this time)
  

July - Pierce Transit Board adopts a preferred plan (PTTomorrow)

July 26th - Likely last day for signature submission for City of Tacoma Ballot Measure

November 2nd

• Likely ballot measure for Pierce Transit
• Potential ballot measure(s) for City of Tacoma Bike-Ped/Complete Streets improvements and streetcars.