Media Starts Picking up PT Doomsday Scenario Story

The mainstream media is starting to pick up on the PT Doomsday Scenario that we covered last week.

Today, the TNT ran the story as one of their front page articles. It isn't clear why that woman in their picture is smiling - that bus line is one of the proposed routes to eliminate.

It also looks like KIRO Radio had a story on it too.

Transportation Choices Coalition has not only picked up on this story, but is taking some direct monetary action towards closing PT's funding gap (since they cite the WA State Legislature for not providing any help yet). In their latest blog post, they have announced that they will be holding bake sales for Community Transit on Monday and for Pierce Transit on Tuesday of next week. Pierce Transit's Bake Sale will be at Frost Park (Commerce and 9th) on next Tuesday from 7am-9am.

Update: Seattle Transit Blog has also now posted a story.

"Build the Streetcar" files Initiative in Tacoma

Streetcar advocates from a new citizen group have filed an initiative to extend Tacoma Link out of Downtown Tacoma.

Build the Streetcar's Chris Karnes said recently,

"We know that there's support for streetcars on the City Council and throughout Tacoma, but unfortunately we haven't seen much in terms of action.  We are now taking this issue directly to the people of Tacoma."

What the Initiative Would Do?

The initiative, called the "Build the Streetcar Act," would require the City to become the lead agency on streetcar expansion and would require appointment of a "Transit Director" by the City Manager, to be confirmed by the City Council.  The Transit Director would be tasked with getting the extension "shovel-ready" in 2011 and open for public service by 2016, or 11 years earlier than previously scheduled.  The initiative also establishes an ongoing five member "Transit Commission," which will oversee streetcar progress and work to craft a 30-year vision for public transportation for Tacoma.

The City Council still needs to act

In addition to placing a number of requirements on the City, the initiative would authorize a 0.2% sales tax that would last until 2021, raising about $100 million in the process.  The catch here is that the City Council would still need to create a special taxing district called a Transportation Benefit District in the next few months that includes the Tacoma Link extension as a project to be funded.  That money would then be added to the $80 million that voters approved in 2008 in a Sound Transit ballot measure.

Between now and August: 4,000 signatures

The City Charter requires that for a citizens initiative to go to the voters it must first receive the support of at least 10% of the number of voters who participated in the last Mayoral election.  That number is about 4,000.

Chris continues further,

"This is a grassroots effort.  We're looking for volunteers to help us out at the Tacoma Farmer's Market and to go out into neighborhoods to gather the support that we know is out there.  Interested residents can learn more about our efforts at BuildTheStreetcar.com.  We're also on Facebook."

Investigating Pierce Transit's "Lost decade"

Pierce Transit Sales Tax Revenues - Source: PTTomorrow.com

Pierce Transit's latest service crisis reminds me of the documentary "Who killed the electric car?" In that film GM characterizes the "failure" of the first mass produced electric car to be a combination of "technical" and "market acceptance" problems, though those who knew about the car, couldn't get their hands on one, and those who leased the Chevy Volt, loved the vehicle to death.  PT Staff and the Board of Pierce Transit will likely characterize their crisis as a "revenue" problem. From Pierce Transit's perspetive, they, and the sales tax revenue they rely on, were simply hapless victims of the Great Recession.

I won't contest the assertion that revenues are down, but just because revenues are down by 15%, how does that justify a drastic 60% reduction in service?  This is very counterintuitive to your average citizen.  So I must ask the question, "Is this newest crisis wholly and entirely a revenue problem, or is it a symptom of something larger?"

The importance of this question goes to the heart of whether we should approve a sales tax increase for Pierce Transit as it exists today, or if we should collectively demand changes in the way it operates as a precondition for additional revenue.

Pierce Transit suffers from a number of disadvantages that aren't related to its revenue base.  All Washingtonians know, at a basic level, that the sales tax is an incredibly volatile way to fund the operations of anything. However, despite this painfully obvious fact, Pierce Transit budget planners expected an increase of roughly 6% in sales tax revenue each year. That kind of wishful thinking has met with a cold reality, where revenues have actually fallen at an annual rate on the order of 14%.  That kind of budget assumption was downright irresponsible.

Fare subsidies are high with PT because most land use in unincorporated Pierce County is bad and caters to the automobile at every turn.  Buses get stuck in traffic and at lights and at transit centers.  These delays are unequivocal wastes of public dollars.  The constant delays and waiting and lack of prompt service drive away "choice riders" who would use the system for shorter trips.  The system has a glut of long haul passengers simply going from transit center to transit center.  These passengers aren't actually getting anywhere, but it sure is taking them a long time!

The cost for Shuttle service is $30/rider.  Not many know this, but Shuttle service consumes every last penny raised by actual fare-paying customers each and every day.  The service is mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act, but I know not of any actual money the feds give us for this service.

Land use and transportation policies that benefit public transportation such as Complete Streets policy and compact mixed use development are zoned for almost exclusively in the City of Tacoma and practically nowhere else, but Pierce Transit seems intent on expanding service to those areas that are the least hospitable for transit service.  Go figure.

Pierce Transit has never really had much of a capital budget worth speaking about.  No investments have ever been made in high capacity transit, no high frequency pedestrian circulators in downtown Tacoma, no trolleybuses, no wifi at transit centers, not even any money to replace panes of glass at bus shelters.  With no such budget, when the going gets tough, where is there to cut back other than in service hours?

Tim Eyman’s Initiative 695 in 1999 did wipe out 38% of Pierce Transit’s revenue stream.  PT responded by cutting back service, raising fares, and by depleting its operating reserves.  The Board then had a choice to either make real investments in public transportation or to simply go the easy route and go for 0.3% of the sales tax to keep as many drivers employed.  They chose the latter and now, eight years later, we're in the same spot we were back in 1999.

Somehow, along the way, we lost a decade.

...

It's important to see that simply giving Pierce Transit yet another 0.3% in sales tax authority to simply operate the existing system (with a few tweaks) really doesn't get to the root of Pierce Transit's problems. It doesn't solve the land use issues or poor rights of way, it doesn't get us close to the aspirations of the riders or of the community for a high quality mass transit system, it doesn't remove the volatility from the revenue stream, nor does it make the system more useful and convenient. No, only changing the system from within to be more efficient and more user friendly will help solve Pierce Transit's problems in the long run.

The organization needs to broaden the scope of proposed changes to its system - far broader than the ones it's currently envisioning.

Community Bicycle Fair this Wednesday

The Bicycle Alliance of Washington and The Tacoma Wheelmen's Bicycle Club are hosting a Community Bicycle Fair this Wednesday at The Hub's Event Space at 7pm. The event's website has more information and describes the event like so:

The Community Bicycle Fair is an open house event that will feature information on bike clubs, bike advocacy, community cycling interests, Safe Routes to School, cyclist and motorist education, and more. Learn the latest about Tacoma’s Mobility Plan, which includes proposed facilities for biking.

Also worth mentioning is that there will be free snacks and free bike maps.

Pierce Transit General Transit Feed Available

It's here and it's ready, at least in a raw format. Pierce Transit is making their General Transit Feed (formerly known as a Google Transit Feed) available for download for those who sign an waiver.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that Google Maps will suddenly have Pierce Transit directions. As of today, the partner page for Google Transit says:

"Due to overwhelming interest in the Transit Partner Program, we are currently experiencing a significant volume of partner requests. Although we are unable to accept new partners at this time, we encourage you to sign-up in order to be placed on the waiting list."

But that being said, this still leaves open the possibility for inventive applications to be made using Pierce Transit's schedule data. For this effort we congratulate Pierce Transit!

To get the data, you can send an email to schedules at piercetransit.org. From there you can obtain the waiver that you'll need to sign. Other transit agencies do list their data without a requirement to sign a waiver such as Portland's Trimet and even other Washington State transit agencies such Jefferson Transit and Island Transit by making their feeds available on GTFS Data Exchange. We encourage Pierce Transit to eventually open up their data without restrictions, but at this point having the data in the first place is great!

This accomplishment is expected to be a precursor for the eventual launch of Pierce Transit's Real-Time data as obtained from that new AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) system they recently installed. It's only a matter of time before taking the bus will be a lot easier and efficient.

The Pierce Transit Doomsday Scenario

As covered in a previous post, Pierce Transit is undergoing a system redesign process. Unfortunately, Pierce Transit has been hit really hard by the economic crisis and has already been slightly reducing service hours. However, these service hour reductions are the tip of the iceberg in terms of what could happen if no new revenue source is found.

In the PT Tomorrow concept designs it is really disturbing to see what the "Current Funding Concept" entails. A few highlights:

Item	Today	PT Tomorrow	Details
Annual Service Hours	622,000	265,000	A reduction of 57%
Number of Bus Routes	51	23	More than half of PT's routes eliminated
Weekday Service	5am - Midnight	5am - 9pm	Service frequency reductions included as well
Weekend Service	8am - 10pm	8am - 9pm (Sat) 8am - 8pm (Sun)	60 minute frequencies on weekends in PT Tomorrow

Because of this drastic service reduction the following areas would be left without service:

• NE Tacoma
• Connecting Local Service to Federal Way
• No service north of Puyallup (in the Milton and Edgewood area)
• No service east of Bonney Lake P&R (Prairie Ridge, Buckley)
• No PT Buses to Olympia (a reduction of 33% when factoring in weekday IT buses)
  

The following graphic taken from a presentation at PT's latest board meeting sums it up pretty well:



What we would be left with would be a skeletal bus system with poor headways on nearly all routes. Such a massive service reduction as this would take a long time to recover from.

Pierce Transit really needs to find new funding to avert this disaster. Pierce Transit does have some reserves, but only enough to cover it until the year 2012. There are a number of options the Pierce Transit does have to increase funding that we will cover in a later blog post.

Update from Evan: The below listed bill failed to live through this legislative session. (H/T to Seattle Transit Blog)

There is another option that is pending on current state legislative action. House Bill 2855 would authorize transit agencies to enact a temporary vehicle license fee up to $20 per year during times of economic distress. This fee would expire in the year 2014. Back in 2002 when Pierce County had a $15 Vehicle License Fee, it collected nearly $7 million that year from this revenue source. Such money would go a long way in helping Pierce Transit. If re-enacting this fee during these harsh economic times is of interest to you, please support it. Transportation Choices Coalition has set up a website where you can urge your legislator to vote for it here.

Mobility Master Plan Meeting Review

Total Mobility Master Plan Unfunded Costs as obtained from staff report.

Today, Tacoma Tomorrow attended the lunchtime meeting presentation of the Draft Mobility Master Plan. This master plan is a great piece of work. If adopted it will replace about a page on non-motorized elements in the City of Tacoma's Comprehensive Plan with an entire new section ^(pdf) completely about non-motorized transportation which now totals 26 pages (including graphics and tables) and that doesn't include the proposed appendix on design guidelines ^(pdf) which is an additional 98 pages!

Here's the gist of what happened at the meeting:

• About 30+ people showed up
• Diane Wiatr (City of Tacoma Mobility Coordinator) talked
• End result = the plan takes over a majority of the space in the comp plan
• March 12, comments are due (diwatr@cityoftacoma.org)
• Zipcar said "no," sadly.
• $15 million total capital and maintenance cost over ~10 years (which works out to $7.50/person per year).

So now Tacoma has adopted the Complete Streets (November 09), Tacoma updated the Mixed Use Centers (July 09), now the Mobility Master Plan (final passage sometime this year). This could only of course lead to the ultimate end result: Better development and better transportation.

Tacoma Mobility Master Plan Presentations on This Thursday

Bike rack on Sounder - Photo by Joshua Putnam

As a part developing the Tacoma Mobility Master Plan there will be 2 public meetings with a presentation of the current draft plan. They will both be on this Thursday, February 11 at these locations and times:

Mid-Day:
11:30 AM to 1:00 PM (Presentation at 12:00 PM sharp)
Carwein Auditorium in the Keystone Building
University of Washington-Tacoma
1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402

Evening:
6:30 PM to 8:00 PM (Presentation at 7:00 PM sharp)
Rasmussen Rotunda in Wheelock Student Center
University of Puget Sound
1500 N. Warner Tacoma, WA 98416

Tacoma Tomorrow is planning on attending the Mid-Day presentation.

What's on Pierce Transit's drawing board?

I have just read the descriptions of the PT Tomorrow concept designs. From what I can see at the moment (which isn't a whole lot I'll admit) I'm not all that impressed. Even at first glance, I think that the concepts have an "unsatisfactory level of concurrence" with the land use, transportation, and environmental policy of the City of Tacoma, especially policies that have come into play since Mayor Baarsma started the Green Ribbon Task Force on Climate Change in 2007.

I am hoping that someone at Pierce Transit is reading this, because I am going to reiterate the common sense vision that I have heard articulated in many ways by so many people on blogs like Exit133, in public meetings throughout the City, and in the newspapers concerning the future of Tacoma.

A Vision of a Sustainable Tacoma in the 21st Century

Tacoma is a sustainable mid-sized city that is poised to grow by 127,000 residents by 2040 (Puget Sound Regional Council). It is a community that has committed itself to a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. To accomplish this end and to improve the livability and economic vibrancy of the city, the City Council has implemented policies to require compact mixed use development and complete streets that cater to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit operations.

We envision the creation of a frequent, rapid, and reliable transit network that transitions away from the timed transfer model of the 1970's to more of a grid system. We wish to create priority transit corridors where combined routing and priority treatments work together to provide service at much higher levels than provided today at lower costs. We desire to have high quality, appropriately-scaled, on-street transit stations in our mixed use centers with proper protection from the elements and easy access to amenities (like food and WiFi).

We believe that a modern streetcar system can help bridge the gap between North and South Tacoma by linking neighborhoods together like pearls on a string - encouraging transit-oriented development. We believe that new technologies like the ORCA smart card, GoogleTransit, and GPS technologies can make transit more accessible and efficient. We aspire to the highest levels of inclusion and openness with the public, including the creation of an ongoing Citizen Advisory Board and potentially a transition to a directly elected transit board.

******************************

What a vision like this says is that the scope of the current redesign proposals is too narrow and falls far short of what the community was hoping for. It's really not a redesign at this point, it's a little tweaking, a little trimming around the edges and an expansion of service to the outskirts to try to attract the votes to get to 0.9%. It's too defensive a strategy. It tries to protect the status quo, while not properly aligning with Tacoma's policies or our aspirations for the future. These proposals need to fall by the wayside and be replaced by new ideas that have a real level of concurrence with the vision of each municipality.

Bike/Ped Mobility steps forward in Tacoma

"Bike Vancouver" - City of Vancouver's Engineering Division

After more than six months of development in committee, Tacoma's Draft Mobility Master Plan (MoMaP) is out for public comment. Document available via CityofTacoma.org (PDF)

Here's the skinny:

The plan envisions a bicycle network more than 160 miles long, with an emphasis on bridging North and South Tacoma like they haven't been linked before. It recommends improvements to an initial list of 25 road intersections to improve bike and pedestrian movement and a significant expansion of sidewalks mainly in the South End. The plan includes an array of design criteria from everything from bike boulevards (low traffic bikeways) to cycle tracks (think dedicated bike right of way) to bike parking.

The issue of how to raise the $15.6 million to make the improvements hasn't been settled, but that's a pretty inexpensive price tag for investments that are slated to take place over the next 10 to 15 years. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge cost $700 million and the "improvements" to highway 16 in Nalley Valley are budgeted for $130 million or so. The Steering Committee of the MoMap has talked about a $20 annual vehicle license fee to be split between MoMaP infrastructure and road paving. I think that's a great idea - but I'm also pretty sure it'd require the formation of a ... transportation benefit district. But hey, I'm okay with that. We could fund a number of key transportation LINK's with such a district.

In all, the MoMaP It is a fine piece of work that will likely sail through this transportation and sustainability-savvy Tacoma City Council, but that doesn't mean that the document is written in stone. Now is your time to take a look at the plan for yourself and comment on it. If you believe, like me, that the sections addressing public transit are a little thin, here's your chance to contact City Staff to make it right. Diane Wiatr is Tacoma's mobility coordinator and is heading up this project. Don't get me wrong though, Diane has been a great bike/ped advocate and has done a lot to address the concerns of everyone.

I anticipate a similar group having to go through a similar process to the MoMap to come up with a 20-30 year transit plan in 2011-2012. Diane said at the last meeting that rumblings about the development of a Tacoma transit plan might happen this year. She said something to the effect of, "...It will be a lot of work." I've told her with a smile on my face that it, "Sounds like fun."

For too long the City has simply deferred to Pierce Transit's take on what the transit system should be for Tacoma. People who have any familiarity with how transit works on any other city on the West Coast know we can do better. (Portland frequent service map, Vancouver frequent service map)

For now, I might just try to expand our recommendations concerning the design of bus stops (page 102) to require that there should be panes of glass installed in bus shelters to protect riders from the two primary elements of Pacific Northwest weather - rain and wind.