Pierce Transit Cuts Jobs and Benefits

It seems that Pierce Transit is seriously doing everything it possibly can to be better of financially. In terms of collecting revenue, the Pierce Transit board approved a ballot measure for this fall that would increase the sales tax by 0.2% 0.3%. Also, Pierce Transit is now proposing a $0.25 fare increase.

But Pierce Transit is pursuing cost cutting measures. Pierce Transit recently announced that they were cutting staff and benefits and the TNT has all the details here. Six managerial positions were cut which made up a total of 11% of the managerial staff. Also, benefits were cut for nearly all non-union employees.

However, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is the majority of Pierce Transit's workforce - 845 unionized employees. As noted by the News Tribune:

Those cuts, however, will not apply to the bulk of Pierce Transit’s work force. Some 845 transit union members won a contract that calls for a 4 percent hike this summer. Agency officials wanted to renegotiate; union leaders refused
...
“We’ve asked (to renegotiate) twice, and they’ve said no twice,” said agency spokeswoman Treva Percival. “Their contract is up again next year. Negotiations will probably start in the spring.”

With the ballot measure and union contract negotiations, it's lookin to be an interesting spring for Pierce Transit.

Sounder D-M Street Project $25 million under budget

Sound Transit has awarded the contract for the D-M street commuter rail extension to MidMountain Contractors Inc out of Kirkland.   The engineer's estimate for the work was $66.4 million, while this company's bid was $40.8 million.  Work is expected to start later this year, with service starting up in 2012.  Recall that WSDOT's plans for Amtrak indicate that Tacoma intercity passenger rail service will operate out of Freighthouse Square at that time.

$25 million sounds like a lot, but it also has to be weighed against the nearly $4 billion decline in projected Sound Transit revenue.  Nevertheless some of those savings could be used towards the Tacoma Link extension.  ST is principally done with Sounder service and ST Express Bus expansion in Pierce County for the time being.  $25 million could pay for an additional mile of a streetcar extension - or perhaps, double-tracking of Tacoma Link between S. 21st and Tacoma Dome Station / Freighthouse Square.

Just as a reminder to our readers - Pierce County's delegation to the Sound Transit Board consists of the City of Tacoma's Jake Fey, Lakewood City Council member Claudia Thomas, Dave Enslow of Sumner, and PC Exec Pat McCarthy.  The other 14 members of Sound Transit's 18-member Board consist of representatives from King and Snohomish Counties and Washington Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond.

Carsharing Comes to the South Sound

Photo from the Zipcar PLU page

In a new venture by Zipcar, 2 carsharing cars (Palmer the Prius and Buchert the Scion) have been parked near the PLU Library. The Tacoma News Tribune has the full story here.

The TNT story mentions that Zipcar will also be parking cars over at UPS starting the week of Sept 6 and UWT before the end of their fall quarter. The City of Tacoma will be formally submitting a proposal and then will make a decision a few months later.

Intercity Transit Ballot Passing

Photo from theunabonger

After reading some tweets from transportation choices coalition and checking the Thurston County Auditor election results site, it looks like Intercity Transit's Ballot measure is passing by large margins.

As of 9:15pm, the website shows:

Intercity Transit Authority
VOTE FOR 1
Yes . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,242 63.60[%]
No. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,442 36.40[%]
Total . . . . . . . . . 28,684

This is great news not only for Olympia and Lacey, but also slightly for anyone ever wanting to take the bus from Tacoma to Olympia. As we covered before last month, the ballot would increase Intercity Transit's sales tax rate 0.2% to a total sales tax of 0.8% which is still 0.1% below the maximum rate as defined by the state. As noted in Intercity Transit's ballot fact sheet ^(pdf), the DASH shuttle now won't have to be cut and service improvements can be made on route 603 that runs between Olympia and Tacoma.

After seeing how that ballot passed by such a large margin, I'm starting to get more hopeful about Pierce Transit's upcoming ballot on Feb 8, 2011.

Housing + Transportation Affordability

The latest transportation buzz traveling at the speed of the internet is about a new concept called Housing + Transportation cost. The idea simply is that the "affordability" of a house has historically been only based upon the mortgage of that house, whereas there are also certain transportation costs also associated with that particular location that also determine the affordability of that house.

While the affordability in dollar terms for actually living somewhere in terms of rent or mortgage are quite easy to determine the transportation costs are much more dependent on an individual's lifestyle and job location. Nonetheless, the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has been pursuing work in this area. Their first major tool is the Housing + Transportation (H+T^SM) Index which estimates combined housing and transportation costs. Taking a look at the H+T^SM of Pierce County, it can be seen that although quite a bit of the county is affordable in terms of home price, not much of it is affordable when the transportation costs are also factored in.

CNT has also recently come up with a new tool called Abogo that predicts monthly transportation expenses for places within most US metropolitan areas. The predicted expenses come from a number of variables obtained from the US Census Bureau and other sources.

And just today, WalkScore added these figures into a new tool called commute reports which provides information on what a commute from a particular location to a worksite might be like and how much it could cost based on the data from the H+T^SM and Zillow or that which is inputted manually. This really is a must-use tool for all people searching for a new place to live.

Also, just released on WalkScore is their TransitScore which we'll cover in another post within the next few days.

Tacoma Link to Run Late for Lady GaGa Concert

This just in from Sound Transit: Tacoma Link will run until midnight Saturday in anticipation of the Lady GaGa concert. Tacoma Dome's description of the Lady GaGa event takes note as such:

Limited $20 cash only parking available in Tacoma Dome lots. Arrive early! For alternative parking solutions, park downtown and take the LINK Lightrail running until midnight.

Tacoma and US Transport News Roundup

Most of good news from this week has do to with future plans and yet more green-livable-communities-bike-streetcar-pedestrian funding from Congress.  The bad news is related mostly local funding concerns.

But first, some news that's admittedly kooky and off the rails:

Bike Sharing a sinister plot by the United Nations says Colorado gubernatorial candidate (San Francisco Gate)

"[Bike Sharing /B-Cycle] is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," -Dan Maes

Seriously?

Good news

• The City of Tacoma wants public input in the design phase for "Prarie Line" bike trail (FeedTacoma.com, Tacoma Wheelman's Bicycle Club)
• U.S. Senate bill would fund $3.75 billion in grants for "Livable Communities", vote this month (Streetsblog)
• Amtrak's Coast Starlight (Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles) improves on-time performance and expands amenities (Seattle Transit Blog)
• TacomaUrbanist highlights the need for open transit data (for Walkscore.com, etc.)

Bad news

• Sound Transit's revenue forecasts continue to nosedive.
  The Pierce County sub-area forecast is down ~25%.
• Pierce Transit planning fare increase to $2.  Zone or Distance-based fare is still missing.

Did I miss anything?

Streetcar Stakeholders Group short on Streetcar Activists

Tacoma Link Maintenance Facility in the Dome District

The City of Tacoma released on it's website earlier the names of the people serving on the Tacoma Streetcar Stakeholders Group.  Between now and December, that group will be working to develop criteria and the scope of Alternatives Analysis for the alignment and design of the streetcar extension.

Overall, it looks like a good group of 19 people from a diverse set of interests ranging from housing to economic development to people with disabilities.  But, other than Rollie Herman, there isn't anyone else from the original streetcar advisory committee from 2007.  The two staff people who worked with that group are not there either, since they have either retired or moved on to another employer.  You would think that the City would be interested in retaining some of the people with deep knowledge of this project and the history of Tacoma's streetcar system.  I hope there's some opportunity for one of us to talk about all of the effort that was put into concept alignments three years ago.
 
Meetings of the Stakeholders Group will be open to the public, although the next meeting is not yet posted.  UPDATE: The next meeting is Aug. 23, 5-7 p.m. at UWT.  When the agenda comes out, we'll post it.
 
More information is available from the City of Tacoma homepage:

1. Tacoma Streetcar Stakeholders Group
2. Stakeholder Opening PowerPoint
3. Bus Area Tour Maps of the Surrounding Neighborhoods
4. City Council briefing Handout (given out at a Council Study Session)