Dude, where's my bike lane?

This summer sort of started off on a good note with the Tacoma Mobility Master Plan being integrated into the Comprehensive Plan of the City of Tacoma. It is a wonderful document by design. There are about 100 pages worth of design standards for all kinds of bicycle facilities and other elements of the Complete Streets movement. There is even a prioritized project list of phased projects all geared towards connecting all of Tacoma with bicycle facilities - bike lanes, bike trails, bike boulevards, the works.

However, Tacoma's Mobility Master Plan has been a perfect example of how having a plan does not necessarily mean the plan will actually be carried out. There are two major flaws with the Mobility Master plan: there is no funding for it and the City isn't organized enough to diligently execute the implementation of the plan into their daily business.

On the funding side of things, the entire Mobility Master Plan in the three distinct phases is slated to cost about $38.5 million. The first phase is $13.7 million total which includes 18 bicycle boulevard projects, 18 bike lane projects, 4 sharrow projects, a cycletrack along Wright Park, $6 million worth of sidewalks, 4 intersection improvements and 6 shared use paths. All told, quite a bit in terms of how far transportation money goes these days. Yet as it stands today, the Mobility Master Plan is simply lucky to achieve any kind of progress as there is no dedicated source of funding for these projects.

And as for putting in the bike infrastructure, the City of Tacoma has been erratic at best in getting things in the Mobility Master Plan done as part of regular road maintenance. There have been two roadway improvement projects recently completed that have raised my eyebrow.

The first was a repaving project on 6th Ave between Sprague and Tacoma Ave. This particular stretch of 6th ave acording to the short-term mobility master plan project list is supposed to have a bike lane from Ainsworth to Broadway. The roadway was paved sometime in late July and in early August looked like this:


Since then, a yellow centerline has been striped along the road, but the bike lanes are nowhere to be seen. I personally had numerous email exchanges with the City of Tacoma about this, but nothing has happened. Now that the fall is here with winter quickly approaching, it looks like this critical stretch of 6th Ave won't see bike lanes on it for a still indeterminate amount of time.

The second even more eyebrow-raising and nearly face-slapping incident has been the case of the appearing and disappearing bike lanes on North 30th Ave. Kevin Freitas delightfully observed on September 24th that new bike lanes had been striped on the N 30th hillclimb:


However, the very next day the same bike lanes turned into this:


In the comment thread of KF's post on the N 30th st there is some discussion of how sharrows would be a better treatment for the downhill side, but regardless, the uphill side was de-striped as well. Also a interesting tidbit, N 30th is a medium-term project, but somehow bike lanes were striped there (even if just for a day) before any bike lanes of the short-term project on 6th ave were striped at all.

So as can be seen Tacoma really doesn't have it's act together in terms of taking action on the Mobility Master Plan. Without the dedicated funding a lot of these projects aren't going to get done. However, even as a part of regular road reconstruction projects, the City has been blowing it in terms of implementing Mobility Master Plan projects by not simply laying down some extra paint when road repaving projects are carried out.

Tacoma Link In 2011: $1 fare proposed

Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl presented her budget to the Sound Transit Board earlier today.  In King County, thanks to a 25% dropoff in revenue, there will be significant delays to projects, including an indefinite deferral of all light rail construction south of S. 200th St.  Light rail from Tacoma to SeaTac seems to get further and further away with each passing year.

However, thankfully, Tacoma Link came through mostly unscathed.

Included in the detailed budget were some interesting tidbits:

• A proposed $1 fare for riding Tacoma Link starting in June 2011
• $62,000 for Ticket Vending Machines at each of the stations
• $971,000 for Alternatives Analysis for Tacoma Link extension (enabling federal funding)
• $371,000 for Digital sign and audio announcement system for Tacoma Link

Ticket Vending Machine in International District

The Sound Transit Board also approved the concept agreement with the City of Tacoma concerning the "Commerce Street Station" between 11th and 12th Streets.

Attracting Businesses Downtown with Better Streetscapes?

Anybody who knows much about Tacoma would know that the City has a deep desire to attract more businesses to its downtown. They bent head over heals to try to keep Russell and offered incentives for Davita as well. Not everything in these business deals are quite related to this blog's focus, but there has been quite a bit of transportation-related concepts and projects coming not out of the public works departments, but out of the economic development area.

Prairie Line Trail
Now this project isn't directly out of the economic development module of things. This particular project would turn the old railway tracks that run through UW Tacoma into this wonderful trail. It would stretch from the waterfront through the brewery district. The Tacoma Weekly wrote up a good story on it about a month ago here. Many more details and pretty sweet sketches including a grade-separated crossing concept can be found in the grant application here^(pdf).

Streetscapes and Wayfinding

Recently in an Economic Development Committee meeting^(pdf), there was a discussion about better streetscapes and wayfinding signs. The wayfinding signs were recommended to be given a budget of $200,000 over six years out of the city budget. The streetscapes are still under consideration. Norm Dicks had secured $800,000 that can be used for the streetscaping. The picture shown above is a concept for Pacific Ave in downtown.

Tacoma Dome Station Additional Parking

And most recently, the City of Tacoma City Manager has proposed seeking some Build America Bonds to construct more parking over at Tacoma Dome Station. The following video showed the type of parking structure that could possibly be created.



Additional Stuff

And let's not forget all the other enhancements that have already been going on. This includes the Broadway LID, the upcoming 11th Street Station for Tacoma Link and a downtown-wide upgrade of the signaling system. Taken together with the additional transportation enhancements that have been going on in Downtown Tacoma, things are beginning to look and feel a little newer.

Why the SR 167 Extension is a Bad Idea

The City of Tacoma is almost about to support a massive new highway project, one which we covered briefly back in July. The project would extend SR 167 from Edgewood to Tacoma. There would be two general purpose lanes and HOV lanes and a total of 5 interchanges including one with I-5. This project currently does not have nearly enough money to be completed, but a few people are trying to find the money. The total cost of this project is close to $2.1 billion.

Today, the land where the highway would be constructed is mostly farmland or grassy. This just magnifies the type of highway construction this is: New Highway, new facility, new corridor. Below is what part of the corridor looks like today:


In times like today when the City of Tacoma and also our state has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled, the last thing that we need is a new highway. This new highway would promote more driving which can be both good in bad. Good in that travel times are reduced and distant places become more connected. However, it is also bad since cars today cause about 50% of the air pollution in our state, but also promote sprawl which promotes auto-dependency and a number of other negative consequences.

However, if nobody thought this was a good idea, it wouldn't be here in the first place. The project's biggest boosters, the Port of Tacoma and the Tacoma-Pierce Chamber recently touted a number of benefits over at the RAMP blog. In their post, they incorrectly claim that the highway itself will generate $10.1 billion and 79,000 jobs by 2025. If this were actually true, then it is a strong argument, but in fact the report ^(pdf) where these numbers come from states that these benefits come from the growth in the containerized cargo industry, not the highway itself. In all due respect, the report does note that having competitive cargo transit times is important in reigning in the containerized cargo business. However, it is a pity that something as awful as this highway project is being proposed as a remedy - surely there must be a better way.

The presence of the plan and momentum for this highway project underscores just how much importance is being placed on personal vehicle travel despite the numerous perennially unfunded transportation projects that still exist. This includes Pierce Transit's budget shortfall, extending Tacoma Link and finding sustainable funding for Tacoma's Mobility Master Plan, not to mention fixing up the local streets throughout our cities. It reminds me all over of this great comparison made a few months ago by Eric de Place over at Sightline:


This is basically the very same thing over again in Tacoma. Tacoma's mobility master plan is estimated to cost $38.5 million for the entire build-out, Pierce Transit's funding gap is $68 million and even extending Seattle's LINK Light Rail from South Federal Way to Tacoma Dome is estimated at $1.6 billion^(pdf). Yet somehow this $2 billion new highway is a higher priority?

Actually, this highway isn't a huge priority just yet. The City of Tacoma is about update their Legislative Policy Manual^(pdf) with a whole new paragraph supporting this highway project. The update of the Legislative Policy Manual is in a pending city council agenda for September 28th^(pdf) as resolution #12697. The new paragraph would read as follows:

Completion of SR-167 from Puyallup to the Port of Tacoma has been identified by the Legislature as a "mega project." The City believes that completion of this project should be a top priority. ...

In summary, I believe that it is time for a shift in the way things are done in that our City and State should focus more on local roads, public transit and non-motorized transportation before new highways if ever focusing on new highways. This new highway would do more harm than good perpetuating intolerable levels of pollution and auto-dependency for the South Sound. Alternatively, there are a whole number of better ways to spend money transportation money if any is to be spent at all.

However, the momentum for this new highway project is strong and in all likelihood will prevail unless our community bitterly protests the project to the extent of knocking it out of our highway-crazy regional plans. We will keep you updated on this highway project, but urge you to badger your Tacoma City Council Member, State Legislator and even Congressperson in the meantime. If we do nothing, this might happen:

City Council to vote on 12th St. Streetcar Stations

Future Tacoma Link stop at S. 11th

The Tacoma City Council is slated to take an important step in the development of the Tacoma Link next Tuesday.  Resolution 38106 would direct City Manager Eric Anderson to collaborate with Sound Transit to finalize the 11th/12th St. streetcar station proposal, seek approval from the Sound Transit Board, and then authorize him to move forward with securing funding, and construction of the project.  After all is said and done, operations would start in March of 2011.

Kurtis Kingsolver from Public Works gave a presentation during the City Council study session on August 31st describing the scope, timeline, and cost of the infill stop project (previously covered on TacomaTomorrow).  The stop will be composed of two stations on either side of the street, with the southbound stop being in front of the Tacoma School of the Arts and the northbound stop in adjacent to Chase Bank.

Engineering schematic of the new streetcar platforms.
The Tacoma School of the Arts must be happy about this.

Concerns and Comments

Vehicle headways on the Tacoma Link line are proposed to shift from 10 to 12 minutes using modified signal timing.  Kurtis made a comment that in order to retain 10 minute headways that an additional streetcar would be necessary (although I question why signal preemption is not viable).  The northbound stop will be limited to a 1-car train unless the driveway for the parking garage just to the south is removed in the future.  Currently the design of the stations is at 60% and allows for a bus bay in front of SOTA, but it could be expanded to allow for a two-car train.

Practically all of the City Council had something to say about the stop during the study session.  Councilmember Walker requested that additional lighting be included for the stops in that area.  (Some bike racks would be good and how about some arrival time displays?)  Councilmember Mello noted that this stop would help to address a desire of Davita, while furthering the "long term interests" of the City (as opposed to the Sauro site parking lot covered on Exit133).  Mayor Strickland spoke a bit about how Pierce Transit is poised to shift bus operations away from Commerce instead to Pacific Avenue, reducing the traffic impact of the new stop.

Stakeholder Group Update

In other streetcar news, the City of Tacoma has released a final schedule for meetings of the Tacoma Link Extension (aka Streetcar Stakeholder) group.  There are only four remaining before the group issues its final report to the City Council at the end of December.  TacomaTomorrow will be attending each meeting to observe and provide comment.  They will all be held at UW Tacoma, in one of two locations and are slated to run from 5pm to 7pm.


September 20, Room: MAT 352
October 18, Room: CP 103

November 15, Room: CP 103

December 13, Room: CP 103

Further information from City of Tacoma's Streetcar Page.

Tacoma's Transportation Scores

How good do you think Tacoma is in terms of Transportation? Certainly each person may have a different idea, but let's see what a few other sources that measure this kind of stuff have to say. I've compiled a list of a few places each with a focus on specific types of transportation.

Driving:

Each year, the Kirkland-based company INRIX produces a National Traffic Scorecard which ranks the top 100 metropolitan areas based on how congested each area is. Also ranked are the top 100 bottlenecks. In 2009, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area remained 9th in the nation for having the worst traffic. Notably that rank had improved from 2006 when it was ranked 6th worst in the nation.

As for the bottlenecks, Tacoma has one bottleneck from the 2009 report that made it into the top 100 in the nation and that was SR-16 Eastbound at Union Street. In fact it shot up all the way from 3,670th in the nation in 2008 to 92nd in the nation in 2009. Now of course this is because of the SR-16 Construction project, so it'll likely be a temporary problem.

Walking:

If you haven't heard about them already, Walkscore.com will calculate a Walk Score for any address in the US. The score is based on proximity to amenities. Walk Score does rank the 40 largest US cities in terms of the average Walk Score for a city. Now Tacoma isn't on the list, but if one takes a look at the Walk Score of Tacoma City Hall, it turns out to be 98 out of 100 or in the top 1% of all Tacoma Walk Scores. Below the map on that last page, there's a comparison box below that tells that Tacoma's average Walk Score is 63 out of 100. The Walk Score of 63 out of 100 is good enough to top off Milwaukee, WI which is 13th out of the 40 largest cities in the country.

Transit

The same people that put together Walk Score have also came up with a new feature on their website called "Transit Score". The Transit Score is similar to Walk Score, except that it will take into account the availability of transit service. Usually, the transit score is displayed below the map of amenities, but unfortunately a transit score is unavailable for Pierce County. This is because Pierce Transit does not openly share their transit schedule data.

Pierce Transit does have the data available (which we covered back in February), but a waiver must be signed in order to get the data. This does not bode well for developers seeking to use transit data in projects of software of nation-wide or larger scope because they would need to agree to the terms of hundreds of transit agencies. Fortunately, several transit agencies primarily led by TriMet of Portland, OR do not restrict access to their schedule data and make it freely available at places such as GTFS-Data-Exchange.

Fortunately, the guys from Walk Score have also created another website which allows individuals to request that transit agencies (such as Pierce Transit) provide transit schedule open data. I'd encourage everyone to submit a request to Pierce Transit right now to open their transit schedule data.

Biking:

There's also recently been a scorecard done on how friendly certain cities in the Puget Sound Region are towards bicycling. Cascade Bicycle Club ranked 10 Puget Sound Cities that weren't Seattle on a number of different categories such as whether each city had a non-motorized plan, how many miles of planned bike facilities there were and if the plan was funded.


Tacoma came in 5th behind Kirkland, Redmond, Renton and Everett. Although Tacoma had the most amount of planned miles of bike routes and had recently passed the mobility master plan, there were still a number of areas where improvement could be made such as providing dedicated funding towards the non-motorized projects and creating a bicycle parking ordinance.

Labor Day Buses on Sunday Schedule

Just a friendly reminder that this coming Monday is Labor Day which means Sunday schedules for transit. Here is a list of what each agency is up to:

Pierce Transit - Sunday schedule
Sound Transit - Sunday schedule (no Sounder)
Intercity Transit - Sunday schedule

Tacoma Transportation News Roundup

There's been quite a bit of transportation news lately, but not many posts. I blame it on the nice weather outside - just look how many posts there were in March and April! Anyways, here's the latest:

New Tacoma Link Stop

Yes that's right, the 11th street station is well underway. The Tacoma Daily Index first broke the news that the City of Tacoma was about to have a study session about the new stop. Legally, the new station is headed to the City of Tacoma Council as a resolution on September 14th and then finally to the Sound Transit Board on September 23rd. Construction is supposed to begin in January and be complete in March. I was live-tweeting about the study session which can be found archived at TV Tacoma here under 8-31-2010.

Murray Morgan Bridge Cash Infusion

WSDOT apparently came out of nowhere and asked Tacoma if they would like a $20 million 0% interest loan according to this detailed writeup in the News Tribune. According to the article, the City of Tacoma had already secured about $37 million for the project and was seeking $24 million more. With this loan, it is expected that work can proceed quickly and all at once.

NOT ON OUR BUS!
Pierce Transit is beefing up security and enforcement of proper conduct on buses. Pierce Transit notes in a following press release that:

Nearly 750 contacts were made, resulting in 68 ninety-day exclusions from Pierce Transit services for disorderly behavior or criminal activity.

As always, the News Tribune has a good writeup about the program here.

Downtown Tacoma Parking Update

The first parking pay station was installed outside Paddy Coyne's on August 24th. The Tacoma Daily Index had a good writeup of the action. About 10 stations are being installed 5 days a week through Labor Day. Parking will go live on September 20th. Also, remember, tomorrow is the last Parking Task Force meeting before parking goes live. Did you know that Downtown Tacoma Parking even has a twitter and facebook account?

Chip Seal on 12th

An error in laying down the chip seal on S 12th is costing the City of Tacoma $56,171 to redo.

Highways:

I-5/SR-18 Interchange

Work has broke ground on upgrading this interchange. The work will include two flyover ramps - westbound to southbound and eastbound to northbound. Again, H/T to the News Tribune. Also, here is WSDOT's official project page for this interchange.

Investigation of SR 16 error

Following up on the costly mistake of putting an ramp in the wrong place, a report was issued regarding the messed and WSDOT Secretary Paula Hammond did a Q&A with News Tribune readers.