Hope for JBLM Traffic?

Photo from Flickr user womynspiritrise

There's been a bunch of buzz lately about Traffic and Mass Transit from Tacoma through the JBLM area to Olympia. As anyone who has ever ventured even close to the JBLM area knows, the traffic is horrendous and the public transit quite literally sucks. The worst backups can stretch for over 10 miles. As for public transit there are only 4 routes through the area all with very little coordination.

The traffic has been so exacerbated in the area due in large part to the increases in base population, but also nearby towns and cities that make up the total population of Pierce and Thurston Counties. As noted at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord Growth Coordination Plan's (JBLMGC for short) website, population has grown substantially in the last decade. The following tables taken from the JBLMGC's website summarize how much the area has grown:

Ft. Lewis and County Growth

Ft. Lewis	2000	2009	Net Change	% Change
Military	19,089	30,800	11,711	61.3%
Dependents	29,015	46,816	17,801	61.3%
Totals	48,104	77,616	29,512	61.3%
Counties (including cities)	2000	2008	Net Change	% Change
Pierce County	700,820	805,400	198,370	16.3%
Thurston County	207,355	245,300	78,825	18.3%
Totals	908,175	1,050,700	277,195	15.7%

Municipal Growth in Study Area

Municipality	2000	2008	Net Change	% Change
City of Tacoma	193,556	202,700	9,144	4.7%
City of Lakewood	58,293	58,780	487	.8%
City of Lacey	31,226	38,040	6,814	21.8%
City of DuPont	2,452	7,390	4,938	201.4%
Town of Steilacoom	6,049	6,255	206	3.4%
Town of Roy	260	875	615	236.5%
City of Yelm	3,289	5,150	1,861	56.6%
Totals	295,125	319,190	24,065	8.15%

A lot of people and media outlets have noticed and wrote about this issue as well as weighing in on what to do. Back in May, Tacoma Tomorrow wrote a series on traffic through the area including articles about I-5, the bus service and even the coming rail infrastructure. In time, the Northwest Guardian wrote a piece about how bad the traffic is in the area. More recently, Seattle Transit Blog discussed the issues and potential remedies. The Tacoma News Tribune and Olympian both agree that traffic is bad and something should be done about it.

Well what should be done about it? Surely there are a number of opinions on that as well. There has been talk of having the base have more flexible hours of operation, a call for widening I-5, and most recently a spur from the Tacoma News Tribune to get started on planning for better transit service.

So what is being done if anything by our government? Firstly, Tacoma Tomorrow highlighted in the previous Tacoma to Olympia series about the I-5 - Fort Lewis/McChord Transportation Analysis being performed by WSDOT. The final report from this study presented the predicted traffic operation improvements under scenarios that included upgrading interchanges and/or adding general purpose lanes to I-5. However, as mentioned earlier in the post, there is also the JBLMGC which has a more comprehensive analysis relating specifically to the base and also focuses more in depth on transit strategies. Some highlights from their draft plan transportation appendix include HOV lanes at gate entrances, increased transit service within the base and even the possibility of an integrated system of transit stops along the interchanges and just after the gates.

Regardless of all the talk and plans, action on improving the traffic situation is slow going. The On-Ramp blog noted WSDOT's efforts in providing better signal timing and more incident response crews. However, until some new construction of bigger and better transportation facilities occurs, or the population throughout the area declines, the traffic probably isn't going to get much better.

Tacoma Link to remain free, pending study

Tacoma Link has won a reprieve from the $1 fare proposed by Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl. Two days ago, at the City Council study session, Sound Transit Board Member Jake Fey announced that the proposal was "off the table."

Downtown Tacoma's Link Light Rail service
to remain fare-free for the time being.

The issue was discussed briefly at the City of Tacoma Streetcar Stakeholders Group meeting last week. Sound Transit Community Relations Specialist, Rachel Smith, indicated that the issue was related to a standing agency policy that requires that a fare be charged on a service when doing so would raise more revenue than it would cost to charge a fare. Since the ORCA card has been implemented, it reduces the overhead cost of charging a fare - and since Tacoma Link already has security onboard the trains, there is adequate staffing to act as fare enforcement officers. She also mentioned that the $1 fare would be a "one way" fare to coincide with the fare policy on Seattle's Central Link Light Rail.

However, it was also stated that the policy is somewhat flexible, allowing for local entities to pick up the tab in leiu of charging a fare on a particular service. I asked a question about whether it would be possible to instead charge for parking at Tacoma Dome Station and remit those funds to Sound Transit through interlocal agreement as an alternative to charging fares. Staff indicated that that is a possibility that could be studied in the future, but regardless of that, "the Board will need to address the issue and consider if they want to make an exemption to the policy for Tacoma Link."

Mayor Strickland and Councilmembers Mello, Boe, and Fey all seem to be in support of finding an alternative arrangement or at least a different schedule for implementing a fare on Tacoma Link. With the addition of paid parking in Downtown, the planned infill station at 12th and Commerce, and changes happening at least one Downtown employer taking place, ridership will be in a state of flux for the next several months. This is without mentioning immediate plans for extension of the line North or East.

The bottom line at the moment is that Tacoma Link is currently budgeted to raise $800,000 in fares in the next budget cycle. Modifying the budget will require an amendment approved by the Sound Transit Board.

More on this subject:

• The News Tribune: Nevermind on $1 Tacoma Link Fare
• Tacoma Daily Index: "Free Passage: Sound Transit holds off on charging for downtown Link light rail service"

Save Our Buses!

With all the election campaigning and attack ads and whatnot going on, here's yet another campaign to watch, only this time it's for Pierce Transit's Ballot measure coming up on February 8, 2011. Earlier today, Transportation Choices Coalition announced that the Save Our Buses Campaign in Pierce County is LIVE. Andrew from TCC summarizes the effort being done so far:

I have been working hard over the last few weeks with a dedicated group of volunteers and community leaders to get the Save our Buses campaign up and running in Pierce County.

...

Also Mayor Strickland and Councilmember Terry Lee have agreed to Co-Chair the campaign!

The Save Our Buses campaign is already brewing up quickly on the internet with a website at http://www.approveprop1.com/, a facebook fan page and a twitter account (@Save_our_Buses). The website is looking pretty good for now and has an option for those with money to spare to donate to the campaign.

For those not up to speed, Pierce Transit is facing a dramatic shortfall in funding due to the economic decline. Since Pierce Transit relies heavily on the sales tax as a revenue source, the decline in revenue could force Pierce Transit to cut services by 35%. Pierce Transit has been cutting jobs and costs, raising fares and had also completed a system redesign and still came up short in filling the funding gap. Therefore, the Pierce Transit board unanimously approved a ballot measure to ask voters if they want to approve a 0.3% increase in the sales tax for Pierce Transit. If this ballot is approved, Pierce Transit will be able to maintain a similar amount of total hours of bus service throughout Pierce County implementing the system redesign alternative of the Preservation Alternative shown below:

Here's hoping for the best in saving our bus service.

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.