Tacoma Link could help Pierce Transit during Snow

Fantastic video by Oran of Seattle's Central Link Light Rail cruising past SR 518 Traffic

The reliability of the transportation system always suffers during inclement weather, but it doesn't have to. Regionally, the most reliable forms of transportation were on rails. Sounder Commuter trains ran on time and LINK Light Rail in Seattle and Tacoma operated mostly as normal. Sounder passengers enjoyed having warm seats, a smooth ride and free WiFi, while I heard anecdotally that some drivers, so frustrated with snarled traffic and spun-out cars on I-5, abandoned their vehicles and sought motel rooms in Kent or Auburn rather than waiting another 3 hours in traffic to get home.

Route 1's Snow Detour Map (Green)
Does it point the way for a Tacoma Link extension?

If you were waiting for any local bus route coming out of Downtown Tacoma, you were facing a delay of an hour or more and a "Sunday"-like schedule with no guarantee that your bus was actually going to arrive. Not only that, but on Monday, a Route 48 bus coming down South 19th Street's steep slope lost control and flipped on its side at UW-Tacoma, narrowly missing the university staircase - endangering the lives of 20 passengers and the driver.

All this took was a little ice and snow and a sustained deep freeze over two days.

What this says is clear: During periods of terrible weather commuters should be riding rails to get to work and school. And further, buses should stick to the flatter, more navigable parts of the City that can be easily cleared of snow and ice by City of Tacoma Public Works crews while staying off of Downtown Tacoma's "ski slopes."

One way to achieve this is to finally implement what has been planned and studied for the last five years by extending Tacoma Link up to the Stadium District and to Tacoma General Hospital. Coincidentally, this route mostly mirrors the snow route established for Pierce Transit's routes 1, 3, 11, 13, 16, 26, 28, and 45.  During adverse conditions, Sound Transit light rail could eliminate the need for local buses in the majority of Tacoma from ever needing to come up or down Downtown's steep icy slopes. Instead, by transferring passengers to high capacity light rail on Division Avenue and in the Stadium District, buses could continue reliably serving other parts of the city. This would ensure safer and more reliable mobility for everyone and easier regional connections to Sounder Commuter Rail.

Not only that, but a light rail extension to Tacoma General Hospital could have saved Pierce Transit the purchase of a new $500,000 bus, and may reduce future lawsuit liabilities.

Bus flips near UW-Tacoma, Save Our Buses Kickoff Postponed

It looks like Tacoma is experiencing a slightly different form of "snowpocalypse" that Seattle experienced two years ago.  This Pierce Transit bus overturned at the corner of S. 19th and Jefferson earlier today at the top of the steps of UW-Tacoma.  No one was seriously injured.  More information at: The News Tribune.

All Pierce Transit routes are now operating on snow detours.  Check your route to see how it is affected.

Also, due to the snow, Pierce Transit's Save Our Buses campaign kickoff, planned for later today, has been postponed to a later date.

Bus craches into concrete barrier at UW-Tacoma.

How "Save Our Buses" wins in Pierce County

Save Our Buses, the measure to save Pierce Transit from having to cut local bus service by 35%, is having their campaign kickoff on Monday.  The implications of losing this measure are pretty severe, but they could have been worse if it weren't for the agency's recent emphasis on cost cutting.  

Here's a rundown of what could go down:

• Frequent routes would be slashed from 15 minute service to 30/45 minutes,
• Weekend service would be slashed,
• Regional connections to Federal Way and Olympia could disappear,
• Service to outlying areas may be completely discontinued.

All of this could plunge working families, the elderly, and people with disabilities into transportation chaos, stranding them.

The impact of a sustained loss of revenue of this magnitude would be like turning back the clock two decades and could jeopardize attempts by the City of Tacoma to ask voters next year to invest in its non-motorized Mobility Master Plan and streetcar projects.  But enough doom and gloom, let's look at this issue more rationally.

What happened last time?

The last time Pierce County voters had a transit measure in front of them was in November of 2008.  In Pierce County ST2 was about building for the future.  It was about having more than we have today.  It guaranteed more trips on Sounder commuter rail to Seattle, $80 million in matching funds to extend Tacoma Link further into Tacoma, enhanced express bus service, and right of way acquisition to set the stage for light rail to the airport.

Sound Transit 2, sailed to victory buoyed by positive votes in King and Snohomish counties, locking in a future of sustained investment in fixed rail transit for the Puget Sound region for at least the next 15 years.  However, in Pierce County, ST2 narrowly failed.

Sound Transit Proposition No. 1

APPROVED	124,856	49.08%
REJECTED	129,536	50.92%

Source: Pierce County Auditor

Where Transit Won/Lost in 2008

Sound Transit 2 election margins by precinct  with an overlay of Tacoma's historic streetcar system

The urban/suburban/exurban divide is alive and well in Pierce County.  While numerous precincts in Central Tacoma and North Tacoma showed transit victory margins of greater than 400 votes, suburban Pierce County solidly rejected more investment in transit by margins greater than 50 votes per precinct.  The sheer number of precincts in unincorporated Pierce County tended to balance the positive returns coming out of Tacoma, University Place, Lakewood, and Puyallup.

How Save Our Buses can win

In 2008, "Mass Transit Now," the campaign arm of ST2 offered only a handful of opportunities for grassroots volunteers in Pierce County to actively engage the public in discussions about investments in public transportation - and it showed.  Most of Tacoma voted in favor, and part of that is because volunteers like me and Peter Jung took time out of our weekends to canvass neighborhoods in Central Tacoma.  By supporting the Save Our Buses campaign, with our dollars and our time, by talking to friends and neighbors to encourage them to vote yes in February, we can be key to winning this ballot measure.

Messaging will be important.  As opposed to ST2, Save Our Buses will have to be very clear in their messaging to folks that this is about keeping what we have, and making changes to use it more efficiently - through the evolving PT Tomorrow bus revamp.

It will be essential to focus on key, transit-supportive precincts in Tacoma, Lakewood, University Place, and Puyallup by encouraging turnout, registering voters, and raising awareness about the impending vote.  By improving turnout by another few percentage points, we can preserve these vital services.


What's our plan B?


In the event that Pierce Transit's Proposition 1 fails, there will be a need for the Board of Commissioners to take decisive action.  The agency will have to make immediate cuts to service and I would encourage the Board to look into reviewing the service boundary (which we've covered in the past and Intercity Transit did some time ago).  People in Tacoma and Lakewood are willing to pay taxes to support public transportation, let's not let people who don't want transit and don't use it hold up the demand for those services.  Arrangements in each affected community would need to be made for those with mobility issues.

The next step would be for Pierce Transit to return to the ballot, potentially in the municipal primary in September, but that would sacrifice months of valuable time and result in the loss of existing riders as people get fed up with the cash-starved system and begin purchasing automobiles to make their trips instead.

If that fails, it might fall on the municipalities themselves to try to come up with funds to keep transit service at decent levels through the use of Transportation Benefit Districts, as our northern neighbor Bellingham has with Whatcom County Transit.  However, the revenue potential and delay time make these possibilities rather uncomfortable Plan "C's," and may jeopardize other worthy projects like implementation of Tacoma's forward-thinking Mobility Master Plan.

Tacoma Link Extension meeting tonight

Tonight at UW-Tacoma, Sound Transit and City of Tacoma officials will be hosting the second-to-last mini alternatives analysis meeting on the Tacoma Link Extension.  The purpose of this meeting will be to 1) finalize route "evaluation criteria" and 2) to respond to staff proposals for potential concept alignments based on the map that was drawn up collectively by the Stakeholders Group last month.

From previous meetings I can tell you that there are three primary destinations being discussed, St. Joseph Hospital, 6th and Pine Mixed Use Center and Salishan via the Emerald Queen Casino.  Each of these potential routes has their own quirks dealing with right of way, ridership and cost.  We can expect to see some more firm numbers on each of these proposals tonight.

Essentially it boils down to if we choose to go North, we have to decide whether we take "straight shot" Stadium Way (which is being reconstructed using complete streets guidelines next year) or make a "hill climb" to St. Helens Avenue.  After that it's pretty much the same alignment along Division Avenue to Tacoma General, at which there's a decision to be made about either heading west on 6th Avenue or South on Martin Luther King Jr. Way.  The other alignment that's still in play somewhat is the extension to the East along Puyallup Avenue to Portland Avenue to the Emerald Queen Casino, Lower Portland Avenue, and Salishan.  There aren't too many permutations with that route currently since support on the committee depends on serving the mixed income quasi-New Urbanist Salishan development.

I put together the diagram below to summarize the options and debates that have taken place thus far.  Staff may have other ideas to present other than these tonight.



There's an opportunity for public comment before the start of the meeting if you want to attend.  The next meeting will be the last one, which will likely be when the group votes to endorse a set of criteria for Federal Alternatives Analysis and potentially a preferred concept alignment.

The meeting is at 5pm at UW-Tacoma in room CP103

The agenda is as follows:

1. Introductions and Agenda Review
2. Review of Streetcar Routes
3. Route Evaluation
1. Validate values
2. Review data/maps
3. Review criteria and methodology
4. Apply methodology and evaluate the routes
4. Review of other Evaluation Criteria
1. Small Starts Criteria
2. ST Long Range Plan Criteria
5. Wrap up and Next Steps

Read more about the Tacoma Link Extension via the recently updated City of Tacoma Streetcar Stakeholder page.

Tacoma's Six Year Transportation Program

As is required for every city in Washington State, the City of Tacoma is preparing an annual update to its Six Year Comprehensive Transportation Program. It is really quite astounding how much work is identified in this document for Tacoma. Over $500 million of transportation projects are identified in the next six years within the borders of Tacoma. And out of that $241 million currently has no formalized source of funding. I compiled together this nifty excel chart using data summarized from the current draft of the document ^(pdf).


The 2010 update to the plan has pleased the Environmental and Public Works Committee so much that it was recently decided to set the time of November 16th at 5:30pm for a public hearing of the plan. In the plan there are a number of categories of funding. I'm no expert on this, so bare with me as I explain what I have observed in my brief exploration of this document.

Arterial Streets

Moral of the category is that full replacement of pothole infested streets is expensive! Almost $70 million in unfunded needs for full replacement of streets has been identified. And keep in mind that there are only 29 projects total in this category! That's about $3.7 million per project and most of them are for mere sections of street - Alaska from 56th to 72nd; Stadium Way from 9th to Tacoma Ave; A direct access ramp from I-5 to Tacoma Mall Blvd.

Nonmotorized

This is where a bunch of trails and the Mobility Master Plan fall under. Unfortunately most if these projects are mostly unfunded. As for the Mobility Master Plan, the City is planning on allocating about $1.5 million on short term Bike and Ped improvements, but still leaving nearly $12.5 million unfunded.

Bridges

Bridges are also expensive. Even more so than streets. The bulk of the expenses however comes from three bridges. The Hylebos Bridge has just $13 million remaining through 2011 and then should be ready to go. The Murray Morgan is fully funded to the tune of $57,077,000. And the Puyallup Bridge which already has $23 million for the western part is seeking an additional $8.5 million for the western part and another $9 million for the eastern part.

Business Districts

There are a variety of odds and ends included in here specific to each business district. It can include beatification, sidewalk repair among other things.

Landscaping/Streetscape

Only two projects in here. The first is the Pacific Ave Streetscape and the second is the Urban Forestry Program.

LIDs

This is an interesting category. LID is short for Local Improvement District where the city will collect a property assessment to be used on a nearby transportation project. Those property assessments make up a very large sum of money. There are a number of placeholders here for potential lids, but already there are 24 identified LIDs. Some highlights from these include the Broadway Streetscape and some work around Point Ruston.

Neighborhoods

Similar to the Business Districts there are again a number of odds and ends included in here. Some include traffic calming and there is also a wayfinding program as well.

Sidewalks

This one kinda speaks for itself. Improve a sidewalk if it is mangled up, or build one if it doesn't exist, but typically only at critical areas - such as under SR 16. Some public stairways are included a bit here too.

Special Projects

A very special category indeed. There are a number of Tacoma Rail-related items here, the Suaro Site, and some Tacoma Link stuff as well. Of particular interesting note is the Stadium Way Streetcar Line listed as unfunded at a cost of $37,700,000. The project status for this reads as follows:

This project is currently being evaluated through a mini-alternatives analysis being conducted by the City, Sound Transit, and Pierce Transit. This study, to be completed in December 2010, will determine if the extension route will be along Stadium Drive or an alternate route.

Also worth noting is that the reconstruction of Stadium Way is already fully funded.

Streetlighting

Most self-explanatory category name in the document.

Street Rehabilitation

Although there is nearly $17 million committed to street rehabilitation around the city, there is still an additional $24 that Tacoma could use in this effort.

Traffic Signals

Some repair work of signal stuff and new signals at 30th & Alder, 30th & Orchard, Port of Tacoma & Lincoln and a mystery location TBD!!

Pierce Transit, Tacoma invest in Transit Signal Priority

Pierce Transit is working with the City of Tacoma to install transit signal priority equipment to 86 intersections in the vicinity of greater Downtown Tacoma.  This equipment will work with transponders on Pierce Transit's buses to increase the amount of time that a traffic light stays green when a the vehicle approaches the intersection.

View Pierce Transit TSP Project in a larger map

The large six square mile area where the equipment will be installed is bounded by Sprague Avenue to the West, Portland Avenue to the East, Division Avenue to the North and Interstate 5 to the south

This effort builds upon previous work done by PT on several other corridors within the City that had significant on-time performance issues (such as Route 57 and non-downtown portions of Route 1) that were implemented back in 2004.  The new equipment will likely improve on-time performance of the Westbound Route 1 to Tacoma Community College, which routinely suffers delays in the range of  5-10 minutes during peak periods when the route is heavily used.  Route 1 operates at 15 minute headways for the vast majority of the day and at 30 minute headways off-peak.  Route 1 also deviates off of Pacific Avenue to Tacoma Dome Station to connect with Sounder Commuter trains from Seattle.

The project is funded by a Congestion Management and Air Quality grant filed by PT to help speed transit vehicles through the downtown core.  The project will use Opticom equipment produced by Global Traffic Technologies, a firm based out of St. Paul, Minnesota.

An interlocal agreement outlining goals and responsibilities between Pierce Transit and the City of Tacoma is on Pierce Transit's Board Agenda for the next meeting on November 8th.  If you'd like to attend, Pierce Transit Board Meetings are held at PT Headquarters at S. 96th and South Tacoma Way at 4pm - which for transit users is accessible via Routes 48, 3, and 300.

We'll be tracking the development of this project as it comes online.  Peter Stackpole, a Senior Planner at Pierce Transit, will be acting as the Project Manager.  He will be working with Chris Larson from City of Tacoma Public Works Department to implement the project.