Suburbs haven't supported Pierce Transit in over 10 years

Results from Pierce Transit Prop 1 - February 2002

Picture this for a moment: It's 2002, Tim Eyman's Initiative 695 has passed and been found unconstitutional, but it doesn't matter.  The State Legislature in cowardice, eliminates the one progressive tax in Washington State, the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax, and limits car tabs to $30 per year.  This cuts transit funding statewide and deepens Pierce Transit's reliance on the sales tax.

38% of Pierce Transit's revenues are now gone.  Service has been cut roughly 20% in order to slow the rate at which reserves are drained.  Pierce Transit puts together a revenue measure of an additional 0.3% to restore service back to its original trajectory.  And what happens?  

The suburbs vote it down - namely Buckley, Bonney Lake, Orting, South Hill, and unincorporated mid-county.

At the same time, Tacoma pulls Pierce Transit through, with a margin of 54% yes / 46% no.  Skip forward nine years.

Has anything changed since 2002?

Pierce Transit Prop 1, Feb 2011.  Red = Failed Transit votes in 2007, 2008, 2011.  Eerily familiar to Feb 2002.

In the last ten years Pierce County's unincorporated population has mushroomed.  In South Hill, the population increased 65.8%.  Tacoma's growth rate hasn't kept pace, only increasing a paltry 2.5%.  So generally speaking, that's a lot more no votes than Tacoma's urban pro-transit voters can handle.

If voters in the suburbs say get rid of transit funding in 1999 and then reject additional transit funding in 2002, say no again in 2007, no in 2008, and no in 2011, why should we expect a yes under any circumstances?

Pierce Transit Boundary includes 163 Transit-Hostile Precincts

With presidential elections typically turning out pro-transit voters, Nov. 2012 is a logical choice for Pierce Transit to return to the ballot to return service to pre-recession levels.  But there’s a real risk that history will repeat itself unless the service boundary is redrawn - and soon. Here’s why:

• Unincorporated Pierce County and far flung towns have repeatedly demonstrated that they do not support any further taxes for transit, as evidenced by three consecutive transit votes since 2007.  There is some evidence showing that voters in such areas have become more hostile to transit votes over time.

There are 163 "transit-hostile" precincts in Pierce Transit's service
boundary that have rejected every transit vote since 2007.

• Service to outer suburbs and unincorporated areas is not cost-effective for Pierce Transit to provide.  In October, the final 15% service cut will effectively cut out Pierce County east of Puyallup, the Key Peninsula, and unincorporated mid-county, helping to reduce per rider costs by a staggering 44%, while at the same time preserving more than a million rides per year versus a plan that included those areas.  Keeping these areas while trying to go the ballot again requires large subsidies per rider, making frequent and attractive service difficult to provide.
• Revenues from outlying areas don’t justify retaining them (previously covered).  In fact, the expansiveness of the current service territory was built around the assumption that “more area = more cars” and “more cars = more car tab fees”.  That is no longer the case as Pierce Transit has not collected any revenue from car tabs since 2000 and over 70% of Pierce Transit’s revenue now comes from the sales tax.
• Transit taxation without transit service.  In October, large areas that are taxed by Pierce Transit will have no local, express, Shuttle, or special event service at all.  The situation is bound to become politically untenable very quickly, resulting in more political polarization, which will jeopardize support for any potential transit ballot measure.
• Due to the recession by October, Pierce Transit will be 42.7% smaller than it was back in 2008.  Service cuts have meant fewer living wage jobs in Pierce County. They have also resulted in less access to jobs and education, while also putting Pierce County at a competitive disadvantage for new economic development.
• Voters in the City of Tacoma support new taxes for transit by healthy margins - even during special elections in off years, but it can’t balance out numerous precincts in unincorporated Pierce County that consistently vote against public transit service.
• There is a need for new investments in transit service.  Pierce Transit planner, Tina Lee, indicated at a City Council study session that Pacific Avenue is a corridor ripe for bus rapid transit.  Bus service that is competitive with automobile travel attracts more riders and helps to conserve operating dollars in the long run, but it can’t happen without the infrastructure that levels the playing field for transit.  While King County Metro, Intercity Transit, and Community Transit have been investing in transit options with sales tax rates of 0.8% or 0.9% sales tax rates (or higher), Pierce Transit has languished at 0.6% since 2002.
  
• The process for revising a new service area is likely to take around five months (source: TNT). It takes a several months to put together a new ballot measure and to campaign for it.  That leaves a shrinking amount of time for the process to get started.  The Pierce County Council could convene a conference of cities to hammer out a revised service boundary that works.

New Stadium Way designed to support Streetcar

Stadium Way at S. 4th Street

A key roadway for potentially extending Tacoma Link out of the core of Downtown Tacoma will be undergoing a $9.5m Complete Streets-style reconstruction starting in September. After work is completed in late 2012, the roadway will support northward expansion of Tacoma Link.

Stadium Way served as a streetcar corridor before the demise of Tacoma's streetcar system in 1938.  It is currently in a state of disrepair with broken sidewalks, caving asphalt, and a decaying substructure composed of fill dirt and decomposing wooden trestle.

Stadium Way may serve as
the combined brown corridor.

The new design improves pedestrian and bicycle access and will connect with the Bayside Trail System.  Per Complete Streets requirements, the design includes bike lanes, a broad cliff-side pedestrian promenade with lookout points to view Mount Rainier and Commencement Bay, ornamental lighting and protected pedestrian crossings - in addition to a reinforced roadway with several new retaining walls.

In March, the Streetcar Stakeholders group identified three separate routing corridors that could potentially use Stadium Way, including lines to: St. Joseph Hospital via Martin Luther King Jr. Way (the Orange Line), 6th Avenue Business District (the Purple Line), and to Tacoma’s North End via ‘I’ Street (the Blue Line).

I asked the City of Tacoma engineer in charge of the project how the new roadway would be able to handle streetcars.  Here was his response (emphasis mine):

North 1st Street will be designed for future streetcar use, with a 7.5% maximum grade.

"Our value engineering consultant has recommended not to exceed a 7.5% grade. Thus we designed a 7.5% maximum grade in N 1St Street. We did not have to enlarge any designed radii. The radius of the south bound lane at N 1st and E Street is the smallest horizontal radius on the project and still satisfies the minimum allowed for the street car. A rail expert analyzed our preliminary profile design and per his recommendations we were able to limit the longer length grades to 6% or less. Reversing vertical curves preferably have 100 feet of straight grade in between, which we were able to accommodate. The vertical curvature limits for street cars of these vertical curves were not a controlling factor.

The new street will be able to withstand the weight of a street car. Actually, Sound Transit would construct new concrete slabs in which the tracks would be embedded.

The overhead street car power supply would be suspended from a system with poles on both sides of the street, for the most part. It is highly speculative where additional stations will be located, but a physically feasible location is indeed north of South 4th Street. Another option might be along E-street. I am deferring this to Sound Transit."

 -Raymond van der Roest, City of Tacoma Engineer

Learn more:

• City of Tacoma Public Works - Stadium Way Reconstruction Project
• City of Tacoma - Streetcar Stakeholder Final Report
• Engineering Schematic of Stadium Way Redesign