Tacoma Link Expansion Report out on Dec. 5th

We are here: Alternatives Evaluation

The Tacoma Link Draft Alternatives Analysis report is to be released Dec. 5.  Sound Transit will be holding an open house from 4pm-7pm at UWT's Phillip Hall.

This is it.  The list of options available have been measured against the criteria that the public has given to Sound Transit.

The draft goals and objectives of the project are:

• Improve mobility and transportation access for Tacoma residents and visitors
• Increase transit ridership
• Serve underserved neighborhoods
• Spur economic development
• Ensure that the project is environmentally sensitive and sustainable
• Establish a project that is competitive for federal funding


The last series of meetings in the initial scoping was to gather input on what alternatives to study and how they should be evaluated.  Well now the evaluations and the initial screening of the alternatives will be presented along with costs and ridership projections.

With this, we will finally have in our hands the ability to select from a palette of options that will have a variety of impacts on their surrounding areas - granting access to the regional transit system like never before, while stimulating economic development near the stations.

This document will also give us the tools we need to plan for a Phase 2 (ST3?) expansion of Tacoma Link.

I want to stress to people who have been anxious to see Tacoma Link move forward, that we are only four months away from selecting a build alternative.  After that, the process is to go into environmental review and design, engineering, construction, and service.  Transit officials will probably tell you that it's more complicated than that, but really...

...in my mind, it's only a matter of time.

Also!  If you can't make the meeting on Dec 5th for whatever reason, Sound Transit will be having additional drop in sessions to talk to staff and receive materials about the state of the alternatives analysis project - PLUS there's a webinar on Dec. 13th (5:30pm - 6:30pm) that you can register for here.

Full schedule of events

Open house - December 5

4:00 - 7:00pm, UW Tacoma William W. Philllip Hall

Review what you told us in early scoping, see alternatives, provide feedback on alternatives and learn about next steps.

Drop-in sessions

An informal opportunity to learn about the project process, see alternatives and provide feedback.

December 6, 11:00am - 1:00pm, Tacoma Library, Olympic Room: 1102 Tacoma Ave South

December 6, 4:00 - 6:00pm, Evergreen College, Room 206: 1210 6th Ave

December 10, 11:00am - 1:00pm, Tully's in Stadium District: 24 North Tacoma Avenue

December 10, 4:00 - 6:00pm, Forza Coffee Company: 317 South 72nd Street

December 11, 11:00am - 1:00pm, STAR Center Lobby: 3873 S. 66th St.

Applications Due for Pierce Transit Committee

Previously reported on TacomaTomorrow, applications are due today to serve on the Pierce Transit Community Transportation Advisory Group.  They were originally due in October, but the deadline was extended to today.

CTAG is slated to help advise the Pierce Transit Board address the following issues:

• Ensure quality customer service by providing information on service quality and changes in public needs, as part of a strategic cycle of public involvement;

• Develop new markets by identifying new market segments, providing input on customer activity, and serving as ambassadors for the Agency to their respective constituencies;

• Add value to the community by considering transit in their community and development planning efforts, and promoting the benefits of transit to the business community;
• Develop new revenue streams by identifying potential public-private partnerships and cost containment opportunities and legislative changes that encourage innovation, and making the case for transit investment; and
• Value employee success by providing feedback on service quality, allowing the Agency to target training and professional development needs.

If you are interested in helping Pierce Transit be more efficient with its service, or want to help the agency find new, more stable sources of revenue, this might be an opportunity for you to help.

Get your application in today (PDF), it's not very long, and the time commitment is roughly 2 hours per quarter.  Your input, feedback, and ideas could be critical to the future of transit service in Pierce County.

======================================

Return completed applications today to:

Terence Artz, CTAG Liason
Fax to: (253) 983-2707
Email to: tartz@piercetransit.org
Or bring in person to Pierce Transit 3701 96th St SW Lakewood, WA 98499-4431

Tacoma Voters Want More Transit, Not Less

Point Defiance Streetcar - Tacoma, WA Pre-1938

With the projected failure of Proposition 1, Pierce County is on course for a drastic reduction in local bus service in 2014.  Weekend and midday service are slated to disappear and no buses would run after 7pm.  Paratransit service for seniors, disabled veterans, and others with disabilities would go away as well.  For comparison, bus service would be lower than when Pierce Transit first began operating back in 1980.  This level of decline (if it occurs) would be comparable to the loss of Tacoma's streetcar system back in 1938.  It would render the local transit system incapable of providing even a minimal level of mobility.

But we're not going to let that happen, Tacoma.

The reason why is because you, the voters of Tacoma, have voted in favor of transit service in four¹ of the last five elections since 2002 and by great margins in those cases.  If Proposition 1 had been decided by Tacoma, the margin would have been more than 6,000 votes in favor, not 1,000 votes against.  In many parts of Tacoma, such as Downtown, Central, and North Tacoma, support for transit exceeded 60%.  Stadium, Proctor, 6th Avenue, Hilltop, Westgate, St. Helens, and Downtown all supported Prop 1 by incredible margins that almost balanced out the marginal no votes from the rest of the entire county.  Tacoma has demonstrated that it will vote for buses and trains as many times as is needed to preserve access to jobs, education, and medical care.  (More after the jump.)

How each City is voting on Prop 1

Pierce County Municipalities for reference.
(Pierce Transit's boundary is smaller).

As things stand, Prop 1 is looking close.  There are still more votes to count, but the trend is up, then down.  If you're wondering how your community voted, the results that have come out of my analysis are below.  These are based off of precinct vote counts from last night's (Friday 11/9 @ 11pm) ballot drop.

Pierce Transit - Proposition 1 

+----------------------+----------+----------+--------+-------------+--------------+ | City | Approved | Rejected | Margin | Approve_pct | Rejected_pct | +----------------------+----------+----------+--------+-------------+--------------+ | STEILACOOM | 1455 | 1279 | 176 | 53.22% | 46.78% | | TACOMA | 47387 | 41996 | 5391 | 53.02% | 46.98% | | FIRCREST | 1640 | 1485 | 155 | 52.48% | 47.52% | | RUSTON | 192 | 179 | 13 | 51.75% | 48.25% | | GIG HARBOR | 2020 | 2006 | 14 | 50.17% | 49.83% | | UNIVERSITY PLACE | 6506 | 6742 | -236 | 49.11% | 50.89% | | LAKEWOOD | 8603 | 9253 | -650 | 48.18% | 51.82% | | FIFE | 1049 | 1199 | -150 | 46.66% | 53.34% | | SPANAWAY | 2172 | 2534 | -362 | 46.15% | 53.85% | | JOINT BASE LEWIS MCC | 613 | 734 | -121 | 45.51% | 54.49% | | MILTON | 1014 | 1248 | -234 | 44.83% | 55.17% | | AUBURN | 1125 | 1413 | -288 | 44.33% | 55.67% | | PUYALLUP | 12559 | 16112 | -3553 | 43.80% | 56.20% | | SUMNER | 161 | 229 | -68 | 41.28% | 58.72% | | EDGEWOOD | 1842 | 2715 | -873 | 40.42% | 59.58% | | PACIFIC | 12 | 20 | -8 | 37.50% | 62.50% | | LAKE TAPPS | 30 | 63 | -33 | 32.26% | 67.74% | +----------------------+----------+----------+--------+-------------+--------------+ 17 rows in set (0.01 sec)

Tacoma, Steilacoom, Fircrest, Ruston, and Gig Harbor show as being supportive of Prop 1, and the rest of Pierce County in one form or another is rejecting Prop 1.  The margin of votes is currently -915 votes against out of more than 216,000 votes cast.

===Update 11/15/2012===
One thing to note is that unincorporated areas in the Pierce Transit district are represented by their nearby city.  For example: the City of Sumner withdrew from the Pierce Transit district in May of 2012.  The precincts represented as Sumner in the table are not actually within the City of Sumner, but are unincorporated.

If you have any questions, or have an idea for a projection to run, either post them in the comments or let me know via Twitter.  My handle is: @TacomaTransit

I will try to see if I can get some maps built in the next few days.  Pierce County has been dragging their feet with fulfilling my request for a precinct GIS file.

Prop 1 too close to call

As of 3:34pm on Thursday, Pierce Transit Proposition 1 is still too close to call.  The margin at this point is only ~830 votes.

Returns have been very strong in the North End and Central Tacoma, as they have tended to be in transit elections since 2007.  The trend as the election has continued has been in Prop 1's favor.  The margin started at -1700 votes, then shifted to -1500 votes, and then down to ~830 votes by the end of last night's counting.

I would post more, but I am so busy running projections.  The 25th legislative district is killing us, the 26th (Gig Harbor) is breaking even, 27th (North, Central and East Tacoma) helps keep the hope alive, the 28th District (UP/Lakewood) has been negative, but is trending positive, the 29th (South Tacoma & Lakewood) is negative on the whole and holding steady, the 30th and 31st in East Pierce County are negative, but appear like they have been counted in roughly their entirety.

For up to date return info, bookmark this ==> Nov 6 Election Results and refresh starting around 4:45pm.

If you want more up to date analysis of how the election is going, it's better to just follow me on Twitter: @TacomaTransit.

I hope we pull this one out, folks, because if we don't, we'll need a plan C.

Histogram of Margins by Precinct, Spike is -9=>1 Votes

The histogram above shows that while precincts rejecting Proposition 1 are more numerous, the margins in a smaller number of precincts in Tacoma are almost large enough to offset the no votes.

Tacoma's Transit Future decided today

A simple majority: 50% + 1 votes, that's what will determine whether Tacoma and Pierce County, the second largest city and county in the Puget Sound, will have viable local transit service.

The Restore Transit Now campaign is working very hard today to get voters to the polls.  They will be doing phonebanking until 7:30pm tonight.  If you have a half an hour today, an hour today, please stop by their office (2609 6th Ave in Tacoma) and make a few phone calls.  Every vote counts.

In terms of voting projections, we haven't had a local transit election on the November ballot in recent history, let alone a presidential election year.  Sound Transit was on the ballot in 2007 and 2008, but Pierce Transit's elections in 2002 and 2011 were low turnout February elections.  The new voting boundary and redistricting following the results of the 2010 census also mix things up quite a bit and make projections a little more difficult to obtain.  The new boundary does point to improved chances at winning, but it is by no means certain.

Polling has been mostly nonexistent.  Tacoma voters were polled some time ago on the issue of supporting Pierce Transit in relation to a local roads measure.  Polling numbers were strongly in favor in Tacoma several months ago in May, with 61% in favor (48% strongly positive, 13% leaning positive, 13% uncommitted).  Part of this owes to the fact that 68% of Tacomans were aware of Pierce Transit service cuts and many knew people who were directly affected by the cuts.  All of this information comes from public disclosure requests filed for Pierce Transit's Community Survey earlier this year.

For Proposition 1 to meet the 50%+1 mark as tonight continues, we need about 83,000 yes votes.    Tacoma will be yielding about 48,000 of those --- total, based on 61% yes of 80% turnout of roughly 100k voters.  The magic number for an 80% turnout victory is 110,438 yes votes.