This post is the third in a series, adapted from an article I wrote for my blog, Transportation Matters, a Pacific Northwest-flavored blog that discusses railway planning, urban planning, and related politics.
Send Regional Buses to Pacific Avenue and/or Downtown Tacoma
Replace the MCI Vehicles of the ST Express
Dramatically Improve the Transfer at Pacific/24th
A major connection point of the Pierce County subarea transit network needs to be recognized, honored with improvements, and be served by all regional express bus lines: Pacific Avenue at 24th Street. Please note that 24th Street becomes Puyallup Avenue and that they are one-in-the-same.
As Pierce Transit’s Existing and Future Conditions Report for Pacific Avenue BRT showed, many local transit riders connect to regional services. However, what appears lost in the report and in current planning is that the main point-of-connection is not Tacoma Dome Station. In the real world, it is Pacific/24th. This is concerning as the claimed abundance of connections at Tacoma Dome is being used as rationale to divert and truncate buses there.
This post is the second in a series, adapted from an article I wrote for my blog, Transportation Matters, a Pacific Northwest-flavored blog that discusses railway planning, urban planning, and related politics.
Pierce County is a place of long-standing corridors and urban centers that need straightforward transit investments and services. Those investments and services should be rooted in the same best practices that help develop quality transit everywhere in the world. Following on the introduction, this article proposes five investments in Tacoma’s T Line:
Commit to Downtown Tacoma and Integrate the Light Railways
Upgrade the Track Capacity of the T Line
Use 6th Avenue for the T Line Extension to TCC
Cancel East Tacoma Station; Extend the T Line to Puyallup Tribe District
Plan for a T Line Extension to the Mall via Lincoln District
Commit to Downtown Tacoma and Integrate the Light Railways
The failure to integrate Tacoma Link and Central Link has become the Original Sin of modern Pierce County transit planning. It is in this vacuum of lost institutional knowledge, profound uncertainty, and administrative mismanagement that buslines are being deviated to Tacoma Dome, that Downtown Tacoma is being deprived of transit, that the peculiar Hilltop T Line extension was constructed, and why Pierce County’s transit system will actually worsen when regional light rail service starts in 2035 (or later). Tacoma’s city center is and shall remain the biggest and most important center of Pierce County. It is also one of the region’s largest transit oriented development opportunities. That light rail plans are jumbling the very structure of the subarea transit network is then a serious problem whether you reside in Tacoma or not.
This post is the first in a series, adapted from an article I wrote for my blog, Transportation Matters, a Pacific Northwest-flavored blog that discusses railway planning, urban planning, and related politics.
Introduction
In this environment of service cuts and stalled transportation projects, it can be difficult to envision a future when Pierce County has a comprehensive transit system that just works. Such feelings are coarsened when it is accepted that the future we work toward is incongruent with the needs of the area, as Transportation Matters has observed for nearly 10 years. However, citizens of the subarea—to use Sound Transit parlance describing the urbanized portions of our County—should take solace in the fact that Pierce County is not some vexing transportation problem. Rather, it is a place of long-standing corridors and urban centers that need straightforward transit investments and services. Those investments and services should be rooted in the same best practices that help develop quality transit everywhere in the world. There is no reason why Pierce County cannot have excellent mobility alternatives to the car.
At the last Sound Transit Board meeting, on April 25, WSDOT head and Sound Transit Board member Roger Millar caught my attention when he mentioned the potential of East Tacoma or Fife stations as something other than freeway-limitedpark and ride stops.
Millar proposed making the East Tacoma station the end of a bike trail connecting Link to Puyallup—and the raised the possibility of transforming the area into a walking and biking hub. Millar even suggested that funds or planning resources from the Gateway Project, a highway expansion megaproject, might be available to build the trail.
Some background: the walksheds of the potential Fife and East Tacoma sites are mainly industrial or low-rise commercial, though there are residential areas that are a bikeable distance away. Several major highways intersect with I-5 in the area, and the Port of Tacoma’s truck freight enters and exits the highway system there. So, as anyone who’s traveled on I-5 knows, Fife and East Tacoma are constantly congested already. (And the widening probably won’t make a big difference.) In short, it’s not the most pedestrian- or bike-friendly area. (Frank covered the Level 2 Tacoma Dome extension options in more detail when they were released in April.)
Hearing the head of WSDOT—an agency that is heavily focused on building and maintaining highways—propose an urbanist-flavored mobility solution was very encouraging.
“The distance from the City of Puyallup to Fife—it’s five, six miles—which, on a bicycle, particularly on flat terrain like that is nothing. And the opportunity to create a whole new travelshed is something that we’re excited about. …We are looking at alignments that might work as part of our Gateway Project,” Millar said, citing the work of Pierce County elected officials for bringing the issue to his attention. “At the very least, maybe we could minimize the number of park and ride spaces we need to have for people coming in from Puyallup, because they can get on their bikes and ride.”
Sound Transit’s project lead, Curvie Hawkins, said the agency is open to the idea, but was understandably cautious about committing to anything.
“We have a river we have to get over between Fife and East Tacoma,” Hawkins said. “So we have thought about ways to incorporate multiple modes in our design, and [be] able to make that connection work. I can’t tell you we’re going to build a multimodal bridge at this time, but to respond to your question, we’re thinking about it.”
Millar (who has a strong transit background) pressed Hawkins further, raising the possibility of reimagining the Tacoma and Fife station areas as walkable, bikeable urban villages.
“That’s good news, and I’m not hoping for the Tilikum Crossing—but, y’know, that wouldn’t be bad—over the [Puyallup] River there,” Millar said. “But the other direction, we need to think about active transportation accesses from those stations to the Port of Tacoma. Is there conversation going on about bicycle and walking connections, transit shuttle connections, those kinds of things? …I have this vision of longshoremen on scooters.”
Hawkins again hedged, saying that planning was early, but Sound Transit is working closely with the Port of Tacoma and Pierce Transit.
After the exchange, Fife Mayor and Board member Kim Roscoe added her support for Millar’s multimodal ambitions.
“I really appreciate you pulling this up to top of mind for us,” Roscoe said, turning to Millar. “I share the strong sentiment on keeping a focus on bike and pedestrian access.”
In earlier iterations of Link planning, particularly in suburban and industrial areas like the stations in question, multimodal access has seemed like an afterthought. It’s refreshing to see leaders outside of Seattle working to leverage Link as a catalyst for green, human-scale transportation.
