15 Investments For Better Transit In Tacoma & Pierce County

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March 21, 2024 by seradt

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 this blog 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.

A map of Sound Transit’s five subareas, to include the Pierce County subarea. The term “subarea” will be used as shorthand to cover Tacoma and urbanized Pierce County.

In many ways, the path forward has already been laid before us by the key transit agencies, Pierce Transit and Sound Transit. Pierce Transit’s system restructure in 2017 was both impressive and logical. Its focus on frequency, a grid layout of bus transit lines, and easy connections between them must inspire future plans. Sound Transit’s original railway plans for the subarea—dating from before the agency’s inception to sometime after 2007—continue to be those that best pair capacity with demand. While Pierce County’s focus on light rail has worked to intellectually deaden the planning of its transit, if it is to have good railways and even expand them, then the old Sound Transit projects are those to build. The rationale behind their development is as current as ever: Downtown Tacoma remains the vital heart of Pierce County and the center of its transit system. 6th Avenue remains the dominant corridor to TCC. Contemporary planning efforts have betrayed this truth. Sound Transit’s earliest planners recognized it decades ago.

If Pierce County is to grow coherently on a spine of transit, its jurisdictions first need to revise land use policies so that transit is prioritized and supported. Transit planners then need to reaffirm the framework that formerly guided their plans and apply it. For these reasons, the subarea should return to the negotiating table and reconsider long-range transit plans. It should refresh its shared vision and investment goals, and adopt plans that are mode-neutral, cost effective, and which realistically offer liberatory mobility options to as many residents as possible.

30 and 60 minute bus headways do not make the cut; we should be reaching for 15s or better everywhere there is suspected demand, particularly along the arterials that link so many of us together. These local services shall then be overlaid by a thoughtfully integrated regional transit system. Easy connections between the two should occur at destinations that are popular in their own right and which amplify urban life. These are places like Commerce Street and Pacific Avenue in Tacoma’s city center, Lakewood Transit Center, Tacoma Community College, and the Parkland Transit Center. When made necessary by either demand or the ballot box, strategically build railways. Circuitous lines whose point-to-point runtimes are far worse than the existing bus do not make the cut; we should advance methodical railway plans along pivotal corridors. These plans should reinforce the bus grid and allow for the total redistribution of a busline’s service hours.

There remains much to be hopeful about. With careful attention, the subarea can develop a transit system that does more for less (per rider), brings more people to where they want to go than ever before, and which does so in an intuitive manner. This will require an aspirational plan and supportive policies.

So, do not be despondent. Request from your officials and transit agencies that they get to planning. Perhaps they may start their work by reading this piece.

Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan

(To see the plan in ArcGIS, click here)

To address the need for an aspirational transit framework, Transportation Matters has created a draft Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan. The goal is to generate enthusiasm for transit and to rekindle a dialogue about future investments and opportunities. The remainder of this article will detail 15 wishlist investments that would do much to deliver it. To realize the plan not only promises a transformation of the subarea transit system, but the ways in which we develop communities and live our lives.

An overview of the Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan, showing frequent bus lines in purple, feeder bus lines in orange, heavy rail in light blue, and light rail in dark blue.

The 15 Wishlist Investments

The following wishlist items are not intended to be ranked in order of importance. However, the end result is an arrangement that neatly reflects ongoing planning stresses in the Pierce County subarea. Here, light railways are the tail that wag the dog, resulting in tremendous adverse consequences for the planning and development of the bus transit system. For that reason, and due to the extraordinary cost of these capital investments, they are covered first.

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.

Tacoma Link is the terminal end of the Central Link light railway of Sound Transit (see an article on Pierce County light rail history by clicking here). It exists to become an integral component of the larger regional railway, which is still being built and is only partially operational. It also exists as a stranded investment to entice Pierce County voters to support Sound Transit’s multi-generational capital plans. Today, the T Line has divergent equipment from the 1-Line due to a contracting snafu in the late 1990s, which forced Sound Transit to piggy-back on an existing order for another city’s trams. It has remained “only a streetcar” ever since, widely misunderstood to be distinct by design. This is not the case. As planning occurred during the early internet era, informative materials are often unavailable online, resulting in a loss of awareness about the project. Even Seattle Subway’s grand vision map, which shows light rail lines spanning the region, does not include Tacoma Link despite it being the first regional railway. That makes Tacoma the sole metropolitan city center to not be served in their vision. Pierce County will be the only subarea without regional light rail going to the core of its major city.

The integration effort was tabled in 2006 due to timing. Other regional projects were prioritized first. With the passage of ST3 and Tacoma Dome Link planning underway, the moment has come to restart plans for integration. The false choice between Downtown Tacoma or the Dome must end. This blog has already provided one integration scenario, again presented below, which proved the feasibility of 4-car regional trains serving Downtown Tacoma. That proposal introduced the concept of a Downtown Tacoma station located where the Park Plaza North parking garage now stands, representing an extraordinary investment in the heart of the South Sound’s biggest city. Three other scenarios are now available for review.

Tacoma Link and Central Link Integration Scenarios

Click on the hyperlink to review plans. On the first sheet of each plan, unique notes detail the assumptions that produced the conceptual plan.

With a Station Building in Downtown Tacoma:

With an In-Street Station in Downtown Tacoma:

Each scenario has advantages and disadvantages. Infrastructure for 4-car trains is more disruptive, but it would irreversibly connect Tacoma to the regional light rail system. As Tacoma Link stations are designed to expand for 2-car trains, the 2-car scenarios are the least disruptive and allow for a rapid integration. The 2-car scenarios require 4-car trains operating during peak-hours to reverse at Tacoma Dome, where a transfer to the T Line would be needed to access Tacoma City. At all other times, which is the vast majority of the day, 2-car regional trains would operate from Tacoma City to at Sea-Tac Airport. Link to Link transfers to Seattle occur there. This service would fulfill a 50-year Pierce County promise. The 2-car scenario offers additional benefits to Sound Transit: potentially fewer vehicles needed, better usage of track capacity, more targeted local services, and greater flexibility. Any of these options would allow for titanic improvements over the transit now envisioned for Tacoma and Pierce County after 2035.

An off-street station would constitute a striking commitment to Downtown Tacoma as a major urban center, but it would require action by the City of Tacoma, Pierce County, and Sound Transit that seems beyond their capability. An on-street station would avoid the pitfalls of a building and take advantage of existing transit rights-of-way, but there would be street disruptions during construction. Afterwards, bus-rail operations would need to be coordinated along the Commerce Street Transit Mall, just as they are in similar environments elsewhere.

For a visual example of what integration could look like, see the city of Milwaukee. Its Hop light rail system uses Central Link-compatible trams from the same manufacturer as the newest T Line trams. Station platforms are constructed to be level with the vehicle floor. Together, the trams and platforms serve as a preview of integrated Tacoma Link stations.

Additionally, the City of Sacramento is retooling its tram network in a similar manner and for similar reasons. Information about that effort can be found by clicking here. Sacramento’s project dwarfs Tacoma’s in scope, and yet it still costs little more than the most recent delay to the Tacoma Dome Link project. That is a testament to the relative affordability of light rail integration.

Upgrade the Track Capacity of the T Line

Note: These proposed changes can be reviewed in pages 9 -17 of the Tacoma Link integration plans.

To prepare for frequent local service and regional integration, the Tacoma Link railway from Union Station to Tacoma Dome Station should be double-tracked. This should occur along with a reconstruction of the T Line stop at Tacoma Dome. 25th Street would likely become a one-way facility, which is amenable to its low average daily trip volumes.

Today, the T Line cannot operate at the 10-minute frequencies promised by Sound Transit through its $300 million Hilltop T Line project. Much of the blame for this lies not with Sound Transit—although it deserves some, to be sure—but with City of Tacoma. Due to scope reductions sought by the City in the late 1990s to preserve traffic flow, parking, some trees and decorative lighting, Tacoma Link is single-tracked south of Union Station. This was not the original Sound Transit proposal. The agency had long presumed a double-track railway on Pacific and Puyallup Avenues. Puyallup is a wide arterial that once hosted a double-track railway, and it offers direct bus-rail connections at Tacoma Dome. It also secures a logical pathway toward Sea-Tac. This would have set the stage for a dual rail and road bridge over the Puyallup River to replace the failed Eels Street Bridge, a strategy promoted by the Federal Highway Administration in 2018.

Regrettably, Puyallup Avenue was twice rejected by the City as a railway alignment. The first rejection, in 1998, was for economic development reasons. The City sought to marry the line to the businesses of 25th Street—specifically Freighthouse Square—to revitalize the district though the new investment. Puyallup Avenue was declared as too far away for the purpose. The second rejection by the City, in 2019, sought to avoid a Link interference with the Puyallup Avenue Complete Streets project. This had the consequence of making 25th Street the preferred alignment for the Tacoma Dome Link Extension project. Perversely, one of the possible alignments of the DEIS review places that railway directly atop Freighthouse Square, destroying the structure that was the focus of earlier attention and resource allocation. At every instance, the City has intervened in the development of light rail transit to advance parochial development concerns, regardless of their impact on future extensions and operations. Sound Transit adopted the preferences of Tacoma leadership each time. Fortunately, the agency also designed Tacoma Link’s single-track section in a manner that allows for the installation of a parallel track.

The lack of a second track impairs the capacity and redundancy of Tacoma Link to the present day. This has not be an issue for the last twenty years given the semi-exclusive nature of its design, a necessity for future regional integration. It allowed for consistent scheduling and reliably timed passes along the single-track section. The new Hilltop extension, however, has changed the dynamic. The extension has no semi-exclusive transit guideway, hampering the extended line’s reliability as trams operate through mixed traffic in dense neighborhoods. The compounding effects of reduced reliability and single-tracking now result in a T Line peak frequency that is roughly the same as a Pierce Transit trunk busline. This is an unacceptable condition.

Under the representative TCC Extension project of ST3, Sound Transit proposes a new track to upgrade capacity. It would open after 2040, ensuring a diminished T Line until then. The track is not slated for 25th Street, where it logically would go given the existing railway. Instead, it would loop around it on Puyallup Avenue, a fascinating concept given the City’s past prohibition on rails there. The single track would turn out from the existing line on 25th Street, crossover that line to go north on G Street, then west on Puyallup Avenue, then north on Pacific Avenue parallel to the existing track, before joining with the existing northbound track of Union Station.

Tacoma Link, shown in faded orange, has a single track section that is insufficient for future service. The railway should be double-tracked, as seen in blue. Instead, Sound Transit wants to add a one-way loop track around it, seen in bright orange.

This proposal should never be anymore than a suggestion. The couplet strategy needlessly impacts additional rights-of-way and harms ongoing planning for the Puyallup Avenue Complete Streets project. Worse, as the couplet is a one-directional loop track, if (or when) it is blocked the entire railway’s operations would be impaired. Contingency operations around the blockage would not be possible. There is no redundancy without an actual second track.

The existing railway should simply be double-tracked as originally conceived and designed. For robust light rail systems that have bi-directional vehicles, lengthy single-track looping sections are a 19th Century planning relic that have no modern purpose. They should have no purpose or future in Tacoma either.

As part of this project, a redesigned Tacoma Dome stop would feature an island platform and two station tracks, reflecting best practices for modern tramlines. This arrangement preserves track capacity and adds redundancy at a critical stop. These changes, to include a minor reconfiguration of 25th Street, require careful coordination with an aerial Tacoma Dome Link Extension that may soar directly above it.

As seen in the Tacoma Link integration scenario plans, the T Line station at Tacoma Dome is relocated and reconfigured for greater capacity and more flexible operations. Also seen is the proposed second track.

Use 6th Avenue for the T Line Extension to TCC

As part of the T Line extension to TCC, the railway should expand along the latitudinal spine of urban Tacoma: 6th Avenue. This momentous investment is detailed in four separate pieces. Those articles can be found by clicking here (overview), here (population), here (employment), and here (outreach update).

A representative 6th Avenue alignment showing three distinct T Line services.

Should Tacoma seek a robust transit system, then buses are the answer. It will not happen by rail. The small transit ridership found in Pierce County also does not compel huge rail investments, either now or in the future. However, whether logical or not, more rail is coming. These giant projects must be responsibly planned and their value maximized. This blog consequently aims to bridge two conflicting views: it opposes the expansion of the railways in Pierce County, but for those lines that exist or are voter approved, the County should do everything it can to ensure that they improve the transportation system. The support for a 6th Avenue T Line extension to TCC is a key example of this strategy. The extension is voter approved and ostensibly funded by the Sound Transit 3 measure. For this project, only the 6th Avenue corridor delivers subarea value that would make it commensurate with its high capital cost.

Cancel East Tacoma Station; Extend the T Line to Puyallup Tribe District

In the preceding decade when Pierce County lost its most important regional light rail stations—all of which are along Tacoma Link in Downtown Tacoma—it gained one of the worst in compensation: East Tacoma. This is a proposed railway station that never existed in original plans, has zero compelling rationale to be in current plans, and should not be part of the future regional light railway. Instead, the station should be cancelled and its funds redirected to a T Line extension to the Puyallup Tribe’s growing entertainment district. This would be yet another restoration of original transit planning concepts for the area.

East Tacoma Station of the regional light railway, shown in purple, should be canceled in favor of a Tacoma Link extension to the Puyallup Tribe’s commercial district near the Puyallup River, shown in bright orange. This proposal builds better East Side connections, makes a stronger T Line, and overcomes the I-5 barrier.

East Tacoma Station does very little for very few people. Its miniscule benefit is achieved at enormous costs that rise into the hundreds of millions—first to create the station in the first place, second to site the station around Portland Avenue, and third to reconfigure that road to support it. The illusory benefit of the station is that of newly created “connections”, a paper tiger benefit championed by pretenders with connections to the project. These connections are claimed to benefit Tacoma’s East Side, the Puyallup Tribe, and Pierce Transit’s Route 41. However, all of these future connections would be either miserable or completely unnecessary.

For the East Side and the Puyallup Tribe, the station is horrendously located. It is sandwiched between busy highways and railways and encumbered by polluted industrial landscapes. There will never be transit oriented development here to a degree that justifies its existence. Access to East Side destinations will be permanently characterized by danger, noise, traffic congestion, pollution, speeding vehicles and distracted drivers. For Route 41, the new station would save about 120 seconds of travel time for a fraction of its (pre-Covid) 1,100 daily riders. These riders would otherwise travel directly to Tacoma Dome Station up the road, just as they do now using a transit bypass that avoids a busy intersection and its traffic signals (for northbound trips). Unless the 41 is truncated at the new station—which would be a grave error—the 41 would still continue to serve Tacoma Dome on its way to Downtown. It is yet another reason why the station is preposterous: it serves no community well, it barely helps a few bus transfers, it slows all regional trains and their thousands of passengers, it has few boardings, and it would cost a huge amount of money while inflicting a perpetual maintenance obligation.

East Tacoma Station should go away. Genuine connections should be secured through more effective means. The rail-based option is a T Line expansion to the area, and there is precedent for cancelling regional Link stations for street railway extensions (see the First Hill Station and Streetcar). This would be largely financed by the cancellation of the station, although a contribution from the Puyallup Tribe could guarantee it. Only a single track is needed in the constrained zone along Portland Avenue, greatly minimizing disruption and property takings. Tram passes can take place elsewhere on the peripheral line, just as they do on Tacoma Link today or throughout the Amsterdam street railway system. The expansion would give the T Line an eastern terminus that is a popular all-day destination, unlike Tacoma Dome Station and its namesake venue. It would tie the East Side into the system as well, bringing smart right-of-way improvements to Portland Avenue and overcoming the divisive I-5 barrier.

Plan for a T Line Extension to the Mall via Lincoln District

Even as the Pierce County subarea continues to reject rail expansions, rail expansions nonetheless continue to occur here. Local voters are overridden by the great quantity of approval votes found largely in King County. Another major expansion is programmed within the 2014 Sound Transit Long Range Plan to the Tacoma Mall. It is therefore imperative to either delete this proposed expansion in favor of BRT improvements, or right-size the rail project as a T Line extension.

An extension of the T Line should be planned to serve the heart of the Lincoln District. It could also be designed to host 2-car trains, eventually permitting direct service from points as far south as Lakewood Transit Center to the airport, in addition to Lakewood to St. Joseph Hospital via Tacoma Link. The impressive array of service options made available is yet another reason why rail systems integration is critical for Pierce County. Along with 6th Avenue, a T Line extension to South Tacoma would see the restoration of some of the busiest sections of Tacoma’s historic street railway system.

This giant investment is detailed in a previous piece. The article can be found by clicking here and by reviewing the Table of Contents for those sections that discuss Tacoma Mall Link.

Integrating the railways and expanding the T Line south toward Lakewood allows for a diversity of Pierce County light railway services.

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 buslines: 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.

A large volume of transit riders, particularly those originating from points south of 24th Street and to the east, as well as along SR-7 and from within broader Pierce County, travel here to make their regional connection—not the Dome. In fact, very little of the County’s transit actually goes to Tacoma Dome Station. Just 5 of Pierce Transit’s 31 buslines serve the stop or its general area, and zero of those are the trunk routes that form the backbone of the County transit system. About 8 in 10 people who use the station drive alone to it, fulfilling its mandate as a vast, free park-and-ride. It is not, as is now so freely asserted, some great urban transit center. While Sounder commuter trains and Amtrak do serve the Dome, they do so only because the City enthusiastically okayed the destruction of Union Station’s platforms for I-705, not for any other compelling purpose (read more about the Tacoma Dome Park and Ride by clicking here). Additionally, Sounder trains operate only during peak-hours and do not constitute anywhere near the majority of transit trips out of Tacoma Dome. Amtrak has a far smaller ridership presence than even that.

Most regional buses travel along Puyallup Avenue and then turn north on Pacific Avenue to go into the city center, including the 59X-series ST Expresses and Pierce Transit buses from Puyallup and Federal Way. At 24th Street, regional transit has its first interconnection with the dominant local transit axis that is Pacific Avenue, just as it has for much of Tacoma’s history. Tacoma Dome Station is completely irrelevant to this larger dynamic.

For many, Pacific/24th is the essential regional transfer stop, imparting onto it a role in the transit system that is shared by Union Station and Commerce Street. You would not know this if you visited the area, which suffers from a lack of investment in the right-of-way. Meaningful capital improvements should be made to the area: new and expanded shelters, massively improved lighting, repaired and widened sidewalks, higher curbs for near-level boarding, real-time arrival signage, and other quality features that reflect its importance. Along with the Puyallup Avenue Complete Streets project, this should become a beautiful area that emphasizes and prioritizes alternative modes of transportation. An example of a quality transfer station can be found by clicking here, which shows the Monroe & Louis stop of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

A partial view of the Pacific Avenue/24th Street connection area showing very poor transit facilities.
Stops like this generate uncertainty and resentment and do little to promote transit use.

It is important to note that transit riders do use Sounder and Amtrak. They deserve quality transit to Tacoma Dome Station to access those services. However, they have access in the form of the T Line and several buslines. Many could walk or bike. This is a reasonable trade-off given the geography of the city, the layout of transit system, and the nature of the connecting services. Ultimately, choices have to be made related to the design of our transit system. We should emphasize the transit nexus of Downtown Tacoma where possible and when appropriate, and impose transfers on those who choose to leave by way of heavy rail. Buslines should not be deviated or truncated to serve the Dome at the expense of Downtown. This should be City policy. Instead, upgrade and prioritize the connection at 24th/Pacific.

Send Regional Buses to Pacific Avenue and/or Downtown Tacoma

Along with physical improvements to Pacific/24th, regional transit should be required to serve it. Preferably, buses would then continue to Downtown Tacoma and Commerce Street, but service to Pacific/24th is the minimum expectation. This provides for easy local connections on Pacific Avenue, which is the dominant north-south transit axis of Pierce County. Transit route deviations to Tacoma Dome Station are unnecessary and inappropriate as an alternative, as are bus truncations there. Should transit that is claimed to serve Tacoma not even reach Pacific Avenue, then it is not properly serving the city.

For transit riders, Pacific Ave / 24th is either the first or last available connection point to regional services—not Tacoma Dome. All transit that serves Tacoma should reach Pacific Avenue, shown in blue, as it is the north-south transit axis of the city and Pierce County. Ideally, regional transit would then go on to serve Tacoma’s city center and the many connections found there, as seen in red.

Today, many ST Express services serve Pacific/24th and continue to Downtown Tacoma. The same is true for all Pierce Transit buslines from the east (Puyallup, Federal Way, etc.). This should remain the case until that time when Tacoma Link is integrated with Central Link, at which point the bus network would be substantially reconfigured. The Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan previews one such possible network reorganization. For those buslines that do not serve Downtown, however, their service and schedule should be revised to pick-up the Pacific/24th connection, at least.

For Sound Transit’s 586 line, from Tacoma to the University of Washington, its service should begin at Commerce Street as it did years prior. In light of recent service reductions to the 590, however, this run should simply be cancelled outright. Its precious service hours should be reallocated to the 590.

For Sound Transit’s 574 line, from Lakewood Transit Center to Sea-Tac Airport, a small and meaningful route change is sought. Using northbound trips (toward the airport) as the example, after exiting the freeway in Tacoma the buses should turn left on 26th Street, then right on Pacific Avenue, then right again on 24th Street toward Tacoma Dome Station. This would add a negligible amount of daily service hours while picking up the connection at Pacific/24th. It would eliminate the railroad grade crossing of the current alignment at 25th Street, and maintain a limited footprint in Tacoma. It would decisively integrate the 574 into the local transit system and allow many riders to avoid yet another transfer—this time to Tacoma Dome—to access the popular service.

The 574 ST Express to Sea-Tac Airport should be rerouted, as seen in blue, to pick up the major transfer point at Pacific Avenue / 24th Street. This better ties the busline into Tacoma’s transit network, reducing transfers.

Replace the MCI Vehicles of the ST Express

Good transit makes riding and transferring easy. This quality—ease—is essential, particularly if we are to serve riders who have children, mobility impairments, are carrying groceries or luggage, or are experiencing any variety of conditions or situations that call for extra care. Transit can be good and convenient. Where this is the case we find cities and societies that are better places for everyone.

Sound Transit’s MCI buses are an enemy of this vision. These buses are not good transit. They are poor transit personified by a single vehicle, which is somehow used extensively on Pierce County routes. Not only should their use here end, but the vehicles should be sold and replaced at once.

Sound Transit’s MCI buses are unacceptable for transit purposes and must be replaced.

While the seats of the bus are comfortable, getting to that seat is frequently a nightmare. Even able-bodied individuals have to fight to ride it, given its multiple steps, sharp turns, and distressing narrow aisles. Once in the seat, the sense of a Pyrrhic victory washes over you. Unlike buses that are actually suited for the purpose of mass transit, there is only one means of egress, forcing many to struggle along its full length to reach an open seat. As the floor is perched well above sidewalk level, ADA access is disturbingly convoluted. Should an individual need mechanical assistance to get inside, interior seats need to have their occupants relocated before being shuffled about, and then a power lift deployed. This totally avoidable procession delays the trip by several minutes. Worse, it creates a potentially embarrassing situation for the passenger at no fault of their own, but who must still bear the burden of a failed transit operation. If more than one person needs a lift, riders will sit idle for an unknowable and untenable duration.

Confoundingly, the MCI coaches are often used on the 574 ST Express run to Sea-Tac Airport. As poor souls heave their suitcases upstairs and bang them on the vehicle’s protruding edges, a shockingly poor rider experience is had on what should be a marquee busline. About $5 billion is being spent to extend light rail from Federal Way to Tacoma Dome, ostensibly to connect “Tacoma” to the airport by frequent transit. This has long been a defining subarea transportation dream. For such an important trip pair—as is so often claimed—you would think a fraction of that money could be put toward proper transit vehicles on the 574. Yet, the MCI buses have persisted over the decades like an incurable infection.

Sound Transit has equipment that works. On merciful occasions, it will even use them in Pierce County. More of that, please, and no more of the MCI!

Secure a Sales Tax Increase for Pierce Transit

For significantly improved local transit service, Pierce Transit should seek a modest sales tax increase. This would secure several million dollars of additional annual revenue for transit operations, facility improvements and maintenance. A plan for how the money would be collected and spent should be given to voters sooner rather than later. Those plans should prioritize better frequency of the most productive buslines, superior connections on the service grid, and incremental reliability improvements over so-called BRT upgrades and expansions of coverage.

Today, Pierce Transit is supported by a 0.6 percent sales tax. Its voter-approved limit is 0.9 percent, which allows the agency to seek a sales tax increase of 0.3 percent, or an additional $0.03 per $10 purchase. For a large urban area with a dominant city of metropolitan importance, the current rate of support is low compared to our peers. As subarea transit expert Chris Karnes notes, Pierce Transit “is funded at half the rate [of King County Metro] in a county with a smaller tax base, with no supplemental funding from the City of Tacoma”. Community Transit, an agency serving a distributed suburban population like that found in Pierce County, also benefits from a 1.2 percent sales tax rate. This discrepancy should be reduced or eliminated. Pierce Transit needs to grow and there is excess financial capacity to do so.

While Sound Transit gets all the attention and big dollars, local transit providers like Pierce and Metro Transit are the actual backbone of our system. They should be recognized and supported as such. With more funding, Pierce Transit should be held accountable for the responsible delivery of upgraded transit service that reflects a careful investment of taxpayer monies.

Pierce Transit’s previous attempt to increase its sales tax rate, in November 2012, failed by 915 votes. At the time, the agency’s transit benefit district had a population greater than 550,000 people.

Increase More Busline Frequencies to 15 minutes or Better

For Pierce Transit, an increase in the sales tax must result in a system that offers all day 15-minute headways for as many riders as possible. Core transit services like Route 1–6th Ave, Route 2, and Route 3 should be considered for peak hour services that see better than 15 minute frequencies. This would bring those lines into operational conformance with the T Line or Route 1-Pacific Ave, the latter of which will be supplemented by the Enhanced Bus overlay to Tacoma Dome Station (but not Downtown Tacoma).

Frequency increases should be prioritized for buslines that have the greatest ridership and highest productivity. Careful attention should be given to routes that are substantially interlined or are closely paralleled by other services. This would ensure that their performance is not undervalued and overlooked as a consequence of their duplication. This should, for example, result in at least one 15-minute service though the North End of Tacoma as Routes 11, 13, and 16—when considered altogether—constitute one of Pierce Transit’s top 10 busiest transit corridors.

Ridership and productivity data is readily available for review and decision making. Below are recent performance datasheets made available by Pierce Transit. Even a cursory review will uncover dominant transit services and corridors. Invest in those first.

Invest in a Pierce County Bus Transit Grid

Transit in Pierce County calls out for a grid network that takes advantage of the existing arterial road grid.

The grid is both logical and scalable. It can be expanded in a sequential manner that improves upon the strengths of the system. The grid excels as a transit layout by greatly improving frequencies and reliability through simplified (linear) routes and leveraging connections between them. It also maximizes the coverage area by avoiding route duplication wherever feasible. While the use of connections does result in the loss of some one-seat trips, in its place arises countywide transit mobility that is very achievable, fiscally responsible, and intuitive for users. Pierce Transit, with the support of Pierce County and its incorporated cities, should work toward a system that strictly adheres to the grid.

The Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan is one such system. This would require major route changes and corresponding Title VI equity analyses. Existing routes would be either extended, truncated, straightened, lengthened, shortened, or have some unique combination of changes. That is if they are not cancelled entirely for new lines that honor the grid planning framework. While street railways are not held to the grid, they are heavily influenced by it. Rail extensions should avoid harming grid buslines by taking over entire corridors where appropriate, and be extended as needed to close a gap in the grid. Examples of both can be found in the Integrated Transit Plan: a railway on 6th Avenue that preserves the 19th Street busline over the hillside, the extension of the Mildred Street tracks to Regent’s Boulevard, and the majority-rail takeover of South Tacoma Way.

The transit grid does not need to be built all-at-once. However, the countywide system does need to be planned all-at-once so that new funding can be invested into it quickly. Having a well developed comprehensive transit plan would also prevent new development that hinders its realization. Numerous road (re)constructions throughout Pierce County have failed to properly account for transit—if they do so at all. This is the condition of an area that does not take transit seriously. This persists even as jurisdictions craft comprehensive plan updates that rely on transit to achieve aggressive climate, mobility, and equity objectives. For transit, there is a serious misalignment of local public values and action.

Tacoma-Pierce County is arranged on a grid of streets and roads. Transit must take advantage of it and leverage the inherent strengths.

When Pierce Transit restructured its system in 2017 and leaned into the grid, it paved the way for similar improvements in the future. It was an intelligent reform by an agency whose roots are a street railway of hub-and-spoke design. Given the County’s dispersed populations and destinations, Pierce Transit’s fiscal limitations, and the increasing need for convenient transit here, the establishment of a robust County transit grid is a necessity. Executing the grid of the Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan will require a significant public investment that will likely exceed present limits of taxation for transit. This represents a major hurdle given the public’s lack of approval of major Sound Transit projects and their long-term financing instruments.

Overall, the use of connections can reduce transit trip times over one seat rides through big increases in frequency, speed, and reliability. However, there must be institutional and interlocal commitment to the reformed system for it to be successful. Without it, inconsistent road designs and development practices may not allow for the reliable operation of buses. Lacking reliability, the regularity of connections that are the lifeblood of the grid will fail to materialize.

Route truncations will be needed that maximize the grid and guarantee reliability. One example—which presumes that 6th Avenue becomes a street railway—is a truncation of Route 1 at Parkland Transit Center. This allows buses to reverse at a deeply logical terminus and head right back to Tacoma’s city center. This would create a nearly 8-mile one-way trip ending at Pacific Avenue / 9th Street. The new line would serve about half of the total Route 1’s existing ridership. During peak hours, the Enhanced Bus service would continue to run the entire length of Tacoma Dome to Spanaway Transit Center. Off peak, a separate service of unknown origin and destination would funnel riders between Spanaway and Parkland.

Strategies that ensure reliability should be considered, like a Route 1 truncation at Parkland Transit Center, shown in blue. The Enhanced Bus service, in green, would still operate between Tacoma Dome and Spanaway. A new and undefined service, in red, would replace the Route 1 between Parkland and Spanaway.

For more information on the transit grid and quality transit planning principles in general, please visit the blog of public transit consultant Jarrett Walker, Human Transit, by clicking here.

Expand the Pierce Transit Service Area into Greater Pierce County

Undoing a past error, the Pierce Transit benefit district should be expanded to recover lost portions of service area in urbanized Pierce County. No longer can the county afford to have a large portion of its urban population be either un-served or under served by mass transportation.

Even WSDOT recommends such an expansion in its South Pierce Multimodal Connectivity Study of 2023 (read the report by clicking here). The department confirmed that the County cannot expect to build its way out of congestion through roads alone, stating, “future transportation operations will be poor without additional infrastructure investments beyond the baseline improvements, which include only those transportation improvements already funded or very likely to be implemented by 2050”. Those baseline projects alone constitute a giant investment in infrastructure and stress the financial capacity of the County. The department further noted that “very few transit service, active transportation infrastructure, and safety improvements are funded or likely to be in place by 2050”.

Current versus Pre-2012 Pierce Transit Service Area

The central and southern areas of urbanized Pierce County are densifying, sprawling, and becoming increasingly congested. Existing and new residents are effectively trapped in a cycle of auto dependency and housing affordability, although this toxic relationship is being tested by the rising cost of housing. At least for now, Pierce County has more affordable housing than either King or Snohomish counties. This cost-of-living discrepancy will be reduced (or neutralized) in the future, and the dual housing and transportation crises are a fact that has County planners and political leadership looking for new ways to “bend or end the trend“. The County’s draft comprehensive plan update includes as one of three options for growth a High-Capacity Transit alternative, which “would create dense neighborhoods within a half mile of bus rapid transit lines. It would make bigger investments in different types of transportation” and further preserve “rural areas and forest lands to help the county prepare for climate change”. How the County would accomplish such growth without equally robust transit and supportive infrastructure is unclear. Not limited to Pierce County but all over the United States, the balkanization of our land-use and transit planning bodies will continue to result in unrealizable promises that deliver inferior outcomes.

As noted by WSDOT, the expansion of the transit benefit district “is a policy decision that will require further study and either a popular or elected official vote [for these areas] to rejoin”. If or when that is accomplished, new frequent buslines should be run along core arterials, allowing riders to easily cross the central portions of the county. Those buslines should be supplemented by feeder routes where practical. These new routes are envisioned in the Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan, particularly along 176th Street and Canyon Road.

Even in the absence of such transit lines, Pierce County should be developing infrastructure projects and land-use policies that presume their operation in the future. Continuing to discount transit as a realistic alternative transportation will commit the county to perpetual, worsening auto-dependency. As historian and sociologist Lewis Mumford famously stated, “Adding highway lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity”.

Make Targeted Bus Corridor Improvements

Pierce Transit should exclusively seek corridor infrastructure improvements that are relatively straightforward, standardized, and affordable. Basic improvements—from queue jumps and bus shelters to bus bulbs and (near) level boarding—would do much to enhance existing buslines. These incremental upgrades may be able to leverage funds obtained from an increase in the sales tax, via the issuance of long-term bonds, with their expense amortized over a several year period. Transportation benefit districts like those available in Tacoma could also support some improvements.

For transit, what Tacoma and Pierce County need more than anything else is rubber on the road: more service, more frequency, more options for getting around. Discussing major infrastructure improvements is pointless if there is no intention to run a frequent service. Even Pierce Transit’s $325-million (or more) Pacific Avenue project, featuring major rapid transit elements like median lanes and stations, would have seen peak frequencies of only 10 minutes. While that is a huge improvement over recent 30-minute headways for the Route 1—which was frankly unacceptable given the line’s importance and the claimed necessity of its conversion to BRT—it pales in comparison to BRT facilities like Van Ness in San Francisco. There, buses arrive every several seconds throughout the day. In Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., indeed in cities around the world, 10-minute frequencies are commonplace without extensive infrastructure upgrades. Just run more buses.

Where the task of running more buses is impaired by reliability issues, directly target those issues for fixes. In Pierce County, severe congestion is commonly associated with the regional system, whereas local arterials experience delays caused by the stop-and-go nature of the street grid. These problems require different solutions. On Pacific Avenue at SR-512, Route 1 reliability is harmed by congestion related to the exiting and entering of the regional highway network. While long-term fixes should include a wider bridge replacement that includes two median transit lanes, interim fixes could be the bi-directional transit lane of the BRT project, the addition of transit signal priority, or a short deviation to Park Avenue that simply avoids the interchange. The latter solution would pair nicely with a truncation at Parkland.

Pierce Transit’s Stream System Expansion Study identifies small improvements that result in significant time savings and a better rider experience—without breaking the bank.

Pierce Transit recently published the final report of its Stream System Expansion Study. While the report details corridor improvements only for lines now slated for “BRT” upgrades in the agency’s long range plan, the scope of the improvements are nothing like those once proposed for Pacific Avenue. Instead, they are of an incremental approach that could be applied to any popular route or any congested corridor. For Pierce Transit, these salt-of-the-earth enhancements are what should be its focus. As they are often minor civil works projects, local jurisdictions should adopt a muscular approach to realize them. This should range from direct financial support to incorporating the elements into new street designs.

Infrastructure scope escalations should come only after these smaller improvements have been delivered and their benefit exhausted. This would result in upgrades of an intuitive order: organization before technology before concrete; transit signal priority before BAT lanes before median lanes and stations. It is appropriate to note here that after the suspension of the Pacific Avenue BRT project, Pierce Transit pivoted to far more modest corridor upgrades for its replacement Enhanced Bus service. The agency has determined that those changes will save “28 minutes of round-trip travel time between Spanaway and Tacoma Dome Station”. This work, which has a budget of roughly $48-million, would essentially capture the travel time benefit of the $325-million BRT project, even at the grand scope envisioned back in March 2020. There is a lesson here.

When transit is planned and delivered for explicitly transit purposes, it often becomes far cheaper. The inclusion of betterments that exacerbate costs and timelines need to be carefully weighed against the benefit of achieving mobility equity sooner and for more people. When transit costs less, there can be more of it. And we need more of it here in Pierce County, not less.

Implement New Buslines that Connect More Local Centers

The establishment of a transit grid will instigate a remarkable change in how Tacoma-Pierce County residents navigate throughout the county. It raises a gripping question: how do we want to be served? While many routes would continue to exist in some form, there is an exciting opportunity to plan for new routes that serve the public more effectively and which reflect present mobility needs.

This is particularly true for the city of Tacoma. There, transit advocates are leading a push for new services that connect more local centers and corridors. While many of these areas would be naturally served by the grid, challenging geography and other barriers present opportunities for lines that never existed in the past. Historic system underinvestment also leads to original routes that deliver novel trip pairs, helping to further equity and climate goals. Ultimately, every significant destination in urbanized Pierce County should be accessible by transit.

Many new routes are envisioned by the Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan. Six of those routes from the high-frequency network are highlighted in the gallery below. Some of the routes exist by grid necessity, including the F, G, and N Lines. Other routes form a cross-town necklace that tie the city together, like the E Line from Salishan to Pearl Street via Tacoma Avenue. This thrilling transit offering has never before existed. In Downtown Tacoma where numerous lines would otherwise converge—as they do today—the B Line serves to eliminate duplication by serving as a circulator through core neighborhoods. It also overcomes the imposing hillside, tying Downtown Tacoma directly to the Hilltop community and as far west as Sprague Avenue. In many ways it would be the modern reincarnation of the Cable Line, and Metro’s RapidRide G serves a similar function for Seattle. At Sprague Avenue, connections could be made to the D Line, a new service to Old Town that exemplifies the mission that all neighborhoods in Tacoma should be easily accessible by mass transit.

Please review the Integrated Transit Plan for additional routes. Layers can be toggled on-and-off for a better understanding of the transit system. The background basemap can also be changed to better suit any visual preference. Finally, the view can be rotated for a unique perspective.

Electrify the Core Local Buslines

For Tacoma, the great transit mistake of the past was not ripping out the street railway system in 1938. No, the great tragedy was the decision to also destroy its overhead power system. In a different and better world, Tacoma’s transit needs would be served using wildly efficient trolleybuses under overhead wire. They would be emitting zero exhaust emissions in our communities along clearly defined transit routes. It is a shame that this genuinely incredible asset was lost to ignorance and hubris. Other cities made different choices.

As a public agency charged with steering transit in a better direction, Pierce Transit should seek to re-electrify local transit. Bus electrification should not be prioritized over more critical improvements to frequency and reliability, and should instead be ancillary to that work. Fortunately, the agency is working toward an electrification goal that is outlined in its Battery Electric Bus Fleet Transition Plan. However, the plan (rationally) uses the existing network as the benchmark from which to evaluate investment needs. Considering that the Integrated Transit Plan anticipates a different network serving a much larger area with much more frequent headways, unforeseen complications are certain to arise.

A potential middle ground is two-fold. One, focus on electrifying arterials that have high demand and which eliminates emissions for greater numbers of people. Two, explore on-route charging that allows flexibility in operations, particularly as it concerns the re-establishment of origins and destinations for individual lines. With these policies as a guide, Pierce Transit can leverage federal monies for corridor improvements that result in their electrification, as modeled by Spokane Transit Authority and their impressive City Line project.

Spokane Transit Authority’s City Line project leveraged federal funds to electrify a core busline as part of a suite of corridor infrastructure improvements.

Whether by trolleybus, battery electric bus, battery-trolleybuses, or some new (albeit tested and trustworthy) technological variant, Pierce County should, once again, have electrified mass transit.

Conclusion

The Pierce County Integrated Transit Plan has many details and alignments that can be quibbled with. That is to be expected and it is welcomed. The value of the plan is not that it mandates any particular busline or railway. Instead, it helps pave the way for how we should be understanding transit planning and transit system development within Pierce County.

We must have an integrated, systematic approach. All of our individual investments should work toward the emergence of a cohesive whole that effectively serves the people—to include railways and buses—and at the local and regional scale. That whole should leverage the existing road grid system of the County, and be reinforced by supportive land use and development policies that ensure its success.

If we want a quality transit system that just works, we need to actually plan it. As we have seen here and continue to see, good transit will not happen by accident.

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