Better Transit in Pierce County: Introduction

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.

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 15-minute or better headways 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 bus line'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 Online, 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 series 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.

In this series, we will review the following Wish List" of 15 investments that would vastly improve public transportation in Tacoma and across Pierce County.The next four posts will review the proposed investments as follows:

• The 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
• Tacoma Transit
  • Dramatically Improve the Transfer at Pacific/24th
  • Send Regional Buses to Pacific Avenue and/or Downtown Tacoma
  • Replace the MCI Vehicles of the ST Express
• Pierce Transit
  • Secure a Sales Tax Increase for Pierce Transit
  • Increase More Busline Frequencies to 15 minutes or Better
  • Invest in a Pierce County Bus Transit Grid
  • Expand the Pierce Transit Service Area into Greater Pierce County
• Targeted Investments
  • Make Targeted Bus Corridor Improvements
  • Implement New Buslines that Connect More Local Centers
  • Electrify the Core Local Buslines

Up next: The T Line.