Better Transit in Pierce County: The T Line

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.

Tacoma Link is the terminal end of the Central Link light railway of Sound Transit (see the article on Pierce County light rail history). 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

On the first sheet of each plan, unique notes detail the assumptions that produced the conceptual plan.

With a Station Building in Downtown Tacoma:

• 4-Car Trains with a Station Off-Street (Demolition of Park Plaza North Garage)
• 2-Car Trains with a Station Off-Street (Demolition of Park Plaza North Garage)

With an In-Street Station in Downtown Tacoma:

• 4-Car Trains with a Station On-Street (Pocket Track on Commerce Street)
• 2-Car Trains with a Station On-Street (Pocket Track on Commerce Street)

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. 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 any more 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 byclicking here(for an overview),clicking here(for population data),clicking here(for employment data), andclicking here(for an outreach update).

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

Should Tacoma seek a robust transit system, thenbuses 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 partially 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-not only in terms of increased local economic activity, but also for improved outcomes as they relate to racial equity, social equity, and our (urban) environment. To build on 19th Street is to squander a precious opportunity.

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 on Transportation Matters, in the 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.

Up next: Tacoma Buses.