ST Open House for the Sounder Rail Extension
Sound Transit is hosting an open house for the Tacoma to Lakewood Sounder Rail Connection project. The community is encouraged to drop in anytime during the open house to learn about the latest designs and talk to the project team. Staff will be available to discuss:
- D-to-M Streets overpass and track and signal designs
- M Street to Lakewood track and signal improvements
- South Tacoma and Lakewood Stations bus and park and ride services
In addition, Sound Transit partners City of Tacoma and WSDOT Rail will be on hand to answer questions.
Details
Monday, June 8, 4 – 7 p.m.
Freighthouse Square, Phoenix Room
440 East 26th Street
Filed under: General
6 comments
U uppeopleforobama June 2, 2009
Thank you Exit133 for putting this up. I just want to comment that the more extensive and expansive the rail, transit and bike systems are the better. This past campaign season myself and student volunteers cruised all over Tacoma and South Sound to register voters. We talked to many people who commute to Seattle for work—-these were service job workers, blue collar workers and many workers who had shifts that were not currently accomodated by the current transit and rail system schedule. Please advocate for expanding options. The gas prices were absolutely devastating these people. Single moms and dads, or where both parents worked and had to take two cars because of differing schedules. These voters WANTED to use the rail and metro system but felt they were too restricted to high wage, employees who had more options. All areas of Pierce County should be linked, with rail, transit and bike routes. The more we are able to move people from place to place the more attractive this region becomes AND of course we help the environment. This is an extremely important issue for the health and economy of the South Sound.
J Jesse June 3, 2009
I’m curious why there aren’t any cities (well, to my knowledge) farming out streetcar service to the private sector. I mean, if you allowed a company to come in and build streetcar lines and operate it as a business, would that be bad? If streetcar is really a great option, wouldn’t you have many interested parties interested even if there were predetermined routes, regulations on how things should look when completed, track width, and operating protocol by the city? It was done here before in Tacoma. Why not again?
J Jesse June 3, 2009
Oh, and, our current light rail costs, on average, $35 million a mile ($179m if you’re Seattle) and modern (lighter and shorter) streetcars average $13 million a mile do to way decreased construction costs compared to light rail. Why are they building light rail in Tacoma when streetcars would do? Doesn’t light rail go from city to city and streetcars go from neighborhood to neighborhood?
W Whitney staff June 3, 2009
@2 Jesse
No private company wants to build mass transit because it does not make money. No public transit system in the US is profitable. (At least in the subway, light rail arena, not too sure about buses but wouldn’t count on that either.)
The reason private companies used to build streetcars was to get people to their neighborhood. Developer buys land builds houses, and prior to the car, needed a cheap efficient way to get people to and from the city, thus streetcars. Now public transit is no match for the car, even with $5 per gallon gas.
Also, this meeting is about extending Sounder rail (heavy rail) to Lakewood. Not light rail. Very different system. At this point there is no actual viable plan to put streetcars or more light rail in to Tacoma.
N Nick June 3, 2009
So would this be the proper venue to come and complain about ST’s complete disregard for how the current design for the Pacific Ave. crossing will negatively affect the dome district? If so I’d love to come and whine about it ;-)
H Highwater June 4, 2009
This would be a great forum to advocate for better mitigation of the plan they have in place. They did one of these show-and-tell meetings about two years ago when the Pacific Ave. crossing was still uncertain. I asked the question, what about pedestrians and this mess you are creating? The answer was something to the effect, I kid you not… oh, well, it’s going to be hard on pedestrians. That to me seems at perfect cross-purposes to the entire goal of mass transit, which is to improve opportunities for folks to walk, bike and ride transit as part of commuting. So, now they’ve had two years to go back and think more about the impact this project will have on the Pacific / 26th corridor, so please come and ask the presenters how they are mitigating the impact to the community. Also might be interesting to ask what kind of landscaping they plan for the new right of way. Will they adopt Tacoma-style blackberry — ivy — weeds or might we expect something actually attractive? Perhaps even a native plant or two?