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June 17, 2009 · Derek · archive: txp/article

Tacoma Light Rail/Streetcar Public Meeting

The City of Tacoma, in partnership with Sound Transit and Pierce Transit, is hosting a Light Rail / Streetcar public information meeting tomorrow evening. And, unlike so many public meetings you want to attend, this one is after the work day is done! Anyone interested in learning more about the history and planning for these modes of transportation is encouraged to attend.

The meeting will begin with a brief introduction and will be followed by an informal open house where participants can speak with agency staff about:

  • Development of light rail/streetcar concepts for Tacoma
  • Comparisons between light rail and streetcar modes
  • Funding
  • Potential benefits

I’m sure you’ll have questions …

Details
June 18, 2009 – 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Tacoma Municipal Building
747 Market Street, Room 708
Tacoma, WA

Filed under: Get-Involved, General

11 comments

  • NSHDscott June 17, 2009

    Oh yeah, and the voters passed $80 million for an expansion of Tacoma Link in the last Sound Transit package.

    Only catch is that the money must be matched. Sound Transit had to screw us for more money somehow, after all. So that’s the main thing I want to know: What efforts are being made to find those matching funds? Federal money? MultiCare and/or Puyallups to extend the north and/or south ends of the Link, respectively? City coffers?

  • sooperhooman June 17, 2009

    Thats a bunch of fluff! If they get lightrail down 6th Ave to TCC by 2040 I’ll chew my own face off. 80mil will merely extend the LINK another 3-5 blocks. They need to tax the heck outa anything that has to do with polluting personal transportation to pay for some light rail extension. Visions and promises never built nothing in Tacoma.

  • Jesse June 18, 2009

    Please oh please do your homework before attending this meeting. Know the difference in costs and attributes between light rail, streetcars, cable cars, and trollies. There is a difference!
    Tacoma Link should NOT be built as light rail in the future. It should be built as a streetcar system.
    Light rail = $35 million a mile.
    Streetcars = $15 million a mile
    Trolleys = ???
    Cable cars = ??? *** All prices relative to Portland. Prices WAY higher if Seattle Gov’t has anything to do with it. Light rail in Seattle = $179 million a mile.

  • Chris K. June 18, 2009

    @NSHDscott

    Actually, from what I hear from Julie Anderson, the money is a capital contribution. They think that extending Tacoma Link to Tacoma General is going to cost on the order of $160 million (HA!), and so they gave us half – most of it supposedly going to track and a little money to go a new streetcar. I know we can do an expansion for less money. We don’t have to buy any right of way or build any huge stations.

    One thing ST did do right is they front-loaded the ST2 measure with the Tacoma Link extension funds, rather than have us wait, meaning we could have access to the funds on short order.

  • Thorax O'Tool June 18, 2009

    Perhaps a Streetcar LID?

  • David Koch June 19, 2009

    Anyone able to fill us in on what went down at this meeting?

  • DavidS June 19, 2009

    Anyone able to fill us in on what went down at this meeting?

    The meeting was organized around seven different stations relating to Sound Transit, light rail vs. streetcar, bus rapid transit, land use, complete streets, next steps, and one other I’m forgetting. Each station was staffed by someone from an appropriate agency; Tacoma, Pierce Transit, ST. While the official stations helped explain how to get from past to future on each topic as well as planning efforts, there was little overarching vision of how all of these pieces fit together. I’m sure there is more interconnectedness & discussion between the topics & people in real life than there seemed when broken up into stations.

    More importantly, the meeting was a chance to talk with other interested people from the community as well as the appropriate staff from specific agencies/departments. Deputy Mayor Julie Anderson, Councilmember Jake Fey, and City Manager Eric Anderson were also there and readily available to discuss issues.

  • J. Cote June 22, 2009

    Can someone direct me to a source that can explain the “need” for this?
    I know there is a lot of desire but, as I tell my kids, “need” is a LOT different from “desire”.
    Why do we need streetcars? Are buses becoming obsolete? If so, why?
    I really want to understand this better. $900Million, $80Million, these are BIG, scary numbers that seem even more scary in a City that doesn’t even spend Gas Tax dollars to fix potholes.
    I’m serious. Can someone please give me the info on why we “need” this?

  • Jesse June 22, 2009

    J. Cote: I stole this from lightrailnow.org…

    “Streetcars’ advantages over buses

    LRT streetcars have been shown to provide advantages over bus services, even the so-called “Bus Rapid Transit” operations currently in vogue and aggressively promoted by the Federal Transit Administration. Full electric propulsion on properly maintained tracks tends to offer a faster, smoother ride, and streetcars generally attract and comfortably accommodate more passengers than buses.

    Furthermore, the well-defined fixed route is not only more understandable to passengers, but permanent enough to attract adjacent transit-oriented development (TOD). in addition, streetcars tend to produce a “traffic-calming” effect, making urban streets somewhat more “human-friendly” and livable.

    Modern streetcars, such as Tacoma’s, increase street capacity and have potential to operate more economically than buses.
    [Photo:

    There are potential economic advantages to streetcars. Depending on ridership, streetcars can tend to offer lower operating costs per passenger-mile compared with equivalent bus service – particularly if the maintenance cost for pavement wear-and-tear is figured in. And, as the commentary How Light Rail Streetcars increase Street Capacity by Edson L. Tennyson demonstrates, streetcar service has the potential to significantly increase the capacity of the public streets and roadways in which it operates – even more than bus service.”

    I say: Portland built it’s first streetcar line and the result was $6 Billion (with a “B”) and going in investment along it’s tracks. Since you really need to live and work along the tracks to make it an effective mode of transportation for the common Joe, Tacoma’s rail only goes from one part of a business zone to another thus limiting it’s impact. Once it goes up 6th ave, IMO, you’ll see a lot more investment along the tracks as you can go to work on it if you live along the line without owning a car or riding the bus at all… and most people could afford all those condos if they didn’t own a (way more expensive than you think) car.

  • Jesse June 22, 2009

    …and why can’t Tacoma Rail, as a municipality, be in charge of streetcar/cable-car? That’d cut out numerous agencies and get things going. I’m tired of hearing 2040-ish this and 2050-ish that. Didn’t our great grandparents build a giant system in a matter of 10 years? This is the investment of a lifetime for Tacoma and it just stays on a ho-hum pace.

  • Douglas Tooley June 30, 2009

    They ought to condemn ST Heavy Rail and give it to Tacoma Rail, remaking it into a Tacoma based regional agency serving Olympia to Bellingham….

    One thing we need to consider is the single track stubs at both ends of the existing line – redoing these could easily eat a big chunk of the 80 million.

    Personally I favor BRT integration as part of the I-5 HOV project and joint bus/rail operation along a signalized downtown corridor.

    As such, the first Streetcar line should be a one way circulator serving the Stadium District and MLK as it heads down to 25th or so.

    FWIW, at some point we really ought to get light rail completely off of Pacific – for one thing it would do wonders for Tollefson square.