If you think of a light rail expansion like baking a cake, we are late in the process of figuring out what recipe to use. The characteristics of what flavors and textures we’d like to see in the cake have already been determined and were prioritized by public processes over the last three years. In order of priority, Tacoma wants the cake (that is, the light rail expansion) to:
- Improve mobility and transportation access for Tacoma residents and visitors,
- Increase transit ridership,
- Serve underserved neighborhoods and communities,
- Spur economic development,
- Be environmentally sensitive and sustainable, and
- Be a project that’s competitive for federal funding.
Up until two weeks ago, Tacoma was getting ready to select one or two (of three) highly-refined and well-supported recipes to tell Sound Transit to start baking. Sound Transit staff had already narrowed a list of 24 alternative routes along nine different corridors to three options based on community input. The three remaining routes were: Hilltop and Sixth Avenue via Tacoma General Hospital and Salishan via the Emerald Queen Casino. The analysis had been completed, public comment gathered and the date to move forward was set for late this month. Then, as the decision approached, Tacoma City Councilmember David Boe and the Streetcar Stakeholders Group felt that we hadn’t exhausted all of the options since we started studying expansion of Tacoma Link (... more than six years ago). Both Boe and the Stakeholder group proposed "hybrids" of alternatives previously examined.
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