Sounder train options cause consternation in downtown

Sound Transit wants to connect Lakewood and Tacoma with its Sounder train service by 2010. Running the tracks up South Tacoma Way has been decided, but how they would make the final stretch into downtown is anything but settled.  Several options are on the table for how the tracks would be configured from the Tacoma Avenue overpass to Freighthouse Square, all of which pose engineering challenges and concerns for area businesses.

A train running south from Freighthouse Square would run under Interstate 705, which would require closing a section of ‘A’ Street. Another option would bury Pacific Avenue below the tracks and would narrow South Tacoma Way from four lanes to two and reroute it to hit Pacific at South 27th Street, rather than South 26th Street as it currently does.

Members of Tacoma Dome Business District met Aug. 10 to discuss the dilemma and possible solutions. In addition, members of the Southwest Washington chapter of American Institute of Architects (AIA) were on hand to offer their advice and expertise free of charge as a public service.

AIA member Gene Krulick discussed how the organization wants to be involved. “Through consensus we can find solutions to meet everyone’s needs,” he said.

Retired architect Jim Harris said AIA members were involved in design for the 705 spur, which connects Interstate 5 to downtown.

Architect Jim Merritt said transportation projects have a major impact in how a neighborhood develops. “We are all thrilled with how the Tacoma Dome area has become a hub for transportation,” he said. Tacoma Dome Station, a multi-modal transit hub, connects the neighborhood to industrial areas to the east and Thea Foss Waterway to the north.

Each person at the meeting has notions about how the Sounder project should proceed, he observed. “This has to be an open process,” he said.

Mark Johnson, an engineer with Sound Transit, said that having Sounder tracks cross Pacific Avenue at grade poses too many safety hazards.

Railroads that haul freight currently share tracks that go around Point Defiance with Amtrak. Johnson said the freight haulers want Amtrak to switch to using the same tracks as Sounder.

The city of Tacoma and Washington State Department of Transportation are examining several alternatives. One possibility is building a second track running parallel to Sounder.

Johnson said Sound Transit has no intention of having freight trains on these tracks. However, federal laws regulating interstate commerce would require Sound Transit to make the tracks available to a railroad that requested them for hauling freight.

One alternative being considered would result in NAPA Auto Parts, Star Ice and Fuel and Tacoma Rescue Mission’s New Life Square homeless shelter sitting on a dead end road.

Bob Killmer, facilities director at the mission, expressed concern about how emergency vehicles would reach the shelter.

He also suggested wide areas along the side of South Tacoma Way near the shelter be barricaded to thwart drug dealers who pull up in their cars.

“We want to be part of the solution,” he said, noting that the mission wants to be active in the Dome Business District.

Richard Reisinger, manager of Star Ice and Fuel, discussed issues associated with homeless camps around the business. “This proposal will seriously exacerbate this problem,” he said. The operator of NAPA has told him that the business will move if this proposal is chosen.

Reisinger said it will create “a two-block no man’s land” that would lose employees that currently keep an eye on street activity. “The riff-raff community will fill the vacuum left by the businesses moving out,” he remarked. He also objects to having the mission at the end of a dead-end street. “The mission should be integrated, not ghettoized.”

Lee Sommerstein, a Sound Transit spokesman, mentioned public outreach with business owners when the agency built its light rail project. “We had a great learning experience when we built Tacoma Link,” he said, noting Sound Transit would have a similar process for the Sounder project.

Dome District Director Lyn Thompson commended Sound Transit’s efforts. “You communicate well,” she told Sommerstein.

“We can not have freight run through our district,” declared District President Keith Stone. He mentioned recent efforts by Grace Pleasants of Heritage Properties, who was in attendance, to purchase parcels in the neighborhood for mixed-use projects. Freight trains would deter others from pursuing such ideas, according to Stone. “No investor in their right mind will invest in a corridor of freight trains,” he noted. “This is about freight, not about moving people.”

Stone also objects to separating the grade at Pacific. “Not at the cost of the businesses and all the things we are trying to do in Tacoma,” he remarked.

Robert Guerrero, who handles leasing at Freighthouse Square, said city government has an obligation to business owners in the neighborhood, some of whom have been in the area for 40 years. He pointed out that Tacoma residents didn’t vote for Sound Transit staff.

“We voted for that crew on Market Street,” he said. “Let’s go talk to them.”