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Tacoma News Tribune: Pierce Transit Cuts Starting Now

Politics   March 29, 2011 at 1:30 pm Erica C. Barnett

The Tacoma News Tribune reports that Pierce Transit will make permanent the 20 percent reduction in service the agency instituted after an explosion that destroyed a refueling station in Lakewood last month. On top of that reduction, Pierce Transit will cut service another 15 percent in October. Last month, voters defeated a sales-tax measure that would have enabled Pierce Transit to keep transit service at existing levels, forcing the agency to make massive cuts to service and lay off one in five employees.

TNT reports:

The cuts will include:

• Permanent elimination of Route 207 to Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Route 60 to the Port of Tacoma. Neither is operating now.

• Less midday service, with many routes running hourly instead of more frequently.

• Major cuts in weekend and evening service.

There will be an emphasis on core service that gets people to work and school, CEO Lynne Griffith wrote in a memo to employees Monday.

The cuts are necessary because the agency’s recession-battered revenues can’t keep up with expenses, transit leaders say.

Pierce County will hold a series of meetings starting next month to determine how and where to make service cuts.


  • BlueCollarEnviro

    I realize that the ST routes in Pierce County are not affected by PT’s budget problems directly, but I’ve been puzzled why most of the ST routes that serve Tacoma stop at Tacoma Dome Station during hours when the Sounder isn’t in service. Every PT bus route that serves Tacoma Dome Station also serves Commerce St, so why not have the off-peak ST buses skip Tacoma Dome Station and head straight to Commerce Street?

    Any savings could be reallocated to have ST take over finanancing of one or more PT routes.

    Also, why isn’t the City of Tacoma considering a ballot measure to subsidize bus service in the city?

  • Grover

    There have been “massive cuts” in Pierce Transit service? I have not read about any dire consequences from those “massive cuts.” Seems to be working fine, so far.