Choked by congestion, the Tillicum neighborhood in Lakewood becomes a stalled parade of cars every rush hour.
The cars come from different sources – Interstate 5, Fort Lewis, Camp Murray. Traffic sometimes backs up over a set of train tracks west of the highway.
Lakewood city leaders say Tillicum’s street system around I-5 is already failing. It can’t handle the backups there today.
Now they’re trying again to sound the alarm about a flashpoint for further traffic woes: the state’s plan to build the Point Defiance Bypass, which would introduce high-speed Amtrak runs through Lakewood, possibly as soon as 2012.
“We do not know how they are going to be able to keep vehicles off those train tracks,” said David Bugher, the assistant city manager and community development director.
Although the bypass would shave six minutes off Amtrak’s Seattle-Portland run and free up space for freight trains to operate in the Port of Tacoma area, it also would introduce 79-mph passenger trains through urban Lakewood neighborhoods.
A year after the state concluded the project would have no major impact on Lakewood’s roads – a decision that has some locals still scratching their heads — the city is again trying to voice its concerns.
Early next month, the City Council will discuss the bypass and what, if anything, it can do to persuade the state to take a closer look.
The state Department of Transportation last month completed an environmental assessment of the whole rail corridor from Vancouver, Wash., all the way north to the Canadian border at Blaine, Wash., including the section through Pierce County.
Currently Amtrak runs five round-trip trains a day on the route. The state is vying for $1.4 billion in federal stimulus money that could help add up to four round-trip trains daily between Portland and Vancouver B.C., by 2012. In the South Sound, millions of dollars would be spent laying track and other infrastructure needed for high-speed passenger trains.
Without stimulus funds, the project would need another $90 million, which pushes back the projected opening to about 2019.
WSDOT is asking for feedback from local governments. Lakewood will use the opportunity to highlight local problems the trains will generate.
Whether the state is willing to change its plans is unclear.
“We’ve heard their concerns,” said Kevin Jeffers, rail engineer for the state. “We felt we have addressed those concerns as best we can.”
MONUMENTAL CHANGE
The state’s determination a year ago that the bypass would have little impact on Lakewood’s roads still irks City Councilman Don Anderson.
Currently, southbound Amtrak trains coming from Seattle travel around Tacoma, through Ruston, University Place and Steilacoom, offering one of the best views of the Puget Sound.
The bypass would redirect southbound trains through South Tacoma, Lakewood, Fort Lewis and DuPont before reconnecting with the original route in the Nisqually area. Northbound trains would follow the same route.
In Lakewood, the trains would run through seven street-level crossings in the city with no stops to pick up passengers. The route also travels near apartment complexes, schools and businesses.
“It’s a proposal to monumentally change the city,” Anderson said.
That’s not the way the state sees it. Its planners determined in 2008 that there was no need to do a detailed traffic-related environmental assessment on the Point Defiance Bypass.
That meant the state could skip an in-depth examination, including a full slate of public hearings.
According to Jeffers, the state found it could improve roads enough to minimize backups and potential collisions between trains and cars.
In addition to adding flashing lights, gates and horns at crossings, the state plans to widen turn lanes and install medians that would prevent drivers from trying to swerve around a gate.
“From a traffic standpoint, the design is as such that we’re not going to make traffic any worse,” Jeffers said.
Lakewood officials disagreed and continued to push WSDOT to take a closer look and acknowledge there will be challenges for the city, according to documents obtained by The News Tribune.
State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond wrote a Dec. 31, 2007 response to Lakewood City Manager Andrew Neiditz, who had pleaded for WSDOT to reconsider.
“As we discussed with city staff,” Hammond wrote, “these potential impacts were not found to be significant, thus making an EA (Environmental Assessment) unnecessary.”
‘DO IT RIGHT’
Alan Hart, whose home is located in a neighborhood along I-5, said he and his neighbors disagree with the state and are plenty concerned.
The 66-year-old retired chemist says the trains will create noise, vibration and a potential hazard for anyone who lives along the tracks.
They’re also worried trains could serve as a barricade for ambulances and firetrucks coming from the highway.
Hart questions whether all that is worth shaving six minutes off a train route.
“Why would you do this and impose this change on us for a minimal benefit?” he asked.
It isn’t only Lakewood residents who will be affected. For example, people who drive to the Washington National Guard headquarters at Camp Murray – accessible mainly via an entrance off Berkeley Street Southwest in Tillicum – could get stuck waiting for trains to pass.
Mark McElroy, director of facilities and grounds at the 244-acre, state-owned facility, said the proposed bypass has heightened Camp Murray’s sense of urgency to add another gate off Portland Avenue Southwest, father from the train tracks.
The second gate might take the hundreds of cars that enter and exit Camp Murray every day to a different freeway exit, but they still face a potential hazard in trying to cross the tracks to get to I-5.
“We have a significant concern with that,” McElroy said.
Fort Lewis’ public affairs office says the post hasn’t done a detailed analysis of the bypass’ impact, but it estimates it would add an extra minute to the already-daunting traffic on I-5 near Fort Lewis.
“At face value, this would not appear to be a significant impact on installation traffic,” wrote garrison spokesman J.C. Mathews in an e-mail to The News Tribune. “However, we’ll have to do additional analysis to produce conclusive impacts.”
Bugher, Lakewood’s assistant city manager, says he thinks the trains will have a negative impact, even if the state does not.
However, the city doesn’t want residents to confuse its concerns over the bypass with its desire for Sound Transit commuter rail service. Those trains move about half the speed of Amtrak trains and will go only as far south as Lakewood Station in the Lakeview area; Tillicum will not be affected.
The plan is to have Sounder running between Lakewood and Tacoma Dome stations by 2012. Voters in Sound Transit’s three-county area passed a bond in 1996 that included commuter rail service to Lakewood, and the city has been waiting for the agency to make good on the promise ever since.
Bugher says he realizes the Point Defiance Bypass will move forward. He just hopes the state will go back and re-examine the route’s effects on Lakewood, which he says will be more profound than the state realizes.
“We’re not anti-train,” he said. “If you’re going to do it, do it right.”
Brent Champaco: 253-597-8653
brent.champaco@thenewstribune.com
WHAT: Lakewood City Council study session on Point Defiance Bypass
WHEN: 7 p.m., Nov. 9
WHERE: Lakewood City Hall, 6000 Main St. S.W.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.cityoflakewood.us.
