Tacoma touts streets initiative as a success. Could there be another round in 2025?
Nearly a decade ago, Tacoma voters passed a tax package aimed at raising $175 million to mend local roads. Now city officials are touting a streets initiative “success story,” with plans to do another round of fixes in the future — pending voter approval.
Tacomans passed two propositions in 2015: Prop A, which gathers funds through a sales-tax increase, and Prop 3, which collects money via a spike in utility gross earnings and property tax, The News Tribune reported in March 2022. The city sought to repair 5,600 of roughly 8,000 blocks via maintenance treatments or re-pavement through the initiative, which has mostly concentrated on residential streets.
Ramiro Chavez, director of Tacoma’s Public Works Department, told The News Tribune that the pandemic made such work difficult. Regardless, he said, the city has addressed 73% of its 5,600-block performance goal: 4,082 blocks.
“And I’m expecting by the end of next year, that we will surpass 6,000 residential blocks that we’re going to be able to do,” Chavez said.
Although the package voters passed in 2015 was expected to raise $175 million, Chavez said, that number is now projected at $199 million through the end of next year. According to a presentation Chavez delivered during a Feb. 6 study session, the difference in those projections is because of spikes in gross earnings, sales and property taxes.
City Council member Joe Bushnell praised the initiative’s progress after Chavez’s Feb. 6 update.
“This is a fantastic success story,” Bushnell said at the time. “And we really need to be tooting this at the top of the tower, right, for all to hear.”
Council member Kiara Daniels also praised the initiative’s progress.
“There’s so long to go, and also, the work that has been done is amazing,” she said at the study session. “The streets that are in my neighborhood that have been redone are so beautiful.”
Road-condition updates
Chavez told The News Tribune that the pavement condition index (PCI) gives roads ratings from 0 (abysmal) to 100 (perfect). The city’s overall aim was to hit the industry-standard PCI of 70; reaching higher would not be financially feasible.
“Our PCI is essentially an overall index, and it encompasses the surface area — so the distresses, things like that, to cracking that you see — and also the roughness is measured,” city of Tacoma pavement manager Erik Sloan told The News Tribune. “All the variables come together to those two scores that then build that PCI for us.”
Tacoma’s overall PCI rating as of 2015 was 59, Chavez said. To hit 70, he added, “We knew ... there was a lot of work that needed to be done.”
So how has the city fared in the years since?
By the end of 2023, Chavez said, the overall PCI rating had risen to 61, marking an improvement of around 3 percent.
Tacoma’s residential-street PCI rating has also gotten better, from 61 in 2015 to 67 last year. Yet the rating for arterial roads declined several points during that time: from 58 to 44.
The arterial-road PCI dropped because of deterioration over time, Sloan said. The residential-street scores went up, meanwhile, because they were the primary focus of the 2015 initiative.
“Most of our efforts have gone towards that in this current streets initiative, so that’s where we’ve seen the big increase,” he said. “If you don’t focus on something, over time, it’s going to deteriorate just like anything else.”
Council member Sarah Rumbaugh said at the study session that it’s important for voters to feel as though the initiative has helped their local roads. That isn’t exactly what she has seen in her email inbox, however.
“We’ve done a lot of stuff in Northeast Tacoma,” she said. “But if arterials are the part that they are seeing most and complaining about the most and it hasn’t been fixed, then it’s not helping us get the point across that these dollars are necessary for our whole city.”
A city spokesperson emailed The News Tribune a table showing the 2015 initiative’s expenditures broken up into four categories: city workforce, capital programs, contracted maintenance and city overhead and assessments. From 2016 through the end of last month, the expenditures totaled $247.76 million.
Streets initiative 2025?
The 2015 streets-initiative propositions might have passed, but not overwhelmingly, The News Tribune previously reported. Proposition 3 scraped by with 50.03% of the vote while Proposition A accrued 57% support.
How Tacomans will view a streets initiative 2.0 is yet to be determined.
Chavez told The News Tribune that the 2025 iteration would focus on arterial roads, as well as “concentrating on multimodal and also continuing to invest in residential streets.”
The plan is to bring a ballot measure before Tacoma voters next year, Chavez said, adding that it could be as early as that April or as late as November. Additionally, he said, “I’m planning to bring an option for the City Council to consider to continue the 1/10 of 1% of the sales tax beyond what the voters approved back in 2015,” he said.
Also in the works: a survey to gauge residents’ feelings on the streets initiatives.
The next iteration would feature the same two elements that voters green lighted in 2015, Chavez said: utility and property tax.
“We’re also contemplating whether it’s going to be at the same rate the voters approved back in 2015 or increasing the rate,” he said. “At this point, we’re working on that.”
The way Chavez sees it, the difference between the city’s roads a decade ago and today is clear.
“You can really see the improvements the city has accomplished,” he said. “And if that is a baseline as to what the next streets initiative will be, the next streets initiative — believe me — is going to be another success story.”
With construction season upon us, The News Tribune will examine the state of Pierce County’s roads and streets over the next several weeks as part of its In the Spotlight initiative.
This story was originally published May 28, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
