Changes are coming to a Pierce Transit bus route near you

Pierce Transit’s renewal of some service cuts made during the Great Recession will begin Sunday.

The agency is expanding or changing bus service on 13 routes, including those along the Sixth Avenue-Pacific Avenue, South 19th Street-Bridgeport and Lakewood-South Hill lines.

The expansions are part of a Pierce Transit plan to restore 59,000 service hours by the end of 2017. That would bring to 502,000 the hours of service the agency provides annually.

Pierce Transit provided 622,000 hours of service annually before the recession took hold and five cities left the agency’s service area, drying up sales tax revenue and other sources of funding.

Here are the changes that will go into effect Sunday:

Route 1 (Sixth Avenue-Pacific Avenue): Six new midday trips weekdays from Tacoma Community College and seven from state Route7/Mountain Highway. The changes will improve midday bus frequency to 15 minutes from 20 minutes.

Route 2 (South 19th-Bridgeport): Four new midday trips weekdays added from 10th and Commerce and five from the Lakewood Transit Center. Midday frequency will improve to 20 minutes from 30 minutes.

Route 4 (Lakewood-South Hill): Weekday evening service will be extended until 9 p.m., and two trips will be added from the Lakewood Transit Center and one from South Hill.

Route 10 (Pearl Street): Weekday evening service will be extended until 8 p.m., and three trips will be added from Point Defiance and TCC.

Route 13 (North 30th Street): Weekday evening service will be extended until 7 p.m. with two trips added from North 24th Street and Proctor and the Tacoma Dome Station.

Route 14 (Proctor District): Weekday evening service will be extended until 8 p.m. with two trips added from North 24th and Proctor and one trip from the Tacoma Dome Station. On Saturdays, trip times will be adjusted and one trip will be added from the Tacoma Dome Station.

Route 45 (Yakima): All weekday trips leaving 10th and Commerce will depart five minutes earlier. The goal is to create better connections with Route 4.

Route 51 (Union Avenue): Route no longer will travel to Lakewood Sounder station, instead going to McChord Drive and Bridgeport in the Springbrook neighborhood for better connections to the Lakewood Transit Center.

Route 54 (38th Street): Three weekday evening trips will be added from 56th and Portland and one from the Tacoma Mall transit center.

Route 100 (Gig Harbor): Weekday schedule times are adjusted in both directions.

Route 202 (72nd Street): Sunday schedule times are adjusted in both directions.

Route 425 (Puyallup connector): Weekday trips from the Puyallup Sounder station are adjusted, as are Saturday trips in both directions.

Route 500 (Federal Way): Saturday midday service will be increased by seven trips in each direction, resulting in 30-minute frequencies.

This story was originally published September 9, 2016 at 1:30 PM with the headline "Changes are coming to a Pierce Transit bus route near you."