It was an unseasonably dry and warm October evening, and I was on my way to the Tacoma leg of the Senate Transportation Listening Tour. I strapped my lights to my bike and took off from my home in the Central Tacoma Neighborhood to the Evergreen State College Campus. My choices were:
- Go north on MLK, a busy road with a lot of speeding vehicles and no bike lane, sidewalks in disarray.
- Take a smaller neighborhood street, with less car traffic, but crossing busy intersections at 19th, 15thand 12th streets with no signal, still no bike lane, low visibility and potholes so large, I could bend a wheel or worse.
I went with option 2 riding on Sheridan going north to 6th, running a slalom through the potholes, losing light, and crossing my fingers. I made it safely that time, but every time I ride in my neighborhood (which is nearly every day, rain or shine) I worry about safety, dodging cars on foot with no painted crosswalks, sidewalks ending abruptly often without curb cuts. If you spend any time in Tacoma, be it by bus, on a bike, on foot, or even in a car, you know Tacoma’s streets need fixing. Our neighborhoods need to be invested in.
That’s why The Tacoma City Council voted unanimously to place proposition 1 on the ballot for this November. If approved it would increase the gross earnings tax on power, natural gas and phone utilities by 2% for the sole purpose of improving neighborhood streets and road safety upgrades.
The passage of this measure will provide funding for much needed infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians in the City of Tacoma and provide funding to:
- fix potholes permanently in every neighborhood for safer travel
- fix about 70 traffic signals around the city helping to save thousands of gallons of fuel each year and cars from idling
- dedicate revenues to the mobility master plan implementation
- help fix many sidewalks
- paint the city with bike lanes and other striping for mobility improvement
Passing this basic, common-sense infrastructure measure in Tacoma will have real impact in every Tacoma neighborhood: over 3,600 additional permanent pothole fixes per year, 510 neighborhood blocks repaved in the next 5 years alone, as well as traffic signal improvements city-wide and safety improvements to 46 neighborhood schools and community centers.
Tacoma desperately needs infrastructure improvements and safe neighborhood streets. With a stretched city budget and historically low construction costs, now is the time to put over 300 people to work repairing our streets.
Please join us in supporting this community-driven effort, backed by countless local civic organizations, including Transportation Choices Coalition, labor unions and small businesses. For more information about Prop 1, visit www.cityoftacoma.org/prop1facts and www.fixtacomastreets.com.
