Kilmer holds transit chat aboard Pierce Transit bus
It seemed only fitting to have a chat about mass transit aboard a bus rather than at some town hall forum with charts and maps showing the routes through a rainbow of colored lines webbing around the county, so Downtown On the Go gave Congressman Derek Kilmer (D-WA, 6th District) a call to talk with bus passengers during a ride on Pierce Transit’s Route 14 around Tacoma.
About a dozen transit backers turned bus riders simply showed up at a bus stop downtown Friday afternoon, snagged a swag bag containing promotional flyers about mass transit options and a free Orca card to ride the downtown to Proctor route. “It is definitely an interest of mine,” forum rider Patrick Babbitt said. He is interested in international relations, which might seem unrelated to mass transit at first, but Babbitt notes that both deal with issues of sustainability and smart growth. “I think it all fits together to some degree.”
Transit and transportation projects around the nation illustrate the dysfunction in Congress, Kilmer said, noting that the Federal Highway Trust Fund has been under a cloud of almost three dozen rounds of continuing resolutions that only last a few months at a time, rather than a fully funded package that would enable local transportation agencies to project long-term funding for key projects, or even additional buses.
“That creates incredible uncertainty,” he said. “I think there is a contingent that thinks we can just build our way out of congestion, and I don’t necessarily agree with that.”
Transportation funding should include roads and bridges, but also trails, bike lanes and transit improvements, not only with the goal of getting people from home to work or school, but to boost economic development through improvement to quality of life. And the robustness of transit options is becoming an increasing factor in where companies locate new operations.
That’s a fact Kilmer knows all too well from his days at the Economic Development Board of Tacoma-Pierce County before being elected to his seat in Congress.
“It’s not just a matter of getting people to work,” he said. “It’s also about getting people to work. A whole lot of problems get better when people are working.”
Championing that cause is Downtown On The Go, a transportation-advocacy partnership with Pierce Transit, the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber and the City of Tacoma. Its goal is to reduce single-car drivers in downtown by 11 percent by the end of the year by providing information about transportation options that include mass transit, bike routes and ride share programs.