11/6/13 RAMP 8AM

AGENDA  -  November 6, 2013

The Fabulich Center

3600 Port of Tacoma Road; 98424

8:00     Welcome & Self-Introductions                                  

            Pat McCarthy, RAMP Co-Chair, Pierce County Executive

8:05     Point Defiance Bypass Rail Project

            David Smelser, Cascades High Speed Rail Program Manager

8:20     Sound Transit Updates:

            - Tacoma Trestle Replacement
            - Long Range Planning
            Chelsea Levy, Sound Transit

8:45     State Transportation Package

            Tom Pierson, Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber President & CEO

8:50     Round Robin

9:00     Closing Remarks & Adjourn

            John Wolfe, RAMP Co-Chair, Port of Tacoma CEO            

Next RAMP Meeting

TBD

RAMP is a regional coalition including business, labor, public and private organizations and citizens dedicated to improved mobility in the South Sound and Washington State.  Our mission is to ensure a healthy regional economy associated with the development of an effective, efficient transportation system and the resources to sustain it. RAMP is co-chaired by Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy, Port of Tacoma CEO John Wolfe and Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber President & CEO Tom Pierson. 

Lincoln Ave Bridge Long Term Detour

LOCATION: Lincoln Avenue bridge in Tacoma

DETAILS: The Tacoma Public Works Department will rehabilitate the Lincoln Avenue Bridge starting in May of this year. This work will require closure of the bridge for 7 months up to one year depending on weather.

DETOUR: During the bridge closure a temporary heavy haul route will use Puyallup Avenue, Pacific Avenue, and SR 509 to cross the Puyallup River. All existing heavy haul routes will remain in place except the Lincoln Ave. Bridge. This temporary route will be removed once the bridge project is complete. A detour map is attached.

MORE DETAILS: You will still need to obtain the proper permits from the City of Tacoma and from the State of Washington.

If you have questions or would like more information about the bridge project, call Dan Soderlind or at (253) 591-5263.

Murray Morgan Bridge - Back to the City?

Last week the Tacoma City Council’s Environment and Public Works Committee made a recommendation to pass a turnback agreement wherein ownership of the 95-year old Murray Morgan Bridge would pass from the State of Washington to the City of Tacoma.

Originally named the 11th Street Bridge, in 1957 the 1,748 foot long steel-truss structure that connects downtown Tacoma to the Port of Tacoma was re-decked. The bridge and the corresponding E. 11th Street were designated as SR 509. At that time, ownership of the bridge was transferred from the City of Tacoma to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Since that time the Murray Morgan Bridge has deteriorated and in 2007 WSDOT bridge engineers determined the bridge must close to all vehicular traffic, including emergency vehicles, to ensure public safety.

Advocates for the historic bridge argue that it is a landmark and should be rehabilitated. In response the City hired a consultant to develop a rehabilitation plan would allow the bridge to carry traffic. The consultant concluded that a comprehensive rehabilitation would cost approximately $80 million dollars. With just under $40 million for this project in the WSDOT budget, this leaves a $40 million shortfall that the City is trying to close.

To move forward with this plan the City has agreed to reassume responsibility for the bridge and its maintenance. According to the turnback agreement, the state would agree to provide the City with the available balance of the Puyallup Tribal Settlement Account, approximately $10.8 million and $26.2 million in federal funding, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

According to the Tacoma Daily Index, the final turnback agreement still needs to be approved by the full City Council.

The Tacoma Daily Index, “Tacoma closer to owning Murray Morgan Bridge.”

Ramp Takes Leap

Last week, the spectrum of funding partners took shovels in hand for the official groundbreaking for the Lincoln Avenue Grade Separation.

Photo: Kathy Tomandl, Port of Tacoma

Nowadays, no ONE builds transportation infrastructure. And last Friday's ceremony demonstrated the collaborative effort that results in success.

As the Port says on their website: Although local in nature, this project offers economic benefits for both Washington state and the nation. Tacoma is a gateway port, and much of the cargo moving through here is bound for inland markets such as Chicago and New York.

Upon completion, the grade separation will significantly improve rail and road efficiency and will also enhance air quality.

Most Popular Pavings - Good Intentions

Paula Hammond, Secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), was featured at today's Transportation Club of Tacoma meeting.

Her presentation could be considered a lament. She recounted her first day of the job, when the Milwaukee bridge collapsed that lead directly to WSDOT's decision to close the Murray Morgan Bridge. Then, she recalled the first (of three) floodings of I-5 that lead to miles of truck-trailers queued with no alternative routes. And, she talked of a funding tie between cents per gallon and a declining gas sales/miles driven both because of consumer behavior changes and recessionary responses. And, let's not even get started on the state's ferries!

She did point to the $10 billion of projects just in the Puget Sound area, with another $5 billion in other parts of the state. Of 391 projects at the beginning, 183 are completed, 82 are under construction and 22 are about to go into construction. For anyone who wants to check up on their particular interest in a project(s), go to their website.

Q's from the audience covered a wide range of topics, but the most popular subject seemed to be SR-167. In response, Hammond noted that the corridor lost its funding proposal with the failure of Proposition 1. Now that transit has passed its expansion measure, the region is left without addressing its road future. The legislature has funded a tolling study for the completion of SR-167, to measure revenue potential and traffic diversions. SR-167 remains a hot topic, not because of the HOT Lanes tolling in the HOV lanes, but because of the new threat to flooding from failures in the Howard Hanson Dam.

All this and more makes one wish for debates of old when road surfaces were evaluated for quieter performance versus cost-effective permanency.

Persistence Pays

Ribbon Cutters: Executive Ladenburg, Rep. Flannigan, Sen. Kastama, BNSF's Finn, Mayor Baarsma, Commissioner Petrich (barely), Councilmember Lonergan, Pierce County's Ziegler and FHA's Mathis. Photo credit: PSRC

It was almost a decade in coming since the first steps were actually taken, but the community recently celebrated the opening of the D Street Overpass.

These august personages all played a vital - and often long-term - part in getting the complete package together for what will be multi-faceted benefits to the community, separating rail and road traffic, increasing speeds for intercontinental rail and easing local movement for both E. & W. Foss Waterway as well as Dome District traffic.

And, as Port of Tacoma Commissioner Clare Petrich noted in her ribbon-cutting remarks, sometimes those in at the beginning need recognition too. I too wish to join her in recognizing a small Pierce County cadre that, while serving on the Central Puget Sound Economic Development District Board at the beginning of the decade, got what we believe were the first committed dollars to this project: Commissioner Petrich, Denise Dyer alt. for Executive Ladenburg, Rob Allen alt. for Pierce County Council and Gary Brackett, Chamber staff and private sector representative.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Project named finalist in National Transportation Award Competition

Public can vote for its choice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Lloyd Brown, WSDOT Communications Director 360-705-7076

OLYMPIA – The Tacoma Narrows Bridge project is one of 10 signature transportation projects named today as finalists for the prestigious “America’s Transportation Award,” reflecting the best in management and innovation by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

Spectacular bridges, toll and access roads, innovative interchanges and interstates will now compete for the Grand National Prize – selected by a panel of community, business and transportation leaders – and the People’s Choice Award – which will be decided by an online voting process.

The America’s Transportation Award recognizes achievement in the development and construction of transportation projects, and instills an appreciation of transportation as a key element of our quality of life. Forty-one projects were entered into the America’s Transportation Awards competition with 23 chosen as regional winners, narrowing the field to 10 finalists. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge project team won the regional competition among 18 western states in the category for "on time delivery" for projects exceeding $200 million.

"We believe the New Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a special project that represents the best of what our people stand for - hard work, determination and success,” said Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond. “Now is the chance for the entire region to show the rest of the country that our project - on time and on budget - was the best of the best transportation projects in 2007."

The Grand National Prize-winning state will receive funds to support a graduate-level educational grant in the transportation field. The People’s Choice Award will fund a community service project selected by the winning state department of transportation. Awards will be presented at the AASHTO Annual Meeting in Hartford, Connecticut, October 19.

The competition is cosponsored by the American Automobile Association (AAA), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and AASHTO to bring public attention to transportation projects around the country that make a positive difference to people, businesses and communities.

On-line voting for the People’s Choice Award begins today and will continue to October 19. Cast your vote: www.americastransportationaward.org/Voting.aspx

For complete information on each of the finalists and the voting ballot, go to http://www.americastransportationaward.org/.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge One Year Anniversary Celebration

Save the date! Wednesday, July 16 marks the one year anniversary of the new eastbound Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Please join Governor Chris Gregoire, Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste and the Washington State Department of Transportation as we commemorate a year of successes and share stories on the impact of the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge across the South Sound.

Where: War Memorial Park in Tacoma
When: Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Time: 11:00 a.m.

The event is open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Questions or RSVP? Contact Ian Morrison, Office of the Governor, (360) 239-4212 or ian.morrison@gov.wa.gov.

There's Still No Decision

Popular Mechanics May 2008 issue has a cover feature on fixing American infrastructure. Within a special supporting story listing the 10 Things to Fix Right Now, we can appreciate the listing of the Alaskan Way Viaduct (in no particular order). While Chicago has the distinction of two projects on the list, those here might wonder why the magazine ever had to go out of state?

A Practitioner's Challenges

Ed Tolan, Nippon Paper Industries rose to his own challenge by the Transportation Club of Tacoma and challenged members attending today's meeting with evaluating their strategic planning for the future.

Basically, Tolan listed a dozen strategically important future issues. Listed in no particular order and condensed around similar topics:

1. Railroad stock is transitioning to 60 feet lengths from the former standard of 50 feet. Companies should be asking how they will manage this change as it will impact their bay access points, with car lengths overlapping the physical location of openings, etc.
2. The looming debate of re-regulation, especially as it applies to railroads. At first, railroads were totally unregulated, then totally regulated, now unregulated again. The question that looms is will the pendulum swing back to regulation and if so how far.
3. The aging workforce presents its challenges more as to the retention of a skills base, both in technical and professional knowledge base so as to provide good customer support, effective workforce actions and sufficiency to match demand. The workforce shortage is most acute in the truck driver job. There are a host of factors affecting the ability to pay and retain drivers. Included are: immigration issues, professional criteria and work environment.
4. Steamship lines also have challenges ahead. The weakening of the US dollar has spurred exports, which has lead to a shortage of containers, once only 20% filled on return voyages but now approaching parity. The growth of international trade has also lead to the adequacy of ship capacity to carry containers. As an overall result, lower value products are being priced out of the export market.
5. The planned improvements to the Panama Canal, which was said is using Chinese financing, will give Chinese shippers the opportunity to miss both U.S. West Coast ports, roads and railroads.
6. Citing a string of just Washington State bridges, the point was made that our infrastructure is facing both capacity and adequacy challenges. In the relatively short term, all should expect pre-tolling and its additional cost pressures.
7. Vehicle and equipment costs, especially for the small business owner/operator is getting out of an affordable range. And fuel costs was an "oh, yeah..."
8. Shippers and receivers need to form a partnership with carriers to do an overall better job. The issues of workforce and benefits must be addressed in the expected driver shortage. Other issues favor cooperative problem solving.

In responding to a question about the Green movement, Tolan said that the industry should be cautious of paperwork that only documents what's already being done and is not an impact on environmental issues.

Contact Gary Gieser if you wish to know more about the Transportation Club of Tacoma.

Innovation in Bridge Financing

The Chamber has reviewed the legislative digest of HB 3158, which provides funding for replacing a bridge so narrowly defined that it can only be the Murray Morgan Bridge (formerly City Waterway Bridge or 11th Street Bridge).

It appears to us that the proposed legislation takes the additional allocation of .2% sales tax allowed to be authorized by the City of Tacoma as a credit against the state's portion of the sales tax already existing.

Your thoughts on this interpretation are most welcome.

HB 3158: A Bridge to Bridge Funding?

Jason Hagey reports today in The News Tribune that Washington State legislators are considering a bill that would allow the City of Tacoma to tap sales tax revenue for fixing the Murray Morgan Bridge.

Introduced this Session by Representative Dennis Flannigan, HB 3158 would allow Tacoma to create a transportation improvement district and impose an additional 0.2 percent sales tax for maintenance and operation, generating $54 million in new funds of the bridge. This new revenue, along with the $26 million set aside for demolition, would bring the total funding available to $80 million--enough to bridge the current funding gap forestalling full rehabilitation of the 94-year-old structure.

The Washington State Department of Transportation closed the bridge, which connects downtown with the Port of Tacoma across the Thea Foss Waterway, last fall after an inspection found it unsafe for traffic.

In China, Too

Submitted by Paul Ellis

A previous post for this blog highlighted China's voracious appetite for building new roads. The Asian nation is also surpassing the United States in another area of record: bridge collapses.

As families continued to mourn nine people killed in Guangdong Province after a cargo vessel struck a bridge there, the nation was rocked by news of an even more shocking incident. Twenty-nine workers were killed and 46 are still missing after the bridge they were building in Fenghuang, a tourist destination in central Hunan Province, crumbled down on top of them.

The bridge was part of the highway linking Fenghuang and Daxing Airport of Tongren in neighboring Guizhou Province. Construction of the 42-meter-high structure was almost complete except for dismantling the steel scaffoldings, and more than 120 workers were removing the scaffoldings--during the afternoon rush hour--when all the four arches of the 328-meter-long stone bridge fell.

The Chinese Ministry of Communications reports that more than 6,000 damaged or dangerous bridges will be fixed or rebuilt under an ambitious plan to make China's major roadways safer by 2010. Figures from the ministry's annual report on road maintenance found that by the end of 2006, some 6,300 of China's 500,000 or so bridges were graded "fifth rank"--defined as "in dangerous status with some important structural components seriously damaged".

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community’s largest transportation planning effort.

A Bridge Too Far Gone?

Submitted by Paul Ellis

The collapse earlier this month of the I-35 bridge into Minneapolis has underscored the need for renewed investment in transportation infrastructure nationwide--it's clear now that an earthquake is not the only danger facing older structures like the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The nation's long-term failure to adequately invest in roads and bridges has a deferred cost--a debt that may be coming due.

In the aftermath of the incident, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters urged state transportation departments to conduct inspections of 756 bridges similar to the ill-fated steel-deck truss bridge. The Minneapolis bridge, which was built in 1967, rose about 64 feet above the river and stretched about 1,900 feet across the water with a single 458-foot-long span to avoid interference with river navigation. Questions about the cause of the collapse and whether it could have been prevented continue to arise, although local officials have been quick to assure the public that a similar collapse here is very unlikely.

Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge was "structurally deficient," yet they relied on patchwork repairs and stepped-up inspections that unraveled with a calamitous sudden drop of concrete, bodies and automobiles. The tragic collapse is sure to engender a new round of bridge inspections across the country; hopefully, it will also engender renewed debate about the need for transportation investments.

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community’s largest transportation planning effort.