Renewed Energy Toward 167 Completion

The new year rang in new congressmen, state legislatures, and coalitions that aim to apply renewed energy toward old transportation issues: the completion of State Route 167.

Construction on the highway was halted in the 1980s, leaving the final six miles from Puyallup to Tacoma unfinished. Proponents of the project argue that it would create much needed jobs, reduce congestion and pollution, and speed up the shipment of freight through the Port of Tacoma, thereby holding statewide economic importance. The project, which would require construction of dozens of bridges and a complicated interchange with I-5, has a current estimated cost of $1.5 billion.

Many local political, business, and community leaders and organizations have made the completion of SR 167 a top priority, forming the 167 Completion Coalition, aimed at finishing this critical transportation project. The Coalition consists of Congressman Denny Heck (D-10), CEO/ President of the Tacoma- Pierce County Chamber, Tom Pierson, and many others.

The News Tribune cites House Transportation Committee Chairwoman Judy Clibborn as suggesting various methods to raise the money for SR 167, such as gas taxes and tolls, although tolling would likely bring in only a fraction of the cost since drivers can find an alternate route to avoid the toll.  

While it is uncertain how the completion of SR 167 would be funded, it is clear that the project is headed in the right direction.

SR 167: Still Unfinished Over 30 Years Later

The News Tribune had an in depth article discussing the long history of the SR 167 stub in Puyallup.  For over 30 years, Pierce County residents and businesses have waited for a quality connection from the Port of Tacoma, Fife and Puyallup to Sumner, Auburn, east King County, and eastern Washington.

As the Port of Tacoma's Sean Eagan told the reporter, "It's a project that makes sense.  It helps complete our regional road network.  It should help us create and keep jobs.  And that's what's most important these days."

The chamber recognizes the importance of this connection to both the local and regional economy.  The chamber has supported this project through RAMP and other advocacy opportunities.  Recently, Tom Pierson, Chamber President and CEO, was appointed to the SR 167 Tolling Stakeholder Committee that is working with DOT staff to develop a proposal for the state legislature.

In addition, as the Chamber prepares its legislative agenda for 2012, it will continue to advocate for the completion of this critical piece of infrastructure.  Time and again, we have heard from business and industry that this road is critical to keeping south Puget Sound competitive over the next 30 years.  If you have additional thoughts on how the completion of SR 167 will help your business, employees or customers, please let us know.

RAMP comments on SR 167 tolling study

The co-chairs of the Regional Access Mobility Partnership (RAMP) have submitted comments to Secretary of Transportation, Paula Hammond in support of tolling on SR 167.

The co-chairs, the Executives of Pierce County, the Port of Tacoma and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber support the use of toll revenues to partially pay for construction cost associated with the extension of SR 167 between Puyallup and the Port of Tacoma.

Read the full letter here.

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.

New Hope for Pierce County’s Delayed Projects?

In mid-January Joe Turner of The News Tribune reported that Governor Gregoire’s six-year transportation budget pushes key Pierce County projects off the funding horizon. The projects now scheduled to come on-line after 2015 include extension of carpool lanes on Interstate 5 from Fife to the Tacoma Mall, purchase of property to extend State Route 167 from the Port of Tacoma to Puyallup and construction of the Yelm highway bypass. Read the complete article here.

Robin Rettew, one of the governor’s policy advisors conceded that projects scheduled beyond 2015 will likely need a new source of funding (taxes, tolls, or Federal money) to get built.

However, instead of a commitment to regional funding equity, the Governor’s budget remains dedicated to replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct along Seattle’s waterfront and replacing the SR-520 bridge across Lake Washington. Both projects will likely cost more than $4 billion.

In response to the budget, Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy, Port of Tacoma CEO Tim Farrell, and elected and business leaders from across the South Sound are joining together to lobby the Governor and the Pierce County legislative delegation for the South Sound’s fair share of transportation dollars.

Executive McCarthy will speak to RAMP about her advocacy plans at the next RAMP meeting on Wednesday, February 4th (8 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Fabulich Center, 3600 Port of Tacoma Road, Tacoma, WA 98424).

Riding the Circuit - the Road to Everywhere

The Transportation Club continues to attract quality speakers with gravitas, featuring Ray Kuntz, Immediate Past President of the American Trucking Association yesterday.

But after his year on the rubber-chicken circuit, our audience was treated to a well polished presentation of the challenges confronting the trucking industry from a front-line fighter, plus a few glimpses into his vision for the future.

As Chairman of the Board and CEO for Watkins Shepard Trucking of Helena, MT, we can be gratified to have a Westerner at the forefront of trucking's issues. There wasn't much doubt that he considers the U.S. infrastructure system to be failing - the foundation of our status as a global power. Kuntz gave a review of several national (and state) systems that have gone to hi-way privatization for infrastructure. Uniformly, he forecasts private tolling fees of $1/mile, forcing trucks to use adjacent arterials systems.

And, he had a special forecast for Mexican trucking issues. There is no low-sulfur diesel refined or planned for in Mexico, although one firm plans to supply truckstops with tanker-trucked diesel. Mexican trucks will use non-low sulfur diesel, making them "dirty" trucks when traveling in the U.S. (via the FTA provisions). U.S. trucks, built after 2007 will have to pay the higher diesel costs of limited supplies when in Mexico. Kuntz laments that the real issues of NAFTA are never part of the public discourse.

Kuntz also is troubled by the cost of the next highway bill, which he puts at $400+ billion. He asks: "How do we fund this?" Plus, he asks how the trucking industry will respond to sustainability and climate change legislation, probably mandating carbon credits. He said the National Association of Manufacturers puts this toll at $1 billion.

Kuntz offers these solutions:

1. FIX CONGESTION. Focusing on congestion problems will cost $80 billion, with 3/4ths of that in the top 20 metro areas;
2. NATIONAL 60 MPH SPEED LIMIT. This will give greater fuel efficiency and reduce our consumption;
3. DO ALL OPTIONS FOR FUEL SOURCES. Do conservation. Do alternative fuels. Do drill more.

His observation - National legislation has proposed to eliminate larger companies (more than 50 trucks) from incentives, yet those larger companies are the ones doing fuel conservation:

• Adding APUs
• Buying fuel efficient tires
• Giving drivers fuel bonuses

These activities are saving his 700-truck firm $500,000/month. And, from us he got more than rubber chicken - he got salmon!

Executive Candidates Debate SR 167 and Tolls

Last Friday, the Puyallup/Sumner Chamber of Commerce sponsored a candidates’ forum for the County Executive candidates. Shawn Bunney, Mike Lonergan, and Calvin Goings were present. Pat McCarthy was unable to attend.

The moderator asked the candidates a couple of questions related to transportation. I did not take notes, but below is a synopsis of what I remember. RAMP members might find this of interest.

Question #1: What will be your approach to finding funding to complete large transportation projects in our area, specifically SR 167 between Puyallup and the Port of Tacoma?

Mr. Bunney: This must be approached on several levels. Federally, there will be a reauthorization bill in 2009. This may be an opportunity, and we can use Sen. Murray's clout. Maybe a special freight account with SR 167 as the centerpiece. At the state and regional levels, we need to fight for our fair share and stop sending our tax dollars to King County.

Mr. Lonergan: I have been working on the planning side for several years with the Puget Sound Regional Council and as Chair of the Pierce County Regional Council. An example is the PSRC plan which looks at transportation for the next 33 years. SR 167 is identified as an important part of the region’s needs. I would use RAMP as a vehicle to bring supporters of SR 167 together to develop and implement a strategy.

Mr. Goings: I will bring together a transportation workgroup within 90 days of taking office. I would like to work other counties for another regional package like the RTID effort. However, if that isn’t possible then we should put together a Pierce County only proposal. Either way, some proposal will be put together to go to the voters next fall.

Question #2: What is your position on using tolling a part of the solution for meeting the region's transportation needs?

Mr. Bunney: Yes, tolling must be part of the bigger solution.

Mr. Lonergan: Yes, look at the HOT lane experiment.

Mr. Goings: No, tolling is unfair to people who can't afford tolls. These should be "public highways."

I hope this is of interest. My apologies to the candidates if I did not adequately report the intent of what was said. If I did, I welcome corrections by replies to this blog.

George Walk

RAMP Weighs Potential for SR-167 Tolls and Initiative 985

Attendees of the Oct. 1st RAMP meeting heard presentations on two issues that could have long term implications for mobility and congestion relief in the South Sound.

SR-167 Tolling Study
RAMP was presented with a proposal for a study to determine the viability of tolling SR-167 to pay for the extension from Puyallup to SR-509 in Tacoma. Because of anticipated budget shortfalls in 2009, it appears extremely unlikely that new funds will be available for RAMP's traditional priority projects, such as SR-167, SR-704, or SR-162. There also appears to be a growing reluctance to increase taxes traditionally used to fund transportation projects, like the gas tax or license tab fees.

Last year, the Legislature passed a measure (HB 3096) establishing a task force to develop a comprehensive approach for how to fund the SR-520 bridge replacement, including a detailed discussion of tolling. Because neither state nor regional revenue appears likely in foreseeable future, the 520-bridge bill could serve as a model to determine whether tolling could fund a significant portion of SR-167. This does not indicate a commitment to tolling, but rather an attempt to determine whether tolling is a viable alternative. There was general interest among RAMP attendees to support such a bill during the 2009 legislative session.

Initiative 985
During the second half of the session Kris Sjoblom of the Washington Research Council presented the details of Initiative 985. The initiative’s author, Tim Eyman contends that the details of I-985 are based on State Auditor Sonntag’s recent transportation audit. However, some including former Washington State Secretary of Transportation Doug MacDonald challenge that the initiative strays from the audit’s findings.

I-985 addresses three primary policy areas: HOV lanes, traffic light synchronization and rapid response to breakdowns, accidents and other obstructions. Sjoblom explained that I-985 proposes to establish a “Reduce Traffic Congestion” account. Account revenue would be generated through allocating 15% of the 6.5 cent sales tax on motor vehicle sales, all toll revenue in excess of construction and maintenance costs, one-half of one percent of the money currently dedicated to the Washington State Arts Commission for art on the highways, revenue generated from red-light cameras. After implementation, during the 2011-2013 biennium the actual revenue generated in this account is anticipated to be approximately $75 million.

Funds collected in the account would be spent on:

• Signage necessary to open HOV lanes to all vehicles outside 6am-9am & 3pm-6pm
• Synchronizing traffic lights in heavily traveled roadways
• Improving emergency roadside assistance
• Funding the State Auditor to establish light standards and monitor performance
• “Any other purpose which reduces traffic congestion by reducing vehicle delay times by expanding road capacity and general purpose use to improve traffic flow for all vehicles…[but excluding] bike paths or lanes, wildlife crossings, landscaping, park and ride lots, ferries, trolleys, buses, monorail, light rail or heavy rail.”

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.

House Funds 520 - Shorts Pierce

The Association of Washington Business, among a report on other legislative action and business issues, reported the action by the Washington State House of Representatives for its transportation budget proposal.

The House approved a transportation budget with $2 billion of the $4.38 billion cost of replacing the State Route 520 bridge with a more modern, six-lane successor. Users of the bridge could pay tolls as early as 2009 to cover the remainder of the project’s funding. Under that budget, however, other highway projects face delays, including the highway crossing Fort Lewis between Frederickson and Lakewood, the extension of Highway 167 from the Port of Tacoma to Puyallup, and a Highway 509 link from Interstate 5 to Sea-Tac International Airport.

Relevant links: HB 2878, sponsored by Rep. Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island. Contact AWB’s Amber Carter at (360) 943-1600.

A Gaggle of Bad Ideas?

Tomorrow afternoon beginning at 3:30, the WA Senate's Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on several bills:

SB 6772 - Concerning regional transportation governance.
SB 6667 - Establishing high-capacity transportation corridor areas.
SB 6543 - Creating a central Puget Sound regional tolling authority.
SB 6771 - Eliminating regional transportation investment districts.
SB 6495 - Requiring the appointment of nonvoting labor members to public transportation governing bodies.
SB 6569 - Permitting public transit vehicle stops at unmarked stop zones under certain circumstances.

Several of these are bad ideas already panned in past posts to this blog. SB 6772 would implement the recommendations of the Regional Transportation Commission, which RAMP opposes. SB 6543 has a misleading title; what it really does is overthrow existing transit agencies to set up a "central Puget Sound regional transit authority"--another aspect of the RTC's agenda. SB 6771 kills the RTID--which most observers think is already effectively dead--but offers nothing in its place; this is a vaccum that the RTC's proposed uberagency would undoubtedly have to fill. Is a theme starting to appear?

RAMP participants are encouraged to testify, sign in, and/or contact their respective senators.

RAMP Tracking Several Bills in Play in Olympia

During this second week of the short 2008 Session, several bills are being tracked by RAMP participants for their potential to either hinder or support Pierce County's transportation objectives:

• SB 6748, submitted by WA Senator Jim Kastama upon RAMP's request, will make changes in the current transportation benefit district (TBD) legislation to make that potential funding mechanism more viable;
• SB 6754, introduced by Senator Mary Margaret Haugen at request of Governor Christine Gregoire, proposes a financing plan for replacing the SR-520 bridge;
• SB 6771, co-sponsored by Senator Haugen and WA Representative Ed Murray, would eliminate the RTID authority; while it's hard to argue against elimination, there is no rush to do this--RAMP supports keeping every option available, at least for now;
• SB 6772, co-sponsored by Haugen with Eastside Senator Rodney Tom, proposes radical changes in regional transportation governance as recommended by the Regional Transportation Commission; RAMP opposes these changes.

Olympia Report: Prospective

The 2008 Legislature goes to work today in Olympia. What action should be expected on transportation issues from lawmakers over the course of this short (60-day) Session in an election year?

Members of RAMP's staff team (pulled from the Chamber, Pierce County, Port of Tacoma, Pierce Transit and Sound Transit) are in Olympia today to continue advocacy for the group's recently-adopted Legislative agenda. They will continue lobbying in pursuit of some technical changes to the current law governing transportation benefit districts, as well as for funding--keeping previously-committed funds and getting more funding--for priority projects.

The team expects only a couple of major transportation decisions to be made by state lawmakers this Session--and these two only because Governor Christine Gregoire has laid a great deal of her political capital on the line:

• Developing a plan for funding the $2 billion shortfall for the SR-520 bridge replacement across Lake Washington;
• Crafting a highway tolling bill that will set up the framework for how tolls will be collected.

As reported here previously, substantial action on regional transportation governance is likely to lay dormant this Session.

By-the-Mile Tolling in Oregon: Panning Out or Panned?

As reported some months ago in this blog, Oregon has been testing on-board Global Positioning Systems that could one day allow mile-by-mile pricing for all car travel in the state. A few weeks ago, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) released the final report on their "Road User Fee Pilot Program"--which declared the project "feasible."

According to the blog Portland Transport, the proposed system detects whether a vehicle is within one of three zones and logs mileage within each zone into separate categories for billing purposes. The zones are out-of-state (no charge), in-state (nominal charge), and within the Portland metro area (nominal charge with option for congestion pricing). The mileage fee would be collected at the fuel pump in lieu of a gas tax (for those who have the proper equipment to communicate with the fuel pump), while out-of-state drivers (or those otherwise without the proper equipment) would be charged the fuel tax in lieu of a mileage fee.

Washington's neighbor to the south is often in the forefront of new initiatives--for instance, Oregon was the first state to implement a gas tax, in 1919. So how likely is the advent of such a system there?

The most recent issue of Willamette Week (in an article entitled "Miles from Nowhere") predicts that it won't happen for several reasons:

• Environmentalists question why the state would switch to a system where a Hummer owner would be treated the same as a Prius owner;
• Civil libertarians raise alarms about the mileage tax’s underlying technology that uses a global positioning system to count the number of miles driven;
• ODOT itself believes that it’s unlikely that a relatively small state like Oregon could be the first to implement a mileage tax;
• The prototypes used in the pilot are not commercially viable, meaning that the technology would have to be developed.

Life in the Fast Lane Soon for SR-167

Submitted by Paul Ellis

It won’t be long now before some commuters on SR-167 in South King County begin paying a toll between 50 cents and 3 dollars to travel between Auburn and Renton. The Washington Department of Transportation expects to open the high occupancy toll (HOT) lane pilot project next spring, allowing solo drivers to buy their way into the car-pool lanes. Consultants have estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 of the 120,000 drivers who use that portion of the highway daily will be willing to pay a toll to drive in a faster lane.

Motorists who already have a Good To Go account for the Tacoma Narrows Bridges will be able to use the lanes, too, because the toll amount will be electronically deducted from their accounts. Unlike the toll on the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is fixed, the toll on SR-167 will vary based on how quicky (or slowly) traffic is flowing. When general traffic lanes are heavily congested, the toll in the carpool lanes will be higher because drivers will be able to save more time by switching to the carpool lane. When traffic is free-flowing, the toll will be lower. Travel will remain free to buses, vanpools, carpools and motorcycles in the car-pool lanes and for all traffic in the general-purpose lanes.

This dynamic pricing model, which is close to real-time, also will let solo drivers know exactly how much they will be charged before they switch to the car-pool lane because the price will be displayed on roadside signs. Electronic Transaction Consultants Corp. of Richardson, TX was hired by the state to develop the computer software that looks at traffic volume and speeds to vary the toll. Feedback from the traffic model also will let highway officials know when to close the car-pool lane to solo drivers because too many cars will slow down buses and disrupt their schedules.

The HOT lanes themselves have been built, but the tolling equipment has yet to be installed. The northbound HOT lane will run 12 miles from 15th St. S.W. in Auburn to I-405, and southbound nine miles from I-405 to about S. 288th St. A nine-mile extension of the southbound carpool lane on SR-167 is slated for 2009-2011, and that may later become part of the HOT lane corridor.

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.

For Whom the Roads Toll

Submitted by Paul Ellis

More than 120 people convened this past Wednesday for the Puget Sound Regional Council's workshop, The Future of Transportation Finance: Lessons from Road Charging Experiments. Speakers included local and international policymakers in the area of transportation finance (click on highlighted titles to see their presentations):

• Doug MacDonald, Secretary of Transportation, WSDOT
• Daniel Mathis, FHWA Region Administrator - National Programs Overview
• Larry Ehl, Federal Liasion, WSDOT - The Big Picture: Federal Transportation Finance
• Jim Bourgart, Undersecretary of Transportation, State of California
• Travis Dunn, Booz Allen Hamilton - What is Happening Abroad
• Petrouschka Werther & Birgül Sönmez Dutch Ministry of Transportation - Kilometer Pricing in the Netherlands
• Jennifer Ogle, Georgia Tech - Commute Atlanta Study
• James Whitty, Oregon DOT - Road User Fee Pilot Program

During the lunchtime panel, Randy Pozdena & Matthew Kitchen--participants from PSRC's Traffic Choices study--discussed their personal experiences with road charging.

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.
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Will Tolling Go Wireless?

Submitted by Paul Ellis

Decaying roads. Rising traffic congestion. Voters distrustful of government and leery about increased gas taxes. Neil Peirce of The Washington Post recently looked at these problems with transportation funding nationwide and suggested that urban areas consider deployment of tolling as a funding mechanism.

RAMP supports the recommendations of the Washington Transportation Commission in its 2006 Comprehensive Tolling Study and believes that the state should use tolling to encourage effective use of the transportation system through congestion management as well as to provide a supplementary source of transportation funding. RAMP further contends that tolling represents the most direct way to charge system users for the cost of the highway system without singling out one specific class of user.

Always a visionary, Peirce goes even further, citing the recommendation of Robin Chase, CEO of Massachusetts-based Meadow Networks, that governments should abandon gas taxes entirely and shift to wireless technology:

A small, low-cost computer on board every vehicle would report (in real time) miles actually traveled, allowing a realistic government user charge. Fees could be adjusted for roadway congestion pricing (premiums to travel on peak roads at peak times), by wear and tear related to vehicle weight and footprint, and by the vehicle's emissions (a carbon tax to encourage vehicles with reduced greenhouse gas emissions).

Science fiction? Not really--in Britain, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling and others have already proposed that automobiles be equipped with onboard equipment to track their use, with drivers paying a higher charge for operation in congested places and at peak times. Closer to home, the Oregon Road User Fee Task Force has determined how such a tax might be calculated and collected; at the task force's request, researchers have developed technology that can distinguish miles driven in Oregon from those driven elsewhere, then allow a mileage tax to be calculated and paid at the pump in place of the state gas tax.

The technical issues are minimal compared with the administrative issues, and especially with tough policy questions about privacy, equity and the environment; nevertheless, the chronic and urgent need for additional sources for transportation funding will undoubtedly leave no stone unturned.

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.