Security Camera Positioning: one of the keys to catching crooks

Last month the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber hosted a business discussion with security experts Sagem Morpho. Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor facilitated the conversation, which emphasized accurate positioning of security cameras to effectively identify crooks.

Learn more about how to position security cameras to capture good quality face images for assisting criminal investigations at the Chamber's Tech Connect Blog.

Shoup Talks Tacoma Parking

The City of Tacoma and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber teamed up to sponsor a public lecture and conversation with renowned parking expert and UCLA professor Donald Shoup. City staff, residents, business owners, and students gathered at UWT on Wednesday morning to talk parking in Tacoma.

But parking is not just about parking, according to Professor Shoup. He has done extensive research on connections between parking and transportation, land use, economic development, and the environment. His engaging presentation was rich with Tacoma examples and images. He also highlighted United States' car-centric culture and the consequences on our cities, health, and land. (Did you know that there are 18% more automobiles than there are licensed drivers in the U.S.?)

Professor Shoup is well-known for his analysis of the "high costs of free parking," arguing that while a driver may not pay a direct fee for pulling into a "free" parking space, there are hidden costs for the community, businesses, and he advocates for charging the right price for parking, which is the lowet price that will still maintain some vacant slots. He also advocates for parking meter revenue to go directly to the neighborhoods that genereate it so people see the connection between their fare and safety, cleanliness, and aesthetics.

After the public lecture, City Staff stayed for a private conversation with Professor Shoup.

If you weren't able to get your dose of parking this week (or if you want more), here is a link to a 2007 New York Times editoral by Professor Shoup.

LeMay Museum Moving Forward?

Phase I of the Harold E. LeMay Museum is looking for funding opportunities for the $28,441,070 project.

Yesterday representatives from the LeMay Museum asked the City Council’s Economic Development Committee to consider financing support for the museum through the City’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Entitlement. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Section 108 loan program allows CDBG Entitlement communities, like Tacoma to borrow money for certain community development activities. The LeMay project qualifies as an economic development activity within the Section 108 program.

The $3,500,000 of Section 108 loan proceeds will be leveraged with New Market Tax Credits, a conventional loan from US Bank and equity to build phase I of the LeMay Museum on a site provided by the City of Tacoma near the Tacoma Dome.

Phase I, which will begin the permit process this spring, is anticipated to create 90 jobs and will consist of:

• 150,000 square foot Collector Car Center displaying 600 cars


• 8 Galleries


• Theater in the round


• 1 kilometer road displaying vehicles and exhibits


• Café


• Banquet hall


• Councours Club


• Club Auto


• Education Center with library and classrooms


• Auto maintenance facility


• Four-acre show field

The museum anticipates future private retail development and a dining complex housing a multiplex theater.

The full council will hear the financing proposal at the April 15th City Council meeting.

Complete Streets: What They Are and Why We Need Them

A national movement is gaining momentum calling for “complete streets” that are designed for all types of users of all ages and abilities, pedestrians, cyclists, transit, trucks, cars, wheelchairs, skateboarders etc.

In addition to accommodating all users, complete street designs incorporate landscaping, trees and other features which provide both aesthetic and functional benefits, ultimately creating a sense of place that attracts all the users it was designed for.

The City of Tacoma is currently engaged in a study to incorporate complete street principles in the 16 Mixed-Use Centers. Tacoma’s Mixed-Use Centers are areas (primarily the neighborhood business districts) that are planned for high density housing, commercial revitalization, pedestrian friendly development and frequent transit service.

A number of recent planning processes have highlighted the benefits of and need for complete streets including Angelou Economics economic development strategy, the Downtown Plan Update, Destination Downtown, the Transportation Element of the Comprehensive Plan, and the Green Ribbon Taskforce.

The complete streets study identifies four street typologies, each with their own characteristics and uses. For more information on preliminary findings and designs here.

Main Streets (think McKinley, Proctor and 6th Ave.): High density people intensive retail uses oriented to the street. Street design emphasizes walking and highlights transit and bike access while promoting traffic calming. Two lanes streets (25 mph), short blocks with generous sidewalks.

Avenues (think S. Tacoma Way, S. 19th and Portland Ave): Commercial, office and mixed uses with buildings oriented to the street and parking in the rear. Street design emphasizes mobility and balances safety and service for all modes. Three to five travel lanes (35 mph) with on-street parking. Encourage mid-block crossings with medians and pedestrian islands on longer blocks (500’-600’).

Transit Priority Streets (think Tacoma Ave., Division and Pacific): High density people-intensive uses. Mixed use buildings oriented to the street. Street design promotes frequent transit service (bus and streetcar) and a high quality pedestrian environment with curb bulbs and regular pedestrian crossings.. Two shared travel lanes (25mph) with on street parking where appropriate. Bikes are accommodated on parallel streets.

Urban Residential Streets: Primarily Multifamily residential uses with limited commercial/ mixed uses. Street design promotes ‘livable streets’ with wide sidewalks, public art, seating, pedestrian scale lighting, attractive landscaping, bike lanes. Two travel lanes with slow travel speeds. Angled or parallel parking on street for visitors, residential parking in nearby lots/garages.

The purpose of the complete streets study is to inform a City Council policy discussion of the opportunities and challenges in Tacoma. The project will develop guidelines for complete streets that, if approved, would be used to direct future street improvements within the Centers.

California's Governor Schwarzenegger signed the Complete Streets Act of 2008 (pdf) into law on September 30. The law requires cities and counties statewide to incorporate complete streets when updating their general plans. Learn more at http://www.completestreets.org/

City Leaders Bike to Work

City Council members, Planning Commissioners, and Public Works staff biked to work together this morning. Members of the Tacoma Wheelmen’s Bicycle Club joined the ride, as well as local media, Chamber and City staff. The event was organized by the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber and the City’s mobility staff and aimed to encourage policy makers (and stripe painters) to experience first hand what it’s like to ride on Tacoma’s streets.

Nearly 25 riders met in Proctor, East Tacoma, and near the Scott Pierson trail off of Union during rush hour this morning. All three groups rendezvoused at the Tacoma Municipal Building, where riders faced perhaps one of the biggest challenges of the morning: Where to store the bikes.

These “uh-oh” moments were just what organizers had hoped for, and as participants chatted over breakfast, the conversation was rich with more observations and insightful perspective on how Tacoma can become a more bike-friendly city.



Here are some of the themes of what people noticed and suggested:

• Road conditions were inconsistent and often dangerous. Riders often have to make sudden decisions about how best to avoid potholes, which is particularly tricky and unsafe when there are vehicles nearby (driving and parked). The danger factor of potholes and other wear and tear – and whether people even notice them – often depends on how many wheels you have underneath you.
• Bulb outs are great for pedestrians, but not always for bikes. Unless they are incorporated into the street design properly with all transportation modes in mind, these devices aimed to improve walking can be detrimental to biking.
• We need better signage for what we do have. Even when there were trails or bike lanes, it was hard for newer riders to know how they connected.
• The Pierce County Bike Map needs help. Badly. Commuters also need a bike map that focuses on downtown and residential areas. Connecting modes (like public transit) is also necessary, especially for those of us looking for ways to get out of downtown without climbing Tacoma’s treacherous hills.
• Vehicles behave differently when there is a herd of bikes. Let’s be honest: with 7-8 riders and lots of reflective clothing, we were pretty hard to miss this morning. When you’re a lone cyclist, it can be trickier to know how to behave in traffic and bike predictably (read: safely).

On that note, the overarching call to action for the morning was the need for not only adequate biking infrastructure, but appropriate education for cyclists and motor vehicle drivers. Casual and avid riders alike emphasized that the instances in which they felt the least safe were when they either didn’t know how to behave as a cyclist or when cars behaved unpredictably around them. Becoming a city that encourages biking as transportation, recreation, and fitness means that we need to adjust our collective mindset and behaviors to be predictable, legal, and safe as we build better biking amenities.

This is certainly only the beginning of the conversation, and it is an imperative one for Tacoma residents to be a part of. Talk your City Council and City Staff about biking in Tacoma. Encourage them to keep these comments and issues in mind as they consider a Bike and Pedestrian master plan next year.

Tollefson Plaza Management Contract Nearly Done

A licensing agreement between the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber and the City of Tacoma to create a pro-active management entity for Tacoma's central public square is nearly complete--so much so that details were shared yesterday with members of the Tacoma City Council's Government Performance & Finance Committee.

As presented to city leaders--and yet to be approved by either party--the proposed license would have the following provisions:

• The license allows the Chamber to be the “primary manager” of the Plaza, based on recommendations made in 2006 by the consulting organization, Project for Public Spaces, and also on Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square;
• The Chamber intends to develop a schedule of ongoing activities in the Plaza to promote more foot traffic and increase the visibility of the Plaza for community uses, and will be programming the Plaza, managing relationships with public and private sector partnerships and marketing the Plaza to the public;
• The City, including the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center, retains the right to program the Plaza for events, and the Chamber also must allow use of the space for constitutionally protected activities;
• The full-time City events coordinator that will oversee the event permitting process will be expected to coordinate with the Chamber on use of the Plaza;
• The City will not pay a fee for the Chamber to manage the Plaza, nor will the Chamber pay the City a fee to use the Plaza--the Chamber’s services will be funded through fees, sponsorships, and other fundraising;
• The agreement will be for a two-year term with two renewal periods allowed for a total of six years.

BIA Presents Renewal Petition, 2008-09 Program

Directors and staff for the BIA today presented the Tacoma City Council with the ratepayer petition supporting renewal of the program for another ten years. During the public hearing and an earlier presentation to the Council's Economic Development Committee, ratepayers described the benefits of the program and outlined changes for the renewal period beginning May 1st.

Among the points made during public input presented to city leaders were the following:

• Representatives from several of Tacoma's largest employers described how important the district's services are to maintaining their downtown worksites;
• Boundaries will remain as they are under the current program but may be expanded to match the Destination Downtown footprint pending petition of property owners in the expansion area;
• Residential properties will join offices and retail in the higher of two assessment rates, reflecting a growing demand for 24/7 service delivery;
• Increased revenue will be directed to funding additional police patrols dedicated to the downtown area under a new contract being developed between the City and BIA.

City Council members also reviewed provisions of the 2008-09 rate, budget and work plan--the first year of operation under the renewal.

Both measures were adopted by voice vote of the Council--unanimously save for Marilyn Sticklund, who recused herself as a downtown property owner. The measures will have a second reading next Tuesday evening pending final adoption.

Team Assembles to Push Commute Options

The big push is on to help downtown employees find new ways to get to work, reducing costs for development and spurring deployment of new commute options. A team of key staff people from the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, City of Tacoma and Pierce Transit have begun meeting to shape a program that will help reduce traffic congestion--or at least hold the line as employment rises--in downtown during the next year.

Portland consultant Rick Williams is helping this group develop and implement a comprehensive action plan that includes the folowing strategic steps:

• Establish a Premier Partnership, made up of downtown's top private and public executives (a commitment made by the Chamber as part of its contribution to Project Destiny);
• Assemble a downtown geocode--location in geographic space converted into computer readable form (a task for City staff with their extensive Geographic Information System);
• Overlay infrastructure on the geocode and assess service delivery (a job for Pierce Transit);
• Target marketing (cooperative effort by all three parties);
• Reach agreement on transit & parking goals (a cooperative effort by all parties following successful completion of the other strategies).

Partners in this combined effort are looking for a new, jazzy moniker for this unprecedented alignment of business, government, and transit agency--GTEC doesn't cut it; neither does Destination Downtown Door-To-Door.

Community Fund Makes Sen$e--You Can Say That Again!

A small group of stakeholders celebrated the launch last night of Sound Community Initiatives, an innovative investment fund that promises to help revitalize low-and moderate-income neighborhoods while paying off big for contributors.

Sound Community Initiatives has been dubbed a "double botton line" fund promising healthy investment returns--the first bottom line--as well as jobs, amenities and strengthening of poor communities--the second bottom line. Over the past ten years, similar funds have been used to support more than $2 billion in commercial, retail, residential and mixed-use projects in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore and Miami. Sound Community Initiatives expects to pump as much as $360 million worth of development funding into five Puget Sound counties--including King, Pierce, Thurston, Snohomish and Kitsap. And fund developers expect it to be the first of as many as five such investment pools, with the potential to generate as much as $3.2 billion in development in the five counties. The Puget Sound will be the first region in the Northwest to benefit from such a program, thanks to three years of work by Martin Luther King Housing Development Association director Felix Flannigan and a group of local investors.

Local funds will be managed by Los Angeles-based investment group Kennedy Wilson, which services more than $8 billion worth of commercial and residential property. The firm also manages five real estate funds representing more than $2 billion in assets. Kennedy Wilson officials promise to share their development and investment expertise with local communities in addition to maximizing returns for investors.

Transit & Parking Recommendations Presented to City

Members of the Transit & Parking Advisory Committee, a stakeholder group organized by the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, shared their most recent recommendations with members of the City of Tacoma's Economic Development Committee this past Tuesday. The committee, currently chaired by Marty Campbell, has successfully pulled together downtown leaders with City and transit agency staff to help identify and implement changes needed to make that complex system work better.

Campbell presented new paradigms for both parking and transit, leading into the committee's most significant recommendations:

• Develop a downtown transportation plan that considers pedestrian, bicycle, carpool, vanpool, bus, rail, Flexcar and parking as coordinated elements of a strategic transportation system;
• A more robust, employer-based transportation demand management (TDM) program should be pursued (i.e., Growth Transportation Efficiency Center and Destination Downtown Door-to-Door). This program will build momentum—augmenting current CTR programs that already promote use of excellent local and regional transit services—to promote awareness and utilization of commute options;
• The City of Tacoma, Pierce Transit, Sound Transit and downtown stakeholders should institute a Downtown Transit & Parking Panel (implementation committee) to foster communication, facilitate collaborative decision-making among parking stakeholders, review parking and transit policies, provide a customer perspective and benchmark how well the system is meeting established criteria.

In response to questions from Council members, Campbell explained that the committee's recommendations closely parallel those of City Manager Eric Anderson, and he indicated that the committee is expanding its geographic scope and membership to give it the ability to act as a part of the implementation process.

What City Leaders Heard

Yesterday was a day for stakeholders to sound off on a number of issues that will drive downtown Tacoma's future development. What did members of the Tacoma City Council hear?

City Manager Eric Anderson presented his final set of recommendations regarding future parking and transit needs, including:

• Streetcars designed to share the streets with cars and bikes and buses, unlike Sound Transit's Link, which is separated from other vehicles;
• A citywide system of dedicated paths for bicycles and pedestrians;
• Pay stations levying “market rate” charges to park on the street, with prices varying based on the section of downtown and the time of day;
• More parking garages spread around the fringes of downtown rather than taking up valuable real estate in the city’s core;
• Parking revenues directed into a separate enterprise fund, rather than the city's general fund;
• Elimination of city-mandated parking requirements--or at least a cap on the number of parking spaces required.

Anderson’s report lacked specifics about funding, timing and other details. If the City Council approves of the broad outline, he recommended forming an advisory committee to figure out how to implement the ideas. It could be nine months to a year before anything final comes to the City Council for approval.

Following the transit and parking report, Anderson laid out the costs to Tacoma of cutting off the access between downtown and the Tideflats via the decaying Murray Morgan Bridge--and he made it clear that he expects the state to pay for them.

It used to take a police cruiser five minutes to get from downtown Tacoma to the Tideflats; since the emergency closure of the bridge last week, the length of that journey has increased by seven minutes and by more than three miles. The city has added one fire engine and an extra police officer to limit the bridge closure’s effect on emergency response times, but the extra units will cost the city about $190,000 a month in overtime pay and equipment costs.

Residents and property owners on both sides of a controversial proposal to raise the allowed building height along a portion of the Thea Foss Waterway testified later in the day before the City Council. The proposal would allow a tall, skinny approach dubbed a “tower/podium” building form. Approved by the Tacoma Planning Commission following a lengthy public process, the proposal would allow only one tower in a project to be 180 feet tall; additional towers would get progressively shorter by 20 feet. It also would require an average 100 feet of space between towers to preserve view corridors.

The council is scheduled to hear a first reading of a proposed ordinance November 13th and could finalize action on November 27th.

Here, Neighbor--Catch This Brick!

Last evening's 9th & Pacific Public Forum was well-attended and laid a good foundation for future collective effort. The BIA and Tacoma police reported back to the community on the progress made in addressing nuisance behavior in this area--it has been substantial--and stakeholders began some constructive dialog around how to address what still needs to be done.

Inevitably, debate flared up about Brick CITY (spelled correctly to reflect that it stands for Community Impact Through Youth) and its impacts on surrounding businesses and residents. Reporter Scott Fontaine's recap in The News Tribune today fairly reflects the light--and heat--thrown out by participants in the forum.

The BIA has agreed to post results from the event here on this blog, as well as providing an online forum for continuing discussion of the situation in the area.

Also reported by Exit133.com