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The Tacoma Link light rail is a tiny 1.6 mile light rail line with 5 stations that connects the Tacoma Dome Transportation Center and Park and Ride with stations in downtown Tacoma. It is a completely free light rail!
and no infrastructure seems to exist to collect fares with. The line is almost entirely street running in dedicated lanes mainly in the median of streets, to emphasize that a lane is dedicated to light rail the right of way is raised about three inches off the ground.
It also has a small section of street running with its lanes also used by normal traffic (the entire length of the line, except for Theater District Station), there is also a short section on a dedicated ROW, when the line curves from Commerce Street to Pacific Street, the line is completely at grade with traffic lights at all cross-streets.
The Light Rail Line opened on August 22nd, 2003. It is the first streetcar line in Tacoma since 1938. It is operated by Sound Transit, a tri-country regional transportation authority created under a 1996 referendum that also operates the peak hour, peak direction only Sounder Commuter Rail, and ST Express buses throughout the region.
It is also currently building the Central Link Light Rail from Sea-Tac Airport to Downtown Seattle and beyond. The current Tacoma Link will be incompatible with this new system, and it may one day be closed and converted for Central Link operation if the line ever gets this far south.
For Rolling Stock the line has 3 (Numbered 1001, 1002, 1003) Skoda Dopravni Technica Low-Floor 10T Tramcars, built in the Czech Republic, and are the same cars that are used by the Portland, OR Streetcar. Service operates very simply using only two of the three LRVs at one time. Trains leave each terminal station (Tacoma Dome or Theater District) at the same time and pass each other near the Union Station stop, arriving at their respective destinations about 8 minutes later. The service frequency is every ten minutes giving the LRV drivers enough time to change ends at each terminal. On Sunday mornings and holidays service is run using only one LRV, giving it an every 20 minute frequency. Service hours are fairly small, from 5:30AM to 8:00PM Monday through Friday, 8:00AM to 10:00PM Saturday, and 10:00AM to 8:00PM Sundays (using only 1 LRV until 11:40). Service on major Holidays is abysmal with single LRV service between 10AM and 6PM. |
 A list of stations is Here |
Home<Worldwide<ST Tacoma Link Light Rail
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Last Updated: 1 August, 2006
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