Taking Hilltop Link for a test spin: This is what it was like to ride up to St. Joseph in Tacoma

This Sat­ur­day, Sound Tran­sit will inau­gu­rate rev­enue ser­vice on Hill­top Link, a 2.4 mile exten­sion of the street­car the agency first opened in Taco­ma twen­ty years ago. Orig­i­nal­ly called Taco­ma Link and now known as the T‑Line, this high capac­i­ty tran­sit sys­tem has been a boon to the City of Des­tiny’s mobil­i­ty, and it’s about to get a lot more use­ful, because it will con­nect more places together.

In advance of the grand open­ing on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Sound Tran­sit kind­ly offered a pre­view ride for agency board­mem­bers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of media orga­ni­za­tions. CEO Julie Timm and senior agency staff were present to talk about the new street­car vehi­cles and sta­tions, and did a great job explain­ing the his­to­ry of the project and the obsta­cles Sound Tran­sit over­came to get it built.

We board­ed our test train at Taco­ma Dome Sta­tion around 11 AM under sun­ny skies and set off towards St. Joseph Med­ical Cen­ter, soon to be the new terminus.

The ini­tial part of our jour­ney took place along the part of the T Line that’s been in oper­a­tion for about two decades, so our oper­a­tor made sure to announce at each stop that the train was not in ser­vice and there would be anoth­er one com­ing soon, to avert any con­fu­sion on the part of the trav­el­ing public.

It was­n’t long before we had rolled past UW Taco­ma and the Greater Taco­ma Con­ven­tion Cen­ter and were on the final stretch of tracks of the orig­i­nal line. We passed by work­ers prepar­ing the sta­tions for this Sat­ur­day’s open­ing and then found our­selves head­ing uphill on the new seg­ments of the T‑Line.

We rode in one of five new Lib­er­ty Mod­ern street­car vehi­cles man­u­fac­tured for the expand­ed T‑Line by Brookville Equip­ment Cor­po­ra­tion in Penn­syl­va­nia by an all-Amer­i­can work­force. These vehi­cles look a bit dif­fer­ent than the orig­i­nal fleet man­u­fac­tured by Sko­da back in the aughts, but are func­tion­al­ly the same.

Staff point­ed out that Sound Tran­sit had to expand its T‑Line main­te­nance facil­i­ty in order to have room to store and work on these new trainsets.

Owing to being new, the addi­tions to the fleet are very clean in addi­tion to being com­fort­able and well lit. They have big win­dows and promi­nent elec­tron­ic sig­nage for wayfind­ing. Addi­tion­al­ly, all of the trains and sta­tions offer low floor boarding.

It took us about twen­ty-four min­utes to reach St. Joseph Med­ical Cen­ter. After paus­ing there to sim­u­late a sta­tion stop, our oper­a­tor switched us over to the oth­er track and walked to the oth­er end of the train to assume the con­trols at the oth­er end for the return jour­ney. On our way back, we had to wait in a cou­ple of places for the track ahead to clear, which gave those of us from the media more time to take pho­tos and ask ques­tions about the T‑Line expan­sion project.

Here’s a hyper­lapse of the ride on the expand­ed T‑Line from Taco­ma Dome Sta­tion to St. Joseph, from a behind-the-oper­a­tor perspective:

And here’s a hyper­lapse of the return journey:

Hill­top Link will add sev­en new sta­tions to the T‑Line. These are:

1. St. Joseph (Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Way south of South 17th Street)
2. Hill­top Dis­trict (South 11th and M.L.K. Way)
3. 6th Avenue (at M.L.K. Way)
4. Taco­ma Gen­er­al (M.L.K Way at Mul­ti­Care Taco­ma Gen­er­al Hospital)
5. Sta­di­um Dis­trict (North 1st Street at North G Street)
6. South 4th (at South Sta­di­um Way)
7. Old City Hall Sta­tion (Com­merce Street north of South 7th Street)

Addi­tion­al­ly, the sta­tion for­mer­ly known as Com­merce Street is being renamed The­ater Dis­trict, because the old The­ater Dis­trict Sta­tion is being removed.

Here’s a map:

For those unfa­mil­iar with the topog­ra­phy of Taco­ma, it is a hilly city, like so many in the Pacif­ic North­west are. As you move away from Com­mence­ment Bay, the ele­va­tion increas­es, and many streets have some­what steep grades. The T‑Line par­al­lels the Thea Foss Water­way all the way up to the Sta­di­um Dis­trict and then piv­ots to par­al­lel itself all of the way to St. Joseph. Sound Tran­sit is plan­ning to extend the T‑Line all the way to Taco­ma Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege by 2041.

That exten­sion will add anoth­er six sta­tions, as you can see from this map:

Sound Tran­sit does­n’t yet have the funds to build TCC Link, but it is hop­ing to acquire the mon­ey it needs with­in the next few years. Sound Tran­sit staff tell NPI that they will be pur­su­ing fed­er­al fund­ing for the project.

The agency is hope­ful that the new T‑Line sta­tions and ser­vice will bring more foot traf­fic to the small busi­ness­es in the Hill­top neigh­bor­hood. Hav­ing endured sev­er­al years of con­struc­tion and the apex of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, busi­ness own­ers and their work­ers will hope­ful­ly start expe­ri­enc­ing the pay­off this autumn.

If you’d like to join us in cel­e­brat­ing the open­ing of the T‑Line this week­end, here are the rel­e­vant details from Sound Transit:

On Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 16th, 2023, pas­sen­gers are in for spe­cial treats! At 10 AM, the com­mu­ni­ty is invit­ed to a rib­bon-cut­ting event. Locat­ed at the Taco­ma Urban Per­form­ing Arts Cen­ter (TUPAC) — 1105 MLK Jr Way, Taco­ma, WA 98405 — atten­dees will see a per­for­mance by TUPAC Dancers and the NW Sin­foni­et­ta and hear speech­es from com­mu­ni­ty leaders.

From 11 AM — 5 PM, enter­tain­ing tour guides will be on all trains to inter­act with rid­ers and point out fun facts along the T Line route.

Unless you’re under the age of eigh­teen, be sure to bring your ORCA card, because the T‑Line is going to have a fare as of this Sat­ur­day. It’s been a no-cost ser­vice since 2003, but that all changes this week­end when Hill­top Link opens.