In the south of this image, a “children crossing” icon just north of the University Place label represents Happy Days Day Care, while the pacifier icon represents the ABC Children’s Center.įurther along Puget Sound, trains round off Point Defiance in a tunnel and turn south to arrive at the city of Tacoma. The highest street traffic is at 19th Street, with 7,090 average daily vehicles. University Place, WA (Pierce County): 19th Street and 6th AvenueĮach day, 46 trains pass through the University Place crossings that give cars access to the marina and waterfront. “Child crossing” icons represent Saltars Point Elementary School, Cherrydale Elementary School, and Lake High School.įrom Steilacoom, trains continue along Puget Sound, passing beside Chambers Bay Golf Course before coming to University Place. The crossing is currently traveled by 46 trains per day, a number that would swell dramatically if planned coal and oil shipments are realized. Union Avenue carries 14,500 vehicles per day, most of them to or from the ferry dock that provides access to Anderson Island, McNeil Island, and Ketron Island. Steilacoom, WA (Pierce County): Union AvenueĬontinuing into Pierce County, coal and oil trains will travel along Puget Sound beaches to reach Steilacoom and the gated at-grade crossing at Union Avenue. Marvin Road, the busier of the two streets, is traveled by 3,860 vehicles per day.Ĭontinuing north, trains enter Pierce County and soon come to the historic town of Steilacoom. Both crossings are protected by gates and currently see 40 trains a day. Lacey, WA (Thurston County): Atchinson Drive and Marvin RoadĬoal and oil trains are expected to travel east of Olympia through Lacey where they will cross Pattison Lake on a causeway before encountering two at-grade street crossings and passing near the shore of Long Lake. The high school is located near the baseball diamond to the east of the tracks.Ĭontinuing north, trains arrive at Lacey and the southern edge of the Puget Sound metropolitan region. Near the town center are icons showing Tenino Middle School and Tenino Elementary School.

The crossing is protected by gates to manage the 1,350 vehicles that travel over it each day. North of Tenino, 143rd Avenue SE intersects the BNSF mainline and its 42 daily trains. Tenino, WA (Thurston County): 143rd Avenue SE Bucoda Volunteer Park is marked by a green pine icon in the southeast portion of town. Gates protect 6th Street and its 1,400 vehicles from rail traffic. In this chapter we look at the next leg of the journey as trains roll into Thurston County and reach the town of Bucoda.įorty-two trains currently pass through the town of Bucoda daily. In our last installment, we examined street-rail interfaces in southwest Washington from Vancouver to Centralia.

Please note that our analysis is not a complete account of street closures, but rather a set of examples of public at-grade crossings that would be impacted by coal and oil trains.

That’s over and above current street closures from trains. In Thurston and Pierce Counties, the region around Olympia and Tacoma, we estimate that coal and oil trains would shut down streets and roads every day from 50 minutes to 1 hour and 54 minutes, on average, if all the plans were built and operated at full capacity. The volume of cargo and the speed of the trains together dictate that coal and oil movements could shut down each street crossing for hours a day as the trains pass over public streets and roads. Large-scale rail shipping of coal and oil presents a basic physical challenge to the region’s infrastructure. To better illustrate the effects of the plans, Sightline is analyzing rail crossings from Sandpoint, Idaho to Cherry Point, Washington in a special series, The Wrong Side of the Tracks. In recent years, the Northwest has seen a raft of proposals to use trains to transport coal to export terminals and crude oil to refineries and ports.

Lacey to tacoma traffic