Jan. 3 — Sending buses into new developments could help with Sounder parking

It’s never too soon to start planning for the future of transit in East Pierce County.

Sounder station parking lots in Puyallup and Sumner are already clogged with commuters. Granted, not enough commuters are opting to take the bus from park and ride stations in Bonney Lake and South Hill to catch the Sounder, but the situation will only get worse as the plateau is developed.

In the coming years, Cascadia, Falling Waters and several other housing developments will flood East Pierce roads with more and more cars. With parking lots already full and spewing over into surrounding neighborhoods, there will be no place for these residents to park in order to catch the Sounder each weekday morning. Not only do we need to get these cars off the roads to help with the ever-present traffic problem along State Route 167, it’s the environmentally conscious thing to do.

Of course it’s hard to tell exactly how many commuters the new developments will create, but having all of them park in downtown Sumner really isn’t an option.

City officials had hoped that Proposition 1 would solve those problems before it was voted down in the last election. That leaves East Pierce leaders scrambling to come up with Plan B because, despite Prop. 1 being defeated, residents will still complain about parking issues.

Now is a good time for developers and transit officials to start considering ways to reduce the amount of traffic coming off the hill in the future. They could follow the lead of King County Metro and Pierce Transit officials who are considering a partnership with the city of Auburn to get people in and out of Lakeland Hills, a community developed by Sumner’s Investco. Investco is also developing Plateau 465 on the outskirts of Bonney Lake.

For a small fee, the proposal suggests, a bus would take residents from their own neighborhood to the Sounder station and back again.

It could be a good model for East Pierce County. Each of these communities popping up on the plateau will have commuters heading north and sending a bus to various neighborhoods would keep cars off the roads and out of the downtown areas.