Train Options In Lakewood Area Were On Track Early

Lakewood's history of mass transit is an example of the old adage what is old is new again.

More than a century again, the greater Lakewood area had mass transit before Seattle, and that legacy will pick up again once the Sounder train goes live, scheduled for the summer of 2012.

Routes into the City of Destiny from the Lakes District took more than an hour via horseback because there was a lack of highway and residential infrastructure. The working hug of wood experts were producing a noticeable flow of fortunes as they commuted in and out of the Lakewood areas including Steilacoom and University Place

The Tacoma and Steilacoom Railway Co. started in 1890. The company used steam driven cars first and quickly changed to horse-drawn carts to keep up with demand. The 12-mile rail line was the world’s first interurban streetcar system and became the longest electric line in the world.

Watts were beginning to replace horsepower.

The route ran from Tacoma through University Place and serviced the paper mill at Chambers Bay and the hospital workers at Western State Hospital before entering Steilacoom. People in the Bair Hardware store knew the train was about to arrive, because the lights would flicker as the trolley revved down Lafayette Street hill, draining power.

This lasted a decade before Seattle got its first rail line in 1899 and the success there produced a boom of rail lines throughout Puget Sound. Private rail companies were providing services from Everett to Seattle, Tacoma and Lakewood by 1912.

But it was not to last.

The opening of Highway 99 and the increased popularity of motorized vehicles eliminated the service by 1928. The Great Depression didn’t help matters, either, since fewer people needed a ride to work.

The region had little mass transit options for the next two generations. The Pierce County Public Transportation Benefit Area Corp., now Pierce Transit, wasn’t formed until 1979.

Several efforts to bring commuter rail service to the area came and went. Voters in the tri-county area of Snohomish, King and Pierce finally approved a $3.9 billion mass transit package that included rail in 1996. The first rail service began with a run from Tacoma to Seattle in 2000. The Lakewood extension of the rail service, while running late, is set to begin in 2012.

The Sounder train extension to Lakewood is behind schedule but will eventually service commuters in a period where gas prices have risen and public bus services have dropped.