Submitted by Michelle Mood.
Mega warehouse distribution centers continue to pop up in our communities. A panel discussion and Q&A will take place April 30 (1-3 pm) at Evergreen Tacoma (1210 6th Ave, 98405).
- The vehicle traffic impacts our health, safety and the climate.
- Paving countless acres of land reduces our access to trees and wetlands while threatening our aquifers
- Neighborhoods impacted the most are often already overburdened and formerly redlined.
Join The Conversation 253, and hear from amazing speakers. Learn about the impacts of these distribution centers, those proposed locally, and what we can do to protect our communities.
Panelists include:
- Sally Perkins
- Les Pogue Jr
- Michelle Mood
- Victorial Lesitman
- Dr. Annemare Dooley
If one truly wants to learn about the warehouse coming to Tacoma, I would suggest skipping this gab fest of one sided opinion and research the topic by going to the City of Tacoma and asking questions.
This “panel discussion” is an utter waste of time, will get nowhere, and is strictly for the purpose of riling up a triggered batch of uninformed people. The panelists are not experts in planning and have no solutions other than to stop the development here.
If the warehouses are not installed in Tacoma and Lakewood, they will be installed somewhere else in Pierce County, further from the port. This will lead to more urban sprawl, and much larger traffic and environmental impacts. These Not in my Back Yarders (NIMBYs) lack the mental capacity to comprehend this simple fact.
Scott Anderson,
Here’s a simple fact for you…those warehouses are already being built elsewhere…within 10-11 miles of Tacoma.
1.Milton:The Bridge Industrial Company (the company building the South Tacoma warehouse) has already started building another warehouse in Milton (total of 2 million sq ft on that site just south of Wild Waves Park). The Milton Warehouse (called: Bridge Point I-5 Seattle) is opening up a 1 million sq ft fulfillment center building first this summer. That 2 million sq ft building site is expected to generate 8,000-10,000 vehicle trips per day over local roads to access 18 and I-5.
2. Frederickson: a 3.4 (to expand up to 5+) million sq ft. warehouse/fulfillment center (FRED 310) is being built south of the S.176TH and Canyon Road intersection
So…there will be 3 distribution/fulfillment centers built within 11 miles of each other.
Total additional daily vehicle trips traffic generated by these 3 sites could easilynbe greater than 30,000 vehicle trips per day..within next 3-5 years.
No worries…I’m sure people will do well handling all this additional traffic congestion!😏
8,000-10,000 trips per day? Yeah, that number is off by a factor of more than 20. Per the ITE, a 2,000,000 sf warehouse would generate 380 trips per day. Typical uneducated NIMBY response. Throw fabricated, unreasonable numbers out there hoping something will stick. If you are going to talk traffic modeling, at least let it be within a factor of 2 or you’ll just get laughed out of the room.
And Edgewood is closer/ equidistant depending upon the time to the port than South Tacoma. Canyon Road expansion will improve Fredricksons access to the port.
The vehicle trips YOU calculated are undercalculated…not sure how you are managing to do that. If you want to see an example of vehicle trips calculations in a Transportation Impact Analysis (TIA), refer to Tacoma permit number LU21-0125 (Bridge Industrial/BNSF project). The traffic consultant (TENW) used the ‘Industrial Building” ITE code of 130 for a 2.5 million sq ft buildings complex to calculate 8,265 total vehicle trips per day (5/2021 report). These vehicle trips included the 1,411 diesel truck trips. However, these buildings’ design (reported on the original JARPA paperwork)are described as: 3 trans-loaded and 1 single-loaded…and consistent with fulfillment center buildings design…and NOT consistent with ‘industrial building’ designs. Therefore, fulfillment center type buildings(2.5 million sq ft).. with nearly 500 total docks..is calculated to generate 10,000-12,000 additional vehicle trips daily. The employees vehicle trips/numbers are also factored into the traffic generated by this site (the land use permit application reports 1,200 total employees to be working at that fulfillment center weekdays..and ? amounts on weekend days).
So…you can see your calculation of 380 is a bit low.
By the way, this ‘warehouse’ term used here and elsewhere… is a generic reference with this building project. The Bridge Industrial Company/Barghausen Company have been using the “industrial park” description for this project…which is still undercalculating vehicle trip numbers.