Pierce Transit

Pierce Transit

A compressed natural gas bus operated by Pierce Transit
Founded	1979
Headquarters	3701 96th Street Southwest Lakewood, Washington
Locale	Pierce County, Washington
Service type	Bus, vanpool, paratransit
Fleet	155 buses
Annual ridership	9,104,337 (2015)
Fuel type	Diesel, compressed natural gas
Chief executive	Sue Dreier
Website	piercetransit.org

Pierce Transit, officially the Pierce County Public Transportation Benefit Area Corporation, is an operator of public transit in Pierce County, Washington. It operates a variety of services, including fixed-route buses, dial-a-ride transportation, vanpool and ride-matching for carpools. The agency's service area covers the urbanized portions of Pierce County, part of the Seattle metropolitan area, and includes the city of Tacoma.

Public transportation in Pierce County historically focused on the city of Tacoma, which laid its first streetcar lines in 1888. The streetcars were phased out in the 1930s and replaced with citywide bus service, with the last line closing in 1938. The operators of the streetcar and bus systems, Tacoma Transit Company, was acquired by the city government in 1961 for $750,000. Under city ownership, the system was funded by a $0.75 monthly household tax first levied in 1965.

A public transportation benefit area (PTBA) was created in 1979 with the goal of establishing a countywide bus system. On November 6, 1979, voters in Tacoma approved a 0.3 percent sales tax to fund a new transit system, the Pierce County Transportation Benefit Area or "Pierce Transit". Pierce Transit took over Tacoma Transit's routes on January 1, 1980, and over the following year annexed other systems throughout the county.

Pierce Transit began operating express bus service from Lakewood and Tacoma to Downtown Seattle on September 17, 1990. The routes were later converted into Sound Transit Express routes, funded by the regional transit authority and operated by Pierce Transit, in 1999. The agency opened its central bus hub at Tacoma Dome Station in 1997, where Sounder commuter rail and Tacoma Link light rail service began operating in 2000 and 2003, respectively.