Pierce Transit
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. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . History 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, initially named the Pierce County Public