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Pierce Transit Runner is on-demand public transportation that allows you to book rides straight from your phone within dedicated micro transit zones.

The service, called Runner, available in the Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), Ruston, Tacoma Tideflats, and Spanaway areas. Each has its own zone or designated pick-up/drop-off spots. Point-to-point trips are also allowed anywhere within some Runner zones, Pierce Transit officials said.

Rides can be booked by calling 253-581-8000. Fares, which are the same rate charged for Pierce Transit buses, are $2 for an adult and $1 for holders of a Regional Reduced Fare Permit. The rides are for anyone 18 and younger with a Youth ORCA card.

Cash fare payments are accepted only for the JBLM zone. All other fares must be paid with a Transit app, ORCA card, or all-day pass.

More information is available at piercetransit.org and 253-581-8000.

srmedia by — September 13, 2023 in News
How the fair got here

By Paula Becker

On Oct. 4-6, 1900, a group of Puyallup Valley farmers, business people, and other residents join together to produce an agricultural and livestock fair designed to highlight local products. The event is called the Valley Fair and is so successful that it becomes an annual event. In time it will become the Western Washington Fair Association’s Puyallup Fair (since renamed the Washington State Fair) and draw the fifth-highest attendance of any fair in the country.

The main promoter of the Valley Fair was Lewis Alden Chamberlain, a farmer from Buckley who successfully mounted a similar agricultural event in Enumclaw in 1899.

Alden set about convincing farmers in the Puyallup-Sumner Valley that their location would make it easy to draw crowds from as far away as Seattle and Tacoma. Chamberlain approached the Puyallup Board of Trade with his idea. The board gave the project their support, and in June of 1900 some of the valley’s most progressive farmers organized the Valley Fair Association. Chamberlain was elected president of the newly formed association. William Hall Paulhamus became vice president, James P. Nevins secretary, and George D. Spurr treasurer.

Board members circulated through the valley offering $1 shares of 1,000 possible shares of capital stock they had issued to fund the fair to merchants, farmers, and anyone else they could corral. Although only $82 was raised through stock sales, and some of that was the value of trade labor rather than cash, board members pushed ahead with preparations, erecting a 10-foot fence around a vacant lot west of Puyallup’s Pioneer Park.

As they busily set up a borrowed tent within the fence on the evening before the planned Oct. 4 opening, gusts of wind collapsed it. It took until after midnight to re-pitch the tent and repair the damage.

The Valley Fair board, however, had evidently not managed to stir up sufficient local enthusiasm. When the gate opened, no exhibitors had yet materialized. Vice president Paulhaumus recalled events in a newspaper report in 1920: “Chamberlain stood at the gate most of Thursday morning without any exhibits being turned in. About noon, Romulous Nix was seen coming down the dusty road leading a shorthorn bull, unknown breeding. [Nix’s name was actually Rhonymous or Ronimous. Apparently he used both spellings but usually abbreviated it and used the name R. Nix.] Mr. Chamberlain gave his old friend a warm greeting and found a fencepost to which the Nix bull could be tied. The bull had some qualifications besides being the head of the herd. He had also been taught to permit boys to ride on his back, and instead of having a merry-go-round or a Ferris wheel, the children were entertained by taking a ride on the back of the Nix bull.”

Paulhaumus arrived soon thereafter with a heard of Jersey cows, some calves, a wagonload of chickens, ducks, and geese, and some Berkshire hogs. With the Nix bull, they constituted the fair’s initial livestock exhibit. By the time the event concluded, several horses and foals and an owl had joined the exhibition.

Examples of the Puyallup-Sumner Valley’s bounteous produce were on display inside a tent, as were various kinds of needlework, baked items, and jams and jellies. Contestants vied for prizes in categories such as best raspberry wine, most butter made in 24 hours, and best example of Hubbard squash. A pair of slippers was promised to the child under age 16 who produced the best essay on Puyallup Valley history. A number of valley merchants also displayed their wares.

A $1 admission fee covered an entire family for the entire run of the fair, and also gave that family one vote in the election of fair officers for the next season. Newspaper writers were admitted free of charge.

Although attendance on the fair’s first day was disappointing, by Friday, Oct. 5, word of mouth had spread and the trickle of visitors began to expand. Local residents attended almost without exception, and, true to Chamberlain’s prediction, Tacoma residents began to arrive by train.

Friday’s fair visitors watched as infant Walter Durgan of Sumner was awarded the prize for Prettiest Baby. A public wedding planned for early afternoon had to be canceled when the engaged couple who were to have been married and collect an oak rocking chair and $10 worth of groceries as wedding presents developed cold feet. A cattle parade around the fairgrounds led by Oscar Showers of Enumclaw and a brief horse race helped disappointed fairgoers regain their good humor.

The first Valley Fair netted a profit of $583 and drew some 3,000 visitors. Except during World War II, the event was held annually thereafter. By the end of the 20th century, more than 1 million people attended the Puyallup Fair (as it was titled then) each year.

Source: Historylink.org, a non-profit organization, and Washington Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation.

FAIR, FOOD, FESTIVITIES: IT’S THE FAIR

This year’s Washington State Fair, in keeping with one of its annual traditions, will open in Puyallup on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. The 20-day run Sept. 1-24 (it will be closed on all three Tuesdays) will feature the usual attractions, including animals (farm and domestic), agriculture displays, commercial vendor and product exhibits, carnival rides and game booths, arts, and food (such as the fair burgers the two past fairgoers have their hands on in this photo). Big-name musical performers will star in the concert series at the grandstand, where a rodeo is also billed.
The fair is the largest one in Washington and one of the biggest in the world. Some things to know if you’re planning to attend:

  • Wear comfortable shoes and expect crowds. The fairgrounds cover 165 acres, and attendance averages 1 million people a year.
  • Admission costs $14 for adults, $12 for children 6 to 18 years old, and $12 for seniors. Kids 5 and under get in free. Everyone can enter free on opening day between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. by donating a non-perishable food item for the Puyallup Food Bank.
  • Parking in official fair lots costs $15 on weekdays and $20 on weekends. “Premium” parking (purchased on-site) is $35, and VIP parking (purchased online) is $50. Private owners and fund-raising groups typically offer pay-to-park options. And there is some on-street parking.
  • Need other information? Call 253-841–5045 or go online at thefair.com.
srmedia by — September 5, 2023 in Spotlight
Gearing up for EV charging

Electric cars are coming at a faster clip. Are we ready to charge all of them?

The Biden Administration set aside more than $5 billion to build 500,000 chargers nationwide through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. At least 35 states, including Washington, have had their NEVI plans approved and have begun to receive funding. Washington will receive a total of $71 million over the next five years through the program, officials said.

In addition, Washington will invest $69 million a year to install new chargers statewide, with special emphasis on serving multi-family housing that lacks dedicated parking for vehicles.

Only 200 public charging locations statewide offer fast charging. Chargers are mostly concentrated in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area. Drivers encounter chargers in disrepair, a variety of charging standards and speeds, and a variety of required apps and payment methods, according to the state Department of Transportation. To address those issues, state officials are creating policies to require accessible payment with credit cards, and maintenance standards to ensure that stations work.

Recipients of federal and state funding to install chargers must produce a maintenance plan to keep chargers in operation. The state will also require chip readers for all new charging stations beginning next January. That means anyone with a pre-paid debit card or credit card can charge, without the need for a proprietary app.

“I don’t know how people pay for it. I think on the app, you have to set up a credit card,” said Jacqueline, a new EV (electric vehicle) driver from Tacoma. “That’s the part I don’t like. You have to do everything through this app. That’s kind of rough.”

“If you’re driving a long way, it can take some ingenuity,” says Randy Brooks. “But EV travel is nearing convenience. You can get anywhere in Western Washington no problem, and an experienced EV owner can get anywhere they want with a little planning.”

Brooks serves on the board of Plug-In North Central Washington, and leading the charge to expand EV ownership in Chelan County. Brooks is a seasoned long-distance EV driver, and he recently returned from a 5,400-mile trip in his Tesla. Back in 2016, Brooks couriered a letter from the mayor of Everett to the mayor of Spokane in his EV to promote electrification.

Brooks gets around just fine, and he says things are getting better fast. There are now more than 4,000 public charging ports in Washington state. The range of new EVs improves every year. Charging an EV at home in Chelan County costs the equivalent of just $0.30 a gallon. Brooks’ experience is proof that EVs are indeed practical, even for drivers in expansive Central Washington.

Even before NEVI funding, state grants were helping municipalities build local charging stations. The town of Steilacoom received one to install public charging stations outside of its public works facility, and the Lacey is using state grants to build new chargers near its city hall and library. Mount Vernon has a similar project involving 75 public chargers.

A robust streetside charging network would help Washingtonians without off-street parking, like in urban areas or multifamily housing. The City of Seattle is installing 31 new curbside chargers this summer, for example.

Those who wish to charge at home may benefit from local utility programs or federal tax credits. EV drivers who installed a charger at home in 2022, for example, could have received a tax credit 30% of hardware and installation costs during the 2023 tax season. State agencies and legislators are debating “right to charge” policy that would prevent HOAs from prohibiting charging.

Electric vehicles are no longer fledgling. Newer models have extraordinary range, high customer satisfaction, and compelling amenities. But the charging experience away from home still shows some minor growing pains of a nascent technology.

“But those growing pains are fading,” Governor Jay Inslee wrote in an article published by his office May 18. There are roughly 3,500 gas stations in Washington, and through a mix of private enterprise and public investment, many thousands more charging stations are coming atop the 4,000 already operating, he noted.

“It won’t be long until EV chargers are ubiquitous, and it won’t be long until our daily travels cease to choke the air we share,” Inslee wrote.

Source: Washington governor’s office.

srmedia by — September 5, 2023 in News

Old scams never die, and new ones are popping up all the time. From sophisticated AI (artificial intelligence) deepfakes to phishing attacks cloaked in e-mails and text messages, criminals from all over the world are constantly concocting a variety of ways to steal information and money.

They pose as our banks, familiar stores, the IRS, and potential romantic partners. They hack into accounts. They swipe passwords and they even steal our voices and images. They prey on the young, the old, and everybody in between. They use our worst fears and even shocking news events to catch us off guard.

Recent data from the Federal Trade Commission underscores the scale of the problem. The FTC found Americans in 2022 lost $8 billion to fraud, a staggering amount that was up more than 30 percent from the previous year.

Though rip-offs are rampant nationwide, some states are hotbeds, with Washington in that range. To identify the states where scams are most prevalent, Forbes Advisor analyzed data from the FTC for the first quarter of 2023 and scored states by focusing on four factors:

  • Fraud reports per 100,000 residents (35 percent of the total score per state).
  • Total number of fraud reports (15 percent of the total score).
  • Median loss from fraud, in dollars (35 percent).
  • Total loss from fraud, in dollars (15 percent).

Georgia is the state where financial scams are most prevalent, with 437 fraud reports for every 100,000 residents during the first quarter of 2023. Washington ranks 13th, with 228 reports per 100,000 residents. South Dakota is least-affected, at 132 reports per 100,000 people.

Nationwide, imposter scams are the most common fraud. Online shopping leads to the second most common type of fraud.

Source: Forbes Advisor, which reports on financial issues related to consumer credit, debt, banking, insurance, and real estate.

srmedia by — September 5, 2023 in Personal Finance/Consumers