Increased density to make more transit-friendly post

By Rachel Young, Northwest Guardian

In the future, Fort Lewis officials hope to make commuters’ gas woes a thing of the past.

Preliminary plans are in the works that would make Fort Lewis a more walkable, mass transit- and bicycle-friendly place for those who live and work here.

“What ... (the master plan) is seeking to do is to densify our population to make mass transit” more feasible, said Terry Austin, installation sustainability coordinator and pollution prevention manager for DPW’s Environmental Division.

Currently, because of how spread out the housing areas on Fort Lewis are, mass transit is challenging.

“When you have housing areas spread far enough apart, and shopping centers are also spread out, the ability to do convenient transit stops is not there,” Austin said. “Most people won’t wait for a bus to come along more than 10 minutes or so.”

The new master plans for Fort Lewis feature areas that include multi-use areas with housing, offices and retail in the same developments, making them more conducive to mass transit and pedestrian options.

“It’s all in the viability and how many people live within walking distance of the transit stops,” said Tom Tolman, an architect for Directorate of Public Works working on the plans.

One key step in the process will be Equity’s Town Center, which is scheduled to begin construction later this year.

“That’s putting more residential units right in the center of the installation, right back there by the commissary and the lodge, so you can walk to things,” Tolman said.

AAFES will follow that project with a Lifestyles Center, which is also visioned as mixed use, a downtown style area with housing on top of retail outlets and offices.

“You start to get this mix that you’d find in a traditional downtown and it’s easier for people to be able to live there, work there, play there,” Tolman said.

Some of these projects may be finished as early as 2011.