The T Line, a streetcar operated by Sound Transit, runs through Hilltop on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, between Division Avenue and South 19th Street.
It opened as an extension of the existing line in September 2023 and connects the neighborhood to the Stadium District and Downtown Tacoma.
[5] The word "Hilltop" became synonymous specifically with Tacoma's gang problems, and more generally with urban pathologies associated with the US's crack epidemic.
[6] Many of the Cubans were prison inmates released by Castro who violently took over the illicit drug trade on Tacoma’s Hilltop.
Around 1984, an unknown Los Angeles Crip association began organizing local Hilltop youth to sell primarily powder and crack cocaine.
[7][8] In 2002, it was reported that neighborhood watch efforts, increased police presence, commercial real estate development efforts along Martin Luther King Way, the creation of the Alcohol Impact Area and rising real estate values in all areas adjoining downtown Tacoma have served to lower the amount of crime in Hilltop.