King County has issued a dire warning, filled with bus route cuts, curtailments, modifications and deletions. Seventy-four routes in all would be cancelled, including Wallingford’s 26.
In a letter sent out earlier this week, Kevin Desmond, General Manager of King County Metro Transit, explains:
Today I announced a proposal to cut up to 17 percent of Metro’s service if no new funding becomes available. The proposed reductions would touch more than 80 percent of Metro’s bus routes, eliminating 74 of them and cutting trips or making other cost-saving changes to 107 more. About 55,000 rides per day could be lost as our service would revert to its 1997 level.
We don’t want to make these drastic reductions. […] Unfortunately, we have no choice but to plan cuts. Metro faces a $75 million annual shortfall after the two-year Congestion Reduction Charge and our reserve spending end next June. Our reduction proposal also deletes the extra service we’re providing to ease congestion caused by the Alaskan Way Viaduct project. State funding for this service ends in June as well, but we’re seeking an extension so we can continue to help hold off gridlock in and around downtown Seattle.
As the Great Recession and slow recovery have depleted the sales tax revenue we depend on, we’ve acted on every opportunity to cut costs or boost revenue, saving or gaining $800 million to keep our system nearly whole. Many of our financial reforms will bring ongoing benefits, and we continue looking for new efficiencies—by participating in the Lean program initiated by Executive Constantine, for example. But after all we’ve done, we have no options left that would generate enough to close the sizable gap ahead.
It’s difficult to believe this isn’t showmanship on Metro’s part, meant to shock Olympia into action. I hope so.
For more information on the cuts and how to provide feedback, visit www.kingcounty.gov/metro/
Gee, those $9 billion in Washington state tax breaks for the Illinois-based Boeing Company sure would come in handy right now.
My understanding is that funding must come from the state as per today’s laws. It appears that there are proposals to allowing funding to come from the city or county instead:
http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am/future/faq.html#question1
Hopefully this comes to fruition!
Do a quick search of the Seattle Times and you will find Metro playing this same old song every 6-12 months for at least 5 years, and probably longer if I cared to continue looking back.
It is hard to take Metro seriously with all the wolves in the way.
yep, craig, you are right, ho hum yawn
Metro plays “this same old song” because it doesn’t have stable funding. The temporary funding measures expire and thus it needs more money to keep providing service.
What Doug said! Plus, Metro needs to raise fares. I will vote “no” on any more property tax increases or car tab increases or any increases out of my pocket to pay for buses. Metro is operating like the Port, at a deficit. They need to start charging a fare commensurate with operating costs.
@6: So should Seattle’s roads be paid for the same way, through user fees? Because currently they’re funded primarily through property taxes and sales taxes, the idea being that society as a whole benefits from road infrastructure. If we were to charge tolls on our local streets “commensurate with operating costs”, only the very wealthy could afford to drive.
I happen to believe that society as a whole benefits from affordable and reliable public transit, and would fully support an increase in a local MVET to pay for bus service.
We’re already shelling out a lot for roads through gas taxes (user fees) and everyone does benefit from roads, including people who ride buses, and bus riders aren’t paying gas tax if they don’t own a car.
While quite unscientific, I will say I’m amazed at how many buses I see that have few riders. (And no, they aren’t out of service/heading to the bus barn.) Isn’t there some way to make the routes even more efficient so buses run less often during low need times? That wouldn’t address the whole budget shortfall, but surely it would help.
Somewhat the same infrastructure issue there – reliable transit means you can take the bus home even if it’s after 8 PM. That doesn’t mean the number 26 has to run every half hour all through the night, but there’s a civic interest in maintaining at least a minimal level of service when people might need it.
@8: Gas taxes are state and federal taxes, which fund mostly state and federal roadways. Local roads are funded primarily through sales taxes and property taxes, which everyone pays.
Could have saved a couple hundred k on the 45th bus humps. Can’t believe how much worse they have made traffic so no $ from me.
Raise fares. Still voting “no” if I’m given the opportunity and not having it shoved down my throat without my consent. Metro can streamline its operation and run it more efficiently and at least break-even and maybe even profit a little. I don’t believe the alarmist drivel they are putting out.
I think we really need more information on the situation. They did their funding analysis years ago based on the expected tax revenues at the height of the bubble economy. Ever since then they claim poverty because the shortfall based on the artificiality of the bubble is of course enormous. It really seems like a scam based on the bubble economy. That analysis from the height of the bubble should’ve been thrown out as trash years ago. They have made up part of the shortfall by extra car tab fees. We own one car and are willing to pay an extra $60 a year which I think we have been paying for years now. Is that fee expiring? Mind you I do not mean we should pay $60 above the current $60 but if the fee is expiring then fine, extend it. Property taxes on the other hand are way too high already. Many of us are just scraping by trying to pay hundreds per month in property taxes plus the mortgage. Simply “owning” rather than renting does not make someone rich. The bank really owns the place. 🙁
I (still) think Seattle should do something really really radical and try Free Buses Everywhere … even though it would cost a lot (of course) I think in the long run, it would be “cheap” in comparison … by any and all measures …
Sounds like Metro needs better budget management instead of public scare tactics to get their way.
Perhaps the General Manager position should be an elected position that is held responsible for staying on budget
I have to say I am more than surprised at the bitter sounding responses from Wallingford neighbors on this blog. Wow. Given the disproportionate public subsidy earmarked to maintain infrastructure for cars… I thought even SOV drivers (Seattle’s at least) supported Metro as a traffic mitigation measure. I don’t have a car, so depend heavily on Metro to get to work and more. But based on this snippet of public opinion am not expecting Metro to get the voter support they need to provide relief for daily standing room only bus rides (at least on the 1/2 dozen routes I use). Almost every bus rider has by now experienced the horrid standing in pouring rain and not one more person can squeeze on the bus so is refused service. (They need to start using those cattle prods to pack people in tighter – like in NYC.) Regardless, ugh. 🙁
You want bus fares raised? How high? Because right now, it costs me $5 a day – what would work for you? $7? $10? While I pay for the schools of children that I don’t have, and the road construction of freeways I don’t use?
You should be ashamed of your selfishness. This is a community. You have no idea what it will eventually cost you to not have public services. Thanks for being so narrow-minded about something so important for everyone!
Have you seen traffic downtown during rush hour? Do you really want more cars down there causing increased grid lock when bus service become inadequate or too expensive? Do you not understand that a large number of bus riders either have cars they don’t drive downtown, or don’t have a car now but can afford one if forced to have one? Not funding buses does not mean a better overall experience for the non-bus-riders of Seattle!
Um, if it’s a choice between higher fares or losing routes I depend on (remember I have no car), sure I’d pay higher fares. No shame. But really we need more parity in SOV vs public transit funding.
Luna, i see the same thing and wonder.. why are there 5 people on a large bus? Why not fewer buses on this line?
And yes the gridlock poor Seattle is experiencing will get even worse with a reduction in Metro transit service, impacting people, neighborhoods and environment.
Those of you “noticing 5 people on a bus” might want to actually ride to Downtown on the 355, 16, 358 or any of the 70sExpress busses or get on the Ballard-UW 44 route before chiming in. Rush hour (which is more like 4 hours) AM and another 4 hours again at PM will get you nice and cozy with some strangers. And when you do see a bus not at capacity remember that you don’t know how full it was before it passed in front of your eyes, like elsewhere along the route before people poured off at a key stop or will be when it turns around and heads the opposite direction. That’s part of running transit is planning for those fluxuations. If you know of a City/County with more efficiently run bus transit, where 100% of the routes all along the full stretch of the routes are full or nearly full capacity 100% of the time it really needs to be brought up as an example during public hearings re: the proposed funding cuts.
This notion that there are near-empty buses running through the city is absurd. It’s possible that if you live in Wallingford you’ll see the #26 will just a few people on it, but keep in might that the terminus of that line is in Green Lake. Trust me, there are always more than a few people on that bus when it’s going through Fremont and downtown.
Oh yeah. I forgot the 26 in my suggested list of routes to try. Non Metro supporters, join the crowd! Try the 26 Express! Super quick to Downtown…
Oh, Jane, really? I’m being “selfish”? Tell you what, if you want to subsidize my property taxes (which have tripled in 14 years!), I’ll stop being “selfish” 🙂 Some of you seem to think those of us who work and maintain homes (and cars) should subsidize everyone else in this city with needs. I have had to curtail an awful lot of my personal expenditures in order to meet my financial obligations in the past several years and, frankly, I’m sick of it. There are a lot of things I’m getting dinged for that don’t benefit me, but I pay…and pay….and pay. Enough. I don’t have kids by choice, and yet I’m forced to keep paying to educate and babysit other people’s decision to reproduce. A reasonable amount to fund schools I understand, but the bloodletting continues with no seeming accountability anywhere. Metro has gotten an awful lot of funding over the years and hasn’t yet shown it can operate within its budget. The Port of Seattle is supposed to be a profit-making enterprise so why are they sucking up part of our property taxes?!!! It’s outrageous and the only port in the country that does! I don’t think anyone can argue that services like fire, police and libraries actually do benefit everyone and I’m happy to fund them. I would love to see Seattle and King County’s operating budgets get stripped down to basics and see if they can then learn to operate within their (our) means. And to everyone who says they are riding on full capacity buses, don’t you think all those bus fares should be funding Metro? What are they doing with all that money? So, in the meantime, Jane, I’ll continue to be “selfish”, while I try and exist within my dwindling means.
There’s no such thing as a 100% self-funded bus system. Just like there’s no such thing as a 100% self-funded infrastructure system for cars in this country. SOV are much more heavily subsidized. And want to see the public cost correlated with education funding cuts… Plenty of research on that. You already know that though don’t you?
There have been ongoing funding cuts at my house. And I see where that has gotten me 🙁 And, crowdedbusrider, I don’t “…already know that…”. What are you referring to?
A well funded transit system benefits everyone and adds directly to our property values. I will continue to support Metro.
While I disagree with Lisa on many points, I do understand her frustration. Washington state has the most regressive tax structure in the entire country. When it comes to screwing middle-class and working-class people, we are #1!
Check out this chart. It’s staggering how much higher a percentage of income working- and middle-class families in our state pay in taxes compared to the top 20%. A high earner income tax in this state would go a long way toward alleviating that burden.
And regressive taxation is also terrible public policy. Metro can’t stay within budget because much of their revenue is tied to sales taxes, which drops significantly during recessionary times.
@30 So true. A major tax restructuring with state income tax would go a long way toward addressing this issue and helping the state economy to boot – as inequity is a total drain. But attempt by Gates Sr. several years back was of course voted down. Total bummer.
well, I dont have medical insurance and never go to Starbucks or any place else for entertainment. I can pay my car insurance, gas, a few magazines and high Wallingford rent.. which wasn’t so high a few years ago.
How about cutting the pay of the highest paid administrators to reduce bus costs?
This isn’t a scare-tactic per-se… The tab-fee we paid for the past couple of years as a band-aid to bridge the funding-gap is expiring, and should be replaced. It’s only a “we’re in trouble, oh no we’re not” because the county/state in the past has figured out short-term funding before the cuts were required.
As for cost-control, it isn’t that Metro isn’t “on budget”, as compared to previous years, it’s that their budget is largely dependent on sales-tax which varies significantly from year to year. Since the recession is still dragging on, the revenue they have to work with is below what they need to maintain the service they provided a few years ago.
Pretty much no city-wide transit system in the world recovers its operating costs through fares. They still exist, based on our contributions, because it lets folks who can’t drive (for various reasons) still be full-members of our city, and because building & maintaining the roads to support 100% car-travel would be much more expensive, and would turn our city into a cement-jungle.
In Seattle, 35% (in 2010) of downtown workers take transit to work, as compared with 33% who drove alone and 9% who carpooled. How much worse will traffic be if a significant number of those 35% start driving, instead? I guarantee you the vast majority own cars which they are choosing not to drive daily.
(http://www.commuteseattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2010-Commute-Seattle-Center-City-Mode-Split-Report-FINAL.RELEASE-6.141.pdf)
Oh, and here’s a city-wide analysis of the route changes: http://seattletransitblog.com/2013/11/08/a-closer-look-at-metros-cuts-seattle-and-north-king-county/
Metro actually put a good amount of effort into restructuring routes into core trunks, even though it leaves the in-between areas service-less, so that at least some areas would retain decent transit service. The 16 actually gets *more* frequency under their plan, due to moving some of the 26/28 rides onto it, though it will stop running earlier in the evening.
Actually, turning the 26 into an all-day express (except for not running at all at night) is not a bad idea. The bad part is dropping the 31 without increasing frequency on the 32; right now, it’s hard to get a seat some days on either during the day.
Those who don’t use Metro generally benefit from it more than those who do. There are more people on those 44s people bitch about on 45th Street than there are in your car or all the other cars that considered themselves backed up. Traffic would not be smoother if they were also in cars.
I have to expose the posers who are clearly posting here but don’t live in Wallingford. They are easy to spot, just look for people who complain about how crowded 45th has become. Newbies, if you live in Wallingford you travel east/west on 40th, 44th or 46th, never on 45th.
Actually, the removal of the #26 local seems like a very poor idea, as it eliminates the portion of service southbound on Wallingford from 40th to 35th, then westbound on 35th to Stone Way (and on to Fremont and then downtown)..
During peak commuter hours, the #26 local is full and can become standing room only. And as others have noted, sometimes there is no room on the bus at all…a tough prospect in inclement weather.
Metro’s suggestion that the #26 Express and the #16 can absorb this level of ridership now–let alone as the population of South Wallingford increases==seems improbable. And that’s assuming everyone can make the hike up to 40th or over to Stone Way.
Overloading other routes to impossible volumes isn’t a “plan,” it’s a consequence if the planning isn’t realistic.
If service cuts really do have to happen, I’d like to know there is at least consideration of maintaining the workhorse commuter routes but perhaps with reduced frequency.
“Overloading other routes to impossible volumes isn’t a “plan,” it’s a consequence if the planning isn’t realistic.”
It’s the consequence of trying to fit 20 pounds of manure into a 10-pound bag. No matter what your plan is, it’s going to end badly for some people.
This is why we need a bigger bag (i.e., more funding), and we either need Olympia to do it for us, or we need a City or County-wide funding measure to maintain transit coverage for our area.
Using the #16 instead of the #26 is not feasible. It is an uphill / downhill trek from one route to the other.
Why not run busses less often during light ridership hours instead of cutting out the bus route altogether?
@38 I personally find that Metro KC should be supported by Olympia and not through higher local taxes. The reason is that Seattle is the economic powerhouse of Washington State that is constantly subsidizing infrastructure, schools and other things in the rest of the state through the higher revenue that is created here. Perhaps, the state could at least help us in return to keep our bus system going so that we can all keep going to work?
I live on the #16 bus line, but don’t want to see the #26 be cancelled either. #16 only would really be quite a walk for much of the neighborhood.
@Craig:
Well said! I was thinking as I read this… “Didn’t I vote for a levy/tax increase on this exact issue a few years ago?”
Can someone explain why King County Metro keeps running out of money, despite continual cash handovers?
@41… Yes. You did. That covered the operating expense funding gap for the duration of the levy, which is now expiring, and needs to be replaced. And, yes, I think it’s BS that we have to vote on this every couple of years, too, which is why so many transit activists are calling for “stable funding sources”.
It wasn’t just a one-time “omg all of our buses are falling apart!” capital situation, which we can actually often get Federal grants to cover, but an ongoing need to cover operating expenses (drivers, gas, maintenance, stop repair, etc. etc.)
Lisa,
Go bus yourself.
To the Moon, Alice,
Me
Still voting “no”, Chunk.
@Neighbor2You#37: the plan is for the 32 to be rerouted down Wallingford and then to 35th, following the current route of the 26 between 40th Street and Fremont. It will slow that route down somewhat (35th is not exactly bus-friendly) but that area would still be served. Metro, for all we complain about them, actually tried very hard to fit these cuts within some reasonable restructuring given the fiscal constraints. Now if only we had a state senator who could deliver transit funding from Olympia that was stable and robust.
@45 Breadbaker
Hmm, thanks and well, yes to a point: if I’m reading the new maps correctly, the re-routed #32 would pick up part of the deleted #26 local run…
…but only as far as Fremont, and then the #32 would head east. 🙁
My concern continues to be getting downtown for work. Counting on timing for a transfer at Fremont (and that there would be any space on the bus) for a downtown-headed bus seems a dicey prospect.
So I appreciate your comment but I think we differ here: as a bus commuter, I believe my choices under the proposed system will be hiking up to 40th for the #26 Express, or over to Stone Way for the #16, and for me, that’s not reasonable restructuring.
Other thoughts? And believe me, if I’m reading all of this re-routing wrong, I’d be thrilled….
Prop 1 and Pending Service Cuts:
· Up to 645,000 hours of service lost
· Up to 74 routes cancelled completely
· Up to 107 reduced or modified
· 33 stay the same
· Up to 17% of service
· Up to 80% of riders impacted in some way
Metro used to have budget surplus, that changed when the self-serving opportunist T Eyman started to earn his living by attacking transit, along with the 2008 recession, wallaaa, budget deficit.