Late afternoon update April 24: Metro has released new estimates of what routes will be lost or changed. The original figure of 600,000 service hours lost (17 percent of service) has been reduced to 550,000 hours (16 percent).
The revised recommendation will do the following:
Delete 72 routes (formerly 74)
Change 84 routes (formerly 107)
Leave 58 routes unchanged (formerly 33)
The new estimates are here.
Update April 24: Preliminary results from election night indicate that in the state legislative district that includes Maple Leaf (the “Fightin’ 46th, which also includes much of northeast Seattle), the vote passed roughly 59 to 41 percent.
On the other hand, turnout was only 34 percent.
Returns mailed up until the Tuesday deadline are still coming in and being counted.
Also, in comments below Tim has posted a link to the map at right, which shows election night returns. Blue is “yes,” red “no.” The full countywide map is here.
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With the defeat of King County’s Proposition 1, local transit supporters have already announced an initiative, aimed at November’s ballot, to raise money locally for buses.
Seattle voters only would vote on hiking taxes only in Seattle, and the resulting buses would only serve Seattle.
The measure could raise up to $25 million a year for the next six years, enough to reverse most cuts to King County Metro routes that serve Seattle.
“Seattle will grind to a halt if we don’t act fast to save buses,” said Ben Schiendelman, founder of Friends of Transit and proponent of the ballot measure. “Seattle voters want better transit. We will not rest until we have reversed these cuts and begun making the investments we need to provide Seattle with the transit system it deserves.”
The full press release from Friends of Transit is here. The idea is to hike Seattle property taxes $22 per $100,000 of assessed value for the next six years. It thus avoids the $60 car tab fee that likely doomed Tuesday’s transit vote.
Here in Maple Leaf the toll would be something in the neighborhood of $80 to $100 annually.
Here are stories by The Seattle Times, the Stranger and seattlepi.com.
Should another bus tax make the November ballot, it will follow a vote, currently scheduled for August, on likely the largest property tax levy in Seattle history – for parks.
City Councilman Nick Licata sent an email blast this afternoon:
On Monday, April 28th, the City Council’s Select Committee on Parks Funding will meet to finalize its proposal for a Seattle Park District funding measure. It would go to voters in August and, if passed, would replace the city’s current levy process with a separate taxing authority authorized under the State’s amended Metropolitan Park Districts law.
Last month the Times’ Danny Westneat looked at that proposal here.
But the tax to pay for this would be the largest property-tax levy in city history — and not by a slight amount. At $54 million a year, it’s 35 percent bigger than the Seattle record-holder, the 2006 “Bridging the Gap” street-repair tax, which is still in effect.
The new parks tax would be more than double the last parks levy. Plus, under this plan it could be nearly doubled again without going back to the voters.
In today’s email Licata says the council’s committee has reduced that $54 million to “around $48 million.
“While some reductions to arrive at this level were technical administrative adjustments, such as staffing expense reductions, others did propose program reductions, such as reducing 25 new programs totaling $205,000 in the Recreation Opportunities for All category.”
Licata would like to restore $200,000 to the recreation category. He proposes other changes as well. His blog is here.
I don’t know if $100,000 a year is that outrageous. Seattle: The median family had an annual income of $93,346, according to the Census Bureau. Sure, that could be more than one income . .
OK here’s why I say King County (which includes Metro Transit) has a bloated payroll. There are more than 2,100 King County employees who make OVER $100,000 PER YEAR. When that figure is 100, rather than 2,100, I’ll consider voting for more spending.
The willy nilly Seattle bus system is a big part of the problem with why Metro always needs money. Somehow there are too many overlapping routes and yet too few times when the buses are available.
I believe that we need more public transportation in this city but what we REALLY need is an overarching system where the routes that do exist come often enough that people don’t have to plan with 30 minute or 1 hour buffers when they can drive to a destination in 15 minutes. Metro most likely needs to cut and consolidate, and those routes that are consolidated need to run more frequently.
Also, Metro using the excuse that certain routes aren’t utilized enough is suspect to me. Sometimes routes may have low ridership because the schedules make them incredibly inconvenient, or they have too many stops, etc. or a competing route has better times. Perhaps the low ridership routes would be high performers if they were tweaked properly or ran more frequently. I suppose what I am really saying is that the leadership at Metro doesn’t seem to have a grasp on how to make the routes effective, efficient, or user friendly – they either threaten to cut lots of routes or use money to add tons of dopey little routes that cater to 12 people are some awkward time.
In my experience with other cities and their transportation, more isn’t always better but more frequent almost always is better.
Because you’d have to raise fares to about $5 per. People who have low income–who are most likely to depend on bus services–can’t afford that.
Buses that are 15-25 years old tend to break down more often than newer buses. If a bus breaks down, it delays or cancels the service that bus is supposed to provide, which is a disservice to all customers and ends up costing more money towing the bus back to the garage and repairing it.
I don’t have any data to support it, but I don’t think a Ballard to Paine Field route would attract too many customers. If you want Metro to be more efficient, they need to eliminate routes with low ridership.
If that’s actually your commute, you should look in to Vanpool
Sorry, that is supposed to read; Why would they buy a bunch of new buses that they can`t afford.
Why is it that every time the city wants to raise money they go after homeowners? I am beginning to think that the only people that should be allowed to vote on these things are people that actually own property. Why not increase the cost of bus fare and let those people that use the bus pay for it?Metro is very wasteful. Why would they but a bunch of new buses that they can`t afford?It is also difficult to get around on some of the routes as they are now laid-out.Currently, you have to take several buses from Ballard to get to the Everett Boeing plant. And if you work swing shift, you can`t get home. The cooperation between Metro, Community Transit, and Everett transit is non-existent. Let Metro get there own house in order, first.Clearly, they need new leadership.
Most of the time, it’d be faster to run a bus down I-5 than detour it to Husky Stadium.
There won’t be any cuts made to routes in Maple Leaf until June 15 (except route 83).
Even if funding is approved by Seattle voters in November, I am wondering if the consolidation of the Maple Leaf routes into Route 73 would still occur. When the light rail starts running it would make sense to funnel people to the rail stations, so maybe the 73 would become a shuttle between the U-District and Northgate. It would make the transition easier if the change in routing was made now.
And assuming the 73 is moved to Roosevelt, hopefully something can be done about the southbound bottleneck at Roosevelt and NE 80th St. Some parking may need to be eliminated around the intersection, but somehow it needs to flow better especially at rush hour. If that intersection bogs down, the whole bus service in NE Seattle would bog down.
Dan: Try the 77. It won’t be cut.
You can try to separate funding mass transit and government inefficiency and waste if it makes you feel better, but they are a direct cause and effect. Its not a matter of funding mass transit or not. Its about giving more funding on top of the millions already used.
Your approach is just like calling a reduction in a proposed budget increase a spending cut or saving money. Its political speak to deflect from what is really happening. But I don’t blame you for using it, so much of our population falls for it that it becomes the norm.
Dan, I don’t think your wrong about folks driving closer to a bus stop. That’s the reason there is 4 hour parking up and down 5th Ave NE to discourage that. I also think everything will be restored in Seattle with the local vote in November.
They’ll probably start “zoning” the neighborhood @Dan. Lots of people already do that on 15th Ave. NE. @Vince comment 10, i agree on the “road diets” comment!
In the meantime, I ride the 72 to work and downtown/going out and it just got cut. And the 73 is moving from 15th to Roosevelt. So now I get to walk an extra 10 blocks from my house to catch a bus thanks to this vote. Actually maybe I’ll just drive an park my car on Roosevelt. I think a lot of people will probably do that, drive there car to their new bus pick up points, creating more traffic and more parked cars on different streets.
MapleLeafBob, I’m familiar with the anti-union rhetoric and people think bus drivers have such a sweet deal of pay/benefits. I’m not buying it. I think their pay is appropriate for their jobs. I think paying employees isn’t where the government waste is going on and not funding mass transit won’t change the situation of government waste. Getting a new head of Metro and calling for more accountability and an audit on the administrative level would be far more beneficial. Like it or not, Seattle voters will vote to fund Metro, they did on this last measure and they will again in November. Seattle voters want more and better mass transit and are willing to fund it. Seattle voters realize their city is growing and traffic is horrible and will keep getting worse if we don’t fund and develop more mass transit. I see tackling government waste and inefficiency as a different subject where different tactics should be taken.
At Dan, comment #7:
I think you might be drawing a false correlation, at least with me. Being against government waste and not supporting the thought process that the only option is raising taxes more does not mean someone is ultimately against mass transit and buses. We just have to draw the line somewhere or we are going to get nickle and dimed to death. Now its buses, tomorrow its schools again, next it will be light rail, then some other department, and on and on. It’s by design that they want people to have tunnel vision and only look at at one little issue at a time. Not too mention what is really driving this is the bus drivers union being unwilling to adjust benefits and salaries and holding the public hostage under the “heart throbs” of cutting bus routes. Enough is enough. I don’t want to see bus routes cut and there has to be a compromise solution that does not require raising taxes. Simply raising taxes is the easy thing for metro to do. Reorganizing, becoming more efficient, cutting costs, all those tasks that should be done require work and they are too damn lazy to do the hard work. It’s the mentality of government. It should be efficiency and cost reduction first, but instead their hands are out asking the tax payers for more money. At this rate we are going to end up like Greece!
Doesn’t the city have $20,000,000 set aside per year for bicycle lanes and related projects? Why not look at where the real need is – providing bus service – than putting more streets on “road diets” for awhile?
I live within my means, they need to live within theirs….be more efficient with the funds one has before increasing my property taxes even more…which already went up $800 this year from all the levy’s folks voted in last year.
You drive a bus, Dan? 😛
Also, https://www.flickr.com/photos/viriyincy/13988403042/sizes/o/
I’m voting yes, I drive and ride the bus, I’ve had a bus pass for the past 20 years and don’t want to see bus services cut. This will easily pass if it’s just a city vote, Seattle proper voted for it, the rest of King County voted against it. I’m surprised how many people here think voting to cut bus routes would effect salaries as well as how many people in my neighborhood don’t really seem supportive of mass transit in general. So much grousing about supporting the bus system and the light rail. I guess you folks don’t drive much either and notice how bad traffic is and realize how much worse it will get with our expected population growth and small town attitudes toward mass transit.
Here come the other schemes to get more tax dollars since the Bus Vote looks to be going down.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023445529_prop1foloxml.html
More money is not and cannot, be the answer to every single government problem. It’s becoming a joke. With their logic, instead of trying to control my spending when money gets tight, I should just be able to tell my employer they have to pay me more because my expenses are high. That logic is backwards and drives no incentive for efficiency and improved processes.
@Jon http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am/future/why-cut.html
@Thomas By how much? How will you know when the cuts are made?
I will also be voting no for the metropolitan parks. Would have voted yes for a levy as has been in the past. I am not a fan of Metro. Park districts. Whenever my teenage daughter plays in a “select” softball tournament in Tacoma parents and friends must pay to watch. There is no other place in this state or other states she has played in that we need to pay to watch softball at a public park. So we will double the amount we give to parks outright plus get nickel and dimed to death. No thanks.
I’m happy to let this come up for a vote even though my tendency is to vote no. Due to the initiative process, it is a vote on one thing, not many as with Prop 1. I wonder how the cost will be applied for inter-city vs. intra-city travel.
I want them to cut their bloated payrolls before I give them another dime.
I voted the county tax down. I’ll likely vote a city tax down if it makes it to the ballot. I ride the bus every day and I don’t want my route cut, but I see too much waste in city and county spending. They need to be better stewards of the funds they have.
I have yet to see or hear anything that would convince me that they don’t already have the funds they need. They should be able to operate the same service with the money they have.