People will switch to public transit. Switching should help mass-transit’s finances. MVET seems to do the opposite. That funding structure is like a fitness center. It works best when no one uses the mass-transit they pay for. This is a recipe for anger.

Imagine if NYC tried funding their subways with a MVET on Manhattan residents.

I’m willing to swallow a large fare increase in order to avoid massive service cutbacks.

Metro really needs to look over every aspect of its operations and come up with ways of cutting costs without cutting service or necessary maintenance. For example maybe they could outsource emptying trash and cleaning bus shelters to someone? Another area to look at is back-office operations. If IT, accounting, HR, etc isn’t yet integrated with King County why not?

Metro also needs to look at every possible way to increase revenue without raising fares. Sell more ads for one. Perhaps use bus shelters and benches as billboards? Perhaps someone would even be willing to maintain the shelters as part of the deal? For an agency Metro’s size their revenue from advertising is pathetic.

Another question is why Metro’s farebox recovery is so low. Have fares been kept too low? Is Metro running too many unproductive routes? Is Metro allowing too much fare evasion?

When it comes to cutting service the first routes/service periods that should be cut are the least productive. Ridership, incremental cost, and farebox recovery all need to be looked at on a run-by-run and route-by-route basis.

Another opportunity for cutting service are routes that might be better run by Sound Transit though this requires an agreement for Sound Transit to take over the service first. Another opportunity would be to cut routes that largely duplicate ST service. For example the 306 and 312 largely duplicate ST service on the 522.

As for salaried positions, many of those jobs pay the same or below what similar positions with similar levels of responsibility pay in the public or private sectors.

Management and administration need to put their money where their mouth is by cutting their own pay first before asking the taxpayers for more money. The good times are over, everyone needs to sacrifice. The wages and benefits that are promised are not sustainable in the current economic climate.

Taxpayer revolts happen when the perception is that government employees are getting paid much more than their counterparts in the private sector at all levels. Throw in a severe recession/depression and Metro is not going to get much sympathy with those sorts of wage levels when the average person in the street is worrying about losing their job.

Calling for pay cuts makes sense in the abstract, but of course Metro pay and benefits are collectively bargained. It’s certainly a defensible position that public sector unions work almost entirely against the public interest, but nevertheless they’re an obstacle that can’t simply be overcome by fiat.

Furthermore $75-100k for an administrator is not an outrageous salary with someone holding significant managerial responsibility. We all have our issues with Metro management but cutting their salaries doesn’t appear to be self-evident way to address those problems and attract better personnel.

The latest news from Metro is indeed disastrous. I don’t think that cutting salaries as an earlier post said is really a solution. I-695 screwed Metro back in 1999 and as with anything related to the sales tax as a revenue source, the potential to be constantly screwed is always there. Someone on NPR earlier today called this the worst downfall in centuries which would bring us back to before the industrial revolution!

I think as a community, we are going to have to come together and offer some volunteer solutions.

I hate to say this, but unless we can get more demand into the economy and consumer confidence rising to the point where we all feel like buying stuff again, then Metro’s problems and even the future of ST2 are in jeopardy. We can – and I most certainly do – blame Eyman, but we have to come together as a community to say what we can live with and what we cannot. A 20% cut in Metro service is defintely not something we can live with but instead of that, what and more importantly how?

The fact that every governing entity other than the federal government has to live within its means is also a huge problem and one which pulls against the desires of the President to create and/or preserve jobs with the recently signed stimulus package.

Tim

I remain critical of Ron Sims. He’s turned into a one-person leadership vacuum. My frustration with the press release is that it’s all problem and no solution – meaning no leadership whatsoever.

I’m not saying everyone needs to be reduced to min wage jobs or anything like that, but at least make some cuts. If I hear out of Metro that salaries of top officials are being cut and some wages are being reduced and jobs are being eliminated, than and only than will I approve and vote for another revenue source. Until than, I will refuse to believe that everything and anything is being done to reduce costs first before cutting service. Something has to give.

1) He has certainly made the situation worse by deciding to phase in the currently planned fare increase in two steps. Delaying full implementation when he knew it was needed just made the budget hole larger. I call this a general lack of leadership.

2) He hasn’t proposed anything that could be called a real solution. His approach seems to be to attempt to buy time and hope that the State or Feds solve his problems for him in the form of new revenue sources or stimulus funding for operations.

3) Put a fork in Transit Now. He sold this to the voters as a service increase along the lines of BRT-Lite, now the money is just going to go to Metro operations. Say “bye bye” to Transit Now.

And finally a general question: If new transit service is allocated following the 20/40/40 with Seattle only getting 20% of new bus service, does that imply that bus service cuts will also be allocated following the 20/40/40 rule with Seattle taking only 20% of the cuts? Somehow I doubt it, but it does have a certain fairness to it.

How about raising rates? Or cutting spending elsewhere.