Photo by Atomic Taco
- Seattle plans market-based parking rates by 2012. About time.
- Times has goofy editorial proposing that Metro not sell advertising at all. ECB rightfully destroys it.
- Seattle Nightlife Initiative thinks creatively about improving late night transportation options.
- Update on D to M Sounder extension.
- New bike safety legislation, idiotic headline.
- Kill a bicyclist, get community service. Fail to show up for that, go to jail.
- Tacoma also launching a bike/ped safety campaign.
- CT had a rough snowstorm last week.
- I’m not sure I agree, but here’s a smart critique of the fare system.
- Just like Pierce Transit, Jefferson Transit will ask voters for a sales tax increase of 0.3 points on February 8th.
- No one’s stepping up to actually get legislation started to repeal the infamous cost overruns position. Somebody is the sucker here.
- Another no pants Link ride coming on Sunday.
- A history of the phrase “war on cars”. BTW, driving is subsidized.
This is an open thread.
Speaking of how the “war on cars” gets into the media – how about the front page Seattle Times article on the I-90 expansion from Hyak to Easton? It’s 95% about animal crossings; completely softpedaling that the project is really to expand the highway to 6 lanes and move it out of the rockfall/avalanche zone. The commenters are predictably going crazy about millions being spent for bears.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013844862_wildlife05m.html
My response to that article was an immediate question along the lines of; “What? No tolls?” Surely if there is a desire to move forward with the upgrades in a timely matter than tolls should be in the mix, and surely they could use the “no-stop” tolling tech on I-90 just as easily as they plan on using it on SR-520.
Of course the answer to the, “What? No Tolls?” question has to do with the politics of E.Wa, but let’s be fair here….if tolls are good for the PS region, then they must be good statewide. And maybe we could even make Kittitas County property owners responsible for any cost overruns….
Given the amount of out of state traffic over the pass I don’t think the non-stop tolling is viable (it requires a transponder). Of course you could just send out bills to vehicles with WA plates but I don’t think that would go over too well. It should also be easy to collect tolls from commercial truckers which do a tremendous amount of highway damage just because of wieght but also because they are required to chain up so often.
Bernie,
Actually, No. The tech they are using on SR520 will use some sort of OCR system to read plates and bill users after the fact. Of course if you do have a transponder then you get billed automatically and at a lower rate, but either way no stop is required.
So it is a very easy system to install and would work fine on I-90.
From the WSDOT:
Shouldn’t that work for I-90 as well?
I believe commercial truckers already pay a lot more for their registration based on how many miles they drive.
Yeah, good luck collecting on out of state tolls (other than commercial truckers). During the summer the cameras might work OK but in the winter I doubt you’ll get many plate images that are useable. It’s also rather tricky to toll federal interstate highways. Not impossible but in this case I really doubt the feds would approve it. They seem to only allow it in urban areas where there are alternative routes. The I-90 bridge I think they OK’d and I also think they were open to I-5 tolling in Seattle.
Truckers pay a lot of fees. “Light” trucks probably pay their way or more but the really heavy loads don’t “pull their weight” when it comes to paying for the damage they do. That’s going to be even more true if the excise tax on tires based on weight goes away next year as scheduled. They system now is kind of screwy. Diesel is taxed more heavily than gasoline with the idea that trucks will therefore pay more. Well, yes that’s true but we should be trying to push the US to a much higher use of diesel than gasoline. A switch Europe made years ago. It’s a much more efficient use of a barrel of crude and current technology has made it less polluting than gasoline.
@NSBill: are you thinking of apportioned plates?
I don’t know what the success rate is, but the Tacoma Narrows Bridge utilizes some high powered lights to help illuminate the backsides of the vehicles. I can’t really say how bright they are since I always drive through the toll booth.
Doesn’t matter how bright the lights are on the Pass. If it’s snowing the light will just reflect back into the camera. Because of the sanding and general grime license plates are just about unreadable after driving over the pass. But even if you do have the plate number and you can automate the decoding and billing (which ain’t cheap) then you have to send out the collection notice. If they don’t pay you have to go through the costly process of collections. What leverage do you have? Even with Idaho and Oregon it’s pretty hard to collect on parking tickets or even speeding tickets. Plus, maintaining tolling equipment in a mountain environment is going to be costly. That said, I think it’s worth charging heavy trucks a toll solely because of the damage they due using chains. This can be collected using existing “weigh stations” which are already highly automated (no stop weighing).
I don’t have a link for it, but most trucks have transponders that have something to do with weigh stations. I have no idea if the two could be connected to identify the truck.
Also, the cameras would just take a picture of the plate on the back of the trailer. You want the plate on the rig, and when a trailer is attached the plate on the back of the rig is almost impossible to see unless you’re in a CRX.
You know, it might be possible to put a toll on all of the roads throughout the state — now that would be equitable! That way, everyone could pay their fair share.
We could set up a system where the tax is paid as you drive. Since all vehicles need to refuel periodically, we could somehow collect a toll right at the refueling station, based upon, perhaps, the amount of fuel that is used. That way, everyone could pay the toll on the stretch of road that they actually use.
Since more efficient vehicles use less fuel, this could be an incentive for people to help the environment by using more fuel efficient cars.
Such a toll collection might actually reduce the need for electronic gizmos and a separate billing system for driving on particular sections of the roadway. After all, we need to pay for all of it, don’t we?
It could be argued that there might be some inequity in that system. One possible way to alleviate that would be to, perhaps, charge an annual fee per vehicle to cover the costs that cannot reliably be covered by the previously described mileage-based tolls. I’m sure that there would be a way to do this reasonably efficiently, too.
Has anyone considered this as a possibility of having drivers pay tolls?
BryanK, nice sarcastic way of suggesting that drivers are already paying their way through user fees. But as shown above, this just isn’t the case.
Angry Transit Nerd has a few excellent points:
- Express service that overlaps with local service should, as a rule, cost more. This is just price discrimination — some people are willing to spend more money, so let them spend that money on a premium product.
- It’s okay to charge more for more expensive service, so long as people are willing to pay (i.e. the route continues to meet productivity measures).
- Two-zone bus fares don’t work. People will game the system, as with transfers, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
- To quote, “if an area does not warrant all-day bus service, that area does not warrant bus service at all”. That alone could save buckets of money.
However, there are a few places where I think he contradicts his own insights:
- Anyone who rides Metro during peak can tell you that many otherwise-quiet routes become crowded, and the normally-crowded routes are almost overflowing. Thus, peak fares serve the dual purpose of reducing demand and raising extra revenue. If anything, I’d say that the differential should be even greater than it is now, and/or should have more variations. It’s just like market-based parking rates.
- As just about everyone notes, commuters are much less price-sensitive than other riders. So maybe it makes sense to have a higher multiplier for a peak-service monthly pass than for an off-peak one, even beyond the fare differential. For example, Metro currently sets monthly pass prices at 36 times the base fare. But maybe it makes sense to increase this multiplier for peak passes (who will make a guaranteed 20-22 trips per month minimum), and/or to decrease it for passes that are not expensive enough for peak service (or that are specifically excluded from being used on peak service).
That should say “a guaranteed 20-22 round trips”…
The idea that express bus service should cost more than local service is bizarre. You could just as easily argue that local service is the ‘premium’ service given that it stops closer to the average door. Heck, express service running the same route doesn’t require as many bus stops and operates at more fuel efficient speeds, therefore it is cheaper if all else is equal.
It is a cost premium. The cost per boarding is higher since the bus is traveling a long distance with no opportunity to pick up more fare paying customers. Look at Metro’s route performance report and compare super long express routes (like 196) to local in-city routes.
Tim’s right, but also, it’s price discrimination (in the economic sense). Certain people (peak-hour commuters) tend to prefer express buses to locals, and those people tend to be willing (and can afford) to spend more on bus service. So why not charge them more?
Ah, okay, you’re right — but I was thinking of comparing a local and express that run the same route. It’s possible I’m not understanding the terminology here, but it seems like a more equitable comparison. When I lived in the Bronx we had the Bx12 and the Bx12 Select which ran identical routes, but the Select just had fewer stops. My understanding is that the Select actually pulls in most of the ridership, not the local. And certainly from my perspective losing the Select service would have been far more detrimental than losing the local service.
There are two kinds of express service. The all-day expresses (510, 550, 594, 522, 545, 554, etc) provide basic connectivity between city centers across the region. Before ST Express it took two hours to get from Seattle to Tacoma or Everett, and that hinders the economic potential of the region and gives people another reason to drive. (Actually, PT’s Tacoma Express slightly predated ST, but same thing.) The 255 is not an express; it’s the main bus from Seattle to Kirkland, and runs locally throughout Kirkland. The other kind of express is peak-only expresses serve a small fraction of riders going to one destination (downtown) at a certain hour, and often overlap other semi-expresses (#101) or Link. These can be eliminated, surcharged, or replaced by a local bus to a suburban hub. But don’t put surcharges on the basic express routes. (Actually, there’s a third kind of express like the 15X, that mainly exists to compensate for peak-hour congestion, but again it’s only useful one direction.)
Metro’s zone surcharge has always been unfair. Why should somebody in White Center or on N 155th pay significantly more per month than somebody in Fauntleroy or on 143rd, when the distance is almost the same? It’s already been eliminated off-peak. Eliminating it on-peak would coincide with ST’s upcoming one-county/multi-county zones. (The inter-county zones are bad for those living in Mountlake Terrace for the same reason, but it’s more of an intentional choice to live in one county or another.)
The peak fare may not make much sense to riders, but it does reflect Metro’s overall costs to double frequency on almost all routes at peak times. That’s why I wonder if it’s fare to blame the peak-only expresses solely for these costs.
It’s an interesting idea to target peak-only routes in areas with no other bus service for elimination. However, growing up, I was lucky to live near an all-day bus in east Bellevue. There was no particular reason that street had the only all-day bus for miles. So I feel bad for the many more similar houses that had only a peak-express bus, and I’d hate to take away their only bus. (But I would like to make it into a local bus to Overlake or Eastgate or RapidRide B.)
As for a surcharge on peak-hour passes, do that many people have off-peak passes at all? I never bought an off-peak pass even when I was unemployed, because you never knew when you might forget or want to travel peak-hour and you’d pay through the nose.
Another difference is that the all-day expresses go from city center to city center, or at least from a park n ride near the city center (Issaquah, Eastgate), while the peak-only expresses go from single-family neighborhoods directly to their destination without serving a suburban center.
Agreed about only having a surcharge on overlapping routes. The point is to establish a price differential between competing service.
The main problem I have with peak-only buses as the only form of service is that, like Matt L said, it’s hard for anyone to really rely on peak-only service — there are just too many weird contingent situations where you could get really screwed by not having any way to get within miles of your house.
Yes, I’d hate to take away someone’s only bus too… but I’m willing to bet that many of those routes aren’t meeting performance thresholds anyway, and so RTTF would probably optimize them out of existence.
@Aleks there’s always Metro’s Guaranteed Ride Home, taxis for those other occasions, and friends to pick you up.
Or better yet: “Sorry boss, I can’t work late–last bus comes at 6:15, so unless you wanna drive me home, I’m outta here!”
@Mike:
Replace ’255′ with ’550′ and ‘Kirkland’ with ‘Bellevue.’ Is it any less true?
@Tim: by my reading Metro’s ‘Home Free Guarantee’ only applies if your employer signs up for it, which makes it far from a panacea. Should all employers do it? Sure! But all employers ought to offer their employees free bus passes if they offer them free parking, but many (including my friend’s) don’t.
http://www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/CommuteSolutions/GreatPrograms/GRH.aspx
I would not call the 550 an express either. There is no other bus from downtown Seattle to downtown Bellevue. You’d have to go go the U-district and take the 271 if you want to stick to “local” routes. What makes the 550 “express” is that it doesn’t stop on Bellevue Way or make three stops on Mercer Island like the 226 it replaced. But the point of the 550 isn’t to give a few apartments on Bellevue Way direct service to Seattle; it’s to provide Seattle access to the whole of Bellevue, and BTC (and SBP&R) are the designated places for that.
Well OK, my point was there’s no functional difference between the 255 and the 550 to justify the fare differential, whether or not you consider them ‘express.’
I posted this a while back and there weren’t any intelligent replies. The few responses were like “We don’t bash the agency here” and “Some secrets are good secrets” and “Go away, transit-hater! You suck!”
I’ll try again. Let’s see if you can raise the bar a bit . . ..
There’s been some back-and-forth about the Sound Transit tax costs now that ST cut its revenue projections through 2023. There still will be enough tax revenue through then to pay for all projected capital and operations costs, but the bonds likely will be sold later. Of course the taxing will continue for decades after 2023, due to how the taxes are tied to the outstanding bonds.
So what’s the current ST estimate of what kind of tax hit the bond financing will put on the region?
A story from 3.5 months ago said Sound Transit’s staff still was trying to figure out how large its tax costs would be:
“A huge question is the long-term effect on taxpayers.
“Sound Transit does have legal power to prolong taxes and issue bond debt indefinitely, so the costs stretch far into the 2040s or 2050s, instead of the mid-2030s time frame that agency managers described in the run-up to the 2008 vote.
“However, financial officer Brian McCartan has yet to recalculate how the recession might push the agency to use more or longer debt financing.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012980341_soundtransit24m.html
Maybe McCartan has recalculated it now? I can’t find the estimate of tax costs on ST’s website.
That “more or longer debt financing” will sum up to huge figures. Here’s some of what ST’s financial advisors apparently have in mind: $8 billion in bonds issued, and those would be secured by pledges to confiscate about $85 billion in tax revenues from the people (mostly) and businesses around here. No peer uses anything like that tax-heavy plan to pay for bus and train service. Are those tax costs going to increase now?
What pulls regions out of recessions? Consumer spending. Want to depress consumer spending, by a huge amount? Do what the political managers here do: stack regressive taxes to the stratosphere. They’re the second highest in the nation here (just behind Chicago), in no small part because of the 1.8% Metro and ST joint sales tax rate. Unlike everywhere else, the bus and train taxing here takes food off the tables of the most needy in our community. Those transit taxes also act as a heavy anchor on the local economy.
Here’s what Brian McCartan should disclose: an estimate of the real costs to the public of Sound Transit’s capital expense financing plan. The following is a method for deriving that amount. It also would show the tax costs ST now expects to impose on people, businesses, and the local economy over the next couple of generations:
- what’s the estimate of the amount of long term bonds that will be sold,
- when will the last of those be paid off,
- what’s the estimated amount of tax revenue ST will have confiscated up through that debt payoff date (the expected tax pledge security terms in the bond sales contracts will drive that amount), and
- what’s the current estimate of how much in the way of federal grants ST expects it’ll be able to obtain for its capital projects?
Answers to those questions would quantify key features of ST’s financing plan. Only those in the silo now have that information. Other political leaders, the press, interested members of the public, etc. now are completely in the dark about those aspects of what ST is up to.
Anyone want to suggest other ways of quantifying the cost to the public and the local economy of what the folks running ST have planned for us?
It’d be great if ST just would clear this up . . . keeping the public in the dark serves no useful purpose.
Anyone here have any answers to these questions, feel they are unfair, etc.?
Maybe I could take you seriously if you didn’t use the word “confiscate” to discuss taxation. It’s a scare word. The word you should use is “levy”, and Sound transit is legally allowed to levy taxes with a vote of the people.
Maybe I would take you more seriously if you stuck to one name to post under…..or if you could make a concise point.
Have you tried asking someone at Sound Transit, or would that involve too much actual work?
Do you have a source for your $85 billion figure? They are currently collecting just over $500 million per year in sales taxes, and paying 6% interest on bonds, so it’s hard to see how that could add up to $85 billion.
“Only those in the silo now have that information.”
Funny. Where are posting this from, Hayden Lake? All of the information you’re looking for will be in the 2011 financial plan, which will be available online or via a simple phone call.
“Unlike everywhere else, the bus and train taxing here takes food off the tables of the most needy in our community.”
How do you think transit is paid for everywhere else? Charitable donations? The most needy in our community also happen to be big consumers of transit services, so it’s not as if they aren’t benefitting from the whopping 1.8 cents per dollar tax. At least that portion of the sales tax results in a tangible benefit, it’s hard to say that about the other portion.
Exactly, email them at main@soundtransit.org
It might take a few days before you get a response, but they’re always really good at responding clearly and concisely.
“Do you have a source for your $85 billion figure?”
That’s my estimate, based on the current financial plan at ST’s website. It only goes through 2040 though.
“All of the information you’re looking for will be in the 2011 financial plan, which will be available online or via a simple phone call.”
You are wrong. There are three documents ST produces that show future tax collection plans:
- the 2011 TIP does not show the amount of tax ST expects to collect to secure the bonds it will issue for the capital costs,
- the 2011 annual budget does not show the amount of tax ST expects to collect to secure the bonds it will issue for the capital costs, and
- the most recent financial plan only goes through 2040 – it shows about $65 billion in tax confiscations (note, that’s not a scary word) through 2040, but the bonds won’t be retired until 2052 or so.
“How do you think transit is paid for everywhere else?”
Light rail everywhere else is paid for primarily by federal New Start grants. No place else imposes heavy new local taxes for decades on a region of 2.7 million people merely as security for anything like $8 billion in long term bonds. How can you not know that? Take TriMet – it doesn’t impose any new regressive taxes, and it built out 50 miles of light rail and operates a good bus and train system.
“Have you tried asking someone at Sound Transit, or would that involve too much actual work?”
They ignored the request. That’s why I’m asking here. They have no incentive to explain their taxing plans – in fact keeping them secret helps them make pitches for more taxing authority (part of this year’s legislative agenda).
“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”
~Henry Wallace (Franklin Roosevelt’s 3rd Vice President)
“That’s my estimate, based on the current financial plan at ST’s website.”
They only plan on issuing $8 billion in bonds to pay for capital projects, at 6% interest over 30 years that works out to about $4 billion in financing costs, for a total of $12 billion. By law the current taxes must be rolled back after the bonds are paid off. The current tax won’t be collected indefinitely as you must be assuming. The amount of tax income shown in the financial plan for future years assumes that the full tax rate is being collected that year, but this won’t happen because of the roll-back law.
“Light rail everywhere else is paid for primarily by federal New Start grants.”
That’s not true. New Starts rarely pays more than 50% of a project’s costs, the rest of the cost has to come from local taxes. Sound Transit has a very good track record of receiving grants, University Link had the highest rating of any project in the nation and received a $800 million New Starts grant.
“They ignored the request.”
They can’t. There’s this pesky thing called the Freedom of Information Act. But I’m sure those facist pig transit planners are just flaunting the law, right?
“No place else imposes heavy new local taxes for decades on a region of 2.7 million people merely as security for anything like $8 billion in long term bonds.”
The taxes weren’t imposed, we voted for them, twice. And it’s not necessary to collect $85 billion in taxes to pay the interest on $8 billion in bonds, is that really too hard for you to understand? Of course Jim MacIsaac didn’t understand the roll-back clause either, when he tried to convince people that ST2 would cost $107 billion dollars.
Zed [ad-hominem] writes:
“The taxes weren’t imposed, we voted for them, twice. And it’s not necessary to collect $85 billion in taxes to pay the interest on $8 billion in bonds, is that really too hard for you to understand?”
Wow, what a display of ignorance. Res. 2008-15 specifically states that ST was to start IMPOSING an additional .5% sales tax, and continue the then-current taxing.
Moreover, it will be necessary for ST to collect about $85 billion as security for the bondholders. Zed must not know about the tax collection pledges, like the one in Resolution No. R2009-15:
Section 8. Covenants. The Authority hereby makes the following covenants with the Owners of the Prior Bonds for as long as any of the same remain Outstanding:
a. Tax Levy Covenant. So long as any Prior Bonds remain Outstanding, the Authority shall levy the Motor Vehicle Tax at a rate of not less than three-tenths of one percent and the Sales Tax at a rate of not less than nine-tenths of one percent; provided, that the Authority may levy the Sales Tax at a rate of not less than eight-tenths of one percent so long as the Sufficiency Test is met. To the extent permitted by law and approved by the voters (if a vote is required), the Authority may, in a Series Resolution or a Supplemental Resolution, pledge to the payment of the Prior Bonds the Motor Vehicle Tax in excess of three-tenths of one percent and the Sales Tax in excess of nine-tenths of one percent.
If the Authority is levying the Sales Tax at a rate less than nine-tenths of one percent and the Sufficiency Test is not met for a Fiscal Year, within 90 days after the end of that Fiscal Year the Authority shall take all action required on its part to increase the rate of the Sales Tax levied, but not to exceed nine-tenths of one percent, for the purpose of meeting the Sufficiency Test.
The Authority shall take all reasonable actions necessary to levy and provide for the continued collection of the Local Option Taxes and the application of those taxes for payment of the Prior Bonds in accordance with this Resolution.
There’s a bunch of other garbage in Zed’s post, but it’s not even worth bothering with.
For [ad hom] Zed [ad hom], I don’t care about the interest rate ST pays, I want to know that tax costs of the bond sales contracts. That’s that part of the financing plan that costs the public in taxes, for decades.
Although I rail about some of these infrastructure problems, when you look at the aggregate cost…it’s seriously laughably low!
2 Beeelllyon dollars. Who cares? Build it or not, life won’t be any different for 95 percent of the people.
I am more interested in transit that will make an order of magnitude difference in people’s lives.
I think these are:
1) True HSR. 300 mph bullet intercity bullet trains.
2) Hydrogen fuel cells. An instant way to clean the city air.
3) Autopilot automobiles. A robot car recently climbed Pike’s Peak. In ten years we will have automated taxis. A complete revolution in mass and personal transit…
The critical work of a blog like this is to understand how these new technologies might impact long term architecture.
Light rail will make nearly an order of magnitude difference in my life, 6 minutes to the University instead of 30 via bus or 20 via car. That time savings adds up to a lot more than what HSR will ever save me. I’ll gladly pay the taxes for the rest of my life for that.
I’ll gladly pay extra taxes to get light rail extended to West Seattle, particularly with the traffic mess on downtown streets created by a tolled tunnel with no downtown exits/entrances which will annihilate express bus coming from and going to West Seattle.
Same for light rail.
Go ahead, have a party…it just ain’t that much money.
I want an autonomic fuel cell taxi to take me to and from an HSR station. See you in 2020.
I truly hope your $85 Bil. number is way too high, as the consequences for transit in the Puget Sound are sobering if that much money is extracted from the economy, and does little good except to plump up the balance sheets of local bond brokers, banks, and attorneys. If the housing market burst-bubble teaches us anything, it’s that borrowing too much for too long robs your ability to build for the future. Many home owners are ‘upside down’ on their mortgages, and I fear Transit is just footsteps behind.
Here’s a John Niles post from the pre Prop.1 election days, and at the bottom of the article a link to an estimate of $107 Bil for total cost.
http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/regionaltransittaxes.htm
That was never considered to be realistic at the time, and dismissed out of pocket by transit supporters as scare tactics.
If Central Link ridership continues on it’s lack luster journey upwards, and the FTA requires some serious re-calibration of ST’s modeling protocols, and the republican congress gets stingy with New Starts funding, then PITF’s estimates may be closer to the truth than anyone is willing to admit.
If you’re really serious about better transit, then a little navel gazing and soul searching is good therapy sometimes.
Barring additional sales tax authority granted by the legislature neither Metro nor ST will be increasing their portion any time soon. While ST may pay additional finance charges by issuing longer-term bonds this has no affect on the tax rate. Sound Transit is going to collect the tax no matter what. It is just a question of how much is spent on interest vs. operations vs. additional capitol projects.
If you want to engage in honest debate, say “collect” not “confiscate”.
Talk to the Legislature. They can provide an alternate tax authority for transit or other things if they choose to do so.
Undercity
http://vimeo.com/18280328
This videomaker goes spelunking inside of New York City’s subway tunnels, sewers and even the Amtrak station (where he finds a few dwellers).
Saw a movie ten years about tunnel dwellers in NYC. Also something four years ago about tunnel dwellers in Las Vegas! (sewer lines )
In this one he says that back in 1996 there were many more, but they cleared them all out…however, a few holdouts still remain.
Via Jarrett Walker, here’s a great new study from USPIRG, showing that roads do not, in fact, pay for themselves. I will continue to post this every time Norman claims that roads are self-funding, until he responds.
http://www.uspirg.org/home/reports/report-archives/transportation/transportation2/do-roads-pay-for-themselves-setting-the-record-straight-on-transportation-funding
The summary alone is pretty damning:
And… this was the same link that Martin posted from Publicola. Doh!
Still, I think it’s worth calling out, lest other people don’t make it to this list of bullets.
“- As just about everyone notes, commuters are much less price-sensitive than other riders”
Is this really true? For me (yes, anecdotal) I get a freebie pass through my job, so I never have to worry about fares. Though I don’t know if there are enough subsidized passed out there to make a difference.
I also don’t like how the pass system works. Middle class choice riders like myself are subsidized, while low-income service workers often have to pay list price.
From Metro’s Regional Fare Coordination Report:
So at least someone agrees with me.
Also, re passes, I definitely agree. I would love to see [a] weekly passes, and [b] cheaper ratios for monthly passes that don’t include peak fares. Right now Metro uses a 36x multiplier, which is great for commuters (18 round-trips per month? Easy!), but terrible for many other people. Lowering the multiplier for off-peak-only passes, and maybe raising it for peak, could help a lot of people out without having a huge impact on revenue.
But if you raise peak passes beyond 36x, they become a rather poor value. As it stands, they don’t save very much – for most people (who get holidays off), the most workdays you can have in a single month is 23, which can happen only in August and only if the calendar cooperates. Most months have ~20 days of commuting.
Companies probably won’t want to buy passes if they are more expensive than just buying single fares.
I’m preparing a more comprehensive response to your comment over at ATN, but I want to answer this here.
“I would love to see [a] weekly passes”
Hear, hear! The fact we lack a pass for tourists has always bothered me.
“[b] cheaper ratios for monthly passes that don’t include peak fares. Right now Metro uses a 36x multiplier, which is great for commuters (18 round-trips per month? Easy!), but terrible for many other people. Lowering the multiplier for off-peak-only passes, and maybe raising it for peak, could help a lot of people out without having a huge impact on revenue.”
I have an issue with the philosophy behind this, but from a practical point of view, it will never happen. Remember, all passes are regional (as of January 1st, there are no Metro-only passes). The only way the PugetPass system works is by having passes sold by dollar-denomination.
You’re assuming that commuters don’t use their passes for anything other than commuting. Maybe that’s a reasonable assumption — certainly, employers wouldn’t have much interest in buying employees a monthly pass that only paid off if the employees used it for non-work purposes. But you could still lower the ratio for off-peak passes while simultaneously raising the peak fare (and thus the 36x pass cost).
Oof rereading this I see that I got the premise completely backwardds…
I had the distinct misfortune to have drive from Everett to Seattle this morning, at about 0730. Even in the carpool lane it took an hour and fifteen minutes. I rode along(I wasn’t the one driving), watching the countless SOV’s creep past, and frankly I began to feel like I didn’t fit in.
What would possess someone to put up with a commute like that? Hours and hours of your life just up in smoke. I realize that not everyone can afford to live near their workplace, but for the love of god, you can’t manage to find someone to carpool with, or a bus to take, even if it was just one day a week. You look at what people are willing to put up with rather than leave their cars behind, and you have to wonder if we’ll ever manage to change enough minds to get some serious transit funding.
And in my own defense, I’d much prefer taking the bus or the train to Everett. Due to work though I frequently have to be up there at very strange hours, and usually with only a few minutes notice, so it’s not often that I can manage not driving.
Anyone have anything to cheer me up? It was like watching a zombie movie.
But couldn’t you smell the freedom! :-)
Is the new Tacoma- Lakewood expansion of the Sounder created specifically for passenger rail traffic?
If so, doesn’t that mean that we could have frequent all-day service on that corridor instead of peak only?
I was under the impression that the reason we can’t have frequent all-day service on the existing sounder corridors is because freight needs the rail most of the time. If we’re building a new corridor specifically for the sounder, then doesn’t that avoid that problem.
Alternatively, could this link be used for a future high-speed rail connection between seattle and portland?
Stephen,
The problem with offering all day sounder service is you would only be able to do so between Tacoma and Lakewood. The tracks between Tacoma and Seattle will remain the same. ST is negotiating some extra slots with BNSF which should allow for more trips but it is still far from all day service.
Amtrak passenger trains will use the Lakewood cut-off route once it is completed as well. This is what much of the HSR money for Washington is going for. The new route will increase reliablity allowing some padding to be taken out of the schedule. I belive it also opens up some additional slots for Cascades as well.
It’s not that long of a corridor and only serves two areas–Downtown Tacoma and an area of Lakewood. The trip takes 20 minutes by auto.
The real question is: Is there demand? Currently the corridor is served by a couple of Sound Transit Express bus routes; one of which operates 7 days a week. Some ridership information can be found here in pages 93-98, especially page 97. More recent data here on page 92.
Certainly if your hypothesis was “There is enough demand for there to exist transit service between Tacoma and Lakewood” you’d be right. But the question is what is the best service to meet this need? For peak service, the cost per boarding on Sounder is higher than that of any ST Express bus route (there’s an excellent breakdown here). So while it may be possible to run off-peak service, it might not be practical.
Also what Chris said while I was typing this post–if you wanted to go from Lakewood to Seattle you’d have to transfer to a bus at Tacoma.
Correction–serves three areas: Downtown Tacoma, South Tacoma, and Lakewood. The Google Maps link is correct.
In addition to what Chris and Tim said, there is some freight traffic on a portion of the Sounder extension, but not as much as on the route that Amtrak currently takes south from Tacoma station.
As I looked at that map, I’m curious, what happens to the tracks that go underneath I-5? I’m assuming it’s a tunnel with enough space for Sounders laying over. But where would the other end punch out near D street?
Is ST looking into extending Sounder to Olympia yet? Will the Tacoma bypass enable more Sounder trips in this corridor (i.e. all the way to Olympia)?
I found Angry Transit Nerd’s post (linked above) rather irritating. He rails against 40/40/20 saying (essentially) that it prioritizes non-transit-related considerations over data that show where people actually use the busses, and he’s right, that is stupid. He then suggests that we “posit” that any place that deserves peak service deserves all-day service, introducing a new a priori assumption into our route planning and contradicting himself.
He also details the problem with have a zone-based fare structure on busses… and then says we should keep it. He also suggests abolishing peak fares even though that’s when demand is HIGHEST and people will pay the most, which makes absolutely no sense.
As for his friend’s ridiculous whining about Metro being “greedy,” has his friend looked at Metro’s budget lately? I haven’t heard anything about lavish parties with strippers at Metro headquarters lately. Stop blaming Metro for pulling one of the few levers it has to stay afloat, start doing something about the revenue system that makes transit funding so unstable.
I’m not sure how you could have read what I wrote and interpreted it this way. I clearly said that any place that does not deserve all-day service doesn’t deserve any service. I’m not suggesting we give Lake Kathleen all-day transit service, I’m saying the 111 should be cut. Focus on building a coherent suburban transit network, not giving folks in one small suburb a one-seat ride to downtown Seattle.
My suggestion was that instead of having “zones” you have long-haul routes and local routes, and the fare differential is based on the route instead of where you take it. Think of it as if any bus route that crossed the zone boundary were an ST Express route (with the upcoming in-county fare of $2.50) and all other routes were a flat $2.00. This is just an idea I had, not one of my main points, which is why it was last on my list.
As for peak fares, if not having a peak surcharge makes “absolutely no sense,” why is Metro the only agency in the region that has one? The entire premise of my post was that while for any transit agency peak service is the most expensive to provide, I suspect that Metro’s focus on peak-only express routes exacerbates the problem. I strongly suspect that adding trips to an existing route to accomodate higher volumes during peak has a lower marginal cost than adding an entirely new route to an area that sees no bus service at any other time of day. Longer deadhead times and fewer interlining opportunities are just a couple examples of how this could be.
Did you see me accusing Metro of spending fare revenue on blow and hookers? Close your eyes and repeat after me: “Not everyone is a transit nerd.” I would never characterize Metro as greedy, but my friend is unfortunately one of the many who have allowed their populist anger to be stirred up by the Seattle Times’ reporting on what the highest-paid driver makes, while I fully realize many part-time operators struggle to make ends meet.
Did I spend hours poring over route performance reports and trying to decode the Metro budget in writing my post? Yes. But my friend just wants her bus to come when it’s supposed to so she can get to work on time, which all too often it does not. She sees her fare increase for the fourth time in four years, while “scheduling efficiencies” have made her bus more and more unreliable, and she gets the message “Pay more, get less.”
I fully realize that declining sales tax revenue has really put the screws to Metro. But what I was trying to say, and I realize now I didn’t do a terribly great job of articulating, was that Metro could do a lot better job of spreading the pain equitably – targeting fare increases at those with a greater ability to pay, and targetting service cuts at areas less dependent on transit.
ATN is not being inflammatory. He quotes a friend who has a regular-Joe (non-transit-geek) opinion about transit. He makes several suggestions, some of which are innovative (I haven’t heard them before). I don’t agree with all his suggestions but they’re worth discussing.
Metro is the only agency in the region with a city of 500,000+ and the largest suburban population as its primary responsibility. It has much more comprehensive service than the other agencies. More routes = higher costs. SF/Chicago/NY, Metro’s responsibility does not end at they city’s limits. So a $2.50 Metro fare is not directly comparable to a $2.50 Chicago fare because one includes suburban costs and the other doesn’t. Metro is also not directly comparable with Tri-Met or whatever BC’s Translink is called now because those are higher-level government entities with different funding profiles. So these may be partial reasons why Metro is the only agency with peak fares.
The decision to charge peak fares and have residential-peak expresses was made 30+ years ago when the population was much lower and the suburban ring ended at Bothell-Kirkland-Redmond-Overlake-Renton-Kent-Federal Way. (Beyond that was semi-rural and small towns.) Metro’s policies have continued mainly via inertia. The peak-residential routes have never described suburban travel patterns: they rarely helped the Boeing workers for one thing. They never helped with getting groceries or going to a school event or church.
ATN’s friend’s note is important because it shows how ineffectively the transit agencies and transit fans have communicated with the public. Most citizens don’t know about Metro’s budget woes or understand how Metro’s budget relates to the bus they see. And while ATN’s friend may not be a peak-express commuter, there are many citizens (voters) who are. Metro has failed to convince them why a local circulator to a hub would be better and could run all day. If it adds one minute to their travel time or makes them transfer, they’re against it. Metro (and we) have failed to convince them that the plight of non-downtown commuters matter, and that there are enough of them to warrant reorganizing bus service and taking it out of the peak-expresses (since they refuse to pay sufficient taxes to run both the peak-expresses and comprehensive locals and hub-expresses). So that’s the major job ahead.
“SF/Chicago/NY, Metro’s responsibility does not end at they city’s limits”
Unlike SF/Chicago/NY, Metro’s responsibility does not end at the city’s limits. (Suburban routes there are provided by other companies with separate fare structures.)
Fair enough, I guess I misunderstood/misread some of ATN’s ideas, so I’m much less cranky about them now.
I think charging users higher prices at a time of higher demand (and, I still suspect, higher cost) is good sense. Regular bus users in the city who have the option can shift their usage to off-peak times, and commuters who are less price-sensitive will pay a higher rate. Airlines and trains do this, and I don’t see why we can’t or why more transit agencies don’t either.
I mentioned a while ago (to almost complete silence IIRC) the idea of splitting up KC Metro to let cities (or groups of cities) run (or contract to others) their own transit. I still think it might be a good idea, in part because it would incentivise some reforms that make sense — like reducing one-seat rides for commuters in particular suburban enclaves in favor of frequent trunk service between transit centers and other major destinations — by requiring suburbs that want high-cost milk runs to pay for them.
I would strongly, strongly support resurrecting some kind of “Seattle Transit”. For one, this would forever end the debates about whether Seattle is subsidizing suburban transit or vice versa. But even if this resulted in less tax revenue going towards Seattle service than today, it would still mean that Seattle’s transit agency would be 100% focused on creating a good urban (rather than suburban) transit system, which would be fantastic.
@Aleks I totally agree. I’d be in favor even if it meant higher taxes and delaying capital projects. Especially as we have ST providing a regional express service to get between all the major destinations.
It seems like a provocative and radical idea… the kind that it takes a crisis to get people to seriously consider. I’m surprised so few people have an opinion on that matter, but maybe I’m just crazy.
My question is how many have that option and who are they? This report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics seems to confirm what I’ve long suspected – that higher-paid professionals are more likely to have flexible schedules that allow them to avoid peak, whereas wage-earners at the lower end of the income scale (like my friend) have no choice. It states, “Among the major occupational groups, flexible schedules were most common among management, professional, and related occupations (36.8 percent).” Social equity is one of Metro’s goals, so I don’t like the idea of a fare structure that is regressive, even if it does better reflect the cost of service.
“I mentioned a while ago (to almost complete silence IIRC) the idea of splitting up KC Metro to let cities (or groups of cities) run (or contract to others) their own transit.”
There are two issues with spitting up Metro. One, cities and counties are currently in a desperate financial situation. We can’t afford to make mistakes right now. There may be unintended consequences of splitting up Metro. If the estimates of the current cross-subsidy are wrong, it could devastate bus service in Seattle or the Eastside. At minimum there would be costs to create two (or more) agencies.
The other issue is that some have recommended combining all transit agencies into one. A single agency that could do comprehensive planning without NIMBYs, with a unified fare structure, would be an improvement. Splitting Metro would give “local control” of routes, but it would make simplifying the overall bus network that much harder.
Looks like the Tim E. initiative to limit fees is at work with the 520 tolling commission. I figure that this will be just a delay action until the legislature votes to do it, but heh, interesting side show.
http://www.kirotv.com/video/26387805/index.html
Oh, and I don’t favor the rest of the A-2 alignment at all.
Does anyone have (a) the stats for Metro’s sales tax by subarea or (b) the raw numbers (service/revenue hours, riders, etc. per route) used to make the performance report?
If I email Metro’s PR people will they give it to me?
Unfortunately, the worst press possible just happened:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013862211_lightrail07m.html
When someone chooses to take his own life in this manner, no safety measures in the world can stop him. My thoughts go out to whatever family he chose to leave behind.
Do we know it was suicide and not drunkenness or some medical condition causing disorientation?