There are certainly voters in Seattle who don’t see road conditions as particularly dire, and don’t really care about better transit and bike and pedestrian safety. There are others who simply prioritize low taxes over all other infrastructure and public services. Those people simply have different values than most Seattle voters, and I wouldn’t expect them to support a $60 VLF under any circumstances.
What I find bizarre, though, is the assertion that this plan is bad because it doesn’t buy any bus hours. This seems like the wrong way to look at things. This isn’t Bridging the Gap, where Metro was offering matching funds. For instance, Seattle could write a $1m check to Metro to buy about 10,000 bus hours. That’s about a 30 bus hours a day, somewhere in the city, for a year. At the end of the year, you cough up another $1m or you’re back to square one.
Or, Seattle could do a corridor improvement project like the Delridge TMP improvements. For that same $1m you could save an average 1.7 minutes on each and every peak period trip. There are dozens of trips per day that realize those savings, hundreds more off-peak, and they realize them forever. In some cases this “merely” improves speed, reliability, and the overall experience of riders, and trips are perceived as faster because they are given priority. It’s hard to say for sure without access to Metro’s scheduling software, but on some of these corridors, a few minutes of time savings may be enough to take a single bus off the road, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings every year.
“A penny saved is a penny earned”
same goes for bus hours, which is the intent of the tax.
I hadn’t thought of it that way: interesting perspective!
From my experience, I’d bet that the most important item of the Delridge plan mentioned here is the queue jump at Andover. I can’t tell you how often the 120 gets stuck there in the mornings. And with a new dense development happening nearby, transit demand in the corridor will only increase.
The shorthand doc spelling out funding levels to various categories certainly allows for adding bus service, since more buses on the B/C line, for example, would be a reliability improvement. Expanding the trolley network certainly counts as buying more bus service, in my book.
But the biggest impact in bus service hours would come from capital investments in the top priority corridor: the central business district (a.k.a. downtown). Metro doesn’t have a funding plan for deploying lots of ticket vending machines throughout the CBD in time for the much-anticipated end of the Ride Free Zone. But if such deployment doesn’t happen, we can look forward to a return to the days it took buses 45 minutes to traverse downtown during peak hour. That’s a ferryload of lost service hours.
We can’t wait for a second ballot package to happen, with a formula more to JF’s liking (i.e. one with no transit investments at all). Seattle’s beleaguered transportation network needs help now. And I want opponents to spell out what they would cut (on the off chance the council would send a second package to the voters, which seems highly unlikely). JF has done that, which should help us understand why we need to pass Proposition 1: The opponents of this package want *less* money to be spent on transit.
Brent said “Metro doesn’t have a funding plan for deploying lots of ticket vending machines throughout the CBD in time for the much-anticipated end of the Ride Free Zone.”
I do. (for the upteenth time)
Just honor a parking TVM ticket at face value for a transit trip.
The machines are there. Slap a “Also Good for Any Transit Trip” sticker on the machine and your done. (well, except for the fine print label which says only on Metro or ST, valid for the unexpired time, non-transferable, yada yada yada)
If you pay a couple of bucks, I don’t care if you park your car on a public street for 2 hour or go joy riding on a public bus for the same time. Do You?
Let the bean counters figure out how much of the TVM revenue belongs to Metro/ST, based on some random samples.
This isn’t rocket science boys and girls.
Has the city and/or county responded to your proposal? Do you know the purchase and operating cost of one of these machines? And can the font be enlarged so an operator or fare inspector can determine a ticket’s validity in just one second?
No, No, Not sure (~5k ea??), and if a parking enforcement officer can read the date/time stamp walking down the sidewalk, I hope a fare officer won’t linger more that a second on each one.
Brent, see my $400k = 20+ TVMs post for cost estimates. The ticket format can be configured as needed.
If the city’s adding to their existing system, probably at least $9k to $15k per TVM depending on model and quantity. Starting from scratch like Swift, total system cost comes to around $20k per TVM.
It costs $2.50/hr to park in Belltown, and pay stations only let you pay for 2 hours. In SLU it’s $1.25 and you can print a 10-hour ticket. There are also 3- and 4-hour paystations, and of course various other hourly rates. And paystations only work after 8 a.m. until 6 or 8 p.m. Some paystations let you prepay for a couple hours the next morning (part of the city’s nightlife initiative), but most don’t.
Given the wide variation in parking rates and hours and the fact that the paystations don’t work 24/7 (most importantly not during much of the AM peak), I can’t see any reasonable way to make such a system work. Even if you said “screw it”, the confusion such a system would create would be a horrible PR move for transit.
I don’t see a dual-purpose ticket working, due to revenue-sharing turf battles. I see a need for ticket machines at the bus stops. Perhaps Metro and/or SDOT has already done some pricing.
Yes, you’re right. I asked SDOT if it was possible to install another mushroom button on the front, labled 2 hr Transit ticket, and if the processor had a spare input port for that. No response.
But that wouldn’t work anyway, ’cause the system is waaayyy to complex for my simple minded approach to fares. Peak, off-peak, 2-zone, MT, Light Rail distance based, …
Oh the horror of it all.
Never Mind.
Hey Brent,
in reponse to your question about fare inspectors, Metro is not planning proof-of-payment at this time. Until/unless fare inspection (proof-of-payment) expands beyond RapidRide, the main advantage of TVMs for non-RapidRide routes would be that fewer people will not fumble for correct change at the farebox (particularly important when buses go to pay-on-entry. A lot of that fumbling would instead occur at the TVM.
There aren’t any parking pay machines along most of 3rd where they would be most necessary.
Most of the bus stops on 3rd Ave in the Central Business District are really close to a tunnel entrance, if only they had signage pointing to those entrances. For the rest of the stops, a certain bus(es) could be designated as free to get riders to the next tunnel entrance. I’m not that excited about putting out a whole lot of capital infrastructure to coddle cash fumblers if they are a tiny minority of all riders by the time the Free Ride Zone goes away. But then, I’m not convinced that reducing cash fumbling is one of Metro’s goals.
Maybe we could have a steep peak cash surcharge, like the Port Authority of Allegheny County does, on top of an all-day 25-cent cash surcharge.
Still, unless Metro/ST/CT install backdoor ORCA readers on all their downtown buses, we’ll need hundreds of at-stop ORCA readers to make this work, and that won’t be cheap. Of course, off-board is preferential to pay-at-either-door, not just because payment is not slowing down the boarders, but also because riders will know, by the presence of the off-board readers, that they can enter at the back … unless Metro institutes some mousetrap rule about after 7 pm and before 6 am.
The solution is to install (at bus stops) pay station machines that are easily distinguishable from parking pay stations and dispense only bus tickets. SDOT and Metro are working on that. The parking pay station machines can be adapted for that purpose.
Bill, Good to hear that Metro & SDOT are working on bus ticket machines.
Brent,
Installing TVMs at bus stops is not “coddling cash fumblers”; it’s increasing reliability and reducing dwell time. Even if you got 80% paying with ORCA (like in London), the remaining 20% still impact service in a big way. Let the cash fumblers pay off-board while the ORCAs tap right on and the bus leaves them at the curb.
The Ride Free Area ends a year from now. I doubt we’ll jump from 50% to 95% ORCA use in less than a year under the status quo.
Thanks for the information, Bill!
Would you happen to know then, whether the plan is to require off-board payment, and hire a bunch of fare inspectors?
So how would Metro be compensated for these essentially free trips?
Not only would paving improvements on Delridge improve travel times on the 120, careful traffic calming techniques could make the corridor much safer for walking and bicycling. From my experience, a flat is almost inevitable due to the poor state of the roadway.
Please send this to every transportation reporter in Seattle so they will actually understand this, and can point it out in their articles after some opponent claims the VLF doesn’t help bus service.
There are plenty of bus hours, it’s true. An inordinate amount of them are spent sitting at pointless traffic lights. For example, almost every light on Denny the 8 has to stop at. SIGNAL PRIORITY NOW.
Could the headline be altered to not make it look like we’re backing up the claim in the headline?
I think the question mark more or less serves that purpose.
(That was, of course, meant to be a response to Brent.)
But it looks like we’re asking if, or why, or it’s a rhetorical question. I could easily see someone writing “No bus hours from the VLF? BOOOOOOO!!!” A clearer headline would be something like “Why no bus hours from the VLF isn’t a bad thing”.
Its an odd read of the debate on Publicola to condense John Fox’s argument to “the plan is bad because it doesn’t buy any bus hours”. Scanning the actual page you’ll find he thinks the tax is regressive and hurts the working poor. He then then cites the statistics that 60% of those earning below 150% drive a car and tacks on the point there is no money to reduce their dependence on cars in the tax i.e. they will not be able to become carless and escape the tax.
Quite frankly based on the VLF’s targets, the most potent reason a low income motorist would have to give up his or her car is the tax burden rather than any potential public transit benefits and on top of that I’m not sure how many will or won’t do so but I supsect we’ll just end up with a more regressive taxing structure rather than a large decrease in drivers.
I find Tim Harris’s response on the same page alot more intellectually honest since it attacks the issue head on. Is the funding structure so flawed that it outweighs the benefit of the tax?
Ben
Ben,
I don’t understand all the calls to go back to something like sales tax to fund transit, since sales tax is more regressive than a VLF. This is the least regressive transit funding mechanism we’ve ever gotten to vote for. I LIKE this mechanism.
Furthermore, it doesn’t discourage behavior we want to see (i.e. commerce). It’s green. It’s less regressive. It’s far, far less regressive that letting the town go to pothole, and not doing all the things the VLF is supposed to fund, including substantial improvements to bus service in the city. Presumably, all the impoverished car owners drive, and they will be affected by the potholes.
And there’s the matter of the council’s official commitment to find a way to defray the cost for truly impoverished car owners. JF hasn’t acknowledged that effort. Instead, he has publicly referred to Councilmember O’Brien (who brought forth the defrayment proposal) as “Mayor McGinn’s Mini-Me.” I’m really disappointed by the lack of maturity JF has brought to this debate.
JF has done some incredibly wonderful things (most recently championing sick leave for most employees in the city) and some not-so-wonderful things (opposing new development, including housing, around light rail stations). On this campaign, he has hit rock bottom.
The only thing we have to gain from this proposal going down is much less money for filling potholes, building sidewalks, and fixing the bus system. If it goes down, new high-capacity transit is off the table in Seattle for many years to come.
Ben,
I don’t understand all the calls to go back to something like sales tax to fund transit, since sales tax is more regressive than a VLF. This is the least regressive transit funding mechanism we’ve ever gotten to vote for. I LIKE this mechanism.
Furthermore, it doesn’t discourage behavior we want to see (i.e. commerce). It’s green. It’s less regressive. It’s far, far less regressive that letting the town go to pothole, and not doing all the things the VLF is supposed to fund, including substantial improvements to bus service in the city. Presumably, all the impoverished car owners drive, and they will be affected by the potholes.
And there’s the matter of the council’s official commitment to find a way to defray the cost for truly impoverished car owners. JF hasn’t acknowledged that effort. Instead, he has publicly referred to Councilmember O’Brien (who brought forth the defrayment proposal) as “Mayor McGinn’s Mini-Me.” I’m really disappointed by the lack of maturity JF has brought to this debate.
JF has done some incredibly wonderful things (most recently championing sick leave for most employees in the city) and some not-so-wonderful things (opposing new development, including housing, around light rail stations). On this campaign, he has hit rock bottom.
The only thing we have to gain from this proposal going down is much less money for filling potholes, building sidewalks, and fixing the bus system. If it goes down, new high-capacity transit is off the table in Seattle for many years to come.
If McGinn uses the defeat of the tax as an excuse not to fix the streets, mark my words, he’ll be recalled.
There are certainly voters in Seattle who don’t see road conditions as particularly dire, and don’t really care about better transit and bike and pedestrian safety. There are others who simply prioritize low taxes over all other infrastructure and public services. Those people simply have different values than most Seattle voters, and I wouldn’t expect them to support a $60 VLF under any circumstances.
There are certainly motorists in Seattle who:
1. Won’t vote for a new tax that comes with no ironclad city commitment with respect to use of the funds.
2. Won’t vote for a new tax that’s advertised by a “citizens” committee that has recommended spending only 18% of the proceeds to fix the city’s streets.
3. Won’t vote for a new tax that’s advertised by a “citizens” committee that has recommended spending twice as much for a billionaire’s streetcars than for fixing city streets.
4. Won’t vote for a new tax that’s advertised by a “citizens” committee that has recommended spending tens of millions for new studies of various kinds, and for transit that should have been funded by the $3 billion light rail slush fund.
5. [ad hom]