According to this there will be more no. 8 service along with more no. 70 bus service. The 70 will run every ten minutes, and the 8, which I sometimes take from Denny and Stewart when it’s raining, will start running every 15 minutes from 6-7:30 up from 30 minutes.
What’s interesting is that $109,000 of the approx. $800,000 needed to fund the increased service comes from SLU business. Seems scary to me, like wealthy business can throw money at the city and the city will buy them more bus service. What do you think, should we worry about county bus service for hire?
I think this is very good news, and I hope other companies decide to follow suit. They’re getting a benefit for their money, to be sure, but it’s being done in a way that serves many other people too.
The development we need to worry about is the MS Connector. For whatever reason that big employer with money to burn decided to spend it on a service that not only doesn’t help anyone but their employees, but might even compete with the public buses for riders, pushing the sustainable service level on public routes down.
but what about lower income areas that already suffer from poor bus service and are unlikely to be able to afford to buy their own bus service? the south lake union situation appears to be a sad example of the corrupting power of money – paul allen wants to instantly create a bustling urban neighborhood from scratch, and is paying off the city and county to handle the logistics (infrastructure, transportation, etc.). i’m hoping that this does not become a trend because it really sets a horrible and disturbing precedent in terms of service allocation.
granted, it’s also worth mentioning that pay-as-you-go service has been around for awhile with metro – microsoft’s been paying metro (via ST) for years for the 545 service from my understanding, and there are a couple other lesser-known routes in the 900’s i think that are also “paid” for by employers or schools.
as i mention above, since the 545 is mostly paid for by microsoft already, the connector is only microsoft spending money in two places to achieve roughly the same goal (i’m not sure how the costs compare). if there has been a ridership decline on the 545, i haven’t been able to tell as those buses are usually pretty full on the odd occasion i need to go to the eastside.
If Metro ran a bus directly to MS (OR even a better express buses) they wouldn’t have done their own routes.
Don’t some schools pay for Metro’s 800 series routes as exclusive services?
I work in South Lake Union I think this is a great idea in some ways but aweful in others. It relieves the city from coming up with the means to provide transportation. I know Children’s is doing the same. I have seen where it was going to be considered a rapid ride? So now I am all confused on Ron Simms Rapid Ride proposal that we all voted yes on, because I didn’t think Sandpoint was one of the corridors, I could be wrong here. Another bad thing about this, is that companies with money get service? What about non-profit business? The small guys? Are they not worthy of a bus route? I know that SLU is aweful aweful aweful for transit. So I am mixed on this idea. However, since I work there I will be more than glad to use the service. The streetcar is very nice by the way! If it takes Paul Allen or not!
Well, for heavens sakes. The UW circulators are meant for UW students and staff, although I doubt anyone is checking ID.
A public bus, however, directed (or pulled towards) a financial contributor, gives everyone the chance to ride at a subsidized fare.
Consider an elevator- the building owner and business tenants pay for it and it’s free to you, but they still make money. Why shouldn’t the same thing be true of some horizontal transportation?
With public transit you never reach farebox recovery, and this will always be true because the capital base is so large. There’s no point in worrying about one route taking traffic from another. Once you have a rider you have someone who is committed to making the system better, and a shortage of these has been a real problem for Seattle.
I’d be interested to know where you heard MS is paying for the 545 — when a bunch of MS employees, myself included, were working to get it routed over Capitol Hill in the mornings, we heard that it was funded by “Eastside taxes”, and therefore that spending extra service hours for the benefits of Seattle residents was inappropriate.
I do think MS donated the land for the Overlake Transit Center, though.