The Times has a chart of how the rise in gas prices are going to hurt the transit agencies in our region. It’s surprising that for an agency like Metro with a budget of more than $500 million, even with higher prices fuel is less than ten percent of costs. The $13 million shortfall Metro has, may require cuts in new Transit Now projects just to keep current service levels.
The increase in ridership is great, but it’s worth keeping in mind that adding more service could take a long time, and we should begin taking those steps now.
If Metro has to choose between raising fares, cutting service or raising taxes, which would you prefer? Since my employer pays for my pass, I would personally benefit if they raised fares rather than taxes, but I know that most people buy their own passes, and depending on the tax, that might be they way to go. Cutting service seems like a terrible ideal to me.
Personally, I’d like to see a tax increase – but I’d like every penny that doesn’t go to covering the shortfall to go to:
a) First, a cost effectiveness analysis of extending trolley lines and routes. Would we save operating costs if we bought more trolleys? Does the unreliability overwhelm this savings? (Just yesterday I saw a trolleybus lose its poles.) Would better maintenance overcome that unreliability issue? Would that maintenance cost overwhelm the savings?
b) Immediate capital investment in streetcar extensions to replace some routes.
In order:
1. More taxes
2. Higher fares
3. A shift to technologies that use less diesel (trolleybuses or streetcars)
4. A combination of all of the above.
I don’t think service cuts should even be the last option.
Tax increase.
To give you an indication about what a bad idea rasing fares is: I drove in today. For my wife and I to ride the bus our 2 miles downtown would have cost us $7. Parking is $9. It’s worth $2 to me not to have to deal with a crowded, slow, often late bus.
Yes, raising fares would solve the problem, as it would push people back into their cars.
What cas said. My preferences exactly.
Raise single ticket prices but hold pass prices constant so people who rely on the bus can keep their budgets in check. There should be more price discrimination becasue Metro serves a diverse population, some with means to bear increases and some without.
Matt, $9 parking is few and far between downtown – you must be parking in a lot on the far north or fr south parts of downtown. …but I agree, the economics start to work against ridership at some point. I for one, would have no problem paying more for fares so long as I know its going to preserve or increase service hours.
With transit ridership up, some of the increase in fuel cost must be being offset by increased farebox revenue. Anyone have the numbers on this?
[anon] My wife works down near the waterfront, where early-bird parking is $9. But even if I had to walk from there to the tall buildings (I don’t – she drops me off), it would take much less time than the bus.
I want to take the bus. I love the concept of public transportation, and want our city to be a place where you can take it everywhere. But I have better things to do with all of that wasted time (extra 30+ min/day) than try to support a broken system.
Matt,
If your time is that valuable to you, and you’re not willing to forfeit ownership of the car, there’s no way that, in the Seattle of 2008, transit will pencil out for you.
Your commute is simply so short that any time savings in a dedicated ROW will be swallowed up by time waiting at the stop. Since your gas cost is zero, there’s no way that current parking fees can recapture the fares you would spend, unless your employer subsidizes a pass heavily.
Designing a transit system around people like you is a fool’s game, since most don’t feel any ideological inclination to take transit. Yours obviously isn’t that strong, as a $2/day price difference plus your inclination isn’t enough to overcome your desire for convenience.
I don’t mean to inject any moral content in that statement; transit just won’t work for you. The carpool does, which is just fine.
[martin] I only use myself as an example because I feel I’m more or less the average Seattle commuter. I have access to a car and a nearby bus route. I live in the city but not downtown. I work downtown.
If our county-run transit system doesn’t work well for people that live in the city, maybe we should create a system that does.
Matt and Martin are both missing something, that is, Matt was riding with his wife. Believe it, the math on that changes if he’s not riding with his wife.
That said, the transit agencies should quit their whining. Ridership is up and few of them could claim that their buses were full before all this happened.
Instead of whining about what miserable failures they are, they should be pointing out to the public the need for more funding to provide adequate service.
Right now,, the public is being told that helpless transit agencies are failing because of high fuel prices. The agencies have not been the last to portray themselves in this light.
What should be said is that the strategy of maintaining public transit for the public benefit is working, and should be strengthened with adequate funding for the increased costs of increased usage.
serial catowner,
The increased costs have little to do with increased usage.
I know that. But what good does it do to know that? Do you just say, “Case closed- we can’t afford transit”? That’s what some of the agencies are doing, cutting service now so they won’t run out of money five months from now.
That action is not only premature, it’s a way of keeping the public out of the discussion about what routes should be supported.
You may have noticed that when the jails fill up, the warden doesn’t just start releasing whoever he wants to. The jail agency goes to the city, county, or state, explains the problem, and asks to be directed about what to do by the public process.
I would say that transit riders deserve at least as much forceful advocacy from the transit agencies we support with our taxes as prisoners in a jail get.
If the buses run on a set schedule — x number of times per day, down x route — and the ridership is up, aren’t the increased number of fares going into the fare-box covering at least some portion of the increased gas prices? All I’ve seen is that $2.60/gallon was planned and gas is now over $4/gallon. But where’s the math telling us that of the current $1.40/gallon shortfall, increased ridership is bringing the shortfall down to, say, $.059/gallon?
Want to raise money for Metro, Sound Transit, etc.?
Use a Parking tax on all parking spaces, in downtowns served by buses.
Anything above say $2.60/gallon should be paid as a federal subsidy. Why? The costs of keeping oil flowing are paid most directly at the federal level.
Since transit reduces our oil dependency it should be supported at the federal level with a direct correlation to the price of fuel.
The transit agencies of course have their responsibilities to making fuel efficient choices, and this should be part of the calculation for the feds handing over money.
Stop subsdizing parking. Stop setting off-street parking requirements. Then, watch demand fo transit grow. The revenue from parking taxes could even be used to improve transit!
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