This isn’t a sentence we use very often, but Matt Rosenberg of the Discovery Institute has an interesting and provocative article on Crosscut. I’m far from endorsing its viewpoint, but it’s worthwhile for the links alone. Rosenberg has unearthed a lot of Metro documents I’ve spent a year or so trying to find on the labyrinthine Metro website.
It’s curious that he could go almost 200 words about how reliability is the holy grail of transit service, and yet not once mention commuter or light rail, the two things we have on the table that are separated from traffic.
Although I’m receptive to the idea of a steep fare hike, doubling fares seems a bit extreme. A $7.00 round trip one-zone fare would transform the economics for a lot of people deciding whether to ride or drive. On the other hand, a large portion of fare increases are actually absorbed by employers and federal tax subsidies, so within reason increases are a pretty good way to raise revenue. As for the impact on the poor, there are more targeted ways to help them that don’t involve holding down costs for the Federal Government and Microsoft.
There’s also no discussion about what will happen to all of the busses freed up by next year’s Link opening. Compare that to the time it will take to raise fares, order new busses, and hire new drivers.
I’m not a big fan of fare increases – I think it discourages ridership. It would be one thing if riding a bus only benefits the person riding, but every person we get on the bus reduces everyone’s traffic, road costs, air quality, fuel prices, etc. I think taxes should pay for bus infrastructure (new/replacement busses, stations, wire, drivers, etc.) and fares should pay for consumables (fuel, maintenance). Because use it or not, every tax payer is paying for access to a network of busses.
Oops. Make that “air pollution” not “air quality”.
…and while you’re refering to crosscut.com, check out http://www.crosscut.com/tacoma/16267. It’s an opinion piece but it’s all “duded-up” to look like an academic/scientifically-based synopsis of Seattle’s geographic future.
My problem with Professor Morrill’s “future” is his claim that geographic and other factors “militate” against the value of transit (rail-based to be specific) in Seattle. His argument relies on the fundamental illogic of equating planning for and building rail transit with “normative” academic theory (that Government can force people how to behave). To me it reads like anothe disguised “we just can’t afford it” argument against rail, but with more careful camoflaging.
As a guy interested in Seattle civic life, I want to read and enjoy things like crosscut, but the articles (other than Ben’s) and general tone of the comments drives me nuts.
Sorry to hijack the substance of this thread for a rant on Crosscut. I’ll go back in my hole now.
David
Yeah I guess I would pay more to use the bus if folks driving on everything from freeways to local roads paid hefty tolls themselves. The irony is scathing! Folks complain about bus subsidies but think that roads are free or something. It would be interesting to see how much of an individuals taxes go toward roadwork locally to regionally to nationally.
“Militate” certainly is an interesting choice of words, but in any case he is dead wrong in how he uses it. In fact, I’d say that our local geography militates for the success of high capacity transit and not against it.
It’s hard to know exactly what sort of geographic feature he thinks “militates” against the success of mass transit, but it’s probably one of the following:
1) Steep topography: Totally bogus argument. Rail could be put anywhere in the tri-county area where you currently find a freeway or major highway. In fact, modern design standards for major roads vs. rail just aren’t that far apart per grade standards. Think of it, rail would have no trouble handling any of the grades on I-5, I-405, Hwy 99, etc. It’s just not an issue.
Yes, there are some steep hills in the area, but nobody is proposing that rail, or freeways for that matter, must be capable of climbing the steepest feature in the region in order to be a viable option. There is a thing called route planning after all, and I’d propose that when unavoidable geographic features are encountered, a rail tunnel is much cheaper than a freeway tunnel. How much cheaper would a LR tunnel under Mt Baker have been instead of the 3 bore I-90 tunnel they actually built???
2) Hour glass shape: Again, bogus. This actually benefits mass transit. Most commute patterns are aligned in just one direction. Build one mass transit line in that same direction and you get large benefits. You don’t have to build a spider-web or grid based mass transit system to serve the bulk of the people. Simply build a single high capacity line in the N-S direction. Then add cheaper streetcar, BRT, or buses traveling in the E-W direction to intercept the high capacity line and you have a pretty darn good system.
Bottom line, I tend to discount his opinion per mass transit.
speaking of buses, i was just at the 520 tolling meeting yesterday, and they said that if we start tolling by 2010, we will get a grant from the federal government that will include 45 extra buses for use on the 520 corridor.
Over at Seattlest, [thename] brings up a great point:
//Seriously folks? Did nobody pretty much notice that the $3.50 fares is basically to make it so transit’d be appealing to the new, private contractors he wants to sell the system to? Sounds great! I can’t wait to pay $3.50+ a trip for my trip on the SAFECO-Yellow Cab Shared Transportation Systems, LLC bus!
It’s all about this idea that people who don’t ride the bus shouldn’t have to pay for it. But all of us with property (with or without cars) should have to pay for expanding and maintaining their suburb-expanding, sprawl-assisting roads? Sounds fair to me.//
I think fares of $2 are okay, but anything beyond that and you start chasing people away.
The thing I keep saying is missing in this conversation: increased advertising on buses and in stops. BART, which doesn’t even have that much advertising gets 15% of operations from advertising and SF Muni gets 21%. Metro? just 7%.
I’ve noticed that theres a much higher percentage of bus wraps on ST busses…but not metro…is there a particular reason for this?
I don’t know the details but I know that Sound Transit’s advertising policy is different and separate from Metro’s. I suppose after Metro banned bus wraps on windows, many customers went to ST’s buses which still allows wraps on the windows.
For why so few Metro buses have wraps compared to ST’s, a Puget Sound Business Journal article states: “Metro allows wraps on just 25 of the fleet’s 1,300 buses.” Sound Transit’s fleet is smaller than Metro’s. ST probably allows a higher proportion of its fleet to have wraps.
The advertising thing is all about image for Metro. They don’t like prominent ads on buses because it makes them look like tacky rolling billboards. It’s hard to dispute this point, although most agencies think the revenue is worth the loss of image. How do you feel inside a wrapped bus? Closed in? The same goes for stops. Metro works hard to deal with graffiti and such. Advertising on shelters goes against a clean image.
Sure, but what about a little more advertising inside the buses?
In the case of image, I’m actually surprised that Sound Transit still allows full wraps on their buses because they always advertise on the radio, “ride Sound Transit with the big blue wave” and their slogan is “ride the wave.”
I feel that riding in a wrapped ST Express bus is not as bad as riding in a wrapped Metro bus because there are much fewer stops to worry about and trips are longer with more time to spend doing something else.
Metro actually has a shelter with their own ads on it at 5th and Jackson. I think they’re exploring the concept because they are really desperate for money.
That is perfect. It’s tasteful, it’s not too big, and it can bring in the money. Better than a fare increase I’d say!