Another part of the June 17 Regional Transit Committee meeting was another round of discussion of Metro cuts. Once again, the Committee punted on giving Metro firm guidance on service cuts, instead holding out hopes that painless internal cuts can close the gap. The Metro presentation, which contains little new information, is available here.
Seattle Councilmember Jan Drago was something of an exception (43:00 in the video), as she read into the record a letter from the City requesting that:
- service reductions should be treated as “suspensions” rather than “cuts”, so that they would not be subject to the usual subarea criteria;
- emphasize ridership, transit-dependent communities, growth management goals, and slowed implementation of Transit Now, in that order. Transit Now investments that leverage external funding would be retained.
- Metro develop a “moderate ridership impact” scenario that falls between the high-ridership, pure-productivity approach and one that essentially cuts a bit from everything.
Drago remarked that the high productivity plan resulted in an “unacceptable” loss of 40% of Eastside riders, while the other plans were unacceptable to the West subarea ridership.
Both Issaquah Councilmember Fred Butler and Sammamish Councilmember Kathy Huckabay spoke in favor of higher fares to close the gap, in conjunction with various unspecified efficiency improvements.
The King County Council must decide on a cuts policy by September to allow them to go into effect by February, although there’s talk of delaying the decision to January 2010 and the actual cuts till June 2010. By burning through more cash reserves this way, the Council might get more time to scrounge for cash, and, it must be said, postpone a decision till after the election.
Metro is hemorrhaging cash, with no relief in sight. Waiting only delays the solution, requiring larger cuts or higher fares to balance the budget.
STB commenter’s have offered a series of suggestions, over many months, that should be implemented at the earliest possible shakeup to minimize the pain for a lot of riders. These include:
Suspending the sub-area equity rules, until the system returns to equilibrium.
Focusing cuts on unproductive routes, or segments of routes and time spans with high rider costs.
Streamlining fare policies and raising fares to maximize revenues, with increased enforcement.
Eliminating duplicative routes or segments where good alternative service is available.
Eliminating extra stops above current stop spacing policies SYSTEMWIDE to increase efficiency.
Negotiate labor savings, through work rule adjustments and shift assignments to reduce labor costs.
Delay ‘Transit Now’ service improvements until the bleeding stops.
Offering lower cost alternatives to transit dependent riders or areas losing service.
Let the planners, schedulers, and managers do what they do best, and keep politics muzzled until King County recovers from this economic meltdown.
First of all, some Transit Now improvements bring in matching Federal or municipal funds, so you want to be careful what you postpone.
Second, “keep politics muzzled” implies that the set of objectives you’ve laid out is a pristine set of objective priorities. In fact, it represents the priorities of a particular set of interest groups. In other words, it’s equally political.
True, all service reductins will be political in one sense or another. But at the same time cuts should be focused on keeping the lossin ridership as low as possible, reducing costs, and maximizing revenue.
I actually agree with those, but you have to see that those are political. The interest groups you’re shafting in that priority set are those with poor access to transit, transit-dependent populations, and people who would like to use it in the middle of the day.
You’re also looking at a steep fare rise, which will hurt some people.
As I said, I agree with what you’re saying, but what I’m trying to make sure people understand is that this is a multivariable problem where planners are trying to optimize several things. The pat objectives people like to comment about would lead to pretty nonsensical conclusions if they weren’t tempered by some other objectives.
*) Suspending the sub-area equity rules, until the system returns to equilibrium.
This would allow ST to slow the Eastside LINK in favor of going North, as the Seattle area is maxed out.
*)Focusing cuts on unproductive routes, or segments of routes and time spans with high rider costs.
Cut the sounder runs, it has the worst cost/rider ratio. The equipment probably can’t be leased out to other cities as they are broke as well.
*) Negotiate labor savings, through work rule adjustments and shift assignments to reduce labor costs.
For LINK, it’s too late. However it does show that no more surface LINK should be built so that some time in the future it could become an automated system.
BTW, I was at the meeting in Tukwilla where a transit guy gave Greg Nickles, then head of finance, the what-for about elevating the system and the labor costs. A deaf ear was all he got for his troubles.
I was also at a number of meeting downtown where various people from the Rainier valley pleaded for a tunnel or an elevated system and not the surface system they got. More deaf ears from then K.C. Exec, Ron Sims.
Unless I’m confused, we’re talking about METRO not Sound Transit in this article..
You seem to have confused Sound Transit with King County Metro. Metro is the system facing 20% service cuts not Sound Transit. Money from Sound Transit can’t go to KC Metro for operating Metro routes, only for operating ST routes under contract.
So no discussion of enacting the Ferry District property tax authority the legislature gave for transit use? Or are they going to wait and do that after the election too, because it might be controversial given the falling property values and complicated calculations of tax value for property? I understand how frustrated we transit junkies get with Olympia, but what’s the point of pushing a transit agenda through the legislature if we’re not even going to follow up at the local level?
The eastside is the biggest drag on the system. In the performance report it was a big red flag to see eastside metric averages were by Seattle standards underperforming routes. That sort of tells you that about 1/2 the routes (all those that are below average) need to go. There should be a system wide standard for what constitutes minimum performance levels. There’s nothing equitable about Seattle suffering cuts in order to prop up eastside service to areas which can’t support transit.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the difference between one zone and two zone fares it not anywhere near large enough. Eastside routes are longer and require a lot more deadhead non-revenue hours. The two zone fare should reflect that. How about shorter local eastside routes that have the current one zone fare (Bellevue to Overlake/Crossroads for example) and then charging at least $1 more for all the long haul routes?
I agree that if Metro were run as a corporate interest the Eastside routes would most certainly be cut due to their underperformance. But Metro, being a governmental agency, has other objectives along with efficiency, including reduction of vehicle miles traveled. Each bus trip for those that live in, and travel within, the city core area results in a smaller reduction in overall VMT than does a bus ride from the suburbs into the city, or from suburb to suburb. But I do tend to agree with you that making the system more efficient with the reduction/elimination of lesser used routes seems to make the most sense when the budget is at far off as Metro’s is.
What Metro need to do is to identify all of their objectives for transit (both explicit and implicit) and assign weights as to their priority. This would go far in helping them come to a plan, and would help us in understanding why various decisions are made in lieu of others.
Running near empty buses is as bad for the environment as it is for the bottom line. It’s a double whammy because these routes are the very ones with the most deadhead non-revenue miles. Second, by sending the signal that Metro is going to provide transit to every far flung part of the county it provides no incentive for those intending to use transit to live in an area which is dense enough to support it. Finally the cuts in service to areas that deserve better service is a huge disincentive for those who might otherwise choose to use it instead of driving. The current model simply isn’t sustainable.
“What Metro need[sic]to do is identify all their objectives for transit…”
That’s actually the job of the King County Council. Metro Staff would love it if the Council gave them a weighted objective function to use. They’d spit it into the computer and be done by lunchtime.
Instead, you have a council too divided to even generate coherent top-level priorities, and inclined to defer the decision as long as possible in hope of a miracle.
“The eastside is the biggest drag on the system.”
South King County is probably the biggest drag due to the longer distances, but it’s also the most underserved between the suburban centers. There is relatively little population or Metro service east of Issaquah, and most of it travels on the efficient I-90. (steady speed = higher efficiency)
In South KingCo, Seattle-Kent is about the same distance as Seattle-Issaquah, and Federal Way and Auburn are about 25% further and have a higher population than Fall City or Carnation. If you want to visit somebody in Auburn, you might take the 150 (2x/hour daytime, 1x/hr evenings), which takes an hour just to get to Kent due to its meandering path. Then transfer to the Auburn bus (also 1x/hr), and then walk an hour from the bus stop to your destination because there are no buses between Pacific Highway and the East Valley Road. There are some minimal buses going east-west at Southcenter, Kent and Federal Way, but again they go 1x or 2x/hr and less on evenings/weekends. So if you live in the south end and need to go anywhere involving a transfer (which basically means everywhere not on Pacific Highway), it’ll take a long time.
I do hope that with Link and the A-line, they’ll beef up east-west service so that people living in Renton, Kent, and Auburn will be able to use it, as well as people going to the ShoWare center in Kent, etc.
Not according to the Route performance report Martin linked to in his post Metro Presents Service Cut Planning Strategies. The south could use a little trimming but it generates about 2/3 the average fare recovery of the west sub area. The eastside fare recovery rate is only 1/2 that of the west. All of the metrics point to the eastside as being the big stinker. The eastside should at least be pulled in line with the south sub-area.
in response to the eastside having poor ridership: duh.
Try going from DT Bellevue to Redmond or Factoria or Greenlake or just anywhere not Seattle, it’s ridiculous. Metro is mostly focused on getting everyone to Seattle, not meeting the overall transit needs of the Eastside.
We need more density, and MORE transit not less.