[UPDATE: The meeting has been moved to 4pm.]
Sorry for the short notice, but this afternoon the Community Transit Board will discuss three alternatives for how to cut 80,000 hours of bus service this year. One option restores Sunday service, which results in deeper cuts elsewhere in the week:
Three service alternatives for Community Transit’s February 2012 system change will be presented to the agency’s Board of Directors at its June 2 meeting. The meeting will take place at 3 p.m. in the Board Room, located at 7100 Hardeson Road, Everett (accessible by Everett Transit Route 8).
This 20% cut is on top of the 15% cut implemented last June.
Maybe the Lynnwood, Edmonds, and Mukilteo City Councils should throw some good ol’ fashioned hissy fits over why light rail will take so long to get up there, demand to know where ST is spending the money without doing any homework, and then threaten to sue because Seattle-area legislators didn’t lobby to get federal funds for Snohomish County transit.
Then, when they’ve got that out of their system, they could do something quite original: Start lobbying the state and federal governments for some outside help.
In particular, they could ask their state legislators to define buses and trains as “vehicles”, so that CT could get access to some of the state’s fuel-tax income.
Just a thought.
I don’t know how CT will maintain minimally-adequate service when they already can’t, and when they’ve implemented the same simple reforms on which Metro has dragged its feet.
For example, CT does not offer paper transfers for passengers who fumble change. They’ve also led the way with putting the most space-efficient and cost-efficient buses on the road, with their fleet of double-deckers. Sen. Haugen was flat-out wrong when she described Metro as having done a whole lot to eliminate inefficiencies, while CT had not. Nevertheless, having CT district voters vote to implement the “congestion fee” was a long shot.
Do Lynnwood, Mukilteo, and Edmonds have the power to create a transportation benefits district and use it to supplement bus service, the way Seattle and Bellingham do?
One thing that would at least save ST money, but perhaps not CT directly, is for ST to lease some of those double-deckers from CT, and use them on the 510-513. All-day use of double-deckers means ST could cut frequency on those routes mid-day and weekends, and maybe attract some upper-deck choice tourists to “Buy Local” in Snohomish County. Also, having ST run those double-deckers during the morning commute will hopefully mean some of the not-full CT commuter routes could get truncated at Everett or Lynnwood, or be converted back into neighborhood service.
Frequency on the 510-513 is important to build and retain ridership. But certainly CT should funnel riders to the 510-513 rather than running duplicate express service.
I can’t even imagine what CT service will look like with another 80k hours in cuts. Their service is already so sparse its almost worthless.
I think one of their biggest problems is that they’re stretching their service too then. They need to concentrate what service they can provide on the populated areas on Lynnwood, Edmonds, Everett, Snohomish, and Monroe at the expense of service to far-flung areas such as Gold Bar and Darrington.
Also, Stanwood is way to far away for a one-seat commuter ride to downtown Seattle. 50 miles of deadheading plus 50 miles of service for a single trip is just too much. People who work in downtown Seattle should not be living all the way in Stanwood and, if they do, driving halfway to Everett before hopping on the Sounder or 510 is just the price for living that far away.
I agree that those CT commuter routes coming from north of Everett (421, 422, 425) ought to terminate there. However, there needs to be a contingency plan for last-minute Sounder blockages. Part of that contingency might be to upgrade a route from a 40-foot single-decker to a double-decker, using the same number of operators.
Then, be sure the return trips are timed to the Sounder’s arrival.
Or, ditch the North Sounder route entirely since buses provide service that isn’t shut down for two days every time there’s a mud slide. The 510 has damn near 100% fare box recovery. How many bus service hours would this restore???
Gotta agree, its a shame that I can go from downtown to Stanwood but I can’t get from downtown to Mill Creek w/out transferring.
Check out the 3 proposals here http://www.commtrans.org/News/SystemChange.cfm
Plan 3 is a total change of routing , it is very interesting. No one seat rides from North County.
CT’s 3rd alternative is interesting — it makes some local routes more direct and restructures commuter routes. In particular, it looks like a lot of commuters would lose one-seat rides (including, @Eric, the Stanwood folk), which is probably best for the system.
I’m sure Alternative #3 will get the most objection, as it shakes things up most for existing riders. Creating a 196th St. route that doesn’t divert south to Lynnwood TC strikes me as bold — I wonder how many people will end up making those connections on foot (it’s a little more than a quarter-mile).
This looks like a hard problem. The walk is too long, but diverting the bus is too costly. From the stops on 196th to the “D” bays where regional service boards it’s almost 1/2 mile. The current 118/119 takes about 2 minutes travel time, then it goes a different way from LTC to the mall and doesn’t return to 196th but just assume another 2. It waits at LTC 5 min for transfers to happen. So, a 9 minute diversion off 196th on 1/2 hour service 5:30a-10p (~68trips) (assume 32 saturday) = ~2850 annual revenue hours. Even if the diversion can be taken down to 5 minutes (basically 1 minute to unload and load, no driver break) then it’s ~1584 arh. The 112 is also skipping LTC and going straight down 44th. a little lower freq so the diversion only amounts to ~2450 arh in the 9 min scenario or ~1364 in the 5 min. Together that means putting in that simple diversion adds more than ~5k arh in the case of waiting for transfers or even in the best scenario, just a quick in and out, its almost 3000 arh. That would be even more cut from…… where?
A quick thought, you doesnt the puget sound area have one agency responsible instead of 5+ or more in some instances duplicating a lot of service. Why not use Translink in BC or UTA in Salt Lake as an example.