Photo by Atomic Taco

[UPDATE 6/28: Apparently, there were mistakes on Metro’s flyer, but now there’s a corrected version.]

Late last week, Metro posted a bunch more information about service cuts that King County faces over the next 2-3 years if the County Council and/or voters don’t approve the $20 vehicle license fee and the legislature doesn’t provide a new revenue source beyond 2013.

Most informative is this list of routes that would likely be eliminated, reduced/revised, or left the same over the period February 2012-October 2013. It’s a long way from a formal proposal to the Council, but it is consistent with Metro’s new service allocation guidelines and gives an idea of the scale of cuts we’re facing. The takeaway is that nearly everyone (80%, Metro claims) who uses Metro will ultimately be affected.

83 Replies to “Even More on Metro Cuts”

  1. I’ve never really understood why the legislature just has to put caps on what local transit agencies may ask their local voter to approve. Local taxes for local projects shouldn’t be at the mercy of the entire state to say how much or what kind of taxes are even acceptable to them.
    The only plausible reason I come up with is to keep overall tax burdens under control, which is a thinly veiled way to say, “but if your tax is too high, maybe they won’t approve our tax later on.” In a perfect world, all tax requests should stand on their own merits.
    Anyone know if the State Constitution, including all the initiatives lately, keeps Olympia’s thumbs in the pie?

    1. “A municipal corporation’s authority to tax must be delegated by the state legislature.” Cmty. Telecable of Seattle, Inc. v. City of Seattle, 164 Wn.2d 35, 41, 186 P.3d 1032 (2008). This rule comes from Article XI, Section 12 of our state constitution, which has never been amended. It may not be a wise policy, but it is the general rule throughout the United States and has been from the country’s founding.

      1. Thanks Scott. I understand the ‘authority to tax’is delegated by the state, but does that mandate the upper limit of what the tax can be?
        In other words, why not just give transit the ability to charge a sales tax and let the local market determine what the upper bounds are?

      2. ScottH is correct. Not just authority from state constitution, but that that the “authority” that the constitution gave the state should be jealously guarded.

        A gross example of when constitutional authority is handed off illegally, with disastrous effects on the citizens:

        “federal reserve” privately owned bank (that owns all of you). Congress and Woodrow Wilson (the worst president ever, by a large margin… only Baby Bush can even hold a candle to him), were bribed out of the authority “ONLY CONGRESS SHALL PRINT MONEY”.

        It’s in your constitution. If any of you would bother reading it. My 6th grade son’s government school teaches him about the habits of dolphins, but never the constitution.

        Taxing authority should be limited as much as possible. Small tax increases in steps, provides citizens warning time to escape high tax areas.

        What if a downtown area, was a tiny city of itself, with say, only 300 lawyers as “residents”. But 50% of a larger county’s population of 300,000 is employed in that city? And suddenly the beloved 300 lawyer’s pass a $2.00 per day lunch and drinking water tax? Well , it would all quite legal.. right?

    2. When the legislature passes a law giving local governments (not just cities and counties, but all kinds of “special purpose districts” like sound transit, fire districts, etc.) authority to tax, it also imposes limits on that authority. By doing so, it helps coordinate competing priorities between different geographic areas and interests so that narrow areas and interests are subordinated to the good of the state as a whole–at least theoretically. For example, if King County were allowed to impose an unlimited amount of sales tax for transit, that might undermine people’s willingness to pay money to the state to fund basic education, which is an important state responsibility. Also, think about how much confusion and conflict we already have between different jurisdictions (like the school district, the city of seattle, and king county) over raising more tax revenue. If each entity could tax as much as it wanted, things would be even more chaotic. You need a referee with an eye on the big picture to minimize this kind of thing. So the legislature does a kind of balancing act, allowing some local flexibility for local priorities, but not so much that we become fragmented, warring fiefdoms.

      1. Scott – you’re right about most of that, but keep in mind Sound Transit is not a “special purpose district”. It is a local government, a municipal corporation just like cities and counties.

        We know it’s a government (unlike, say, a rural fire district) because of the broad transportation-related taxing and spending powers delegated to it. See, _Cunningham v. Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle_, 751 F.Supp. 899 W.D.Wash. 1990.

        Just wanted you to know how a lawyer views such things!

      2. Got it!
        If King County wants a higher tax ceiling, then the delegation has to ‘trade’ something for some votes in the rest of the state. Monte Hall has nothing on these guys when it comes to “Let’s Make a Deal”.

  2. This document would be more useful if it had more details in the revisions section. For example, there’s no way they can eliminate the 72 and 73 and replace them with nothing, but there’s no details about the revisions section of the the 71, which might actually be an increast. The U-District expresses are some of the busiest routes in the county — there’s no possible way the RTTF guidelines could suggest that corridor be subject to cuts of that magnitude.

    1. The part of the 70 series between downtown and the U-District is busy. The tails of those routes–Wedgwood, Lake City, Jackson Park–are overserved. Those neighborhoods would likely see less frequent service and a forced transfer in the U-District in the midday rather than a frequent one-seat ride.

      1. Actually, what you’ll probably see is the 71X/2X/3X and the 66/7/8 combined into a full time Downtown-U District-Northgate trunk route (nonstop downtown to the Ave, then reduced stops to Northgate) and the 70 made full time to serve Eastlake. But my point is you couldn’t figure this out from this document.

        Which might, of course, be part of the point.

        BTW, I don’t see the 70 or 13 on any of these lists. Maybe ’cause they’d be in line for an increase if the 7x and 2N get axed?

      3. It would meet the dictionary definition. On the other hand, unless the 70 and 13 were abolished while I as out of town this weekend, they aren’t accounted for on any of these lists, which should be exhaustive if “revision” is defined as you suggest.

    2. Earlier I read a document with more details, I was hoping to find it in the comment thread here. I remember the 72 at least would be eliminated and replaced with the 372 expanded to nights and weekends.

  3. I see my faithful 110 slated for the cutting room floor; it hurts in a special way, because of the nature of the route.

    The 110 is a Sounder connector route from Tukwila station to North Renton, and every single person who rides the route every day is a Sounder rider, with many coming from Sumner, Puyallup, and Tacoma.

    So, what’s the kicker? None of those places are in King County, so those people, myself included, cannot vote on the fee to save the route. Because I live in Pierce County, I’m unable to have a say on the KC route that I use on a regular basis. This is a horrible feeling of disenfranchisement, and King County would do well to reconsider the routes used by people who aren’t necessarily from King County, even if those routes aren’t obvious inter-county routes.

    I personally would be able to survive, but my 1-bus ride becomes a 2-bus ride via the Renton TC. Others may not be so lucky, though.

    1. I did drive the 110 before, and it’s schedule did coincide with SOUNDER schedules. There is the 140 that also serves the station during peak hours, however, the 140 does not serve the FAA facility (16th/Lind) nor Worksource Renton (7th/Lind), where the 140 stays on Grady (faster, but not as many stops as some of that stretch has car dealerships). Maybe perhaps, some peak 240 trips could be extended to SOUNDER station to make up for the loss of the 110, and keep that 1 ride service and serve FAA/WORKSOURCE.

      Just a note, that if KC Metro wants some riders to transfer to/from local shuttles to SOUNDER, they need to coincide their schedules with SOUNDER and in the afternoon, wait for a reasonable time for late trains, like Pierce Transit does with dedicated shuttles 495, 496 and 497.

    2. You’re not *completely* disenfranchised. You still have the same power (and legitimate constituent quality) that the rest of us have to contact our legislators and chew them a new one for punting this funding issue downhill – just like our own King County Council will likely punt it down further to the voters, where it will die as it did in Pierce County.

    3. But to be fair, wouldn’t you also not have to pay the fee enacted by the vote?

    1. Do you doubt the seriousness of the budget crunch or just the timing of this announcement? It all seems pretty legit given the fiscal situation we’re in.

  5. Seems like the “scare the hell out of people” press release. I guess the early spreadsheet that leaked showing the 26 and 28 going away wasn’t as far fetched as initially thought.

  6. people will have to walk further, wait longer, make an extra transfer, stand in the aisle, or stand on the curb and see fully loaded buses pass them by…

    Routes may be changed to streamline service, reduce duplication, and make the
    system more efficient

    I realize it takes a year or so for ridership numbers to stabilize but in the no cuts list is Rapid Ride A which doubled service but only generated a 50% increase in ridership. Why an under used asset with super frequent service would be “off the table” for service revision is amazing. Over the last decade service hours have more than doubled and the cost per hour has exceeded inflation. Over that time frame the population has increased 11% and Metro ridership has increased 12%. The Son of the Monster That Ate Cleveland.

    2. The A Line also isn’t done acquiring or losing ridership. Ridership could increase or decrease at any time.

      The 50% number came from January. It’s almost July now.

    3. I see nothing in the funding that says grant funding makes RR revenue neutral or that the funding would go away if the service was modified. The federal funding I believe was just to help buy the buses. I specifically mentioned that the ridership isn’t mature and could change. On the other had it might not and as long as there is excess capacity on a route that would retain frequent service it seems silly to put it in the scared cow category at this point. I think it’s mostly political because it’s a showcase service promised to get the votes for Transit Now.

    4. “which doubled service but only generated a 50% increase in ridership”

      I see this thrown around a lot, are there any real numbers to back this claim up?


      1. RapidRide A is expected to be 30% faster than the 174 and attract 2.5 million riders annually within the next 5 years, a 50% increase over the 174′s ridership.

        It’s hard to know what the 174 baseline ridership was. This blog covered a Metro release which indicates 8,500/weekday. Mike Skehan estimated 5,000 from a more recent Metro survey. RR’s goal number of 2.5 mil/riders/yr in just 5 years is based on the lower of these estimates (~5,200 weekday). If the numbers Metro released of 8,500 are right then RR will be have lower ridership than the 174 currently does.
        News back in February from King County was a 25 percent increase in passenger boardings for Rapidride A over the Route 174 it replaced. They expect to operate the route for five years before getting to the 50% goal.

      2. You can’t really compare it directly to the 174 though, because the 174 ran all the way to downtown Seattle. And did the service hours double when RapidRide A was introduced? It’s supposedly 30% faster than the 174 was, so it wouldn’t be necessary to double the service hours to double the service.

      3. The 30% faster is another number that’s thrown about but nobody seems to be able to quantify how much faster it really is and how that translates into platform hours once things like layovers are taken into account. From what Metro says the majority of the savings comes from signal priority which could/should have been done anyway.

        Good point about the 174 going to DT. I guess to get a baseline you’d have to take the old 174 and subtract the current 124 ridership. That would also have to be factored into service hour allocation comparisons.

      4. Don’t forget that 174 did not operate to Downtown Seattle for an interim period. Prior to September 2009, the 174 did operate to Seattle. Between September 2009 and September 2010, the 174 was separated into 2 routes, the 174 (Fed Way-Tukwila) and 124 (Seattle-Tukwila), then Rapid Ride A was introduced in September 2010, replacing the 174 So, any ridership comparisons have to take into account, the interim period.

    5. The only way Metro can reorganize to a sustainable level that gradually increases ridership over the years is to designate certain “frequent-transit” corridors and stick to them. RapidRide A is just that. If there’s an on-again, off-again commitment to that corridor, people will believe nothing has changed at Metro and they won’t be willing to move closer to the frequent-transit corridors; they’ll just stay in their isolated house in Nowheresville and drive if there’s no bus.

      1. 10 minute headways require 20% more in resources than 12 minute headways. I’d hardly call an extra 2 minute wait abandoning a corridor (assuming the buses aren’t at capacity). And if it saves service in another area that someone along the corridor wants to access then it makes it even more attractive to make a housing choice based on transit access. How important is it to save 2 min. on RR and then have to wait 30 minutes instead of 15 for your transfer?

      2. I was talking about the A’s day/evening frequency of 15 minutes, not its peak frequency of 10 minutes. I don’t know whether the peak frequency can reasonably be reduced to 15 minutes. But the issue is people transferring from Link to the A, or riding the A without transferring. Those are the ones who might have to wait 25 minutes if the A is running every 30 minutes like the 174 did. As for those transferring from the A to a less-frequency route, the main bottleneck is the other route, not the A.

  7. so they’d kill the 26 & the 28? so Dexter Ave would lose all of it’s bus service?

    2. In the 600k scenario the 5 went back to Dexter. Dexter is a big demand corridor — there’s no way they’d leave that without service.

      The 11 was one the shortlist for increased service in the 600k scenario. I suspect it’s in the same bucket at the 70 and 13 which are also MIA in the document.

    3. Metro almost never eliminates buses from streets entirely, except in the rare consolidation of nearby routes such as the 2-north. The spreadsheet showed other routes absorbing the tails of deleted routes, and we’ve seen the same thing in the planned reorganization on the Eastside and in the recent 107. Generally, the strongest routes are strengthened and the weaker routes are combined together into a milk run.

      For instance, I think I saw a hint earlier of combining the 26 and 71, which would preserve something for Fremont and Latona and also serve the future Roosevelt station. This may have been superceded now that the 26 is on the delete list, but it may come back later in some form.

      The intent seems to be that the “revised” routes would be modified to take some of the burdens of the deleted/reduced routes. This could be a forewarning of the kind of consolidation we’ve long been advocating. (And it looks like with Metro’s new performance metrics, it’ll be open to doing some of the reorganization even if the rescue money is funded. Because it needs to look “dilligent” to be elegible for future funding after the 2 years are up.)

  8. Is it time to start over? If Metro can’t run the agency with the current funding model, it may be time to stat from scratch. Let’s just eliminate the fare box and fund Metro with a county wide fixed dollar tax. Fixed dollar means $x per, what? Square foot of property? Registered vehicle? What would be fair and not be dependent upon the vagaries of the economy? Metro also may need an audit to figure out what the money goes for. I assume labor and equipment is highest, with fuel right up there as well. I can’t see why there is such a funding shortfall when the economy Is not THAT bad. Am I wrong?

      2. The entire government model of “more” so that they can keep going the way they have been is crap. I worked for Metro Transit for 20 years and there is WAY too much inept management. I believe the bus drivers take the brunt of the cuts, when in fact there is so much fat to be cut in other areas of Metro such as Facilities and Vehicle Maintenance. Someone-please-stop taxing people more so that under-qualified management can make 6 figures a year. A re-org is WAY past due.

    2. Jay,

      Here’s an article on why free transit doesn’t work. It’s the same reason that many people on this blog advocate for tolls on highways. We have limited transit resources (in the form of physical buses, bus bases/maintenance employees, drivers, etc.), and without some form of cost-based rationing, the whole system would be so unbelievably crowded at peak that buses’ worth of people will be left behind at stops.

      You could reasonably argue that current fares are out of whack. I would be just fine with dramatically raising fares during peak, and dramatically lowering them or eliminating them on less-popular routes or at less-popular times. (For example, many routes can and should be free after 10pm, whereas the 7x-series and the 48 could probably charge 2x as much during peak and still be packed.) But our system simply doesn’t have the capacity for free fares at peak.

      1. Nice article. I do not necessarily advocate free transit, I think it is worth considering as part of a restructuring of how transit is subsidized. So is your congestion pricing idea. It will be interesting to see how it works on 520. The current system is broken.

    3. “Let’s just eliminate the fare box and fund Metro with a county wide fixed dollar tax.”

      If you think buses are crowded now, just wait until this little gem gets implemented. Look up “induced demand” to understand what I mean – It doesn’t just apply to automobile traffic on roads.

  9. I know this is a bit of NIMBY, but, I really love having the 26,28 on Dexter. One of my favorite routes into downtown from my flat, and I’m really not looking forward to it going away.

    My partner and I have been talking about moving to Beacon Hill, him for easier commute to Renton, and I will be all about light rail. Still…doesn’t seem quite right.

    Thanks

    1. You’ll have the 5 instead, although it doesn’t have the same night-Sunday frequency as the 26/28.

      1. Transit Now/City of Seattle BTG partnership funds extra night-Sunday service on the 26/28, either that also goes away or gets rolled into the new Rt 5.

      2. You may have the 5 instead. We can’t assume any changes are for-sure until a few months before the change occurs.

      3. Dexter will not be left without service — it has more demand than Aurora and far more than Westlake. The 17 is perfect for Westlake, and it wouldn’t make any sense at all to put the 358 on Dexter. So your choices are the 16 and the 5, of which the frequency and route of the 5 are a much better fit for Dexter.

      4. Rerouting the 5 to Dexter is long overdue. It’s ridiculous that, of the four different buses (5, 26, 28, 30) that travel on part of Fremont Ave, not one of them goes straight.

        Nothing’s ever for sure until it happens, but it’s pretty much unimaginable that Metro would leave the Dexter corridor without service.

  10. Am I right to be worried that Metro is boxing themselves in? Putting routes on a ‘this will be cut if you don’t give us more money’ list makes it seem like if we do give them more money, those routes won’t be cut.

    1. OR say Metro does end up cutting them and pissing a lot of people off, who feel they were deceived. What happens in two years when Metro has to come back around hat in hand?

  11. Strangely enough the Route 253 is on the list of Routes Unchanged, though it is scheduled to be MOSTLY replaced by RapidRide B this fall.

    1. Yeah, that’s what makes me question the validity of this table. With the Eastside revision this fall, the 253, 230, 222 and 233 are all deleted. Plus they’re adding the 235, 226 and 241, none of which are in the table.

  13. I still can’t figure out why the 2N is getting chopped – it is one of the better performing routes in the all-day network and eliminating it leaves a huge gap in the middle of Queen Anne Hill. Of course, most of its riders have access to cars, which can’t be said for some of the other routes.

  14. Yikes. These cuts just about make Metro useless, and they’re going to happen because most people in King County are sick of being continually shaken down to pay for something that is of little benefit to them personally. The $20 will go down in flames. And though transit service should really be cut where it never should have been offered in the first place (Carnation, Duvall, North Bend), that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

    Time to buy a scooter, folks. Cheaper to run than the cost of a bus pass, far smaller carbon footprint. Yes, really.

    1. Not smaller than a well-used trolleybus, and comes with a raft of safety issues. I’ll stick with my (free) bus pass.

      1. Heck yeah! I would still rather drive my car to the #5 and take the bus from there rather than drive all the way to work, either in a car or on a death scooter

      2. People often don’t give enough credit to the opportunity cost of providing your own transportation. Except for people who just really enjoy driving in traffic, time spent driving a car is dead time, especially if you’re doing so safely (I think we all know by now how dangerous it is to talk on the phone while driving). Scooters and bikes can be more fun, and (in the latter case) better exercise, but they still require your full attention.

        In contrast, riding a bus/train allows you to occupy yourself however you want. You can browse the web, do work, play a game, chat with friends, or sleep.

        For me, this means that a 30-minute bus commute is a more efficient use of my time than a 15-minute drive. And that counts for a lot.

  15. This needs quality management–it’s not comprehensive and, therefore, useless

  16. It does say may be reduced, may be changed, not will be…. It may just be to indicate the scope of the changes, not which exact routes will be changed. Metro will surely need more time to refine the lists, and hold PUBLIC HEARINGS, and the county council will have to vote on the specific changes. They can’t just whack, whack, whack unilaterally, especially if the cuts are coming in the future rather than suddenly happening right now (as happened when Pierce Transit had the gas-plant accident).

  17. The links provided above are almost useless. When the proposed routes to be eliminated, reduced, or revised, includes nearly every route in existance, the document provides almost no useful information. What is especially missing is information on what “reduced” or “revised” mean. Whether it means a shorter span or service or longer headways can make a big difference for people, depending on what days and times they use the service.

    A more informative way to explain the service changes that would happen is to post something with a level of detail of what they did for the Eastside service restructuring this fall. Or, better yet, allow users to use Google or Bing’s map and trip planning software to plan the trips they actually take at the times they actually take them with the proposed changes.

    1. It makes sense if the list is just to demonstrate the quantity and types of cuts needed, not a commitment to cut those specific routes that exact way. If the cuts are coming over two years, Metro will need far more time to decide exactly what to cut and to write up justifications. You can’t expect all the cuts to be known at this time, or that each round of cuts won’t have further changes. It will take weeks of planning to decide the cuts and revisions, and there’s no reason to do it until they know for sure that the rescue money won’t be coming. Otherwise they would have wasted all that planning time.

  18. Part of the complaining on the congestion reduction charge is the false impression that bus riders don’t pay it, and are getting a freebee. As we know, most bus riders also own a car and will be paying the same charge. Furthermore, fares have gone through the roof the past couple years, including for RRFP users, who are losing their heavily-rebated annual passes.

    Maybe some sort of fare increase should be attached to the congestion reduction charge legislation, such as a 25-cent premium to be added to all cash transactions when boarding a bus. That could yield an extra few million dollars a year (but decreasing over time), while enabling the savings from a more effective push for near-universal ORCA use, which would possibly be worth more than the extra revenue from the premium.

    A premium is hardly unprecented since King County Ferries charges a much heftier premium for cash payment.

    Somehow, we have to show that bus riders have “skin in the game”.

  19. I wish it separated out the “revised” from the “reduced.” I’d like to know what’s going to happen on the 345/346–will it be as was in that leaked spreadsheet, that they’ll be reducing/eliminating (I can’t remember which) Sunday service, or if they’ll be revising the routing to reduce costs.

    Also, about the 71: it only serves the area north of the U-district once every half-hour as it is, I’m not sure how much they should cut frequency–although, cutting night frequency to once an hour would probably not be a huge burden on that community.

    1. The “overservice” is in the articulated buses, not in the schedule. Half-hourly is already typical for neighborhoods like Ravenna. And the hourly 72 and 73 are the opposite of excessive: they’re totally inadequate. If the 72 and 73 are too close together, combine them into one route, but don’t say that one hourly bus in a city neighborhood is “overserving”.

  20. It shows the 242 completely gone. This bus is going to be packed once 520 is tolled. It is already frequently full. There are no other buses that go all the way from Northgate over 520 and up 148th in Redmond. Not sure how I will get to work except to drive over the top of the lake via 522.

    3. Now that the 542 goes from Green Lake to Redmond, the 242 is a lot less important than it used to be. Basically, whatever time it saves over the 542 by bypassing the U-district, it loses through it’s slow gigantic loop around the Microsoft campus. For riders header to main campus, getting out at 148th/40th or 36th St. and walking is actually faster than staying on the bus until the stop right by your building. Getting off at Montlake or Evergreen Point and transferring to 542/545 can also work out to be faster as well. And furthermore, when I-5 is congested, the 542’s trip through the U-district can sometimes actually be faster than the freeway.

      Even for those working in West Campus, the 542 is more frequent and more reliable than the 242, which can compensate for a little bit of extra walking. I’ve occasionally experienced 20+ minute waits for the 242 at the stop by the Pro Club – the 542, by contrast, arrives at 520/51st St. consistently right on time. And, for Microsoft FTE’s, the connector also serves the 242 corridor as well.

      For those coming from Northgate, 555->542/545 make a good transfer in the morning and 542->66/67 make a good transfer in the afternoon (I don’t recommend 545->555 in the afternoon, since that’s a bit of a crap shoot – maybe when the 520 construction is finished, it will become somewhat reliable). Again, I don’t think the actual amount of extra travel time would be that much, especially if you bike to Green Lake or Montlake.

      The 242 is also a relatively expensive route to operate because:
      1) It’s a lot of miles
      2) Ridership on certain segments, such as north of Northgate, is extremely low.
      3) Because it’s single-direction only, every trip requires a long deadhead.

      I believe the 242 has served its purpose and it is time for the money to operate it to be reinvested in more important routes.

      1. And, for Microsoft FTE’s, the connector also serves the 242 corridor as well.

        FWIW, in the absence of the 242, Microsoft might add extra Connector stops/routes to make up the difference. That’s no help for non-MS employees, but I’m betting that most 242 riders are MS FTEs.

        Also, Metro/ST could reinvest the hours from the 242 into extending the 542 to Northgate for some/all trips. Green Lake always seemed like a weird place to end a bus route anyway.

      2. I just figured it ended in Green Lake because there wasn’t layover space in the U-District.

  21. Invest into fare enforcement,the return on investment is in the $$ but not the votes, really what are we trying to do? Raise youth fare to a dollar high percentage of riders are youth that cause vandalisim.Have each city post a police officer at transit hub(cost split by Metro)

  22. Raising the youth fare to $1 seems resonable and easier to pay. Lots of high school students take the bus to school and to get around town. My son chooses to take the bus rather than drive because he wants to reduce his carbon footprint. Not all of youth are hooligans and vandals.

    1. Why not just raise the cash youth fare, and leave the ORCA youth fare right where it is? Simply raising the youth fare across-the-board would take more money away from Seattle Public Schools. Public education is a higher priority than transit, in my book.

  23. Thanks for posting this. As a long-time Metro rider in the north end of Seattle, it amazes me that that #316 and, to a less extent (since I haven’t ridden it), the #330 are on the list for being unchanged. The #316, an express to/from N. 175th to downtown Seattle has, in my experience, has nearly zero ridership after it reaches North Seattle Community College going northbound, and it duplicates what local route #16 provides. From NSCC northward, the heavily-used #346 duplicates its routing, yet it’s the #346 that’s on the list of having reductions or revisions. As Dr. Phil might say, what are they thinking??? For the #330, a peak-only between Lake City and Shoreline Community College, its predecessor was canceled due to low ridership, so I’m surprised that this one is attracting enough riders to merit no changes. Even the #331, a heavily-traveled SCC to/from Kenmore and the 345, which serves the college from Northgate, are slated for reduction and/or revision! Lastly, the workhorses: #26, 43, 67, and 73 that I recognize and the king of the north end, the #358, which isn’t on the list, but one would hope the #358 would be on the “routes unchanged” list…but, one never knows…

    1. The 316 issue sounds like something you’d better highlight in feedback to Metro.

      I’ve ridden the 330 occasionally, usually just through Lake City but once to Aurora. Metro sometimes joins weak routes to stronger routes to avoid cutting them entirely, so that may be what’s happening here. I don’t think the unstable 75/330 combination can last forever: either Metro will have to decouple them or renumber the entire route 330 when it goes that way. The 75/330 runs are the “extra” peak-hour runs on the 75, so renumbering them to 330 would not torture the 75’s schedule. When Link’s north corridor is open, it may make sense to break up the 75 and make the 330 go from UW station to wherever the 130th/135th station or the 145th/155th station is. (Of course, it would also make sense to break up the 75 now to improve its reliability.)

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