Yesterday the Seattle City Council* voted unanimously (Tim Burgess was absent) to send a $60 vehicle license fee and 0.1% sales tax increase to the November ballot to save bus service. The measure would mostly maintain the service level in the City of Seattle and preserve some trips to and from the suburbs. The final approved version is here. Public comment at the hearing was unanimously in favor of preserving bus service. There were also several amendments.
The first change from the Mayor’s proposal is that both taxes expire at the end of 2020, rather than in 10 years.
Nick Licata made a point of verifying that any surplus after restoring service levels could not be used for, as he put it, “more capital-intensive fixed rail projects” because the legislation specifically authorizes “Metro transit bus service hours.” Of course, this language would also seemingly prohibit various sensible bus capital improvements, like transit signal priority, bus lanes, trolley wire, off-board payment, and so forth, using TBD funds.
Mike O’Brien sponsored a (unanimously) successful amendment to set aside up to $2m for increasing “access to the low-income fare program” and “developing and potentially funding additional no-income and low-income products for Seattle residents.”
Tom Rasmussen earned unanimous approval of an amendment he said was inspired by the League of Women Voters, that “clarifies” that “the first priority for the funding is to preserve existing routes and prevent Metro’s proposed service cuts and restructures,” and demands the public process that is typical in Metro restructures anyway. The LWV, represented yesterday by occasional STB commenter Joanna Cullen, has been a reactionary force against restructures that would boost Metro ridership by rationalizing the route network, specifically to Route 2. Multiple sources assure me that this language does not prevent sensible, ridership-driven restructures after the usual public process. It’s perhaps inevitable that introducing city funding also introduces another veto point for restructures. But I would have been happier if the amendment didn’t pass.
The most interesting part of the afternoon was the argument over the sales tax. Councilmembers Licata and Sawant floated a plan to replace the relatively regressive sales tax portion with an employee head tax and commercial parking tax to generate about the same amount of revenue. They convinced no one to cross over and lost 6-2. I am relatively relaxed about regressive taxation for transit, as the spending itself is quite progressive. But the arguments yesterday are interesting.
Continue reading “Seattle Council Sends Metro Tax to Ballot”
