Everett Transit’s Growing Pains Will Include Service Restructure and Fare Hike

54 Replies to “Everett Transit’s Growing Pains Will Include Service Restructure and Fare Hike”

1. Mukilteo has always had horrible transit service outside of rush hour, and just connecting to the broader transit network takes nearly an hour, even though the actual distance in miles isn’t that much. This had made transit trips to Whidbey Island very cumbersome even before the Island Transit service cuts on the other end.

   During peak hours, they have the Everett Transit 18, Sounder, plus additional CT express buses to downtown Seattle and the U-district. At all other times, all the get is a single hourly route which eventually goes to Lynnwood Transit Center, but takes a very indirect path in getting there, resulting in a journey that lasts close to an hour, just to get to the transit center, on top of whatever bus you have to take from there to get to where you really want to go.

   Want to get from Mukilteo to Everett when Sounder and the 18 aren’t running? This is what you have to do. The actual route of the 18 is only 6.8 miles end-to-end, so this convoluted 67-minute journey to go what should be 6.8 miles down a single road equates to an average speed of 6.09 mph. A person in good shape could literally jog the route of the 18 and get there faster. Practically speaking, ET is effectively ceding the entire corridor to Uber and Lyft.

   1. The problem is that it is a very low density corridor. The 113 may be a screwy route, but it manages to go by a relatively large number of people. A route that includes West Mukilteo Boulevard would not. There aren’t even that many people in downtown Mukilteo. You’ve got the ferry terminal, but then what? It isn’t like Clinton is a major metropolis. The problem is that Snohomish County (and Everett) have only so much money, and will inevitably cede lots and lots of corridors to Uber and Lyft. Mukilteo only stands out because it is a place people have heard of.

      1. As someone who regularly goes to downtown Mulkiteo, I can agree that there really isn’t much there. A few restaurants and dry cleaners, something that most strip malls have. A nice community center though. I think the fact that they already have the Sounder is pretty nice. It sucks it doesn’t have better transit but RossB is right in that there just isn’t the ridership there. I can drive blocks without even seeing a person or car in lots of Mulkiteo, especially around the business parks that are spread out next to the speedway.

      2. Best way to “cede” territory to Uber/Lyft is probably something like what Mercer Island and Pierce County have done–subsidize trips to transit hubs which have good service in lieu of running long routes through low density areas. I’m not sure the Everett Transit People get the whole #FrequentNetwork thing, as I only see one route (the #7) through the urban core that gets 15 minute peak frequency (and I believe is also served well by Sound Transit busses?). What I would have done is consolidate routes in central Everett and connections between the core and Sound Transit transit centers, leave some coverage service for the truly transit dependent (Casino Rd area? Areas with large proportion of elderly residents?). Take advantage of Uber/Lyft elsewhere, or just run a similar service themselves. Seriously, Uber/Lyft is not a very complicated app–any city could pretty easily develop their own version with their own “Jitney” or van like vehicles, especially considering all the “local talent” we have in the region.

   2. Asdf;

      I’ve asked both Everett Transit & Community Transit to make sure there are good connections from Everett Station to Seaway Transit Center to Future of Flight to the Mukilteo Ferry Terminal for exactly the reasons you state.

      Furthermore, without connecting the Paine Field Commercial Terminal to Future of Flight via transit the transit agencies are basically saying they don’t believe in their product – public transportation. By not believing in their product to serve the #1 Snohomish County tourism destination & events centre with over 500,000 visitors; you can blame their boards & planners for the additional road miles traveled by Uber & Lyft from this new commercial terminal, period.

      One last thing, as I said on a recent open thread, I think it would be best to merge Community Transit & Everett Transit at this point. Place the merged agency – Snohomish Transit – under the County Council’s control as is the case with KC Metro. Put the whole deal up to a vote of the county residents…

      There you go.

      1. As a frequent rider of CT and a member of the Future of Flight, CT is failing to serve a major tourist hot-spot: the Future of Flight. So many people arrive by Uber/Lyft or rental car. It would be nice for CT to reroute bus 105 across 112th St, via the South Everett Fwy Station and serve the Museum via the Mukilteo Speedway.

         Paine Field, however, is likely to be a transit dud. The whole point of flyers to choose Paine field is to take advantage of the time & cost savings over SEA. Most riders will likely have to transfer buses to reach PAE, the average transit travel time will probably be at least an hour from many places in Snohomish Co. The only core riders will be airport workers. And based on the amount of flights and aircraft size planned for PAE, there probably wont be a massive amount of employees.

      2. Pulling Route 105 away from Mariner P&R would be a detriment to the network as a whole. I think Future of Flight would be best served by an extension of Everett Route 12 from Seaway, or another Everett route that terminates there.

      3. If the current 105 stays the way it is, it will essentially be the exact same route as the new Green Line from SR527 all the way to Boeing. That’s ALOT of duplication. Instead, the 105 should continue north on SR527 into Silver Lake, serve South Everett, run along 112th, hop on SR525 and serve the Future of Flight. This ensures there’s an easy connection between ST and the Museum. Currently customers have to make the milk-run trek from the Lynnwood TC on route 113.

         This would also close a large gap between the Silver Lake area and Bothell. CT, of course, will say they can’t do it because it cuts into Everett city limits. But both ends of the route are in CT’s service-area and would be no difference than route 201 & 202.

      4. As to Jordan’s

         As a frequent rider of CT and a member of the Future of Flight, CT is failing to serve a major tourist hot-spot: the Future of Flight. So many people arrive by Uber/Lyft or rental car. It would be nice for CT to reroute bus 105 across 112th St, via the South Everett Fwy Station and serve the Museum via the Mukilteo Speedway.

         Thanks buddy. That solution works, as much as a link from Seaway Transit Center to Future of Flight to the Mukilteo Multimodal Terminal.

         Paine Field, however, is likely to be a transit dud. The whole point of flyers to choose Paine field is to take advantage of the time & cost savings over SEA. Most riders will likely have to transfer buses to reach PAE, the average transit travel time will probably be at least an hour from many places in Snohomish Co. The only core riders will be airport workers. And based on the amount of flights and aircraft size planned for PAE, there probably wont be a massive amount of employees.

         I see a transit link from the terminal to Future of Flight as vital.

         I see the SWIFT Green Line and links from Seaway to Everett Station as just as vital.

         But not many employees with the terminal itself… not many. Perfect for the SWIFT Green Line.

         If the current 105 stays the way it is, it will essentially be the exact same route as the new Green Line from SR527 all the way to Boeing. That’s ALOT of duplication. Instead, the 105 should continue north on SR527 into Silver Lake, serve South Everett, run along 112th, hop on SR525 and serve the Future of Flight. This ensures there’s an easy connection between ST and the Museum.

         Well worth consideration by CT…

         Sad to say SounderBruce Everett Transit isn’t going to consider serving the Future of Flight directly midday without a payment from its operator due to financial troubles.

         I think I’ve said enough. Over to you all…

2. Coming from Michigan and having lived in Detroit for a year, I don’t understand these cities that continue to push for separate services. Detroit does not take part in the regional bus service (SMART), but funds its own service with DDOT–increasing costs and travel difficulty for anyone crossing the city border and resulting in two agencies fighting for state and federal funds. Anyone know a bit of history as to why Everett continues with its own service and doesn’t begin negotiations to join Community Transit? Obviously, it’s great the fares are so low, but if shortfalls are beginning, wouldn’t it be safer to operate under the CT umbrella?

   1. You lived in Detroit for a year and don’t know that Detroit’s system exists because the suburbs refuse to create a regional system including it?

      How charmingly naive.

      1. Understatement worthy of a British gentleman, Richard. For malignant racial separation, right now the State of Michigan would make Apartheid South Africa look like its own worst racial egalitarian nightmare.

         After the Governor had taken control of Flint’s city government when its budget collapsed, as State law permits, he decided he could get cheaper drinking water from a polluted river than from the Great Lakes.

         Several dozen thousands of people likely lead-poisoned for life. Now, he’s telling people the water’s good enough to cut off the bottled water they’ve been drinking for several years. Don’t think the Afrikaaners ever would’ve done that. Whatever they think God’s racial views are, they really are afraid of Him.

         Michigan had had a large KKK chapter in the 20’s and 30’s. And as the obsolete auto industry started its final decline, the 1967 riots left the northern city line at eight mile road a hostile border that didn’t need barbed wire. Massive income difference works a lot better than True Value’s sharpest.

         From Eight Mile all the way to Lake Superior, except for former factory-sites like Flint, Michigan’s a prosperous state. Detroit’s northeastern suburbs make Medina look like Dogpatch Google “Little Abner.” The stately old homes and beautiful big trees in my old neighborhood had Bernie Sanders signs in the yard. And Royal Oak City Hall has a two-story tall unclothed statue in its fountain by a respected mid-stream sculptor.

         Detroit itself? Many middle-class neighborhoods, no visible change after fifty years. Downtown? Clean but empty. Giant stadium where my favorite neighborhood “Greektown” used to be. A Sky-Train stops there. No ruined zombie-traps. Instead, vacant lots to all four horizons. With a whole city’s worth of utilities under the weeds.

         My own guess? The private corporations it was assumed would buy for nothing and gentrify the whole place are still waiting for Federal tyranny to finance the project.

         But Detroit always has had its own transit company, the DSR (Detroit Street Railroad.) I think the PCC streetcars last ran on Woodward Avenue to the city line through the 1950’s. They also had some trolleybus lines. From the Detroit River to the magnificent art museum several miles up Woodward Avenue, there is a streetcar line.

         Through an unaffordable neighborhood including an amazing bike and luggage factory with a fine espresso cafe. I don’t think Michigan ever had gentry, but nobody reading this could handle the rent near a streetcar stop. The DSR isn’t dead. But unfortunately the price of the car-line- financed by a finance company- wouldn’t give a transit network back to the people.

         But you know, from what I saw of the people, all races and ages…they’d be a badly-needed blood transfusion for Seattle. Go see it and you won’t be as glad to get back here as you think.

         Mark Dublin

      2. Yea, because places like Soweto were well known for the high quality of their public services.

   2. Everett voters rejected the first two attempts at forming a county-wide bus system in the 1970s, as the sales tax was a bit higher than Everett Transit’s (who had been placed under city ownership only a few years prior, in 1969). Add some opposition from the Everett Mall (who were the largest in the county at the time, as Alderwood wouldn’t open until 1979) and a willingness by CT to just give up and go with a smaller set of cities, and you have the present situation.

      The state legislature wanted the two to merge a few times in the early 1990s, but neither agency was all that willing.

      1. I think if State Senator [Liias] who has tweeted support for a merger would threaten to obstruct state transit grants to the two agencies, this might be a different conversation… real quick. I hope instead before we get to that point, facts on the ground plus calmer heads will prevail and a merger is worked on. It will take several years and a public vote, but I think it’s doable.

3. Not familiar with Everett. Is this another situation where economic activity is accruing to the urban and hip cities (Seattle, Bellevue) and leaving the hinterland areas?

   1. Yeah, pretty much — at least as far as sales are concerned. Downtown Everett is probably doing better than ever, but the malls (which make up a big portion of Everett sales) are not doing well. I think property or income taxes wouldn’t have the problem, as my guess is overall economic activity in Everett is doing fine.

      1. Wait, that doesn’t make sense: retail sales are not doing fine – otherwise Everett wouldn’t be in a crunch?

      2. Maybe I wasn’t clear. Everett transit gets 80% of its revenue from sales taxes. The Everett mall is not doing well at all. Unlike Seattle, the mall represents a big chunk of overall sales. So as their sales go down, it hurts the transit system a lot. The uptick in sales in downtown Everett (by new shops and all that) are not enough to make up for that.

         Yet despite all that, overall Everett economic activity is fine. Boeing is doing OK, as are a lot of other businesses. Retail represents a relatively small portion of the overall economy, but a huge part of the funding mechanism for transit. In other words, people in Everett are doing OK, they just aren’t spending their money at the Everett Mall anymore.

      3. From what I can see as a (naive) newcomer to the region and someone who was recently looking at houses in Everett, Everett Mall probably hasn’t been doing well for quite a while now, its relevance is pretty much gone like most small/medium suburban enclosed malls throughout the country.

         Everett itself has been working on an impressive water front plan with connections to the historic downtown core, so I don’t understand why they wouldn’t focus more on “frequent network” downtown area bus service with connections to Everett Station. The approach of 40-60 minute coverage service is a bit dated, even if the routes themselves are less wiggly.

      4. The region overbuilt in malls, and newer upscale malls and lifestyle centers drew people from older malls. The Auburn Supermall was the biggest white elephant.

      5. Sales tax reliance is risky, especially when imposed in a small area like a city as small as Everett. This planned change seems to point to the need to actually re-examine the overall organizational role and funding of ET. Certainly revenues aren’t going to get profoundly better and may not even keep up with the needs in years to come.

         As an outsider, joining CT seems to be one effective solution to what appears to be a funding downward spiral. CT certainly seems to be doing a good job.

4. Well, well, well. Look what we have here. Outrage at an ET restructure. Looks like STB needs to take some of its own advice. It was just this last Friday that they posted this link to a Jarrett Walker post.

   “The cycle of outrage about bus restructure proposals.”

   https://humantransit.org/2018/08/why-were-not-alarmed-by-public-outrage-at-network-redesigns.html

   1. Where exactly is the “outrage” in a bullet-point list of route and frequency changes? Where is the “outrage” in a step-by-step explanation of why service is being reduced?

      Nobody here is going to be converted into a drooling Faux News addict by the brilliance of your smug trolling.

      You disappeared for two or three years, presumably because you were one of the crazed faces at Trump’s Fascist extravaganzas. What happened? Did all The Winning get boring?

      1. Perhaps outrage isn’t the correct word. If I could edit my comment, I would.

         Sam. Making The Comment Section Great Again.

      2. Thank you Richard. No outrage here bro, Everett Transit staff clearly have been handed a tough task and are doing it well.

      3. Richard, Richard, Richard. Read what I wrote about your command of understatement, meaning a rhetorical blade so sharp your opponent won’t know he’s been bested ’til he shakes his head and it falls off.

         https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/93549-a-member-of-parliament-to-disraeli-sir-you-will-either

         Usual PBS warning about Syria. Cruel uncouth and sexist- though in its day, change the gender and it would’ve applied to every male in Parliament. But complete overkill for your present subject. Flyswatter, newspaper, or “Raid”, your choice.

         To get back [O]T: From Metro to ST when Everett Transit joins, help your transit world and spend a few years in the driver’s seat. When they wire it down to Mukilteo, pick a trolleybus before they all go battery.

         He’ll usually sit in the front bench right across the aisle from you. Throw a few poles through an office building window and you’ll learn enough concentration to ignore an even worse case and help Make America America Again.

         Mark

   2. I agree with Mr Burlington. Frankly, I’m pleased to read a fairly objective item for once! It lets the comments provide perspective.

      In the past week, there have been some notable biases in other posts that have proven to be snarky or unfair if not dead wrong. It tarnishes the usefulness of STB.

      1. Thanks, Al, and LOL! Here’s why:

         I do genealogy as my main hobby, and as a part I’ve done y-line testing. A couple of weeks ago I got a new match from a Michael Burlington who had a funny story to tell. Three generations before him, his great-grandfather, who was surnamed “Bullington” named his first two children “Bullington” but his last three “Burlington”.

         So many times in my life I’ve written “Bullington” or said it only to be replied “Thank you, Mr. Burlington”. I expect that Michael’s great-grandfather got to about thirty and then one day one last person said “Yes, Mr. Burlington”. He threw up his hands and said “OK! OK!!!!! ‘Burlington’.” and named the rest of kids that.

         It was funny to reminisce with Michael about it and it’s funny to have it happen right here two weeks later.

         And “No, I am not offended.”

      2. Sorry! Spell check turned Bullington into Burlington! I bet that happens often.

   3. I’m not exactly opposed to the changes, and I imagine most riders aren’t too bothered by it, but the cuts in frequency on a few routes will be a bit tough to bear. If the budget situation levels out soon, we’ll be left with a much better network in the long-term, especially if these routes can build a steady and loyal base of riders.

      1. Yeah, I think people will be way more upset about the increase in fares and the loss of service. The fact that it is happening at the same time they do a restructure is coincidental and unfortunate. The problem is that unless they come up with a different funding mechanism, the higher fares and cuts to service are inevitable — they will happen no matter what the routes look like.

      2. Yes, Ross has a good analysis of the vulnerability of ET to sales-tax revenue fluctuations up-thread. If CT doesn’t object it’s probably a good idea for Everett at least to consider a merger. CT has a lot more varied areas from which to draw revenues.

      3. My thoughts as well Bruce, with a nonsurprising addendum that I want CT to take over Route 70 – Paine Field/Seaway Transit Center to Future of Flight to Mukilteo Multimodal Terminal – and make it at least hourly if not half-hourly.

5. Is Everett Transit in Sound Transit? And if not, why not? Underneath an abusive penalty for a tiny fare handling mistake lie two really dirty words: Separate and Agencies. Lying about being the single agency the voters approved. And into which both Everett and Olympia should be before today’s pm rush.

   But even more, the way Sound Transit thinks about apportioning its money between agencies is a full 180 degrees wrong. Now, systems with more riders get more money, and the opposite. But by the day, the Central Puget Sound Region works and lives increasingly regionally.

   Enthusiastically voluntarily .So the correct outlook is to be sure that every Everett Transit passenger adds more black ink to the balance sheets of all the others. As both the car and the interurban railroad industries foresaw a hundred years ago.

   Think of it this way, too. The farther and easier people can travel on transit, the more and wider-spread the pro-transit electorate. I’d bet that Henry Ford would’ve had no problem with that, because it’d put off the day when sheer number of trapped cars would bring the interurbans out of their graves to eat the lunch off the car dealers’ table-ware.

   As long as its trains can handle streetcar curve radius, only thing that prevents LINK from being an interurban is the lack of a restaurant car with white table-cloths, a cobblestone around a single rail, and a single milk can or tractor engine block allowed under any seat. So from Bellingham to Centralia, let’s add toilets and take advantage.

   Mark Dublin

   1. Everett Transit’s service area (the City of Everett) is part of Sound Transit’s service area. It is separate from Community Transit.

      I like that ORCA provides a free transfer between the three for two hours, and that they are all covered by the same ORCA day passes and monthly passes. I also like that Everett Transit will start participating in the low-income fare program while we wait for Community Transit to be able to afford to do so (about 2024ish). Yeah, it sucks that that that low-income fare will be higher than the current regular ET fare.

      Within the ORCA pod, the only agency that truly acts separately is Washington State Ferries, which, while it accepts cash value from ORCA e-purse, does not accept inter-agency transfers or passes. It’ll take a little help from the Legislature to restructure the Washington State Transportation Commission to see the ferry problems not as a question of how to move the most traffic (and they still call their ridership reports “traffic statistics”), but as a question of how to move the most people. Adding more life rafts and vests is all it would take to be able to carry a lot more walk-ons. Accepting transfers and inter-agency passes, and low-income qualifications, would bend the math toward getting a lot more people to walk on.

      With the statistical dead heat in ridership between Link Light Rail and Washington State Ferries, encouraging people to drive their cars on board has a high carbon footprint.

      Everett Transit and Community Transit have little power to get WSF to accept transfer value from the buses going to Mukilteo to the Clinton ferry. Their legislators do, though. The Island Transit bus that picks up on the other side, of course, is still free.

      1. First off, without better connecting service, getting people to walk on instead of drive on is nearly hopeless. As it stands today, outside of rush hour, you’re looking at a minimum of two hours to reach downtown Seattle, including wait time.

         Nor will Uber and Lyft get people to walk on the ferry. Not when it costs considerably more to ride the Uber/Lyft car than it does to take your personal car on the ferry – even if you truncate the ride at a transit center and switch over to the 512.

         Maybe cheap, driverless shuttles will ultimately be the answer.

      2. That’s a shame because the Mukilteo-Clinton ferry is the only one that’s half-hourly.

      3. And you need a car on the other side because there’s no town at the ferry terminal.

6. Seattle Transit used to be in a similar situation as Everett Transit. It ran streetcars and then switched to a trolley network and then a mostly-diesel network. The Eastside had a private transit agency, Overlake Transit I think. And Greyhound had Seattle-Renton runs at least. I’ve heard differing explanations about why they were combined into Metro: one that Seattle Transit was going bankrupt, and two that the suburban agency was going bankrupt. The merger retained the Seattle “subsidy”, or more service per capita, which is why Seattle had half-hourly service when the suburbs had hourly.

   On STB there has been a never-ending debate on whether Seattle Transit should be revived, or whether it should have merged in the first place.

   1. Brent, and Mike, could be for another posting, but I’d really like to steer some discussion to my own real attachment to Seattle Transit Blog. And the founding sentiment of the regional system whose subway I drove a dual-power bus through in 1991.

      Worldwide, economies seem to work best in the setting of a region. Comprising more than one city, and local equivalent of “county.” My own chief hope is that within my lifetime I’ll literally be able to live in Olympia, for instance, take a machining course at Lake Washington Tech near Kirkland, go ride Everett Transit to check out the trolleywire to Mukilteo, espresso in Port Townsend, and home for supper.

      For my Monday schedule. Regional transit is about freedom and America’s chief example to the world: That Life doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game, where whatever somebody gains, somebody else has to lose. Whatever I’ll never find again in Seattle, I’ll find better in Tacoma. And still get morning espresso at Station Cafe on my way through to the ferry to Port Gamble.

      Will definitely send Turf War criminals to the Hague.

      Mark

   2. Mike, the South King operator was Metropolitan Transit. They ran out of the Grayhound Station, so it may have been a subsidiary.

      1. https://www.houseofnames.com/bullington-family-crest

         https://www.houseofnames.com/burlington-family-crest

         Richard, I’ve found the solution. First, you must find out what a “knave”, a “churl”, and a “git” are. A lot of familiar words we identify only by their first letter, like “F”, for instance, are from your Anglo Saxon ancestors.

         Though before you do anything that will make a battle-axe get all sticky and rust, you must exercise the mighty self-control for which both of your families are famous, and remember it’s a matter of honor what you let your horse step in.

         However, fortunately my research has found incontrovertible evidence that you need never again have to waste a jot of nobility on a creature whose war-steed was a medium sized rat.

         ww.travelswithlinda.org/zephyr-write-up.html

         Kind of looked like a suit of armor with a visor, didn’t it. So maybe in another enchanted fold of space and time, it’ll be perched on the track eating a stolen piece of cheddar.

         Mark

7. 40-minute headways are terrible. Are Route 8 and 29 users ok with that? Should the routes be shorter with a 30-minute headway or longer with a 60-minute headway? Would it make more sense to design the routes differently?

   1. I never thought I’d see this: ” A huge service boost, with 60-minute frequencies all day”. If that’s what it’s like after the boost, it must be horrible before the boost. And it’s hard to see how Everett residents can tolerate this, when a 35-60 minute network makes it practically unusable. But the answer is that there’s apparently little support for transit in Everett, since an increase increase in taxes and/or fares could give it a 30-minute network, and this situation has lasted for many years, and according to Bruce Engelhart above it was precisely this tax issue that prevented them from merging in the 1970s. (This is similar to Yarrow Point and Hunts Point — and previously Renton — opting out of the King County Library System because they didn’t want to pay its tax rate. [Seattle is out because of a state law preventing large cities from merging, although it has a reciprocal agreement so Seattlites can get KCLS library cards and vice versa.])

      The city of Everett has generally cited three reasons against a merger: the tax rate, losing control of routing decisions, and possibly getting less service within Everett. That’s hard to see imagine CT’s average frequency is 30 minutes while Everett’s is 60 minutes and has a shorter span (many routes have no evening or weekend service). But CT’s focus is on the county as a whole so that could lead to less-optimal routes in Everett. On the other hand, CT has made impressive improvements over the years: straightening out meandering routes and putting a transit center a both ends — it’s hard to argue with Lynnwood TC to MT TC or Edmonds CC to Aurora Village, that seems about where people want to go. So I have full faith that CT would design good routes for Everett.

      I don’t know enough about Everett to say whether routes should be moved. The main problem is service hours — frequency and span.

      Two interesting points: ET pays CT for the Swift segment in Everett. And the 201/202 treat Everett as express territory, with only one stop at Everett Station and another in, er, whatever you call the south Broadway neighborhood.

      Also, ET has several peak-only routes to Everett Boeing. Boeing and the ancillary manufacturers make up a huge chunk of Everett’s economy.

      Downtown Everett has tried several times to revive itself over the decades, which mostly failed. The latest move with the stadium and some new shops on north Colby seems to be working modestly, and the city has upzones in downtown and the Everett Station area in the works. (Everett also has an endless supply of one-story houses and businesses and car dealerships for infill opportunity, if it ever allows them. And you should see the deep setbacks in the northwest Everett residential area, where you could fit an entire house in the front yards of most houses.)

      1. I think it’s a little unfair to lump Renton in with Hunts and Yarrow Points. Until 1982, it was ineligible to become part of KCLS (pop > 8500), by which time it had its own libraries, which were supported out of city revenues. In the early years of this century, it became difficult to continue adequately funding the library (the double whammy of the great recession and Tim Eyman inspired tax limits). My recollection is that in addition to the structural budgetary problems, expensive renovations were going soon to be required at their main branch. Renton voters agreed to annexation to KCLS in 2010, despite warnings that taxes would probably go up).

         I’m curious whether the 2009 action by the state legislature to up the limit from 100,000 to 300,000 (making Seattle the only city in the state that can’t be part of a library system) was partly inspired by this. Renton was poised to (and has) passed 100,000 people this decade, which would have made the 2010 vote a bit of a now or never proposition.

      2. I looked into Renton’s library history, and it was the annexation of Benson Hill that forced the issue, because it was an unincorporated area using KCLS’s Fairwood library. After annexation it was felt that the Benson area needed a library, and Renton couldn’t afford it on its own or didn’t want to pay for it, so it joined KCLS. As part of the deal it gave its book collection to KCLS, so now new calls to leave the district have run into the wall that they’d end up with an empty library building and would have to repurchase the collection.

         The ceiling on city size is 200,000 if I recall, a suburban-initiated provision designed specifically to prevent Seattle from joining.

   2. Even worse than that are 50 minute headways. See 12 on weekends.

8. As a longtime resident of Lake Stevens (15+ years) who has always worked in Everett, Everett’s insistence on having its own transit service has been a huge barrier in my desire to use public transit for commuting.

   Community Transit has stops within 1/4 mile of my house, and I can take that to Everett Station. But if I want to go anywhere beyond the bus station within Everett, I have to switch buses, as most normal CT routes aren’t allowed to go far into Everett. When I worked in downtown Everett, I usually just walked the rest of the way to work, as it was faster than taking a second bus.

   But now that I work near the big Boeing site in south Everett, I have the choice of either taking CT directly there at VERY early hours (5:30 a.m.!) or going to Everett, transferring buses and taking the slow route down to that area on Everett Transit. The opening of the Seaway transit center across from Boeing may finally remedy this, as that center (I hope!) will open new routes to there.

   But I’ve been a firm advocate for more than a decade of CT and ET merging. For Everett, which has run a budget deficit even outside of its transit service in recent years, it would make financial sense. And having one unified service for the entire county could help riders immensely!.

9. And William, my African experience was fifty years ago and only in Tanzania. Though my sister worked a few years in South Africa and lived in Cape Town. I imagine she got to Soweto once in awhile.

   But metric I could use between Soweto, Detroit, and Seattle: What use are they making of the resources and situation they have to work with? And not, “Is the city right for me”, but “What I don’t like, what can I fix?” No grief about my sudden involuntary departure. More about the changes I thanked God I was getting away from.

   Now, since I think Seattle still has same possibilities as when I arrived from Detroit 44 years ago, I’ll be glad to spend even more of my time helping it become better than it was when I came. Incorporated into a working life for which Seattle is one of many train-station supplied job settings, with coffee pulled by very old friends. In a region of which Seattle is only one neighborhood, as Ballard once was of Seattle.

   Seattle could not be taking worse advantage of the sky-fall of money it got hit by a few years ago. Usually new industries enliven and generate new possibilities. To me, civic spirit is like it was standing under the piggy-bank shaped asteroid that delivered the trillion ton load of virtual gold, silver, copper, and paper that the place is now buried motionless under.

   Over-priced and work-force understaffed and underpaid, and with a city government- and regional transit system- in the exact frame of mind to send people to court rather than do their own interagency accounting. Subject getting older for me than anybody else, but most perfect lifetime example I’ve ever encountered. A scared petulant bureaucrat’s only earthly power. Good regional transit will let me come in there to help fix the place. And not need to charge overtime.

   Mark

10. With fares going higher, are there going to be transfers?

    1. You can already get free transfers if you use an ORCA card.

11. With the hike in fares, will you at least have transfers? If I have to take more than one bus at $2.00 a pop, it really adds up.

    1. I don’t imagine they’ll be reintroducing paper transfers, since ORCA already fills that need.

Comments are closed.