As the County returns to full economic life, Metro is ramping up service. In keeping with their normal service reorganization procedure, there will be a citizen advisory board:
We are looking for participants for a workshop to provide input on how we prioritize what service to restore.
Participants will:
· Attend a virtual workshop in the first two weeks of February 2021 to review Metro’s response to the COVID outbreak,
· Help Metro planning staff evaluate what types of service are most important to communities,
· Be compensated for their time and participation, and
· Be accommodated through interpretation and ADA access, as needed.
If you are interested in this opportunity to participate in Metro’s planning, please respond to mjahshan@kingcounty.gov by January 21, 2021.
Longtime readers know I did one of these boards back in 2008 (unfortunately for me, well before one got paid to do so). It was an interesting window into the many considerations planners actually balance, as well as an education into what ordinary people in your community really think.
As always, I think people with a solid grasp of planning principles and a system view can be a useful corrective to narrower interests, as long they are willing to listen, open-minded, and empathetic.
While it’s great that Metro is wanting to do this, I don’t see much opportunity to affect much change beyond staff recommendations . After all, the issue seems to be one of preventing overcrowding and avoidance of wasted resources but keeping the same routes (restructuring for short-term is mostly a bad idea). The criterion in both cases is number of riders on a bus so the decisions seem mostly singularly-focused.
Now that Sound Transit is actually running (sort of) test trains on Northgate Link, it is imperative that any Metro return-to-service plans account for the fact that NG Link will really change the game for transit on the north end.
Ignoring the impending changes and the future restructure won’t benefit anyone.
I think that is a given. I can’t think of a single instance where Metro ignored a Link expansion. If anything, they may have gone overboard at times with the truncations. In any event, Metro will restructure the buses after Link gets here. Whether the restructure is ideal or not is a different matter, as is whether ST will run the trains often enough to take advantage of a restructure.
RossB: is “ignoring” Link a relative term? Did ST and Metro restructure SR-520 service with Link; the UW Link station opened in March 2016. Did ST and Metro restructure service near the Angle Lake Link Station; it opened in September 2016. Truncation is indeed dangerous; ideally, new network connections would be provided riders by having routes serve a Link station with a very short transfer walk and then go on to make connections with other markets. Your example of a frequent route connecting the Lake City and Bitterlake urban villages via the NE 130th Street is a good one. Yes, the ST Link service frequency, during all time periods, is a key factor; they should help reduce waiting; as Walker points out, that is key to transit liberty. If Link waits are long, it makes the rider acceptance of restructure less likely and network less effective.
Do you have a link to more info about this? I can find anything on their site.