This is part two of a three-part series investigating city-funded bus service in Seattle. Part 1 covered the Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD) from 2014 to early 2020. This article covers its successor, named the Seattle Transit Measure (STM) from 2020 to present day.
By early 2020, the STBD had transformed Seattle into a truly transit-accessible city. With Sound Transit’s self-proclaimed ‘exciting period’ of annual light rail expansions approaching quickly, county leaders saw an opportunity to undo the failures of 2014 and provide better bus service to all of King County, not just Seattle.
King County Floats Measure, Pandemic Hits
In February 2020, King County Council unveiled a proposal to utilize King County’s own Transportation Benefit District to levy a countywide 0.2% sales tax increase to fund additional transit.
Unlike the failed 2014 measure, revenues would go exclusively to Metro and focus primarily on service expansion. Seattle’s existing investments would also be funded under the assumption that a county measure would eclipse Seattle’s. Seattle would lose its freedom to dictate service investments, but planning and funding would be re-regionalized, ending years of a ‘pay to play’ system where Seattle experienced higher service levels than Metro could provide on its own.
Unfortunately on February 29, 2020, the first death from COVID-19 in the United States was announced in Washington. Soon after, then-Governor Jay Inslee announced a statewide state of emergency. By March 13, all schools statewide were ordered closed and Metro reported a 45% reduction in ridership.
All signs indicated that a county-wide transit measure was poorly timed and by March 16, County Councilmember Claudia Balducci announced that King County would no longer proceed with a ballot measure to increase bus service.
Seattle Goes Alone, Again
In response, Seattle would need to renew the STBD, which was then funded by a 0.1% sales tax and $60 car tab. The constitutionality of Initiative 976, Tim Eyman’s latest effort to cap car tabs at $30, was still uncertain and in court leaving car tabs off the table as a funding mechanism for renewal.
In July of 2020, Mayor Jenny Durkan unveiled a proposal for a reduced STBD of only a 0.1% sales tax, no car tabs, and lasting just 4 years. This would result in STBD funding being cut by almost 50%. Councilmember Tammy Morales proposed increasing the sales tax to 0.2% to backfill the lost car tab revenue but ultimately City Council President Lorena González negotiated the sales tax to 0.15% and extended the levy back to six years.
Despite Durkan’s concerns, the STBD renewal passed in what was then the largest electoral victory margin in Seattle history, 80.3% to 19.7%, with voters rejecting austerity in an election buoyed by massive turnout in a Presidential election year.
To distinguish between the voter approved spending to fund transit and the legal framework used for it (a transportation benefit district) which also funded road maintenance, the STBD was rebranded as the “Seattle Transit Measure” or “STM” to make clear what voters were funding.
Tim Eyman Loses, Again
In October 2020, the Washington Supreme Court struck down Initiative 976, ruling it violated the state constitution’s “single subject rule.” Previously-frozen car tab funding was returned to the STBD’s reserve account but the ruling was too late to include renewal of car tab funding in the 2020 STM.
Without renewal of the STBD’s additional $60 VLF, the city’s VLF decreased in 2021 from $80 to the 2014 rate of $20 a year. Since then, the Seattle City Council has used their ‘councilmanic’ authority (i.e. without voter approval) to increase the city’s car tabs to $50 to fund roadway maintenance and preservation.
The STM Begins, Very Frequent Transit Network Ends
Voters passed the STM in midst of the largest change in travel behavior in modern American history. A massive budget deficit fueled by decreased fare and sales tax revenue prompted Metro to make large service cuts just to stay above water.
At the same time, despite increasing Seattle’s sales tax, without funding from car tabs, the STM renewal decreased revenues approximately 30%. Further, while over 90% of STBD revenues were used to purchase transit service, only about half of STM revenue has been used to fund bus service, significantly decreasing the number of service hours purchased by Seattle.
Due to all these factors, the Very Frequent Transit Network (every 10 min service all day) that 70% of the city was within walking distance of in 2019 collapsed. Routes 40, 41, 44, 48, 65, 67, and 70 ran every 10-minutes or better in early 2020 and now don’t.
Today only 53% of Seattle is within walking distance of every 10 min or better service. And when Judkins Park station, Pinehurst station, and the J Line open, only 55% of the city will have the luxury of very frequent transit service, far from two-thirds of the city as was in the late 2010s.
Since 2020: Recovery, Constraints
While the original STBD was focused almost exclusively on purchasing bus service, the STM authorized more spending on transportation access programs (including subsidized ORCA cards) and “emerging needs” intended to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and West Seattle Bridge closure. The text voters approved mandates that a majority of STM spending be dedicated for transit operations, but the STM only achieves this goal by including its new funding of streetcar operations.
STM tax revenues have increased about 40% since its passage as Seattle’s economy recovers from the pandemic. But increasing service has been severely limited by Metro’s operator shortage. Ethan Bergerson, Press Secretary at SDOT said the city has “purchased the maximum amount of service King County Metro has had the capacity to provide each year since the Seattle Transit Measure began in 2021”.
Due to Metro’s operator shortage and Seattle’s inability to purchase additional service, the STM has generated more revenue than it could spend. Rather than send revenue to its reserve fund, City Council has used the STM to fund other priorities not included in the original measure approved by voters by expanding the scope and size of the capital projects bucket to include far more than transit spot improvements. Funding projects like $12M in bridge maintenance, repaving projects, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and backfilling 2015 Transportation Levy promises like Rainier’s bus lanes and RapidRides G and J.
The ‘Emerging Needs’ category, originally intended to mitigate the closure of the West Seattle Bridge and the Covid pandemic, now funds Transit Ambassadors, free bikeshare rides, and Transit GO rewards. In 2024, a ‘Material Change‘ to the STM allowed funding permitting work for light rail expansion and opened the door for the STM to directly fund light rail construction, an effectively infinitely sized bucket. The STM’s 2025 budget also started funding transit security.
The biggest item in the 2026 budget not present in 2020 is funding the operations of the Seattle Streetcar, which is about 15% of all STM expenditures. Historically funded by fare revenue, Seattle’s Commercial Parking Tax, and Sound Transit as mitigation for not building light rail in First Hill, the streetcar’s operations are now funded by the STM with a small contribution from Metro. With the Center City Connector “Dead”, how to and if we should continue funding the streetcar, which costs about 60% more per service hour to operate than buses and is already diverting STM money away from bus upgrades, will certainly dominate discussions of the STM renewal this fall.
Current Trajectory: Service Expansion, Unsustainable Spending
Since the creation of the STBD in 2015, King County Metro has struggled to deliver the number of service hours Seattle has been interested in purchasing. Due to this, a significant reserve fund has developed, totaling over a year of tax revenue. 2025 and 2026 will include significant increases in transit service. But that expansion will be funded in part by depleting the STM’s reserve fund. The fund was never intended to be so large and should be spent down but now that Metro can provide more service, the STM is spending more than it brings in. Without an increase in STM revenues in 2027, about $20 million or 40% of the STM’s budget will need to be cut.
Additionally, the recently passed 2024-2032 Seattle Transportation Levy reduced annual inflation-adjusted spending on transit projects by 16–34% compared to its predecessor, leaving a significant gap in the city’s capital budget for things like RapidRide and corridor upgrades funded by the 2015 levy.
Despite this, Metro and SDOT have both been clear that they want more service and now that operational constraints are being lifted, things are moving in the right direction.
Jen Malley-Crawford, Transit Service & Strategy Manager at SDOT told the Seattle Transit Blog that SDOT and Metro are working to get more service. “SDOT and King County Metro have the shared goal of building the best possible bus network” Malley-Crawford said. “We work closely together to boost bus frequency and reliability as much as possible each year, and find the best way to target these investments so they will have the most meaningful benefit for riders. We are grateful for their partnership and optimistic that the trend will continue moving in the right direction in the future.”
STM Legacy
Since 2021, the STM has provided revenue to stave off the worst service cuts from COVID and has maintained a Very Frequent Transit Network, although significantly smaller than in the STBD days.
The legacy of the STM can not be told though without acknowledging Metro’s multi-year operator shortage. Without enough drivers, bus service has been running at full steam, limited not by revenue but by the number of operators Metro can hire and retain. In this context, the promise to voters to fund more bus service has been difficult to follow through on.
Due in part to this, King County Metro is the worst performing large agency in bus ridership recovery from COVID with only ~75% of riders from its pre-covid peak and Metro still operates 12% fewer service hours than in 2019.
Since 2021, the STM has stayed true to its promise to increase access to transit, funding tens of thousands of ORCA cards, outreach to marginalized communities, and prioritizing service to equity priority areas.
But without being able to fund more service, the STM has had more revenue than expenses and proved a convenient funding source for citywide priorities, backfilling the promises made by the 2015 Transportation Levy, funding light rail permitting, and keeping the streetcars running.
I just want to say thank you for this incredibly well-written series! Having the history as someone newer to the region is really valuable and this is a joy to read!
Yes, this is an excellent series, and will be a reference in the future. Thanks to Nick Sattele for contributing it to STB.
Agreed, Nick is an abundantly talented writer, and his research is professional quality. Thank you, Nick.
It seems to me that it is time for Seattle to ask the Legislature for more autonomy in taxation. No, it should not be allowed to break the State Constitution’s many constraints on revenues, but within those constraints it should have greater leeway to make its own way. Seattle and Bellevue are the primary engines of the State’s economy, and they need the freedom to fund their projects, even if it means diverting some of the “cream” that the rest of the state (including my secondary county) laps up so greedily.
This is really informative, thank you.
Did Seattle consider funding subcontracted bus service directly to work around Metro’s operator shortage? I’m not saying that is completely a good idea, and it may not be allowed under current law. But one could argue that it was justified on an emergency basis.
Not that I know of. Council discussed it long ago but afaik the constraints of 2020-23 would not have been lifted. The other agencies also suffered severe operator shortages as well and I assume it would be quite complex to have two agencies operating the same route
https://www.theurbanist.org/2018/06/20/council-contemplates-seattle-transportation-benefit-district-reforms/#:~:text=Transit%20vans%20would%20carry%20at%20least%20eight%20passengers%20per%20trip%20and%20be%20operated%20by%20private%20contractor%20companies%2C%20not%20Metro
The reason it can’t find enough drivers is the Boomers are retiring, driving trucks has the same pay but not misbehaving passengers, and the rest of the country has the same labor shortage so there are opportunities for drivers leaning toward moving elsewhere. Subcontracted drivers getting a non-union lower wage and benefits would be even harder to recruit, because doing anything else would be more attractive.
As a former OTR (long-haul) driver, albeit one who can’t speak for anyone else, I can simply echo Orr with this: When my wife and I decided to retire home from team driving, we weren’t sure what we’d do next. But, with CDL’s in hand, the options were certainly abundant. When asked if we’d considered bus driving, the answer was “no”. Asked why not, my wife had the perfect response, “Because freight don’t bitch.” That simple statement, to me, perfectly encapsulates why it’s so hard to find bus drivers. Why would anyone put up with what we allow in terms of behavior on buses, when one could put the same skills to use in a similar vehicle and without the issues that people bring?
Jason, both SDOT and Metro attempted to attract riders during the bus constraint 2018-2019 and later using Ride2, Via, Pingo, and now Metro Flex. All seem to be poor uses of scarce service subsidy. Only since March 2023 has the backroom computer dispatch prevented intending riders from using Flex when fixed route provides a better trip
Metro and SDOT should not use 2019 as the pre-Covid ridership baseline; maximin ridership was in fall 2018. In 2019, ridership declined due to downtown Seattle capacity crisis. It was self-inflicted; Dow led the county to sell CPS to the convention center and end bus operations in the DSTT prematurely; the transit agencies did not restructure SR-520 or Green River Valley service; ST slowed I-90 service; WSDOT took down the SR-99 AWV; SDOT still had streetcar dreams.
It is not surprising that Metro has recovered a smaller portion of its pre-COVID ridership. Ridership shifted to Link with six new stations with network changes. Metro had relatively more service oriented to peak office employment that had been decimated by COVID.
See my note below. Yes, Link poached some riders. But overall ridership (Link + Metro) is still way below what it was in 2019. Of course some of that is people working from home. This also explains why traffic is so light [snark]. But other cities have recovered better than us. I think there are a couple explanations for the poor transit performance of the last few years:
1) Lack of funding.
2) Poor restructures.
These go together. Poor routing can lead to infrequent buses. This isn’t the end of the world if you bus arrives every 15 minutes instead of 12. But if it runs every 20 minutes instead of 15 it really sucks.
Somehow, STM funds got plowed into frequency on milk run 107. I just don’t see serving a string of single-family suburban neighborhoods frequently as a valid social justice goal.
Sure, it is still slightly less frequent than mighty route 44. But being as frequent as the L8 mid-day raises the question of whether data was part of the spending selection process.
That said, the elephant in the living room is that the requirement to spend half the funds on service hours is a relic of lobbying by the Seattle Displacement Coalition. It should not have been kept from one measure to the next, and certainly ought to be removed from future measures.
Some of the best opportunities to improve the rider experience without the need for more operators is through capital improvement projects like what is being studied for the L8. One-time expenditures to improve transit ROW are usually better ways to spend transit money than throwing more buses onto a route with significant reliability problems.
The 8 is unreliable but it is still one of our most cost effective routes. It also isn’t particularly frequent. So running it more often would probably lead to a considerable increase in ridership. That being said, it is also one of the slowest buses. This means that investing in capital improvements there would also be a very good value. It would likely be a very good value compared to most of what Sound Transit is spending money on (including their bus projects) but that is a different set of money.
With STM focusing a lot on 36, 60, and 107, it almost makes me think someone making decision is living in Beacon Hill. I guess they do serve a variety of destination and are somewhat equity focused, but there are certainly many other routes that are too.
The 36 already had 10-minute mid-day headway. It needs better reliability so the buses don’t start pre-bunched coming out of downtown.
Routes 60 and 107 briefly got timed so that one or the other was scheduled to serve 15th Ave S every 10 minutes. The possibility of making that happen in reality, and not just on paper, is likely the best reason to split route 60 at Beacon Hill Station.
It would be ironic if Metro could synchronize routes 60south and 107 with the 1 Line and each other, while ST fails at synchronizing ST Express routes with Link.
Seeing as Seattle is the only large network with separate light rail and bus operators, and a light rail network that is still expanding, it’s important to say that the lack of bus ridership recovery is at least partially a result of Link extensions. I’m less interested in agency-specific metrics as I am in regional or city-wide trends in transit ridership.
But really appreciate the historical overview as someone new in town
it’s important to say that the lack of bus ridership recovery is at least partially a result of Link extensions.
Yes, absolutely. But it is important to consider a couple things. First, transit agencies typically report “unlinked” trips. This means that a bus ride followed by a train ride is considered two boardings (one on the bus, one on the train). Given so many transit riders (especially in the north end) take a bus to the train (when they used to just take the bus) this should “artificially” boost the overall numbers. Second, the overall numbers are still way below what they were before the pandemic.
So yes, Link “poached” some of Metro’s ridership. But overall ridership is still well below what it was.
Even with some rides being double counted, combined Link + King County Metro ridership today is still lower than what ridership on KCM alone was pre-pandemic.
Source: https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiZDMwMWExOTMtOTY3ZC00MTU5LTgxMDgtODM4MTZiYTExMzJkIiwidCI6ImJhZTUwNTlhLTc2ZjAtNDlkNy05OTk2LTcyZGZlOTVkNjljNyJ9, “Ridership Impacts” tab
Even with some rides being double counted, combined Link + King County Metro ridership today is still lower than what ridership on KCM alone was pre-pandemic.
Exactly. I’ve also looked at Apta data. This can be found here: https://www.apta.com/research-technical-resources/transit-statistics/ridership-report/ridership-report-archives/. This summarizes all the data for a quarter, per agency. It is tedious to parse through the reports so I wrote come code to scrape the data and put it in a spreadsheet. I looked at all the local agencies (Community Transit, Everett Transit, Metro, Pierce Transit and Sound Transit). I combined all of the modes. Total transit ridership (including potential double counts) are still less than before the pandemic.
We peaked in the second quarter of 2019, with just over 650,000 riders (a day). This was the high point, but not an anomaly. From 2016 to the fourth quarter of 2019 we had over 600,000 riders. From 2018 to the end of 2019 we had more than 625,000 riders.
Since the pandemic, we’ve barely exceeded 500,000. We did that twice (the second and third quarter of last year). Both times we had less than 510,000 riders. We fell below half a million in the last quarter of last year.
So basically despite the massive investment in light rail infrastructure and the continued population growth in the region, transit ridership is still well below what it was before the pandemic.
I wasn’t trying to question that ridership is lower; it’s more that reporting on just Metro ridership should be contextualized to the area as a whole.
Isn’t this primarily the result of King County being one of the three TechBro centers in the US? Yes, programmers need to talk with Analysts before they cast code, but once the specs are set, headphones, no phones, and a protective screen of big monitors are de riguer for the creative process to unforld. They just don’t need to be in a Tower in the Park (or in a Tower in SLU for that matter) to cut code.
The same is true for “call center” folks. Yes, I know that the sweatshop model of Southeast Asia used extensively by the banks puts everyone in one place, but the higher-skilled level of “user support” from software firms benefits from the same isolation that programmers need. Someone needs to think about the problem before they act to ameliorate it.
Those sorts of jobs are all over King County. Bezos and Jacey are making a mistake by forcing their most valuable staff into commutes. People will slowly trickle away, and maybe not so slowly.
“the lack of bus ridership recovery is at least partially a result of Link extensions”
That’s why Link was built, to take over the highest-volume trunk corridors that light rail can do more efficiently. Link also created new one-seat ride pairs and brand-new transit service at some stations that bus routes had never addressed, so that shifted some people from buses or never-before riders.
“Seattle is the only large network with separate light rail and bus operators”
That’s only an illusion; Metro operates Link.
And the operators who operate Link and Metro are literally in the same Pick process.
“the lack of bus ridership recovery is at least partially a result of Link extensions”
It is worth pointing out that this is minor phenomenon since 2019. Overall transit ridership peaked in the second quarter of 2019. Total bus ridership was 545,000 a day. Light rail had 84,000 during the same period. Light rail hit a peak of 126,000 in the third quarter of last year. But bus ridership that quarter was 368,000. This means Link ridership went up 42,000 but bus ridership went down 177,000. The vast majority of lost ridership was due to other factors (including the degradation of the bus system).
lost ridership was due to other factors (including the degradation of the bus system).
Yep, crappy bus==less riders. I haven’t, until just the past few days, used transit because it completely failed any purpose I could dream up. And I’d used it in the past even if the time/cost benefit was way out of wack. I can now walk to Link. Walk to a bus, not so much… miles.
> “The text voters approved mandates that a majority of STM spending be dedicated for transit operations, but the STM only achieves this goal by including its new funding of streetcar operations.”
Do we know if the STM would meet this goal if it funded an equivalent number of bus service hours instead of the more expensive streetcar service hours?
Good question. From the streetcar reports[1], they operate about 36,695 revenue hours. SDOT is paying about $200 a service hour from Metro.
To answer your question, yes they would still hit that number but the percent to service would be closer to 55% than the 60% today
[1] https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/Streetcar/2024_Streetcar_Operations_Report.pdf
Riding a bus if much more enjoyable now in regards to crowding. I don’t miss the roaring days of 2018 where you were packed like cattle, if you could get on the bus at all. How many have waited for multiple buses on old 41 or 71/72/73 from Convention Center Station in the afternoons because one after the other would show up full? Remember when the 510 was implemented and the crowds were so bad that riders were standing for 90+ minutes from Everett to Seattle?
“How many have waited for multiple buses on old 41 or 71/72/73 from Convention Center Station in the afternoons because one after the other would show up full?”
I waited in the mornings for a 71/72/73X. You never knew when they would appear or whether the first one or two would be full, so it was really hard to take them and transfer to a half-hourly route. I ended up going ten minutes early if I remember, so that if the first bus was late or full or there was congestion at the I-5 45th exit or on 45th I could still make my transfer. I was so glad when U-Link started and eliminated that, even if I wasn’t glad about the last-mile gap to UW station.
By early 2020, the STBD had transformed Seattle into a truly transit-accessible city.
Well, you had my hackles up with that. But well written article where you circle back and show why this didn’t happen… namely COVID.
I have a bit of a bone to pick with Link “poaching” riders. Link should increase bus ridership. I’m not a transit nerd but at least on the eastside this hasn’t happened because bus service has just gotten worse. Less, yes; but mostly just worse.
I’m one of the lucky few after spending thousands of dollars in car tabs will actually be able to use Link… soon… maybe.
They should plan for the new normal and not the long gone late 2010s. Seattle corporate relevance is in decline. AI is obliterating the tech sector and office vancancy will not go back to late 2010s level for the foreseeable future. remote work is thankfully an option for many while mega employers continue to shed office workers by the thousands. AI will without doubt obliterated non tech jobs that are still corporate jobs in Seattle. Before more regressive taxation, Seattle transit powers that be should quit the romanticized idea of the city that once was and embrace that hard times are coming to corporate employed Americans unfortunately. This means transit agencies should brace for another wave of reduced ridership as unemployment soars.
Only 15-30% of the workforce are in telework-capable jobs. You can’t do construction, stock shelves, nurse patients, or give haircuts from home. Tech work is a significant sector but its percent of the total workforce is overestimated.
AI is too volatile now to tell what it will or won’t do in the future. We’re still waiting to see whether it can replace a lot of workers, whether it will perform so badly that workers will be hired back, or whether companies and individuals can/will pay $50K a year for their AI bills once the uncautious investment money that’s subsidizing it dries up.
We can’t base infrastructure decisions now on a theoretical future vast shrinking of the workforce, any more than we can base zoning on a future retraction of housing demand. People thought housing demand would stop growing in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, and 2024, but it didn’t. When/if it decisively turns for more than a few years, then we can scale back our housing growth — otherwise we won’t be ready for a spike in demand.
Work commuting has certainly shrunk since 2019, so that’s the assumption now. We can’t hold our breath for it to plummet further until it does, because it may not plummet, or not as soon as we assume.
IMO, they should stop subsidizing so many people’s fare and trip out the streetcar.
This would allow for more buses/bus infrastructure & sperior light rail support
But it aint up to me
See admirable objective of Jen Malloy-Crawford, SDOT, and Metro. Seattle and King County will have a TBD dance in 2026; it takes two and good timing to tango.
Short headways and waits are the key attribute in attractive networks. Funding is one way to achieve that. Smart restructures are another. Providing priority through traffic is a third. Route consolidations have yielded shorter headway. See the Delridge consolidation in 2004; it led to the H line; see the Aurora consolidation in 1999; it led to the E line. What is next? How about the RossB suggestion for Route 67 and the south leg of Route 348? How about routes 8 and 48; they are too close for maximum ridership attraction; see service guideline on route spacing. Seattle may soon provide transit priority for Route 8 on Denny Way; let’s add Route 11. SDOT did very well on 3rd Avenue and Westlake Avenue North. The Route 44 project was good.