A Seattle city committee voted on a slate of amendments to the Seattle Transit Measure (STM) levy renewal Mayor Wilson proposed. The meeting video has the proceedings. It’s three and a half hours long, and parts of it were confusing to me. I watched the debates and votes on 6 of the 22 amendments. This alone took an hour and fifty minutes (from 0:45:36 to 2:36:41 in the video). I got exhausted at that point and didn’t watch the rest, so I’ll leave it to the comment section to report on how the other amendments fared. The entire measure with some amendments passed the committee, and will go to the full city council on Tuesday. Nine councilmembers participated: Rivera, Kettle, Hollingsworth, Juarez, Lin, Strauss, Foster, Rinck, and Saka.
Many readers are most interested in Amendment 13, which would reduce the sales tax rate from Mayor Wilson’s proposal. That amendment failed 2-7. That debate is just before the 2:46:00 mark.
Three amendments (1, 4, 28) were “withdrawn” for refinement, but then they were voted on anyway before the other individual amendments, so I don’t understand that procedure. Amendment 1 (passed) had a long debate; it wasn’t about transit service per se but about committing to certain safety strategies to deter passenger misbehavior. Amendment 4 (passed) requests an annual report from Metro on fare compliance, farebox recovery, reliability, and on-time performance of STM-purchased service, with comparisons to peer agencies and past statistics. Amendment 25 (failed) would have requested a report on expanding the Transit Access Program.
The other amendments I watched were 3 (passed) on how to spend money Metro can’t accept (e.g., if it doesn’t have enough drivers to implement requested runs), and 5 (failed) to extend the levy term three months (the failure means it will expire at the end of 2032).
What else do you see in the results?
As I understand it, the amendments that were withdrawn but still voted on were actually withdrawn from a package of uncontroversial amendments, as it turned out they were a little controversial.
Yes, Saka as committee chair was the one who made the decision of which amendments to group into the consent package. I would imagine he put the more controversial ones (like #4 that failed) in because they were his and he didn’t think they were controversial. I think Foster requested to move the ones that ended up in the discussion portion of the session.
It doesn’t look like any of the amendments are significant. Almost all of them do nothing more than require Metro to do more reports. A few small changes to allowable uses of funds, but it doesn’t seem likely to me that any of these allowances will be exercised.
Just a bunch of bike-shedding.
How would one go about advocating for more frequency on the 62 bus? It’s a bus I rely on daily and sometimes runs pretty late. It would be great if it were a 10-minute frequency bus.
I expect that the 62 is too long and expensive to be raised to ten-minute headways. What section do you ride? Perhaps there’s the possibility to overlap your part with a shorter route.
The 62 is one of Metro’s most unreliable routes like the 8. The solution would be more transit-priority lanes, or more buses to mitigate congestion and to stand by if a bus gets disabled or stuck in a traffic jam. Transit-priority lanes are SDOT’s authority. More buses is how Metro solved it between 2015 and 2019, but Metro doesn’t have the resources to do that now. If the STM adds runs to the 62 to make it more reliable, it would have to take the hours from other routes.
10-minute service is an unusual achievement that only a few routes get under current funding levels. In Seattle it’s the RapidRides, 40, 44, and maybe another route somewhere. The first STM in 2015-2020 raised the 45, 65 and 67 to 10 minutes, but we lost that in the 2020 renewal. The proposed STM is supposed to fund the Seattle Transit Network, which is 10-minute service to some 70% of Seattle residences, so maybe it will upgrade all the core routes. That would include the 62. But I wouldn’t count on it reaching all core routes, to avoid expectations being dashed.
For a passenger, the best way to get around the most unreliable routes is to choose a different route if possible. For instance, wherever you’re going on the 62, is there a way to use the 40, 45, 75, 372 or such instead?
SDOT and Metro could improve Route 62 in several ways. They improved the turnaround loop in Magnuson a decade ago, but only use it part time; so truncate it at NE 74th Street; this would be an ordinance item. Metro could optimize the stop spacing on NE 65th Street east of 20th Avenue NE. If SDOT improved the pavement on NE 56th Street, it could be shifted to NE 65th Street, Latona Avenue NE, and NE 56th Street; this could save several minutes and remove the route from narrow streets that have friction. On southbound Dexter Avenue North, the bus island between Roy and Mercer streets, should be removed; the south to west right turn lane is too short, leading to jams in the single general purpose lane and Route 62. The vision zero project on NE 65th Street slowed Route 65; SDOT to provide priority to cyclists and left transit behind in congestion. If minutes were saved by the steps above would allow it to be extended to First Hill via Yesler Way, 8th/9th avenues, East Jefferson Street, atop Route 40. The south part of First Hill is a major market and the agencies should take advantage of the lack of congestion on Yesler Way. The streamlining in east Green Lake provides proper route spacing after the deletion of Route 20. It is shown in Seattle Transportation Plan and the comp plan; pavement is required. It is the pathway of the Meridian streetcar line.
The first thing to do is implement this change in Tangletown.
This would make it faster and improve coverage. The next thing to do is have it follow the 40 between downtown and Harrison. Harrison is supposed to be a transit street so if they need to add bus lanes there it should be easy. Southbound the bus should be able to easily make the dogleg (left on Harrison, right on Westlake) as there is a left turn arrow at Dexter & Harrison. They may need to add a similar arrow for a northbound bus at Westlake & Harrison. This change would not only make the 62 faster and more reliable but it would mean it would share more bus stops with the 40. This is the “common market” idea mentioned in the Metro planning guide. Riders from South Lake Union could use either bus if they are trying to get from South Lake Union to Fremont.
I’m not sure where the other congested areas are. I’m just guessing at this point. The Fremont Bridge is often an issue. There bus is stuck if things back up. I would change that. Northbound Dexter goes from one lane to two lanes at this bus stop about a quarter mile from the bridge. I would make the right lane bus only. The street then widens to three lanes as it reaches Westlake. The left lane is for those turning left onto Nickerson. The middle lane is to go “straight” towards Fremont. The right lane is for those going to Fremont or making a hairpin turn heading south on Westlake. I would change only the rightmost lane. It would be a BAT lane used by buses and only cars making that hairpin turn. When the bridge is up the bus would be able to bypass the backup and get right to the crosswalk at Westlake. This would be similar to what they are doing for the 40. Speaking of which, the improvements for the 40 should also help the 62. Only buses will be allowed to turn left from westbound 35th to southbound Fremont Avenue. Southbound Fremont Avenue will have a BAT lane.
I’m not sure if there is congestion on Stone Way. If there is, it wouldn’t be too hard to add BAT lanes there (where there aren’t curb cuts). You would just get rid of parking. This would make the bike path better as well. It isn’t trivial. You would need add the bus stops like they have in 65th (with the raised bike path in front) but it wouldn’t cost much.
More BAT lanes on 45th are long overdue. This would benefit the 44 and 62. It is tricky as the road narrows in places. They might have to add it in bits and pieces. Every little bit helps. Of course the 62 only goes on 45th for a small section. That should be a priority simply because it effects both buses.
After 45th the bus goes through Tangletown where it should have the improved routing I mentioned earlier. There isn’t much they can do on 65th with the bike lanes there. If this is a typical project (which involves bike and bus improvements) then they should add bike lanes to the east.
I could see how the bus could be made considerably more reliable and faster. I could also see it running every ten minutes although I would prioritize other buses ahead of it (like the 44). It also depends on what else the money can buy. There has been an emphasis on improving night and weekend service versus rush hour. This may also extend to raising the lowest level buses instead of focusing on the stronger routes. It costs the same to go from 30 to 15, 15 to 12, or 12 to 10. Thus I could see them running buses like the 28 or 33 every fifteen minutes instead of running the 62 every ten. I could also see them running the 62 every twelve minutes along with the 28 every fifteen.
Harrison Street east of Dexter Avenue North does not have adequate pavement to be a frequent transit street. SDOT got a PSRC grant for planning. The notion arose from Metro Connects but makes little strategic sense as a crosstown pathway as it quite close to Denny Way.
Harrison Street east of Dexter Avenue North does not have adequate pavement to be a frequent transit street.
Then it should be repaved. You should have an east-west transit street north of Denny. It is close to Denny but not that close. It is 400 meters, quite common for urban line spacing. It is basically the same as the distance between Madison/Spring and James or the distance between Pike/Pine and Madison/Spring. Eventually a bus should follow the Boren corridor (with BAT/bus lanes) until Fairview. Then it should connect to the 70/J before turning on Harrison and again on 5th. Yes, it could just follow Denny but that reduces coverage in a very urban part of Seattle. Oh, and Harrison connects well with the buses that come from Aurora. This sort of thing is just not good: https://maps.app.goo.gl/FdaMsUjEMUddnN9P7/. You have one of the finest parts of our system (a ten minute ride on a bus that runs every 7.5 midday) followed by a 13 minute walk. The alternative is a two-seat ride (involving the 8) and a ten minute walk. A bus on Harrison solves that problem.
Ideally you would just run the bus on Mercer. Good luck with that. Maybe someday they can take a lane on Mercer but it is essentially a freeway on-ramp and exit. They don’t even allow left turns onto Mercer from Westlake. Then there is Valley. It should have bus lanes. They should get rid of that streetcar and move the bike lanes where the cyclists want them (next to the lake). Then they should add bus lanes on Valley. But a bus turning there still has less coverage. You are too too close to the lake itself. Fish don’t ride the bus. From a line spacing standpoint the best option is Republican. But that won’t work because of Aurora. Harrison is the best option even if it is not ideal.
But back to the 62. I see three alternatives:
1) Keep the current routing. I don’t see this working. I don’t see how you make that part of 7th fast for buses — it is only one lane each direction.
2) Follow the 40 but turn left on Denny. This might work but it seems problematic. The right lane is where the buses are (and the streetcar). So now you leave that and get in the left lane. Right now no one can turn left — the bus would be the only vehicle doing that. So you have a left-turn arrow just for buses. I could see it (especially since cars going the other way can also turn left) but it doesn’t seem trivial. It is Denny after all.
3) Turn left on Harrison. This is legal right now. Add a left turn arrow. Pave it. Hope that someday we have enough money to run our buses often enough (and with enough additional right-of-way) to make running a bus on Boren a good value.
Or 4) jog on Roy would let the 62 and 40 overlap for longer
@jd — Yeah, that might work. There are no buses there right now so I don’t know what issues there are but the same thing can be said about Harrison. It should be considered just like the alternatives. But in the long run I think it does make sense to turn Harrison into a transit street with not only the 62 but a Boren bus as well.
These route changes may not improve reliability. The Latona routing is little-used streets that don’t get backed up. The backups are at traffic lights and in Fremont, 45th, 65th, and maybe one on Stone Way, and whatever impact the Fremont Bridge has. Those would all be unchanged in the proposed route change.
These route changes may not improve reliability.
No, but they are designed to. It is quite likely that the new routing through Tangletown would not only be faster but more reliable. The changes in downtown are based on avoiding congestion there as well.
The backups are at traffic lights and in Fremont, 45th, 65th, and maybe one on Stone Way, and whatever impact the Fremont Bridge has.
Those are only some of the places where it backs up. But I addressed all of those in the first comment. In general the 62 is not that different than most buses. It experiences congestion in some places and has smooth sailing in others. You could do a similar napkin analysis on just about any route. That doesn’t mean you should rely on amateur analysis (like this) but it gives you an idea of how we can improve our system with relatively little effort.
One theme that I think is important is the idea of a shared corridor. This has benefits from a network standpoint. But it also has benefits from a speed/reliability standpoint as well. This is a great example. Just to back up here, we need coverage on Dexter between Fremont and Mercer. The hillside is steep and lacks pedestrian egress in places. But we don’t need coverage on Dexter south of Mercer (or Roy). It is flat through there (and there are nearby buses to the east and west). So consider the existing 62 heading north. It follows the rest of the buses on Third Avenue downtown. Then it turns on Blanchard and follows the same route as the C and 40. This is good. There is power in numbers. It is much easier for SDOT to concentrate its efforts on fewer streets. But then the 62 takes a unique path on 7th before going over to Dexter. This is problematic. It is difficult for SDOT to deal with this section and even if they did, it would only benefit one bus. In contrast, the C and 40 follow a shared path that has had considerable work done, including a change in the last year (no right turns from Westlake to Denny). Thus in general the longer the bus can stay on Westlake the better. The only issue is the set of turns to get over there. It might be easier to turn earlier rather than later.
Yet another CBD Route 62 option is that of Route 4: 3rd, Cedar, 5th, Harrison, Dexter.
But note the RossB point about one lane is true along most of the route. SDOT has taken lanes from Dexter, Stone, 45th, and 65th over the decades. They reduced speed and pedestrian crossing distance.
Raising property taxes for increased bus service should be accompanied by increased fare compliance on busses. Almost half of the riders* I observe on my transit trips do not pay their fares (*albeit not a scientific study). Why should I pay my fare when others do not?
Property taxes aren’t being raised to pay for this, it’s a sales tax.
Why should you do anything? If you witness someone shoplift, do you feel compelled to do so as well? That may seem like a bit of a leap, but surely you pay your fare because you view it as the right thing to do. Getting everyone else to agree with you shouldn’t involve resorting to a vague threat, and not paying your fare is silly (if you can afford it). I don’t have an answer to what the specifics on enforcement should be, but I think we can have the discussion without this sort of “why should I bother if no one else does?” stuff.
That’s a silly argument, Huron. At worst the transit fares are now an honor system. So what? They could get rid of the fares and it wouldn’t change anything. If you want to be like Homer Simpson then go ahead. Don’t pay a dime. That doesn’t change the fact that we should run the buses more often.
Oh, and while there are plenty of people who cheat on their income tax (including, quite likely, the President of the United States) I still think the federal government should provide important services.
But apart from the direct financial impact of fare evasion on bus operations, it also erodes broader political support for measures like this. Many voters, including those who do not take the bus personally, feel that there should be some level of cost-sharing with those who directly use the service being paid for and are less inclined to chip in with their own money when they perceive others to be cheating. Whether they should react this way or not is beside the point. It is clearly a widespread sentiment. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/only-suckers-pay-seattles-heated-transit-fares-debate/. For that matter, shoplifting and tax evasion also generate social distrust and negative spillover effects. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09668136.2024.2378814. Based on the last vote on this measure, there is probably some margin for errors, but in general, I don’t think it’s prudent to dismiss concerns about fare compliance.
I’m not dismissing the political impact of this idea. I’m just saying it is a silly argument. It is easy to complain about transit in this town but it is largely irrelevant to this levy. For example I could see how someone might be so pissed off about Ballard Link that they vote against anything transit related, including this levy. They aren’t even the same agency but it wouldn’t surprise me. The point I’m making is that it is a different issue. The same thing applies here. Whether the county is doing enough about fare evasion has nothing to do with this levy. The question put to voters is whether we should spend more money in Seattle on service or not. If you aren’t happy with fare compliance then you should talk with your county representative.
All cheating should stop. On taxes and fares. Stop with the excuses.
The issue is, for most of the people complaining about non-payment or saying we shouldn’t invest in transit until it’s fixed, no level of success will satisfy them, and they’ll still believe compliance is significantly lower than it is. We’ve seen this with “Rainier Valley is unsafe and you’ll get shot in a drive-by shooting” when violence peaked in the 1990s, overstating the number of undocumented immigrants in the US and their negative impacts, “downtown Seattle is too unsafe to transfer buses in”, and now “nobody pays transit fares” or “hardly anybody does”. No amount of fixing it will satisfy them. We should still improve it, but we shouldn’t be misinformed or intimidated by this claim. It’s more rhetoric of a general attitude than a specific factual statistic claim.
“no amount of fixing”
Put up security and fare gates. Actually arrest or fine anyone who tries to breaks the rules. It’s not hard.
People do things because they don’t get punished for it.
Coleman Dock has faregates.
Have you seen how much staffing they need to make it work? Plus all the maintenance work that goes unseen.
If you wind up dumping so much money into maintaining faregates you have to cut back on service to pay for it all, it’s counterproductive.
Ideally we wouldn’t need faregates. I think fare enforcement as ST does it works well. They just have to actually punish you for it. Instead you get multiple warnings and forgiveness options. I am ok with a chance because mistakes can happen, but after the 2nd ding a fine needs to come and be enforced. Security should remove anyone who is not following conduct within and surrounding the stations. These are public spaces.
Very little reason not to pay. If you’re a regular transit user, the monthly passes are very very affordable. Anyone who doesn’t pay are either taking advantage, or they’re trouble and shouldn’t be on the train. Collect the fares.
Is there a breakout of what service her honor wants to buy with this tax increase? Is it the same old routes or is there something different in her mind? I’ve struggled to find any real detail.say8ng oh transit should be free anyway and we don’t need any effort on collecting fares is is just sticking our heads in the sand. Im sure I’ll be told that I don’t “understand” transit but oh well…
It’s the same kind of thing as the last two STM levies since 2015, so it will be more of the same. SDOT decides which routes and runs to add service to, in consultation with Metro, and based on Metro’s annual performance report of which corridors are the most underserved, the city’s own “Frequent Transit Network” (FTN) map goal, and equity factors.
The goal this time is to get close the FTN: 10-minute daytime service to 70%(?) of the city’s residents. That means boosting almost all routes except the lowest-volume coverage routes (e.g., 27, 79). I’m not holding my breath that it will reach this goal 100%, but if the number of 10-minute routes rises from eight to fifteen or twenty, I’ll be jumping for joy.
In my earlier estimate of 10-minute routes, I forgot about the 7 and 36. So the number I count is eight: C, D, E, H, 7, 36, 40, 44.
In the first STM in 2015-2020 there was also the 45, 48, 65, and 67. So that’s a total of twelve.
In the current network, routes 10 and 12 overlap for 10-minute service to 15th & Pine, where the routes diverge.
Most routes are 15 minutes daytime. So two more runs per hour would raise them to 10 minutes. It would also raise some 20-minute routes/spans to 15 minutes: that would require adding one run per hour. Metro wants to increase the 11, and I expect the 50 would get some attention too, and the evening 8, among others, so these might rise to 15 minutes.