Metro Cuts Brown Bag is Wednesday

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

UPDATE: I’m told it’ll be Triplett attending, but not Constantine.

I really wish I could make this, but the City of Seattle is hosting a brown bag meeting at noon, August 12, at Seattle City Hall.  Many key players will be there.

It’s unclear to me if they’re going to introduce anything that we haven’t covered already, but if anyone has the time to attend we’d appreciate a report in the comments, or you could even email us a guest report!

On Wednesday, Aug. 12 join Seattle City Council’s Transportation Committee for a special noontime session.

The format is designed to engage decision-makers and stakeholders in a frank conversation about looming Metro budget shortfalls and what they may mean to Seattle transit riders.

The discussion will include members of the city’s Transportation Committee, King County Council Chair Dow Constantine, Metro General Manger Kevin Desmond, as well representatives from the Downtown Seattle Association, Transportation Choices Coalition and city neighborhoods. Acting King County Executive Kurt Triplett is also invited.

Attendees will hear a presentation of proposed changes in service by Metro transit and a discussion by the panel participants, followed by audience questions.

Who:            Seattle City Council Transportation Committee
What:           Brown Bag meeting on Metro service cuts
When :          Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009 – 12 noon
Where:          City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue – Council Chambers, Floor 2

Bike Share Expo Today, Tomorrow

Posted on by Adam Bejan Parast
BIXI by ChristineTran
BIXI by ChristineTran

Bike sharing is slowly coming to North America, and King County is kicking off the conversation in Seattle with a Expo today at the SLU Discovery Center (10am to 6pm) and tomorrow at Redmond Town Center (noon to 8pm). DC had the first bike sharing system in North America, but it failed to deliver due to a small and dispersed bike station network. This summer Montreal unveiled the first real bike share system in North America. Called Bixi, the system has 3,000 bikes and 300 stations. Bixi is similar to Paris’ Velib and other bike share systems in many ways. Hallmarks of the most successful systems are:

  • Electronic, subscription based systems that make riders accountable for bicycles while they are checked out (see Copenhagen’s city bike program for why)
  • Fare structures that encourage short rentals and thus high turnover (rentals shorter than 30 minutes are typically free)
  • A large, dense network of biking sharing stations (Paris’ stations are spaced at internals of 1000 ft)
  • Privately operated by advertising companies that are given adverting monopolies in the city (two big companies are Clear Channel and JCDecaux)
  • Unique, well maintained and theft determent bikes (Bixi won several design competitions for their bikes)
  • Real time management of the number of bikes at each station (from personal experience I know Barcelona does this very poorly while Paris does much better)
  • Implementation accompanied by significant investment in bicycle network infrastructure

Metro has already sent out a Request For Information so hopefully this event won’t just be a tease and something will come of it. Stop by today or tomorrow and check it out.

Greg Nickels for Mayor

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Wikimedia Commons
Mayor Greg Nickels (wikimedia)

All serious Seattle candidates say they’ll fight for transit, but Mayor Greg Nickels has an especially sterling record on this score.  On the most important issue facing this region — whether or not to build rail — Nickels has been on the right side of the argument, and in the cockpit of many of the key decisions.  As Sound Transit enters another decade of crucial and complex projects, we want his voice to maintain the region’s focus on our ultimate goals.

As Mayor, one’s ability to impact transit operations is limited.  However, Nickels has a solid record of finding ways to make a difference and to deliver.  Through the Bridging the Gap levy, Nickels funded bus lanes, bicycle lanes, and partnered with Metro to get additional bus service outside the 20/40/40 framework.  Nickels also put his political capital on the line for the Streetcar network — one that we support, and one that continues to be controversial.

We’re also pleased with the Mayor’s general willingness to overcome “neighborhood activists” to provide the livable density that is both an environmental imperative and critical to a livable, vibrant city.  In liberal Seattle, associating oneself with the interests of Paul Allen can be risky, but we’re very excited about the path that South Lake Union has taken under the Mayor’s leadership.

Most important, however, is the Mayor’s instrumental leadership of Sound Transit.  As Chair of the Sound Transit Board, Nickels was the critical player in getting Sound Transit 2 on the ballot in 2008, a move that looks even better in hindsight than it did then.  It is his legacy.

That’s not to say that we have no disagreements with Nickels.  In particular, we think he gave in too easily to other interests on both the Waterfront Streetcar and the deep-bore tunnel.  We are especially concerned that enormous expenditure on the tunnel could crowd out the city’s other transportation priorities.  But these concerns are balanced against a long record of leadership and results on our regional priorities.

We should also say a few good words about Mike McGinn.  Mr. McGinn’s passion to build  light rail at all costs is not quite that of Nickels, but his stance on the issues matches ours nearly perfectly.  Indeed, if there were no incumbent in this race, McGinn would be a strong contender for our endorsement.   However, given an incumbent with a strong record on the issues and a history of cutting through Seattle process to achieve results, substantial agreement is not enough to win our endorsement.

Our editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen, with valued input from the rest of the staff. Read our Seattle City Council endorsements and our King County Executive endorsements.  This concludes STB’s series of endorsements.

Constantine or Phillips for County Executive

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Larry Phillips
Larry Phillips

Unlike most elections, we have an excellent choice of candidates in the King County Executive race.  A strongly pro-transit voter could feel good about supporting a few different candidates if the voter felt strongly about some other aspect of the candidate’s platform or personality.

Nevertheless, we’ve chartered ourselves to consider the transit and land use portfolio of the candidates, and in our judgment Dow Constantine and Larry Phillips are the best of the group. Each candidate deserves your consideration.

Dow Constantine (Seattle Weekly)
Dow Constantine (Seattle Weekly)

Phillips and Constantine have been steadfast supporters of Sound Transit.  Although there’s no immediate political action on Sound Transit on the horizon, we should see the groundwork for the Sound Transit 3 package form over the coming years.  Further, it’s reasonable to expect some sort of crisis in the next few.  In that event, we want an uncompromising friend of ST in the critical County Executive spot.

On Metro, Phillips has presented the most detailed plan to address Metro’s funding gap, though it is much the same as every credible plan to fix Metro’s problems. Constantine is deeply involved in addressing the Metro crisis through his chairmanship of the Regional Transit Committee. Constantine and Phillips have equally good judgment and candor to address Metro’s budget.

Both candidates represent Seattle on the King County Council and understand that cutting the highest demand routes makes no sense. Constantine received a degree in Urban Planning from UW and shows unique honesty when he says that Eastside commuter rail along the BNSF corridor is not going to happen. Phillips has a well-organized, strong campaign and when he met with us it became clear that he’s a true transit wonk.

Though he doesn’t haven’t as solid of a pro-Sound Transit record as his peers, Ross Hunter has very interesting ideas about tying bus service to density and has been critical in getting more funding authority for Metro in the legislature.

Nevertheless, we’re more impressed by Constantine and Phillips’s credentials than the others. Vote Dow Constantine or Larry Phillips for King County Executive.  We hoped to endorse a single candidate, but the differences on transit between the two are simply too insignificant to make a meaningful distinction.

Our editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen, with valued input from the rest of the staff. Read our Seattle City Council endorsements.

STB Meet-Up Features McGinn, O’Brien, Beer

Posted on by John Jensen
Some of the crowd watches candidates speak.
Some of the crowd watches candidates speak.

If you didn’t happen to make it to our blog meet-up last night at the Columbia City Alehouse, you missed out. First of all, going to a bar in Columbia City is a great excuse to ride our light rail line. Second, you missed great presentations from various politicos.

First up was Dow Constantine’s chief of staff, Chris Arkills. Dow’s running for Executive of King County and had planned to attend our meet-up, but the League of Women Voters failed to consult us when scheduling their candidate forum… So, instead, Dow sent a trusted adviser (and a fan of the blog) our way to talk about the West Seattle Water Taxi, Metro’s funding gap, and light rail. We’ll be endorsing for the executive race tomorrow.

Next up is Mike O’Brien, who’s running for Seattle city council, position 8. Just yesterday, we endorsed O’Brien and it was great to hear him speak. He is a very charismatic vote for land use, density, and transit. He speaks in depth about improving bus service in particular but within the confines of the abilities of the council job. Our one reservation was his hesitance to support streetcar expansion — he said he’d generally err on the side of more bus hours. For a corridor like 1st Ave in Seattle, this blog has maintained that a streetcar simply provides more efficient and better service than a bus where the density supports it. 1st Ave has that density, and we hope O’Brien comes around at least on this proposed line. O’Brien passion against the tunnel is unparalleled — well, except for one other guy…

Mike O'Brien and Mike McGinn
Mike O'Brien and Mike McGinn

Last up was Mike McGinn, candidate for Mayor of Seattle. He spoke defiantly and eloquently against the SR-99 tunnel and pledged to prevent the tunnel from being built in this city. Obviously a proponent of the surface/transit option, McGinn used various questions to draw attention back to the tunnel and the resources it’ll require to build. Within a few minutes, the tunnel was compared to the monorail, Hillary Clinton, and RTID. Like O’Brien, McGinn has qualms about streetcar expansion and particularly finding a funding source for it. However, on most issues and especially land use, McGinn was convincing and earnest. We’ll be endorsing a candidate for Mayor on Monday.

After a lengthy Q&A, the Transportation Choice Coalition pub crawl met up with us and brought Jesse Israel along. We endorsed Israel for Seattle city council as well, and go to hear more of her thoughts. (She’s definitely a streetcar supporter!)

For a bit more depth, you can follow our Twittering of the meet-up. Thanks to all of you who showed up, especially the politicos who gave us their time.

County Exec Roundup

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons

King County Executive is by far the most critical position up for election this year from a transit standpoint. The Executive is not only the ultimate authority over Metro, but he or she also appoints representatives to the Sound Transit Board.

Below is my attempt to digest some of the transportation-related positions taken by the four major Democratic King County Executive candidates (Dow Constantine, Larry Phillips, Fred Jarrett, and Ross Hunter) recently, as reported at Publicola, by the P-I’s “Strange Bedfellows“, the Seattle Times endorsement interview, and on the candidates’ own websites.The other front-runner, Susan Hutchison, has fairly vague positions that don’t really fit in the framework below, and I’ve dealt with her ideas in another post.

The first conclusion you reach after viewing all this material is that the four positions are very, very similar.  From this, it’s clear what the next Executive is going to push for with only small areas of uncertainty.

Metro Budget Crisis

Metro to Fund RapidRide with No Net Tax Increase

Posted on by John Jensen
King Count Executive Kurt Kurt Triplett announcing Metro funding increases.
King County Executive Kurt Triplett announcing Metro funding increases. Photo from West Seattle Blog.

RapidRide will be saved, announced interim King County Executive Kurt Triplett. Triplett announced plans today to use recent legislative authority to create a transit share of property taxes of 5.5 cents, while cutting other levies to make the plan tax neutral.

“This five-and-a-half cents for Metro Transit would provide 23,000 additional passenger trips a day on our most heavily used corridors during a time when overall bus ridership has jumped 20%,” the Executive said in a press release. This would amount to about $18m a year for Metro, compared with a structural deficit of about $100m a year.

The legislature granted property taxing authority of 7.5 cents per $1000 of assessed value for public transit. The legislature also allowed for enactment of an MVET, but the Governor vetoed that portion of the bill.

Funding would be used primarily to save the beleaguered RapidRide bus rapid transit network that Metro is planning to roll out over the coming years. Failing to deliver on RapidRide could have been politically infeasible given that the 2006 Transit Now! measure campaigned heavily on the idea of rapid, frequent, and fast RapidRide service servicing the fastest growing areas in King County. That measure that increased Metro’s sales tax authority by 0.1% to a maxed-out 0.9%.

The legislature mandated that a portion of the property taxing authority must be dedicated to SR-520 service. Metro is receiving millions in urban partnership funds to buy new buses for the 520 corridor, but no money from those grants fund bus service. Tolls are set to begin along span next year.

Since all of this funding will be used to fund RapidRide and SR-520 service, this additional revenue may not help avoid deep service cuts. Triplett said he will announce a plan next week that will outline the expected deep service cuts and perhaps fare increases. Last November, the King County Council approved a 50-cent fare hike that will finish phasing in next January. It’s hard to say how much more fare riders can stand to pay, particularly without some sort of hardship or poverty exemption.

Read on for more details after the jump…

Continue reading “Metro to Fund RapidRide with No Net Tax Increase”

Seattle Times Gets Lazy

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

I’ve decided, provisionally, to stop whining about the perceived editorial slant of the Times. Every editorial desk has its own biases, including STB’s, and there’s no reason to get particularly worked up about the fact that theirs is substantially different from mine.

However, there are two really major facts missing in Sonia Krishnan’s really weak piece about the lack of park-and-rides around light rail, facts that could have been included with a little more research, or, just reading this blog:

First, for all the poor souls who have no choice but to drive to light rail, there are scattered pay lots in the Valley.  In my part-time effort I’ve identified two: one near Beacon Hill (with very restricted hours), and one 3 or 4 blocks from Columbia City.  At $3/day, along with fares it would cost you 7 bucks a day to go downtown, which beats driving there.  Through the magic of the market, this is provided at no cost to the taxpayer.  Of course, light rail opponents aren’t interested in the system’s cost when they’re bashing it for not including their pet feature or routing.

Secondly, this has to be about the weakest unchallenged complaint of the year:

With her Metro bus stop in flux, she said, she’ll probably end up driving to work.

Hunter said she’d be happy to take the Metro bus to the station, but it’s still unclear how her route might change because of light rail.

Her Metro bus stop is in flux! Why, every morning, it randomly moves about as if by magic!

It is factually incorrect to state that the route change is “unclear”; King County has decided on the change and publicized it.  If Ms. Hunter is “unclear” how her route might change, she might have paid a little bit of attention to the three mailers that Metro sent to everyone in the Valley, or come to an open house, or seen any of the local ads, or occasionally checked the Metro website, or even now gone here.   And it isn’t as if the September 19 service change won’t get more publicity in the Southeast than usual.

I’m being a little harsh on Ms. Hunter here: people are remarkably ignorant of developments that affect them greatly, and should have the right to be.  But for a local reporter who ostensibly “covers” transportation to not be aware of this — or not bother to point it out — is pretty contemptible.  It would be trivial to check if bus changes would affect Ms. Hunter’s commute, but Ms. Krishnan declined to do so.

Hutchison on Transportation

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Susan Hutchison (Wikimedia Commons)
Susan Hutchison (Wikimedia Commons)

Andrew Villenueve, over at the Northwest Progressive Institute Blog, did us all the public service of transcribing King County Executive Candidate Susan Hutchinson’s remarks at a candidate forum in North Bend last month.  Money quote:

The Regional Transportation Commission that was set up by the governor with a bipartisan leadership – Norm Rice and John Stanton – presented a two… uh, a… a study… and, I’ve read it, it’s about a half an inch thick. And in it, after they conducted their study, they made this recommendation, that all of our transportation agencies needed to fall under one authority.

That information then went back to Olympia… and no one did a thing. Nothing has changed.

The 120-page 2006 PSRTC report is not the arch-conservative document it’s often made out to be, as it comes out pretty strongly in favor of congestion pricing and higher taxes.  However, Hutchison is referring to its prescription to form a 15-person permanent commission, 60% elected, that would control all road and transit revenue and expenditure, as well as land-use decisions, in a four-county area.  The 6 appointees would be appointed by the governor, and could not be a serving elected official.  This report, obviously, was one inspiration for the infamous 2007 roads-and-transit ballot measure that failed, largely due to that very linkage.  At any rate, this kind of reorganization is well beyond the powers of the King County Executive.

We’ve said bad things about governance reform in the past, and will do so again in the near future.

On another note, Hutchison’s website contains this under the subject of “Transportation”.

Traffic congestion robs King County residents of valuable time with their families every day. Susan will quickly implement simple changes to encourage transit ridership, such as expanded GPS-based bus tracking and a color-route system so public transportation is more accessible and user-friendly for visitors, commuters, and every day travel.

Metro, as many of you know, is already planning to institute full scale GPS tracking in 2010.  The Hutchinson campaign did not reply to an email asking for details on these two items, as well as for confirmation of the quote above.

Full text of the question and response after the jump.  And please, let’s keep the comments oriented towards transportation and land use. Continue reading “Hutchison on Transportation”

Metro Receives Stimulus Funds for New Buses

Posted on by Oran Viriyincy
Orion VII bus from Daimler Buses (manufacturer photo)
Orion VII bus from Daimler Buses (manufacturer photo)

King County Metro Transit announced today that it will be purchasing 93 new buses from Daimler Buses through a $46 million grant awarded under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. King County Metro originally requested funds for 60 new buses but lower costs than expected allowed them to get 33 more. The agreement includes options to purchase 400 more buses in addition to the initial 93 buses over 5 years. Metro said they expect to see the first prototype delivered in about a year and the rest of the ordered buses delivered in early 2011.

The Orion VII buses will feature a modern look, low floors, air conditioning, and hybrid-electric technology which reduces fuel consumption, noise and emissions. They will replace Metro’s aging fleet of 40-foot Gilligs, which will be 14 years old when the new buses arrive. That’s two years longer than the expected life span of a transit bus. The Gilligs that Metro currently has are high floor and don’t have air conditioning. Over 700 hybrid-electric Orion VIIs are currently in service in New York City, Toronto, and San Francisco.

Via Capitol Hill Seattle blog, NWCN

Transportation 2040: Be Bold

Posted on by Adam Bejan Parast
Transportation 2040 Alternative Costs
Transportation 2040 Alternative Costs

Transportation 2040, the update to Destination 2030, is a major decision point for the region. We have a choice to boldly move forward to reduce congestion, better fund transportation, and reduce CO2 or we can shy away from controversy and choose a business as usual alternative that hardly fixes these issues.

PSRC has been working for over two years on this update and it is currently soliciting public feedback on five different proposal alternatives. PSRC uses a scenario based planning process that emphasizes how a particular policy objective or decision will affect the region. These alternatives often fill out the full array of possible policy directions and are compared to a single “baseline” which includes current conditions plus funded projects (Nickel, TPA, ST2, RapidRide, Swift). I began to outline the alternatives myself, but I think these slides from a PRSC presentation to the Quality Growth Alliance will give you a better overview. I have included key slides but it is probably best if you download the presentation here. If you would like to learn more about the alternatives read the 42 page Plan Alternative Chapter (5.9 MBs) or the 38 page Executive Summary (16 MBs).

PSRC titles the alternatives one through five as follows.

  • Alternative 1: Emphasize the Efficiency of the Existing System: This assumes limited new transportation funding. It emphasizes system and demand management through great ITS and HOT lane tolling. ($165 Billion)
  • Alternative 2: Emphasize Roadway and Transit Capacity Expansion: This is the business as usual alternative (i.e. Destination 2030) and essentially is a capacity improvement alternative. ($201 Billion)
  • Alternative 3: Toll Revenues Expand Capacity and Improve Efficiency: This alternative is where we are currently. All major freeway improvements will be tolled for management and funding purposes. ($188 Billion)
  • Alternative 4: Combine Traditional Revenues and Tolls to Maximize Efficiency: This alternative explores the use of freeway wide tolling, traditional revenue sources, and strategic capacity expansions. It includes high bus service increases and ST3 level rail investments. ($192 Billion)
  • Alternative 5: Reduce Emissions with Limited Highway Investments and Regional Tolling: This alternative uses system wide tolling to manage demand and invests extensively in transit and non-motorized transportation. It is the only alternative that attempts to reduce CO2 emissions. ($196 Billion)

Continue reading “Transportation 2040: Be Bold”

Call for Endorsements

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

STB is going to tackle its primary election endorsements over the next few weeks.  This is your chance to influence that process.

Feel free to link to anything we should know about a candidate we like (or don’t like) in the comments.  Here are the things not to do:

  • Address an issue other than transit or land use.
  • Reference a candidate for King County Exec or Seattle Mayor.  We’re tracking those races, thanks.
  • Link to anything from Publicola.  That’s required reading at STB HQ, so we’re already well aware of it.

Thanks!

Cities on the Short End of Stimulus

Posted on by Andrew Smith
One of the worst bridges in Washington
The South Park Bridge received a 6 out of 100 in the Federal Highway Administration's safety rating, but no stimulus money went to repairing it. Photo by Jim Carson

This excellent New York Times article sums up what was wrong with the portion of the transportation stimulus bill that was passed back in February:

Two-thirds of the country lives in large metropolitan areas, home to the nation’s worst traffic jams and some of its oldest roads and bridges. But cities and their surrounding regions are getting far less than two-thirds of federal transportation stimulus money.

According to an analysis by The New York Times of 5,274 transportation projects approved so far — the most complete look yet at how states plan to spend their stimulus money — the 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money. In many cases, they have lost a tug of war with state lawmakers that urban advocates say could hurt the nation’s economic engine

The graphic, below the fold, specifically points out how Seattle got the short end from Olympia:

Continue reading “Cities on the Short End of Stimulus”

Metro Financial Policies

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Committee Chair Dow Constantine (kuow.org)
Committee Chair Dow Constantine (kuow.org)

The last agenda item in the June 17 Regional Transit Commitee meeting was a review of Metro’s financial policies.  The report itself (.doc) was even more boring than it sounds, but there were some interesting comments and ideas from the committee afterwards.

The much-publicized $105m Revenue Fleet Replacement Sub-fund surplus could fund Metro’s deficit through the end of 2010.  Committee members seemed to latch on to that as meaning they could avoid any pain, but of course it merely postpones the day of reckoning.  Metro service volume will not recover to 2008 levels for the better part of a decade barring a permanent new source of revenue, as Chair Dow Constantine pointed out:

It is remarkable how much you can throw in, in terms of money transferred from fleet replacement, in terms of new revenues, and still not make a huge dent in the number of service hours we’re faced with potentially having to cut.

Continue reading “Metro Financial Policies”

No Service Cut Guidance Yet

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

tradeoffsAnother part of the June 17 Regional Transit Committee meeting was another round of discussion of Metro cuts.  Once again, the Committee punted on giving Metro firm guidance on service cuts, instead holding out hopes that painless internal cuts can close the gap.  The Metro presentation, which contains little new information, is available here.

Seattle Councilmember Jan Drago was something of an exception (43:00 in the video), as she read into the record a letter from the City requesting that:

  • service reductions should be treated as “suspensions” rather than “cuts”, so that they would not be subject to the usual subarea criteria;
  • emphasize ridership, transit-dependent communities, growth management goals, and slowed implementation of Transit Now, in that order.  Transit Now investments that leverage external funding would be retained.
  • Metro develop a “moderate ridership impact” scenario that falls between the high-ridership, pure-productivity approach and one that essentially cuts a bit from everything.

Drago remarked that the high productivity plan resulted in an “unacceptable” loss of 40% of Eastside riders, while the other plans were unacceptable to the West subarea ridership.

Both Issaquah Councilmember Fred Butler and Sammamish Councilmember Kathy Huckabay spoke in favor of higher fares to close the gap, in conjunction with various unspecified efficiency improvements.

The King County Council must decide on a cuts policy by September to allow them to go into effect by February, although there’s talk of delaying the decision to January 2010 and the actual cuts till June 2010.  By burning through more cash reserves this way, the Council might get more time to scrounge for cash, and, it must be said, postpone a decision till after the election.

Pierce Transit Service Cuts

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
The 212A, by raggiesoft
"The 212A", by raggiesoft

Pierce Transit’s July 12 service change (pdf) includes an overall 5% cut in service.  According to the News Tribune, that’s 33,000 service hours and about 300,000 boardings.  As one might expect, it’s due to a $10m revenue shortfall out of a $121m budget.

Apparently, the agency has decided to cut low-productivity routes, even though that cuts off some people from bus service entirely.  King County, fraught with subarea resentment, is still agonizing over that value judgment.

Pierce Transit has also worked all the cost-cutting gimmicks, like layoffs, dipped into reserves, and increased fares by a quarter.  Interestingly, their farebox recovery is only 13%, well below King County’s.

City Passes 600,000

Posted on by Andrew Smith
japan may 1375
Seattle at an Angle, photo by author

This is a bit wonky and not quite transit related: but here’s an update on the march toward density in our area. According to the state Office of Financial Management (via the P-I), Seattle’s population grew 1.6% from April 2008 to April 2009, reaching 602,000 people. The state overall grew 1.2% to 6,668,200 and King County grew 1.3% to 1,909,300 (1% outside of Seattle). The state’s population growth has slowed from 1.9% to 1.2%, but Seattle’s growth has grown during that period from 1.1% to 1.6%. Why has Seattle’s population grown faster than the state at large and King County? Housing growth. King County added about 10,500 housing units from 2008 to 2009, while Seattle alone added nearly 6,000. Future growth in housing stock will likely slow over the coming years due to the housing bubble bursting,  however there’s still fair amount of housing construction underway right now and the city’s growth will likely continue over the next twelve to eighteen months.

Growth management finally seems to be working: unincorporated King County only gained 2,030 people, or 0.59% from 2008 to 2009. This is offset by annexations of unincorporated areas. Still, main urban areas are accounting for much of the state’s growth. From 1999 to 2009, Seattle’s population grew 38,624 in total, a 6.9% uptick with no annexations. Bellevue grew by 10,773 people to 120,600, a 9.8% increase with 2,747 (2.7%) coming from annexations. Tacoma and Spokane have both crossed 200,000 this decade, with reaching 203,400 and 205,500, respectively.

I should caution that these are official approximations, and could end up looking very different from the official census that will be taken in 2010. The OFM creates these approximations from data such as driver’s licence filings, school enrollments and voter registrations.

Metro Presents Service Cut Planning Strategies

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Photo by Oran
Photo by Oran

On May 20, Metro staff made yet another presentation to the King County Council Regional Transit Committee, fleshing out alternative strategies for service cuts. The slideshow is available online. (ppt)

Metro presented two service cut strategies to build on the six they presented in April (pdf). One is a “refined” option that emphasizes high-demand corridors and eliminates routes to many low-ridership areas, tweaking a previous proposal of this type.  The other is a kind of blanket cut, the “blended” option, which hits peak and off-peak service proportionally. Both envision cuts to each subarea in proportion to that subarea’s current allocation, in accordance with Metro policy.

The refined plan sees annual ridership drop from 109.7 to 95.2 million, a drop of 15.5 million, while eliminating 104 routes. The blended plan sees a drop of 20.5 million annual passengers and only eliminates 40 routes.  Details below the jump.

Continue reading “Metro Presents Service Cut Planning Strategies”

20/40/40 Under Fire

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Photo by Oran
Photo by Oran

[Update: Aubrey Cohen at the P-I takes this post and runs with it, by collecting some quotes from some of the important players.]

The service allocation rule known as 20/40/40 is a directive from the King County Council that requires new Metro service hours in the proportions 20%/40%/40%. That is, 20% to the West area (Seattle, Shoreline, etc.), 40% to the East area, and 40% to South King County.  It is intended to gradually remedy the traditional allocation to Seattle well in excess of its share of the County’s population, and bring service to areas that currently have little or no transit access.

Critics have long contended that this reduces Metro’s cost efficiency and denies relief for overloaded routes in dense, transit-dependent areas.  As we discovered in February, Metro policy dictates that cuts be made in proportion to the current service levels (approximately 60/20/20).  This means that cuts would heavily impact Seattle, but restored service would be directed to the suburbs.  $100m in operating cuts would therefore require a $300m budget increase to fully restore the situation in Seattle.

This asymmetry, combined with the strong likelihood of some service cuts, has given new energy to the 20/40/40 opponents.  Last week, the P-I reported that  King County Executive candidate and State Sen. Fred Jarrett, perhaps trying to reach beyond his Eastside base, came out against 20/40/40 as a “failed model.”

On nearly the same day, Mayor Nickels’ office sent a letter to Interim County Executive Kurt Triplett (pdf) insisting that the strictly geographic criteria be replaced with four metrics: Continue reading “20/40/40 Under Fire”