July 12

Proposed Metro service reductions meeting tonight

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Don’t forget tonight’s public meeting on proposed bus service cuts by Metro Transit in the wake of severe budget problems, which we reported on last week.

Metro Transit is asking the King County Council for a temporary $20 annual surcharge on licensed vehicles as a stop-gap measure to maintain bus service. Metro has announced that if the council doesn’t approve the surcharge, it will have to cut up to 600,000 service hours – or 17 percent of current bus routes – in 2012 and 2013.

Due to the dramatic recession-driven drop in sales tax revenues, Metro Transit is facing a $60 million annual deficit between revenues and the cost of providing current levels of transit service. That shortfall would require Metro to shrink service by 600,000 hours of annual bus service over the next two years, or 17 percent of the entire system, which is the equivalent of cutting all weekend transit service or all weekday commuter service.

The State Legislature authorized a tool that is available to King County to help maintain Metro service at its current level: a temporary $20 Congestion Reduction Charge on vehicle licenses for each of the next two years. County Executive Constantine has sent that proposal to the County Council as well as two other pieces of legislation:

  • An ordinance approving a Congestion Relief Plan, a prerequisite for Council action on a Congestion Reduction Charge.
  • An ordinance cutting 100,000 hours of Metro bus service effective February 2012, the first step in reducing bus service by 600,000 service hours.

These cuts would his Queen Anne riders hard, eliminating routes 2 (north of downtown) 4, 15EX, 18, 26, 28, 45, 81 and 82, and reducing and/or revising a number of others, including routes 1, 2EX, 3, 8, 13, 15, 16, 17 (regular and EX), 18EX, 24, 26EX, 28EX, 30, 31 and 33. Read our previous coverage for more information on how these changes will affect transit in Queen Anne and the greater Seattle area.

Tonight’s meeting is at 6 p.m. at the King County Courthouse, Council Chambers, at 516 Third Ave., Seattle. If you can’t make it tonight, there’s one more meeting at 6 p.m. next Thursday, July 21, at the Burien City Council Chambers, at 400 SW 152nd St., Burien.

If you can’t make it to one of the public hearings, you can submit your comments directly to the King County Council online. Transportation for Washington also has a form letter you can fill out in support of the congestion reduction charge.

Click here for a complete list of all routes (.pdf) and whether the proposal calls for them to be eliminated, reduced or remain unchanged. Click here for a map (.pdf) of all affected routes in Northwest Seattle.


Tags

budget cuts, King County Council, Metro Transit, route eliminations, service cuts, stop-gap measure, temporary $20 annual surcharge


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