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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
We definitely need to do a lot more outreach to targeted populations of folks living on low incomes downtown and those accessing downtown social and health services. About 10,000 brochures have been distributed, more are on the way to providers in the next few days, including our first printing in Spanish.
The circulator stops are marked by a 3"x 3" inch sticker on the Metro bus route signs at those locations, which is hardly enough. This whole thing is a pilot project and will need to be adjusted on the basis of lessons learned in this early phase. Solid Ground and our partners at Metro Transit and the Seattle Dept. of Transportation are committed to making this work as well as possible, given available resources.
(Also, glad to hear you got your Kindle back!
Mike Buchman
Communications Director
Solid Ground
We definitely need to do a lot more outreach to targeted populations of folks living on low incomes downtown and those accessing downtown social and health services. About 10,000 brochures have been distributed, more are on the way to providers in the next few days, including our first printing in Spanish.
The circulator stops are marked by a 3"x 3" inch sticker on the Metro bus route signs at those locations, which is hardly enough. This whole thing is a pilot project and will need to be adjusted on the basis of lessons learned in this early phase. Solid Ground and our partners at Metro Transit and the Seattle Dept. of Transportation are committed to making this work as well as possible, given available resources.
(Also, glad to hear you got your Kindle back!
Mike Buchman
Communications Director
Solid Ground
This is a red herring. The working poor live south of the city, which means they're already paying to get into downtown.
The ride free area was intended to foster tourism and help business, not to provide free bus service to the poor.
maybe metro could offer a discounted one ($20 per month? )..it seems like we'd need +\- $2000000 in fares per year..so if everyone in seattle and surrounding area donated about$1 each, could it work out?
im in for $20.
What I'm not sad to see go is the absurd pay as you leave fair structure. I've seen countless people dash off the bus without paying. It's a lot easier for the driver to police fares as people come onto the bus than getting off.
Ads outside buses: Expensive stuff for rich people, and DUI lawyers threatening you with being condemned to bus riding if you don't hire them.
Message is obvious.
While I've never been a user of the RFA, I think it's rather presumptuous of us riders who were not frequent users to assert that its eradication is irrelevant. Of course it's irrelevant to those of us who didn't need it- the presence of a community of riders protesting its lost this passionately is proof that it was a vital service for them. I understand that the Metro is facing a funding crisis, but I'm not sure the solution to the problem is reducing schedules, cutting routes, and eradicating services like the RFA (which may have been a gateway to getting more people onto and familiar with the Metro) is a step in the right direction. It seems to me that the worse the service becomes, the less likely those with any other options will use it, and so the service will decline further. Now is the time to be investing in public transit options- personal vehicles are becoming an unfeasible luxury for many people, even leaving environmental concerns aside. Light rail will not become a useful tool for most Seattleites relying on public transportation for quite a few years, and in the meantime the Metro has been regularly raising fares and cutting (or threatening to cut) routes. I am a fan of the new payment options in the form of the Orca card, but its system still has some significant issues- value added to cards has a ridiculous pending time (although the money is deducted from the bank account used immediately) and many buses appear to have malfunctioning Orca readers. I see quite a few people ending up riding without paying a fare at all because their card value is still pending or because the reader isn't working on that trip. I'm also frankly surprised by the new communication/display system in many buses- it seems like the money spent on putting in fancy displays with pre-recorded stop announcements etc. on buses is perhaps an extravagance considering we were threatened with a huge reduction in services without emergency extra funding less than a year ago.
While I've never been a user of the RFA, I think it's rather presumptuous of us riders who were not frequent users to assert that its eradication is irrelevant. Of course it's irrelevant to those of us who didn't need it- the presence of a community of riders protesting its loss this passionately is proof that it was a vital service for them. I understand that the Metro is facing a funding crisis, but I'm not sure the solution to the problem is reducing schedules, cutting routes, and eradicating services like the RFA (which may have been a gateway to getting more people onto and familiar with the Metro). It seems to me that the worse the service becomes, the less likely those with any other options will use it, and so the service will decline further. Now is the time to be investing in public transit options- personal vehicles are becoming an unfeasible luxury for many people, even leaving environmental concerns aside. Light rail will not become a useful tool for most Seattleites relying on public transportation for quite a few years, and in the meantime the Metro has been regularly raising fares and cutting (or threatening to cut) routes. I am a fan of the new payment options in the form of the Orca card, but its system still has some significant issues- value added to cards has a ridiculous pending time (although the money is deducted from the bank account used immediately) and many buses appear to have malfunctioning Orca readers. I see quite a few people ending up riding without paying a fare at all because their card value is still pending or because the reader isn't working on that trip. I'm also frankly surprised by the new communication/display system in many buses- it seems like the money spent on putting in fancy displays with pre-recorded stop announcements etc. on buses is perhaps an extravagance considering we were threatened with a huge reduction in services without emergency extra funding less than a year ago.
Needless to say, the zone was abused by a lot of people and for that we can blame Metro for not enforcing the pay as you leave rule. And not only that, drivers should not allowed passengers on who ththey knew wouldn't pay when they get off (the repeat offenders). And for that we can blame Metro's management for not supporting the drivers and many of the drivers who just didn't give a shit.
@29: I don't really blame the drivers. I was on a bus once where a driver decided to enforce the rules. We sat there for about 20 minutes while he waited for a transit cop to arrive. If I were a driver I'm not sure I'd consider it a reasonable tradeoff to make 30 people late in order to punish one freeloader.
when I first came to this city I though the Ride Free area was great. the other effect that I noticed is that Downtown is like a ghost town compared to how it was. There is significantly less people around and more drug addicts and drunks hanging around the pike and pine lately. I wouldnt be surprised if the elimination of the RFA is found out to cost local businesses throughout the RFA millions a year
Are you guys going to cover the clusterfuck that is the Rapid Ride C? Westies got totally screwed in the route revamps. West Seattle Blog has been covering the last week pretty well, but I would love to see wider coverage.
In response to @4's comment about concealed carry and self-defense laws, they are ultimately undermined by the ability to take a firearm to one's destination. The courts have upheld employers' right to ban guns in the workplace. If one can't take a gun to the destination, then having it in transit is eliminated.
Of course, this leaves aside the fact that public transit shouldn't be a place where one feels significantly threatened to *need* to resort to deadly force.