The people that need to fund this are the assholes that drive their B.M.W's and their Lexus' and Mercedes to an from work BY THEMSELVES. A tax on the value of your vehicle, in other words. If you can afford an $80,000 car or truck then you can afford to put up another few $ to fund the program for the people that actually use public transportation.

@1
First, those "assholes" who drive BMWs and such may also use the metro. I have a car, and I also use the bus when parking is not practical.
Second, how is it morally justifiable to take money from someone to give to someone else by force? No matter what the cause, it's wrong. What if someone couldn't afford a beer, should the guy drinking an expensive wine be taxed so everyone can have an alcoholic beverage? Should a man with three girlfriends and a wife be taxed so someone who can't get laid can buy a hooker? Where does it end?

@2:
We're talking about giving someone basic transportation, not hookers and blow.

@3
Define "basic transportation?" In many places that means a bicycle. And people don't need to be "given" simple things like transportation by the State, as they can do those things easily for themselves if the State wouldn't get in the way.
For example, take the whole ridesharing thing. People come up with an easy alternative through their own innovation, and the State comes in with its licensing, regulations and armed enforcers (police) and threatens to stop it.

Now, the state has a bus system that isn't working out because The State can't run anything right, and you're proposing that the state use force to obtain the funds from people, THE SAME PEOPLE who can easily create their own systems of transit (and just about everything else) if the government didn't use violence to oppress them.

In short, it is the State taking a paternalistic approach to us.

A healthier alternative would be to hand the bus system over to either a private company or a non-profit co-opts of voluntary citizens, like the Transit Rider's Union. That way people who need the metro get the metro and no one is forced to pay for it if they don't have to and no force is used.

F ^^^ the State!

@5
Roads are perfectly moral, unlike most programs of the State. Roads are funded by gasoline tax, and people who pump gasoline into their vehicles are choosing to drive. Hence they use it and they pay for it and there is no theft.

It isn't that bad to have a program funded by The State just as long as only people who use it pay for it.

Still, an alternative would be to hand it along with all things of the State to its users in the public to run as they see fit, either through non-profit co-ops or private businesses.

@6, Collectivism_sucks

It's simply absurd to compare the drinking or sex needs of a person to the needs of getting to and from a job.

This is the United States, therefore a bicycle is not really basic transportation (yet). The ability to use a road to get somewhere quickly is defined as our basic transportation, whether that be on a bus or in a car.

Roads are not fully funded by the gas tax. Bridging the Gap is a property tax levy. The Mercer work is 100% funded by non-gas tax sources (Port of Seattle, BtG, etc). The SR99 tunnel gets funding from about 15% non-road related sources. Even the Federal Highway Trust Fund needs injection from the general fund to help fund highway projects. Same with the state roads budget after the passage of I-695. It's a flat out lie to say the gas tax and other road fees fund roads in their entirety. Is it moral for road users to be funded by the same monies that goes towards education and healthcare? No, but that is exactly what happens at a state and federal level.

Metro isn't a State funded project or resource, it's owned and operated by King County. If the State let King County actually work freely and do what was most logical, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

Bus systems in the United States used to be private up until the 1960's and 1970's. But due to the massive subsidies received by the car (tax the private transit agencies, subsidize private motorists), the transit agencies couldn't keep up and collapsed. Same with streetcars in the 1930's being purchased by the big auto interests and dismantled. Why not let the Transit Riders Union be the community as a whole, just like it is now?

@6 Private business would run government more efficiently and not screw the poor? AHAHAHAHAHAHA*coughcoughcough*

Sorry. You were saying?

@7

The reason gas taxes do not fully fund the roads is because the State (by that I mean government, not the state of Washington) is corrupt by nature and is in fact a corporatist-state (fascism light) If road maintenance and improvement was denationalized and handed over to the people to rule directly, it would be a lot cheaper to run, same with Metro. Why? Because the corporate-state creates corruption that hurts efficiency while a volunteer run program for riders by riders would be 100% efficient and accountable only to the riders.

The reason private ownership of mass transit in America was hard was because the corporate-state regulated them out of existence...and why? Because the automobile industry paid off some politicians. Other countries, that actually have free markets, don't have these problems.

@9
I never it had to be a business. Metro could be taken over by a non-profit co-op. Just as long as it's voluntary.

And it isn't businesses who steal up to a third of the poor people's money in a form of legalized theft called taxation. That is what the corporate-state does. And the same corporate-state degrades the value of what little money poor people are left with after taxes by printing more of it and causing inflation...AND ON TOP OF THAT they use regulations to make it all but impossible for the poor to lift themselves out of poverty (making people get permit they can't afford to so much as make fifty dollars on the weekend breading hair)

AND THEN, if the poor don't allow the corporate-state to rob from them and don't give in to the corporate-state's regulations, they send armed thugs (police) to take said poor people to jail.

AND YET STILL, if the poor want to take their ease with a little cannabis or MDMA, they send the thugs in to arrest them for having the audacity to do with their own bodies as they see fit.

So tell me again how the government doesn't hate the poor?

David, If you think the diesel exhaust of a bus is a problem, imagine the fumes of over 100 more cars on the road without that one bus. Likewise ... think about an extra 100 cars jamming every intersection you drive up to today.

Metro is not just for metro riders - it serves everyone.

"Collectivism Sucks" is hardly a useful war cry for anti-Metro people when they live in a society that provides government subsidized police, highways, emergency services, parking, traffic courts, gas, vehicle admin departments ... ETC.

Anyone who says that Metro transit should 'pay for itself' has not examined how much the private automobile has ALWAYS been subsidized.

As a non-driving taxpayer, I could protest paying for government funded car-services, but it would be as silly as saying I won't pay for education because I don't have a kid in school. We all benefit from a healthy, happy society. -- Not to mention, I know how absurd (and corrupt) it would be to 'privatize' all of these services.

More importantly, the people fighting public transit are unaware of just how much they are being manipulated with a manufactured 'wedge' issue ("Metro vs. private auto"). You can be sure that -- just as arguments about the tobacco and climate change issues have been distorted by shady PR companies -- the transit issue is one that the Koch Bros, ALEC, et al, want to twist to their (oil profits) advantage.

There is no "car vs. bus" war! -- We are all interdependent. Any driver who fights Metro is only serving monied interests that will NOT be there for you when you can no longer drive your car; will not be there when your employees can no longer get to work; will not be there when you find your commute more congested than ever; will not be there when the environmental effects of highway runoff and air pollution causes massive health damage. Metro will be there; plan ahead.

@13

I am NOT against the metro. I love it. I'm just saying that if it, like everything else, was run by citizens and not the corporate-state, it would run smoother and better. The only reason non-government mass transit doesn't work in America is because the corporate-state regulates it to the point that non-government transit options are impossible, hence making people dependent on the corporate-state.

For example: in NYC and other cities, immigrants have started "commuter vans," where they organize their own car pools for small fees. And the city is 100% against it and instead wants them all to pay for the corporate-state's mass transit system.

And no, I am not in a "car vs bus" war. I'm for people and communities having the rights to organize themselves voluntarily without the corporate-state getting in their way.

@14. Sigh. We are the government. Remember Lincoln? - "government of the people, by the people, and for the people…"

@10 - except, of course, for all those Metro buses the run via overhead electrical? Or can you come up for a convoluted reason to hate those as well?

Whoever made the comment above that the owners of ritzy cars should pay more, read the damn article. The Legislature (read: the Republicans in the Senate) won't allow Metro to use the MVET.

At this point, it's useless to inveigh against "the state". The state is in prison and the Republicans hold the keys. Those keys can be taken away in elections (so vote as well as rant). But now, it's up to King County; otherwise, some people will simply lose their jobs after June because they can't get there on the bus. And what we really need is more unemployment, right?

@17 Businesses and corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle hold the keys.

Please to be looking at the low low numbers of people voting against the continuous corporate welfare tax cuts.

So, 2 million people in King County and 130 million per year for this. Averaged out, it means they want $65 from every man, woman, and child in the county, with $40 of that being to fund metro buses. Of course, most of this funding is coming from those registering automobiles while we still have no bike registration or road-rules test for bicyclists.

Typical Dow NeoLibralism. Rob from the struggling middle class, and the working class, give it to the government, toss a dime to the poor, and leave the rich and wealthy intact. How much of his budget will also go toward road diets via the headless SDOT, so that we can all sit behind those buses at every stop?

OK wow. This is obviously not the first choice everyone. We are once again getting screwed by Oly. We have to dig ourselves out of this hole, and it won't be fun.
And how about instead of being upset that the concept of taxes exist, or that we pay them, be upset with Oly for not sending any of our money back to us to help us with our transit operations.
If they sent KingCo enough money to close the 17% funding gap, they would still be funding transit LESS than EVERY OTHER STATE IN THE COUNTRY. When your state transportation budget would be judged as unworkably conservative in say, Mississippi, you're doing it wrong.

@19 oh man I love me some bicycle registration and road rules strawman!

I will gladly pay the .72 cents ( relative to size/ impact or whatever metric you prefer ) for a bike registration as well as show you or anyone my current WA drivers license if this tired dead nanny state nag of an idea can be sent to the glue factory.

The McCleary decision said the state exists to educate kids. So shift the budget to build schools, hire staff and lower college tuition, and make all state highways toll roads. problem solved by the market, you only pay for what you use!

Wonder what we'll have to come up with in another two years to keep buses running or the next big thing of having to replace an aging bus fleet?

Time to figure out how to break free from the rest of Washington State...

I will gladly pay the .72 cents ( relative to size/ impact or whatever metric you prefer ) for a bike registration

Impact on roads is nothing for cars. Until you get to trucks/buses the roads are not getting any damage by the mass of the vehicles on them. I think you should pay the same yearly $43 (+$20 congestion reduction fee) that motorcycles are charged. And go through the same testing/licensing/plate ID requirements if you're going to ride your bikes on streets as opposed to just sidewalks.

The cost of registering your vehicle should reflect the cost of the vehicle. I'm not talking about commercial trucks and vehicles for business, I would like to see a small increase in taxes on vehicle registration. The tax would be incremental. If you drive a 2002 Honda Civic vs. a person that drives a 2002 Lexus, you would probably pay less. Tax the vehicle on it's value. If this person that drives a brand new Mercedes valued at say, $65,000 is not going to let that vehicle sit in his or her garage and not drive it, then I would say prove it. Let the wealthy pay their part, they have gotten away with loopholes long enough. If you tell me that you ride Metro instead of driving your status symbol then you are full of shit.

longwayhome, that's called the MVET. Many of us remember the fun of paying it for the planned monorail for several years.

http://dor.wa.gov/docs/reports/2010/Tax_…

Can we add a weight tax?
A studded tire tax?
An odometer tax?

I'm the poster boy for what is wrong with @1. There's a Benz S-Class in my garage but my primary transportation is Metro. An MVET is anything but progressive to me. Pre-Eyman when we had an MVET every young or poor person I knew despised the MVET. The state always overvalued by 2 or 3 times the real value of the hand me down POS cars we could barely keep running. A little older and a little more money, the car may be more reliable but no doubt still overvalued by the state, I'd be stuck not having the money to keep it registered.

Americans of all economic classes love to buy more car they can afford - ask any salesman. An MVET is a yearly sticker shock that drives people nuts. NEVER AGAIN. It drives people into the arms of the tea baggers.

@25, then I am full of shit. I've paid more in parking and insurance than for gasoline for my Mercedes in the last year despite the car getting 15MPG on premium unleaded.

Or even better comparison, I've put more money onto my Orca card E-purse than I've spent on gas.

@28,
I'm in the same boat with my vehicle... and it's no Benz. But even the metro bus diesel is granted tax exemption on the fuel so every bus rider is contributing nothing via gas tax to the roads the bus travels on.

@24 great, 63 dollars and I can ride on the highway! I am really excited.

I can get one of those four person bikes from alki and use the carpool lanes.

And I am looking forward to my license plate eliminating all traffic infractions like it does with cars.

I wonder if I can get a share the road plate for my bike with car on it.

#27,28,29. I can see the dilema. You like owning a cool car. You are fortunate to be able to afford one and are wise to use the transit system. How many people like you are there? Not many, I would guess.

@31,
sure, you can be like one of those people I see biking on SR-99.

Not having a license plate vs having an identifier someone can tell the police is probably like the difference between the comments left by a registered vs unregistered poster here.

@21, yes, we are getting screwed by Oly. Have you just come out of a cave that you've just realized that? Sometimes -- most of the time -- naivete is tiresome.

Re: "collectivism_sucks"

Everyone say 'hello' to Mr. G's new alias!

Maybe we should also be looking at WHY Metro is continuously underfunded? Was there not an investigative story a year or so ago that showed LOTS of metro bus drivers made more than $75,000 per year, with at least 5 making over $150,000 to drive a fucking bus? Start by looking at ALL salaries of Metro and cut them in HALF! Problem solved.

if we think driving cars is a bad thing we need taxes that are bad enough to discourage it, even when driving cars personally advantages people without much money.

public transit will never be improved to be as cool as a competitor that plays music, carries no bums and moves when you say so, where you say. driving can be made less pleasant with increased taxes on cars. gas taxes are best but take what you can get. that money shouldn't all be spent on transit though. transit's constantly running out of money. transit's labor costs are too high.

car taxes should pay for universal daycare

Yes, by all means we shouldn't pay someone a decent wage. Especially people who are responsible for the lives of hundreds of people each day.

As far as the naive idea that private corporations could do this better, it's been tried. Puget Sound Energy was the operator of the interurban. Most of the subways in NYC were built by private companies. They all went bust - and that was in the "good old days" prior to unions.

The answer is we have to stop being cheap and childish, and stop letting the wealthy have a free ride. It's time for a state income tax.

It's time for a state income tax.

Agree! The government's going to get tax money one way or another. Why all the hate and venom towards giving the government the whole story of how filled that pocket they're picking really is, even amongst some of the poor who would benefit?

"the average yearly income, including overtime, is almost $61,000 a year,"

"Base pay for a top-scale driver is nearly $60,000 a year before overtime. Last year, 255 drivers made more than $75,000, with 20 of those topping $100,000. Metro's highest-paid driver made $115,716 in 2009."

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…

Chef dear, a pickpocket does not provide you with basic services in exchange for the money they take from you. That might work for a bumper sticker, but not in real life.

And the state - or at least the Feds - already know how much you make, so that point is pretty moot, also.

Like I said, we have a childish, knee-jerk reaction to an income tax, and the only people who benefit from that are the wealthy. It's in their best interest to keep people dumb about this, so the status quo continues.

@42 Don't know where you got your info, but there aren't many transit drivers that make that kind of money. You start out working split shifts or the graveyard or the worst one of all... the dreaded Renton to Seattle route along M.L.K. These guys are mostly robots.

Warning: This might seem like a non-sequitor, but please read it anyway.

I moved from Washington to follow my job to the Bay Area. Despite a lack of parking in most of our commercial districts and what seems like a billion commuters that would like different options, our public transportation down here is a total cluster. Poor maintenance, and outside the city and the town, nothing runs after about 7pm (or before 7am). On top of that, it's not even that well designed. Only a couple of historically important trolleys and cable cars are appropriately managed (and even then...)

I know the Seattle Metro isn't perfect, but trust me, it's one of the best public transportation systems in the nation and doubtless the best one west of the Mississippi. Please fund it, whatever it takes. It doesn't matter really, where the money comes from. Just fund it before it dries up and turns into the same fucking mess we have down here. I can honestly say I miss the metro. When I moved down here, I actually thought the public transit would be like the metro, and it's not and it SUCKS.

I know there is this ongoing comparison between San Fran and Seattle. Seattle -- you guys win, hands down, everytime and the reason for that is you don't seem to copy all the mistakes the knuckleheads down here make.

Don't turn the metro into BART II or MUNI II. FUND THE METRO. FUND IT HARD. FUND IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT. You have no idea what a great thing you've got up there.

This will just accelerate our timeline for moving out of Seattle and King County. We no longer want nor need to live in the city to be close to work.

We'll be fewer heads for Dow Constantine to tax, as well as fewer customers for Seattle/King County real estate, products, and services. But that will be their problem, not ours.

As someone who both drives and takes the bus, I would be happy to pay more in taxes to for better transit service, whether it benefits me directly or not. I would be happy to help pay for more and better sidewalks, even if they are in a different neighborhood than mine. I would also be happy to help pay for a light rail that goes all the way around Lake Washington.

Past generations ponied up for roads, railroads, bridges, and all kinds of infrastructure that we enjoy today. That is part of the cost of becoming a great civilization. Why does this generation think it is virtuous to be miserly?

Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for the private automobile - the cost of public transit is far cheaper for all of us when we begin to discuss environment, land use and the quality of life for future generations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_tran…

"Just about every city in America delivers implicit subsidies to automobile driving by requiring all new construction to involve minimum quantities of parking. It’s even common for many municipalities to directly operate taxpayer-subsidized parking lots and parking garages. In a sensible world, we’d do the reverse, leaving parking unsubsidized and taxing traffic congestion.: