The Death of the Ride Free Area
A Funeral for Free Downtown Bus Service
Jungyeon Roh
Tools
September 29 was the first day in 40 years that downtown didn't have a ride-free zone. The reason for the zone's demise is none other than money. Based on a study conducted in 2010 and published in King County Metro's Public Engagement Report, the Ride Free Area (RFA) had, annually, an estimated 8.4 million boardings, and about 2.8 million of these were by people without a pass or transfer. The annual cost of giving these 2.8 million people a free ride was $2 million. Money is tight these days. The King County Council directed Metro to kill the service, which, as everyone knows, benefited the poor and homeless more than anyone else.
Ken Schram, the boisterous and sometimes controversial local radio and TV personality, thinks the elimination will hit the less fortunate the hardest: "Metro expects to rake in an additional $2 million a year by eliminating the ride-free zone, a healthy portion of that on the backs of the poor and the agencies that serve them. Certainly, there will be fewer drunks and druggies on the buses, but I still find the ultimate price too high" (KOMO News, September 29). Indeed, I couldn't find one article or person that thought canceling the RFA was a great idea, yet it happened with seemingly little protest. People had been focused on saving system-wide bus service. Last summer, after crowded public hearings, county council members killed the RFA as part of a deal: They would collect a new $20 fee for car tabs and end the free rides downtown, thereby salvaging service around the city. Forgive me for getting on my Marxist horse, but all of this comes down to punishing the poorest members of our city for a recession they had nothing to do with. Not one of them swindled a homeowner, overvalued exotic securities, or foreclosed on a home, and yet they are being disciplined by budget tightening and cuts.
Stranger Personals
A funeral was held a day before the RFA's end. Organized by the Transit Riders Union, a grassroots group that advocates for more transit service, it was staged as a New Orleans funeral march that began at Westlake Park. Although there's a sense of humor in having a funeral for a ride-free zone, no one at Westlake was happy or festive. Face after face, about 100 in all, was somber. All of the signs were shaped like tombstones. The speeches were gloomy or angry in that simmering way, and the funereal music by Tubaluba perfectly fit the occasion.
The march ended at the small park on the side of the King County Courthouse. More speeches were made. One by Katie Wilson (an articulate member of the Transit Riders Union) pointed out that bus transportation had, over the years, taken more and more out of our paychecks. At around the time the RFA started, she explained, a person making minimum wage had to work for 10 minutes to pay for his or her day's worth of bus rides. Today, it's 40 minutes. Another speaker announced that King County Council member Larry Gossett was going to make an appearance and accept a scroll of 3,000 signatures for a petition against canceling the RFA. Gossett did appear, accepted the scroll, said something about strengthening the community and doing more for the poor. But just as he was near the end, he was hit by a thunderbolt of anger. A young man in the back of the crowd yelled: "You guys are just doing nothing. This is one of the richest cities in the world. Who are you kidding? You did nothing. None of you really gives a damn. You are talk. Go to hell." The young man spoke with anger—the kind of anger before a fight erupts. Gossett coolly walked by this hot ball of anger without looking at or responding to it. He had the scroll in his hands.
On October 1, Solid Ground, a nonprofit that helps the poor, started running a free bus to fill the gap in service for low- income people. The route has seven stops in the downtown and First Hill area, each stop close to a hospital, a food bank, a psychiatric clinic, a charity organization, a drug rehab center. The circulator bus runs every 30 minutes and is serviced by two buses. The bus I rode in was operated by Charles, a retired Metro driver who is friendly, is trained to deal with tough situations, and knows this city like the back of his hand. (Me: "Which neighborhood has the worst streets?" Charles: "West Seattle. Those roads are bumpy and desperately need repair.")
At the time I boarded the circulator bus, which was not far from the doomed Yesler Terrace projects, Charles had been around the city five times and picked up a total of 10 people (six were disabled, one was ordinary, two were members of the press). I was the only person on the bus. No one was picked up during my trip. The homeless and poor are, it seems, in the dark about this service, which, like all new things, needs fine-tuning—the stops, for example, do not indicate that they are serviced by the circulator bus. "I also think we need to have more stops," explained Charles. "And also we should use the words 'free' and 'open.' Everyone understands 'free,' a lot of people are not so sure about 'open.' But we are learning as we go." 
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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
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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
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One by Katie Wilson (an articulate member of the Transit Riders Union) pointed out that bus transportation had, over the years, taken more and more out of our paychecks. At around the time the RFA started, she explained, a person making minimum wage had to work for 10 minutes to pay for his or her day's worth of bus rides. Today, it's 40 minutes.
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.
10
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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@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.
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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
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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.
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