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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Fuckaroos to Ballard...
In other words, GRIDLOCK.
I feel for the people this affects, but Metro is already nearly useless that these won't affect me.
When you tempt me with hot upraised girl booty, and I click it and get a search results page that is literally nothing but hairy man-abs, I am not enticed into signing up. It's ok, I'm not even single. I just wanted to look at that girl booty. But that's some serious disappointment for your real target audience. Just thought you should know.
Yeah, let's give these idiots more money.
Looking forward to voting against this.
It's kind of scary to think that a route with such ridership is so close to the chopping block.
I suppose the $100 I had to drop on my car tab today, twice the rate it was in Kitsap County, isn't so bad after all.
Still, there has to be a better way to raise funds. If nothing else, charge an equal percentage of estimated value for each vehicle on the road and add that to tabs. I'd pay more for my newer car than my older car, which makes perfect sense to me. Is that too close to being a tax that it would be difficult to pass?
Or, charge an extra $5 for an adult bus pass, leaving youth and senior rates alone, while also charging more during rush hour?
Just seems like.. "Oh, we can raise $60mil by forcing car owners to pay $20 each" is a little A)Lazy, B)Unfair, and C)I DON'T WANNA!
Expect the backers of the pro-tunnel side (like the DSA and the local BIAW affiliated MBA) to once again dump tens of thousands against transit.
Bunch bedwetters here! Luckily the 57% of King County that voted down new taxes will send this one packing too.
And,
Dear Stupid People,
You pay taxes for ALL sorts of things you seldom or never use (or hopefully, have to) like police and fire protection and schools and football stadiums and ferrys and parks.
That's how our tax system works. Just paying for stuff YOU use, wouldn't be very productive would it?
Bitching about paying extra so people can use public transportation (which helps EVERYBODY out) is the same as bitching about paying taxes to support schools when you don't have children. It's counter-productive to a healthy society and economy.
Jesus...could humans get any greedier and more selfish?
the threat will turn out bus riders who wouldn't normally show up for an off-year vote.
By the way, you know who is riding transit when you are driving to your job? People going to their jobs, not crackheads. Next time you pass one, look how full it is, and imagine each one of those people (including the ones standing in the aisle) in a car.
You should ride a bus to work sometime - if nothing else it will make you less likely to post something ignorant about bus riders.
Anyways, we've had 2 yrs of 'cuts' so far (ie. Slower budget GROWTH) and I haven't noticed a thing. Maybe the $30 fee for state parks starting soon but if that keeps the trash out, great!
Raise taxes to help pay for 520 bridge: BOO!!
As I've said in other threads: I'd be a little more lenient towards an extra $20/year in tabs if I didn't just start getting jacked for $1,750/year in tolls. Fuck you transit people in the ear, hike the fares to pay for your routes. Fares only pay for 23% of transit as it is.
P.S. I'd vote for income taxes before I voted for car tabs.
That pretty much guarantees that no one from out-of-city wants to stop in Everett to eat or see anything.
Now, Seattle won't be hurt quite as badly, business-wise, but it will still suck majorly for the people already wrangling multiple-transfer commutes by bus. And do you really want Sound Transit picking up the slack (or grabbing for it, then dropping it)?
Most people who get on in the ride-free zone do end up paying; you pay as you leave if you leave outside the zone. But the number of people getting off at some outlying stop is much smaller (usually one or two) than the number getting on at a stop downtown (20 or more). So the delay of paying is spread out.
I suppose if your stop was the last stop on the line, there wouldn't be that much of a time difference since everyone who leaves has to take the time to pay. But it speeds up the trip for everyone else.
I dont think this is a big deal. They'll probably merge this route with the 44, which is what it originally did 15 years ago when I lived in Wallingford. Route would go from Ballard to Mountlake, then Capitol Hill, & Downtown. Note sure if it looped back to Ballard, but they broke this route up and had it stop just before Mountlake at the Hospital, then dubed it the 44. There you would wait to transfer to the #43 10-20 min later.
I suspect that while the route number will be gone, they'll merge it with the 44, like it was originally years ago.
Just to check - you're not suggesting that transit riders pay the full cost of transit, are you? I doubt many would pay as much or more to ride the bus than to drive - taking the bus sucks by comparison. And then would you be? Stuck in even more traffic, that's where.
And, you know what? As a reluctant driver who just got buttfucked out of $1750/year because people were refusing to allow increased taxes for the new bridge "to force people out of their cars," I am TOTALLY saying transit riders should bear the brunt of the budget shortfalls. Why? Because not sharing the burden of society sucks. And, it should suck equally hard for everybody.
Hucksters always want the present to pay for the past.
In Manhattan yesterday for first time in a long time.
They still don't have the subway right...you can't get from Times Square to the Lexington Line. You have to walk tunnels to the E, which in 95 degree heat felt like 125, that stretch for blocks and stairs and halls and...
In retrospect, I would have taken one of the new SUV taxis everywhere.
Its still a shitty walk to get from the subway to the Eagle in full regalia though.
Yes, but no. That is the rational, but it's antiquated and stupid.
Eliminate paper transfers and round the cash fare up to $3 to penalize (slower, thus resource-hogging) cash-payers and to encourage near-total smartcard adoption. Allow and encourage exiting through the back door always. Then the get rid of the ride-free area.
Slow payment and one-door usage is slow payment and one-door usage no matter where it happens.
There's a shuttle that does nothing but go between Times Square and the Lexington line. If you don't like the heat, go outside and fucking walk. It's one half mile!
Wow, transit nazis are worse than bike nazis when it comes to downshouting.
Built a better system and people will stop complaining, tin head.
I guess I could have taken the 7 as you suggest, but the map inside the station didn't show a connection...(which brings up another detriment...terrible signage!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42nd_Street…
It's been there for 107 years and you'd have to be an idiot to miss it.
Whose idea was it to have such a huge unwieldy county, anyway?
Guess I know how I'll be voting.
My bus, the 28, is so full in the morning that they've had to skip stops at times. People who ride the bus are not poor, or homeless people who can't afford a car. We're doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals who keep this city and state running. If bus service is canceled, you'll be sitting in more traffic, we'll be sitting in more traffic, and it will cost us all more than $20 per year.
My bus, the 28, is so full in the morning that they've had to skip stops at times. People who ride the bus are not poor, or homeless people who can't afford a car. We're doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals who keep this city and state running. If bus service is canceled, you'll be sitting in more traffic, we'll be sitting in more traffic, and it will cost us all more than $20 per year.
You guys, it's $20, $20 fucking dollars a year. A large pizza, parking at a fucking M's game (I don't use the stadium, why do my tax dollars pay for it?), 3 drinks at the bar, 2 packs of smokes, a hand job on Aurora, etc. You idiots exhaust me.
How much more would parking cost if we raised the demand for it by cutting these bus routes? The answer is different for each person, but only in rare cases would it be less than $20 a year for regular drivers in Seattle.
Actually, drivers will probably burn more than $20 of gas sitting in the extra traffic. No increased parking fees needed.
I'd pay more to ensure continued bus service.
But thanks to the fucking pinhead pro-Eyman voters decent bus service is threatened. I just spent a week in LA where traffic is an utter un-fucking-believable clusterfuck. Sat in my car for an hour to creep along to get two miles across town.
Let's send all the anti-tax pinheads to Burbank for a week and force them to drive & park their own vehicle. I dare any of those pinheads to get anywhere on time.
Eliminating the RFA makes total sense. Even if boarding times increased by 20 seconds downtown at each stop, it would well be worth retaining service for the passengers that actually pay for it. The DBA only cops metro $350,000 a year for service that is estimated at $4.3 million.
Out isn't the counties job to subsidize downtown business interests. They could however offer them free ride tokens for a reduced price. Say a DBA business chooses to offer a fee ride token to any customer whom makes a purchase over $5. If metro sells tickets to the DBA at 25% of full fare, they would be able to purchase roughly 780,000 tickets anually . That is plenty.
Seattle is the only major city I know of where lunch counters only stay open m-f, maybe 4 hours a day. How can they afford to pay such high downtown rents with such limited hours? Because the RFA enables it.
Metro would benefit more by educating passengers how to ride more efficiently.
Of course people are going to vote it down - poor people like me don't deserve to keep their jobs if they can't afford to pay for a car that works, gas, and insurance, right?
Also, continue removing antiquated buses from the fleet and replace them with kneeling buses that can let on the moderately abled (elderly people with bad knees) without lowering the ramp.
"Still, there has to be a better way to raise funds. If nothing else, charge an equal percentage of estimated value for each vehicle on the road and add that to tabs. I'd pay more for my newer car than my older car, which makes perfect sense to me. Is that too close to being a tax that it would be difficult to pass? "
Now we're beginning to see the budget shortfall effects on something like this passing. HOWEVER this is what happens when a grand majority of our population hasn't lived here for more then 10 years. People don't realize or have history with passing bullshit like a 'flat tabs' (which is why they have to force us to purchase new license plates with new numbers (or pay a fee to keep our old number) or beg us to allow them to latch $20 onto the tabs). It is the responsibility of those in opposition to remind newbies of shit like that and show that passing regressive-ass initiatives without a proper state taxing structure in place only harms our public services and overall quality of life.
I drive a 1995 Geo Metro with horrible sun damage and a big scrape on the side from where a drunk driver hit me. I am NOT happy about paying the same amount to keep my car registered as the Mercedes owner down the street. It is just another system wherein we protect our rich residents and harm our lower-income population.
Blame this on The Pied Eyman and all the little rats who gladly followed him into the drink. Short-sighted, selfish, and stupid, THEY are the ones to blame for the coming evisceration of the bus system in Seattle.
And funkathrusta said it best: "..passing regressive-ass initiatives without a proper state taxing structure in place only harms our public services and overall quality of life...It is just another system wherein we protect our rich residents and harm our lower-income population."
When will we have had enough of this shit in this town?
But you can't charge me tolls for road repair!
But you can't increase gas taxes!
But you can't reduce maintenance to roads!
But you MUST build new roads to "relieve congestion!"
Wait...you want ME to pay for public transit???!!!??? THAT'S AN OUTRAGE!!! I DON'T EVEN RIDE THE FILTHY BUS WITH ITS FILTHY HIPPIES AND ITS FILTHY OVERPAID DRIVERS!!! WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME A BUS RIDER SUPPORTED A DRIVER!!!*
*See above.
$419m of KC Metro's ANNUAL budget already comes from sources other than Bus and Access faires. That's 76.4% of its budget. http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am/budget/
Meanwhile, SDOT only gets $158m of its road-related budget from non-driver-exclusive costs.
In 2007, I voted for an increase in taxes to support light rail, and to help pay for the 520 bridge, help Light Rail, and increase bus service. It was shot down, and largely because it had "road expansion" and the 520 bridge was on it. Thanks transit supporters.
Oh, that doesn't compute with your liberals support taxes to help everybody matrix? Sorry about that. So, yeah, sour grapes from 4 years ago come to fruition when we actually have to pay the fucking piper. Fuck transit.
Every state except Texas gets more back from the NHTF than it contributes, and Texas only loses .3% of what it throws in. (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/… ...despite being from Fox News, it cites a reliable GAO study). Where does all that federal money come from? Each and every one of us...no matter how or how much we move around. In fact, "user fees" accounted for only around 50% of FEDERAL highway funds in 2007 (http://dc.streetsblog.org/2009/11/24/new…). Federal funds account for approximately 25% of ALL road spending. (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2011…). Minus four, carry the two...actually this is easy. If user fees are 50%, and federal funds are 25%, then 13% of all road spending comes from federal non-user taxes. Plus the amount you acknowledge states take from non-user fees and taxes.
But that doesn't even scratch the surface. Chunk two of how drivers are getting a free ride is subsidized fuel production. We all know oil companies get huge tax breaks (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/busine…), and if you think those billions of dollars are coming out of gasoline taxes or anywhere other than federal general fund taxes, you're more delusional than you already seem.
Then there's things like minimum parking requirements that cause businesses to outlay more money for land for parking lots, and their construction and maintenance, and pass that cost onto me, of course, whether or not I drive there. There are also tax breaks given to developments that include parking as a component, as the amount of space the parking sits on will generate ZERO revenue and provide NO offset to the subsidy. Hell, the city of DC spent public funds (to the tune of a cool $42 mil - about 12% of their total funding for public transit in a year) building a (ONE!) parking garage no one uses because it sits on top of a METRO station and lots and lots of bus routes and thousands of local residents who can walk or bike there (http://dcist.com/2010/02/dcusa_lot_offer…).
But, yeah, transit gets all the goodies...and ALL at the expense of drivers.