Buses traveling through the city will move up to 20 percent faster and more reliably, thereby increasing ridership in the long run, if Seattle voters approve $60 car tabs next month to fund a multitude of small transportation projects, says a letter from King County Metro general manager Kevin Desmond. Raising $20 million per year from car-tab revenues “would bring immediate reliability improvements and slow the effects of future increases in traffic congestion,” he says.
I’ve attached the letter here.
Hey, that’s fucking great. Metro has officially declared that each driver parting with $60 will serve transit riders and car commuters alike.
But the brief letter is vague and raises unanswered questions. Which specific projects did the study consider, and what were the changes in travel times? How did Metro determine it would increase ridership? I emailed Metro and didn’t hear back right away. There are answers, naturally, but they require diving into minutia to find them. See the Seattle Transit Master Plan Summary Report, chapter 3, beginning on page 16 that details approximately 14 trillion tiny changes along 15 corridors (closing a bus stop, building a curb bulb, tweaking a light signal, adjusting a platform, etc.).
But this letter, again, a swell letter, and the unspecific Prop 1 campaign website, are both an alarm of the problem I think this measure faces with voters. It’s weeks until the election and it’s hard to answer the key question: What does it buy, exactly? To be truly convince voters that this measure will yield benefits, backers need to synthesize its features—what we buy—and how they translate into a more efficient transportation network. Then they need to write it down in one detailed-yet-digestible web page.
I will also give rainbows and unicorns to all the good boys and girls.
Math is simply not on the side of Prop 1 opponents.
exempt motocycles and I’m in. Otherwise this fucking thing will cost me a fortune. or make it so that you only have to pay on one registered vehicle since you only drive one at a time. Otherwise, fuck it.
I think we need to have a Millionaires Surtax on using Public Roads, of 1 percent of their income and asset growth each year.
Its about as misleading as a Playstation 1 duct taped to a Playstation 2 to create a Playstation 3, to sell on Ebay. All these little improvements might add up to 20% faster service, while misleading, it might be legal and thats basically what I think about this.
The rapid ride B plan, while its supposed to make bus trips faster, isnt doing that. They just took popular routes and ran them more frequently, naturally at the expense of other less popular bus routes, which they eliminated. As a life long user of Metro bus service, I cannot trust any of their figures.
With $60, they can add a nitrous booster to the buses.
Then drop the body, add a five inch spoiler and go drifting around sharp turns.
Actually, in spite of all the math geniuses on here, the biggest cause for delays (thus the time between stops) is private traffic. So it does make sense if an increase in owning cars decreases the number of cars … the buses would make it to stops on time more often, thus they would go faster.
Between my car and my motorcycle, it’ll be an extra $120 for me.
Over the past 5 years I’ve probably taken public transit as much as driving a car/motorcycle to work. I’ve stopped commuting via bus because it takes 3 times as long as driving (North Ravenna -> Eastside). I really hate being one of those single-occupancy vehicles on 520, but I hate getting home at 7:30 every night even more.
Every time I want to go somewhere besides downtown, I check the bus schedules and find that I can’t get there in a reasonable amount of time. Getting from my place to a climbing gym I like would take over an hour on the bus. It takes about 15 minutes to drive. Even knocking off the optimistic 20% and reducing it to 48 minutes puts it at over three times the time commitment to get to/from there, and it saps an extra hour of my time that could be spent elsewhere.
This is an honest question, and not at all rhetorical:
Why should I support this measure if even the most optimistic estimates of what it will do to bus service will not make it a reasonable alternative (in terms of time commitment) to driving?
Doceb: Your issue is common. As rabidly pro-transit / pro-bike as I am, I still own a car and feel the need to use it from time to time. Transit does not serve all trips and can’t unless Metro and Sound Transit are given WAAAY more resources. The projects in prop 1 will improve the efficiency of transit we already have. It should be obvious but a moving bus is far more cost effective and gives more people the option of not driving than a bus stuck in traffic.
Prop 1 will also give some people the choice of using a bike instead of taking a car. If you don’t bike, think of that parking spot that will be open when a person chooses to bike. I am that person – I bike everywhere I feel safe and can find a place to lock up my bike.
Last: Prop 1 will add even more funding for repairing streets. I drive buses all over Seattle and have noticed a LOT of improvements. The UW and parts of downtown are FAR easier to drive around but there is more to be done.
In short, your money will help pay for facilities that will let others choose to not clog the road you drive on or the parking spot you want. It will also pay for road repairs that you will likely use directly. Selfish or altruistic – there is something in prop 1 for everyone…
Thanks for the reply! I do ride my bike, often to Montlake or the Rainier overpass so I can catch a bus across one of the bridges. At least when I do that I can justify the time spent as an alternative to going to the gym, heh.
I guess that my primary concern is that all indicators point to the additional funding being used on what Metro has historically concentrated on: getting into and out of downtown. Metro is already *great* at that; it only takes me an extra 10 minutes versus driving. I should also point out that I live right on the 72(x) route, so it’s not like I’m out in the sticks or anything as far as Metro service is concerned.
I’ll very likely vote for the measure on principle, but I expect to continue to be frustrated by Seattle-area bus service. $120 is a lot to pay for continued frustration.
There are no specifics because the city wants to the same thing they did to Bridging the Gap: spend the car tab fee on whatever the fuck they feel like. If they promise specific improvements, voters will notice when the promised 20% improvement to transit fails to materialize.
If the city wants a slush fund, they need to find a non-regressive way to raise it.
Dominic – If you get the base times for those 1-5 minute changes in the TMP let me know. We’ve been asking for a couple weeks now and no answer yet.
David Miller
@8: As someone who drives a bus from time to time, I gotta say: that sounds like a lot of fun! Let’s do it!
Metro lies to cover up their horrible service, and lack of concern for their customers. VOTE NO.