Get ready to whip out your ORCA cards, Seattle bus riders: Our free ride is over!

After months of debate, weeks of controversy, and a dramatic half day of last-minute, behind-the-scenes partisan bickering, the Democratic majority on the King County Council finally secured the Republican votes necessary to avert a 17 percent cut in Metro bus service via a temporary, two-year $20 car tab fee. The political price: a series of “efficiency” reforms, most notably the elimination of Seattle’s downtown ride free area (RFA) by October of 2012.

“This is all about statesmanship,” declared Jane Hague in justifying her swing vote in favor of the fee. Yeah, well, maybe. But in a tough reelection year, it probably doesn’t hurt the council member from Bellevue Square to at least make the appearance of screwing over big, bad Seattle by taking away its freebie to bus riders.

But the truth is, it’s hard to find many Seattleites willing to lament the loss of the RFA, let alone suggest that it wasn’t worth sacrificing in exchange for 600,000 hours a year of Metro bus service. “The city has changed,” explains Metro general manager Kevin Desmond. “[The RFA] was put in place for very different reasons at a very different time.”

What was then called the “Magic Carpet Zone” was first established in 1973 to support economic development in the central core, and later expanded to include the International District and Belltown. At its inception, the city funded 100 percent of the cost of the RFA. But over the decades, that subsidy failed to keep up with rising costs. Today, when lost fares are adjusted for operational benefits (such as faster boarding times), the RFA costs Metro about $2.2 million a year, of which Seattle covers only $400,000.

That said, the RFA was never much of a free ride. Last year only about 28,000 one-way trips were taken entirely within the RFA, but after accounting for pass holders and transfers, only about a third of those were actually “free,” leading even transit activists to acknowledge that the money could be better spent elsewhere. Eliminating the RFA could slightly slow boarding by forcing all passengers to enter through the front, but with two-thirds of riders in the zone already using an ORCA card or a transfer, Metro doesn’t expect paying on entry to cause significant delays. But while the RFA may have outlived its original purpose, its loss could still prove devastating to the homeless and other low-income riders who have come to rely on it.

“There’s a concentration of services in the ride free area because it’s there,” explains Real Change editor Amy Roe, pointing out that shelters, clinics, and other social services have specifically located within the RFA because that’s the area accessible to clients. As government budgets have shrunk, the poor have already absorbed a disproportionate share of the cuts, laments Roe. “This is the one thing they had left. It wasn’t made for that purpose, but that is the purpose it has come to serve.”

Council Member Larry Phillips agrees and promises that both the county and city councils will work to mitigate the impact over the coming year. But, Phillips insists, “the RFA as we know it is coming to an end.” So catch your free ride while you can.

40 replies on “End of the Ride Free Area”

  2. With apologists for austerity like Goldy, who needs right wing assholes? What’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans? Pretty words.

    What does the Republican war on working people look like? See Madison, Wisconsin earlier this year. What does the Democratic war on working people look like? See the King County Council’s protection of billionaires and corporations and Gregoire’s tricking for Boeing in Paris while demanding state workers take cuts.

  4. A benefits program that allows service-dependent riders to travel beyond downtown, during all hours (like an expanded tickets/ORCA benefit program) would mean greater mobility for those riders. It would also mean that human service agencies could save money by finding space in areas that are probably less expensive than downtown.

  5. The article fails to mention this will cut down on fare dodging which I see all the time. When the rider is leaving they simply walk past the driver and what is the driver gonna do call the metro cops and hold the bus up? No. It will also mean faster deboarding since all doors can be opened. As for the homeless they can walk I am so sick of Real Change always whining for them.

  7. You know, the ride free area did concentrate all those services into a small area, a walkable area. Downtown may now begin share its wealth of crazy smelly busriders with the rest of the area. Wheee!

  8. There’s also a twist for longer-distance commuters: when I come from Tacoma, I pay when I get on, but because of the RFA in downtown Seattle, where I transfer, I don’t pay for my fare to Lynnwood until I get off. That usually means I have to pay another $3.50, since my transfer has “expired” by then and there’s no negotiating with an Orca card. Maybe this will save me a nice chunk of money.

  9. well? lets hope they dig this bastard tunnel and put out the fire thats been burning under ground for decades and get the big problems fixed before the cruise ships say screw that? lets go to Tacoma or El Paso Texas instead?

    whats it going to cost in over runs to put out the fire and fill it in? is that a road tax a metro tax a sin tax or the hot foot dancing tax?

  10. Wait, one third of 28,000 rides were actually “free”, but that somehow costs $2.2 million a year? Did someone drop a zero or three?

  11. But if all of those hobos have to stop urinating on the bus, imagine how much worse the sidewalks and streets are going to be. Downtown is soon going to resemble Venice.

  12. @4 Thank you for the only sane comment so far

    There is nothing to stop DSHS from providing vouchers for those who are in need and using the system correctly.

    Boarding will be faster, getting off the bus will be faster. Drivers will be able to open up the back door at all stops because riders pay as then enter.

    What I can’t believe is that so many people had to deal with cramming through a crowded bus to get off at their stops outside of downtown, simply to appease the minority of riders.

  13. I unfortunatly have to agree with cutting this service. It seems odd to concentrate a free zone instead of having free routes through the city.

    However #4 and 12 make some excellent points.

  14. It’s no surprise the RFA didn’t work well. Metro designed the entire system to serve suburbanites commuting only to downtown. The confused mass of the Metro regional map is meant to deter riders for all but the unavoidable trip to the workplace. Suburbia is republican territory. Some can’t handle the rush hour traffic.

    Next to go will be the trolleybuses. Can’t have those ideal hill-climbers downtown. Someone might question why more aren’t installed.

    Transportation planning in Seattle and Washington State is controlled by automobile-related interests. GM didn’t just buy up all the national streetcar lines years ago. They also hired their own system planners to pervert their design. These planners are still employed by agencies like Metro, Sound Transit, Wsdot & SDOT.

    Henry Ford claimed he cared about factory workers in paying them $5 a day, enough for them to buy a Model T. His like GM’s real intent was to reduce customers of the competing public transit system and create a dominant monopoly of travel by car.

    The bored tunnel will lead to the demolition of historic Pioneer Square buildings whose foundations will be undermined. The elite conservatives don’t care about the rest of us. We’re all going to burn in hell anyway according to their mythology.

  15. Would it be worth it to run a couple of free buses that only operate within the RFA? That way the benefit to the homeless is maintained. They could make it a DART loop. Stewart, 6th, Jackson, and 1st ought to suffice.

  16. The homeless really don’t ride the bus that much?
    as they don’t have a home and don’t have a job! duh!
    this is about a free ride area?
    since the RTA has never been able to pay itself enough money and has fallen short since RTA took over Metro?
    and need lawyers as they will take money for anti Israel messages but wont display them?
    no christian adds? no atheist adds?
    the circle jerk runs off a cliff faster then you can jump off the bus?

    I’m happy Seattle city council is not as bad as L.A. city council but yup! its really bad.

    case in point they lost half the sidewalk to places putting tables on the sidewalk as they lost parking to absurd parking prices as they lost free buss service downtown?

    I don’t what rock these freaks crawled out from under but I wish we could pick the rock up and place it back on top of them as these clowns just do not know Jack about business and worse will run the city out of business before they devlope any sort of brains,morals,savy?

  17. Typical liberal fags whining about the loss of a service most of them rarely or never use in the name of being oh so concerned about the welfare of homeless scum they are nicely segregated from in their Wallingford/Ballard/insert trendy expensive hipster neighborhood here. I had the lovely experience of actually RIDING the 358 for nearly 5 years and amassed quite an array of stories involving homeless sh1tb@gs doing everything from jacking off, oozing bile and or blood, and openly drinking and pissing on the floor – not to mention smelling like rotten shit – so hopefully the loss of the RFA will make USING the mass transit system more pleasant again. And maybe all the fine black “youths” will finally have to PAY for a fare instead of wadding up some random scrap of The Stranger in their hand and shoving it at the driver shouting “dis my mo fokin tranzfur yo” before walking off.

  18. After years of entitlement, the aggressive homeless and crazies will just continue to board and not pay. Metro drivers, half of whom hate management for years of screwing over, won’t stop them. And we the fare-paying employed public that still tries to use Metro will as usual be caught in the crossfire between idiots like Tim Harris, who doesn’t give a rip about anyone but his free homeless meal ticket publishing Real Change, and the Council, who only cares about suburban commuters in those shiny new busses from Eastside, who don’t ever have free rides anyway.

    Downtown Seattle and surrounding neighborhoods have been bending over and losing service to Eastside for years, ever since they put Metro into King County government (1995). Before then Metro was an independent public/private corp, and service was outstanding. Any long term rider who remembers it could tell you the same story. Modern-day metro is a joke.

  19. From a purely personal point of view, I have no need for the ride free zone and happily walk from Pioneer Square to Pike Place Market and farther (and back) with no trouble, (and I am close to being considered a “senior”). On the other hand, it would make sense to provide some sort of free pass for people who are seriously in need of the free service and who can not afford to pay the fare. My suspicion is that the cost of doing this will be much less than maintaining the ride free zone.

  21. If what you said was Hague rolled the Council in a cynical bid to juice her faltering re-election chances, I’d say you got it right.

  23. How will it make de-boarding faster? They won’t be able to open the back doors at all – unless no one is getting on the bus – because they’ll have to make sure people only get on in the front and pay.

  24. @19: “The homeless really don’t ride the bus that much?
    as they don’t have a home and don’t have a job! duh!”

    OBVIOUSLY you don’t ride the bus very much. DUUUH.

    “This is the one thing they had left. It wasn’t made for that purpose, but that is the purpose it has come to serve.”

    Cry me a fucking river. Maybe now Metro buses won’t be a rolling dayroom/insane asylum now that the useless scavengers can’t board for free.

  25. Blogger “Reg” said : ” But if all of those hobos have to stop urinating on the bus, imagine how much worse the sidewalks and streets are going to be. Downtown is soon going to resemble Venice” hehe, you hit the nail on the head. For a first month of (end of RFA), put fair police on the bus’s in the downtown area.

    Consider converting the oldest, worst buses for free ride use. Paint them urine color, with a smattering of feces and vomit. Put the driver in a protective cage, with his/her own fresh air system. Make the seats of hard plastic or steel, and clean those bus’s insides with a fire hose.

    You see, there is a solution.

  27. @24 – For buses leaving downtown that are rather full, the 358 or the 5 during rush hour, opening both the front and back door will allow a faster exodus. Once they have left, the back door will be closed and the new riders will enter in the front as they pay. The bus drivers have had to deal with people attempting to enter or depart via the wrong door for years, so it won’t present anymore of a problem.

  28. I was there when the Magic Carpet Zone began, and it was more or less useless even then–you could walk anywhere in the zone in less time than it took to stand around waiting for a bus.

    Since the ride free area was the alleged reason against it, maybe now Metro will do what every other transit system in the universe does: make everyone enter through the front door, and exit through the rear. Well, we can hope, anyway…

  29. @24 – Go to Portland and ride TriMet. All their buses are set up so when it stops, you can push on a handle to open the rear door. Pretty handy, no need to yell “back door.”

    That’s something you’ll immediately notice about riding the bus there… it’s so much quieter.

  30. For lease signs are almost as many as the no parking signs? I have used the bus to get to work and to the hospital for a few years now and have only found drunks and crack pots on the weekends as the FRA only ran from 7 to 7 or something.

    but again the title is “King County” killed the FRA and King County is not dealing with down town? or you could say King County is making Downtown worse as its not able to provide the same service that has been in place for decades

    As to say the end of the FRA could be the goodbye kiss?

    what I miss about Chicago, CTA and its wonderful soap opera shenanigans! I think King County is going to be crying for more and giving less until it fails Seattle.

    I’m not happy!

  31. Dear Stranger,

    This message is purly selfish, and I mean no disrespect to Seattlites that give a damn about their city, but..

    I consider myself a humanitarian and nice guy. I’m one of those guys that hands out a few bucks, a sandwich, or a blanket to the dude at a corner in a wheelechair and cardboard sign, but I have a question….

    As an “East Sider” can you please tell me about how bad I’m going to get screwed? I’ll guarantee the entire state will see the $20 car tab increase, not just the fine folks of King County for which this entire proposal benefits (again, only being selfish) and due to cause and effect, I will have less to help those who smile when I make the effort to help them.

    Seriously, the east side of the Cascades gets some sort of rogering to “assist” the west side, usually for projects that have no particular use to the general public. I have paid for stadiums I don’t frequent (that pesky general fund) and will get to fund a tunnel I have no use for, or quite possibly will never, ever pass through.

    So if you can help me understand, I will start a petition that those of us “over here” get our much earned “reach around”, smile, and take what we will eventually have to live with.

    PS: I love Seattle, you are truly the nicest I have ever met. See you at Bumbershoot.

  32. Eastsiders- King county subsidizes your existence. If you actually had to survive on your own revenue instead of sucking at the West’s teat, you guys would be worse off then Appalachia. We would love to see you annexed so you can learn that first hand for yourself. So quit whining about ‘how bad’ you’re going to get ‘screwed’- adults are trying to have a conversation here. Thanks.

  33. Srsly? You have GOT to be kidding. King County subsidizes your very existence. If the Eastside were actually required to exist on its own tax revenues, it would be worse off then Appalachia. But hey, if you want to find out for yourself what life would be like without your local governments constantly suckling the teat of the West, we would love to let you secede. Now sit down and quit your whining- the adults are having a conversation here.

  35. Thank goodness, I only go from lower Queen Anne to Downtown occasionally, but so many people would get in and totally bog it down on 3rd Ave once it began, it was horrible, won’t miss it at all. I hope it makes the buses faster. They should put 15 & 18 back on 1st, 3rd Avenue is Stop Sign/Stop Light HELL on a bus!

  36. Seriously, the east side of the Cascades gets some sort of rogering to “assist” the west side, usually for projects that have no particular use to the general public. I have paid for stadiums I don’t frequent (that pesky general fund) and will get to fund a tunnel I have no use for, or quite possibly will never, ever pass through.

    Um, seriously, the dry side is a charity case. King County had 28% of the state’s people but generates 42% of the state’s tax revenues. We export $2.5 billion a year to the rest of the state.

  37. I know I’m very late to the party here, but I just wanted to chime in and point out that the supposed logic of savings on this makes no sense at all.

    Specifically, this sentence makes no sense:

    “Last year only about 28,000 one-way trips were taken entirely within the RFA, but after accounting for pass holders and transfers, only about a third of those were actually ‘free,’ leading even transit activists to acknowledge that the money could be better spent elsewhere.”

    If only a few of the trips were free, then the difference in revenue can’t have been much. If it cost a lot, then the volume must have been much higher than described. Goldy’s sentence implies that, after the numbers were crunched, the lost revenue per free trip turned out to be too high… but this is nonsense. Before the numbers were crunched, we already knew that the lost revenue per free trip was at most $2.50, depending on peak hours and whether the person wouldn’t have taken the trip if they’d had to pay.

    Thus, as @10 already pointed out:
    28,000 rides
    x 1/3 of them free
    x $2.50
    = around $23,000, not $2.2 million.

    Is there something I’m missing, here?

    Also, of course, it’s even less than that, because presumably some of those riders wouldn’t have taken the bus at all if it weren’t free. (They would’ve either walked or skipped the trip.) Any intro econ student can tell you that demand decreases as price increases.

    And of course, if the change causes some people to drive instead of taking the bus, there is an environmental cost we’re not factoring in. If it causes some people to skip a trip on which they would’ve spent the $2.50 on something else, there’s an economic cost to that too. Public transit is one of the most wholesome institutions we’ve got.

    I agree that it was always a little arbitrary and business-y having the ride-free area only in downtown, but better somewhere than nowhere… Good public policy, especially during a recession, would be to expand free public services, not shrink them. Think of the environmental and economic benefits if we made the whole transit system free, or pay-what-you-will!

    Plus, the impact on homeless and other low-income people seeking services is of serious concern. Sure doesn’t seem worth a measly $20K savings.

  39. Specifically, this sentence makes no sense:

    Yup! and we are going to remove Saddam from Iraq? and if elected I promise I will bring the troops home? and Hot dogs cause cancer and left handed women are more susceptible to breast cancer and Rick Perry would make a great president and many other American dreams?

    It may be that PC generation that has been letting software do it thinking and Sexual stimulation and detective work and Election rigging and Media manipulating has woke up and realized the entire middle east is killing each other in civil wars and conflicts and no Americans could have told you about jack shit from 9-11 to Katrina to wall street to Iraq or anything?

    Your puzzled how king county cant get its numbers right after its had to slash and burn after it sat on its lazy ass and stuffed its face for 20 years?

    Then again I should realize these comments are the ramblings of the “great pretenders”.

  40. #2 (Zepol) hit the nail on the head. Politicians care only about their pocket books people, we know this, we have known this, and the partisan bickering is pretty much just a distraction. The loss of the RFA is no big deal, even when I was homeless I didn’t ride the bus unless I was bored anyway, mostly because the buses don’t go down the most useful streets anyway. So this whole crying about the homeless being hurt by it, is likely just more political bickering, let’s look like the good guys because we “care”. If that was seriously the case then the money saved by getting rid of the RFA could actually benefit the homeless by allowing services to be given bus tickets, like they once use to, allowing for longer rides to more services. The reason for shutting it down makes more sense than any argument against it that I have heard or read about.

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