As noted in yesterday’s Morning News, King County will avoid cutting much bus service over the next two years. This is good, considering Metro was forecast a few months ago to cut nine percent of service overall (fewer buses and less service at fewer times of day). Instead, nearly every bus trip will remain.

But there’s a downside. Rising the bus is about to get more expensive—again. Fares are already scheduled to go up by 25 cents on the first day of 2010; this plan includes another 25-cent jump in 2011. That would push the cost of an in-city rush hour trip to $2.50, twice its cost before 2001.

Most of Metro’s increases this decade have come in the last two years. In-city peak rates were raised from $1.25 to $1.50 in 2001, but didn’t see another 25-cent increase until 2008. Another followed this year, hiking the fare to $2. Is that enough to send more commuters back into their cars?

“Long and short of it, our ridership has declined quite a bit this year,” said Kevin Desmond, Metro’s general manager. “Our ridership trends really will depend on how soon jobs come back.” But Desmond doesn’t blame the drop in ridership on the increased fares.

Like other recent increases, all full-price fares will go up by a flat 25 cents, whether the trip is one mile or 20. Over the last ten years, these flat-rate increases have pushed the cost of Seattle bus trips closer to that of longer trips to the suburbs. Before 2001, the cost of two-zone trip (from Seattle to the suburbs) was 40 percent more than an in-city trip. In 2011, the difference will be just 20 percent. It’s the result of an agreement to standardize fare systems between several transit agencies, says Desmond. “As part of that, we all agreed to move fare increases a quarter at a time,” he said, although saying that has the potential to change.

The higher fares aren’t Metro’s fault, either. The agency is scraping by as best it can. It doesn’t have any further taxing authority under state law—it tried earlier this year, but the governor in May vetoed a provision in a bill that would have allowed a car-tab tax to go to the ballot. But Desmond says they’ll be back this year. “We’re gonna look at everything,” he said. “I think the key is this is a very very deep structural problem.”

Sure, there’s quite a bit of a downside to all this, but it’s a far cry from the disaster scenario that the county was looking at a few months ago, and Metro seems to have managed to dodge a barrage of bullets.

27 replies on “The Price of Preserving Metro Service”

  1. commute: 4-5 mile trip from kirkland-area to downtown bellevue

    bus pass: $92 per month in january

    driving: ~$100/month to lease a parking spot + ~$50/month in gas

    is standing in the rain for ~1 hour per day and dealing with the occasional packed bus worth ~$60 per month? not to someone who makes any amount of money at all.

    it would be a complete no brainer to drive every day if work paid for parking, which is very common.

    sucks but it’s the truth.

  2. @1 Agreed. I realize the fare hikes aren’t Metro’s fault, but the price is approaching NYC subway levels. And for the actual service you get, it’s not even a competition.

    My commute to work is from Cap Hill to Interbay. It’s a fifteen-minute drive vs a 45 to 60-minute rush hour bus ride. What a joke.

  4. There’s another, somewhat hidden fare increase coming up soon for Metro riders: they’re doing away with the monthly passes, so you’ll no longer to be able to ride unlimited for a flat rate. Soon it’ll all be Orca cards which are pay as you go. Not to mention the $5 fee just to get one of the cards. Moreover, I was able to buy the flat rate passes from my pretax income via my employer’s commuter service, but so far I can’t do that for Orca cards. I sure can’t wait till the weather lightens up again so I can resume riding my much, much cheaper scooter mode of transport (not that I want to encourage others to do the same, because the number of “free” scooter/motorcycle parking spaces downtown is already very limited).

  6. will it keep the crazy people off my bus? or make them ride less frequently? That is a-ok with me.

    If people can still afford to have so many taxis exist in this town then this increase really shouldn’t hurt us. $2.50 doesn’t even approach a one-way $13+tip cab ride from capitol hill to u-district.

  7. @4: You know you can load a pass onto your card, right? There’s an e-purse and a monthly pass option, with the monthly pass superseding the e-purse unless using a service not covered by your regional pass (ex., riding a ferry or everett transit using a standard ST/Metro regional pass).

  10. last time I checked the ORCA card was free. Is this a new development? The ORCA card is the best thing that has happened to the metro. For me dropping a large quantity of money on a debit type card has relieved so much stress in my life. Before ORCA I associated riding the bus with frantically running around the house looking for quarters & dollars or running to the grocery store and buying a pack of gum so I can get small change. Then there is constant dropping of quarters while trying to put them in the machine, jamming the machine with dimes or nickels, losing my transfer, forgetting my transfer at purchase. ORCA solved all these annoying issues and made riding much more pleasurable.

  11. Is there any way to attach partial parking violation fines to metro costs? Say, an extra $4/ticket (the r/t metro fare) and spell it out on the ticket as going toward funding transit? And any violations regarding transit operations not allowing a bus to merge or cutting off a bus (including parking in a bus zone Will) could tack on an extra $20? If you are going to drive like an asshole and inconvenience others you should get punished for it…

  12. GREAT IDEA @11…attaching a punitive, noticeable fee to such behavior involving transit is an excellent way to incentivize adherence to already existing laws. so basically making a $38 fine for parking in a bus zone/shelter into a $60 fine makes it seem pretty good to me…if someone is jumping into the car or out of it fast i suppose that’s ok but when a bus driver has to honk its violation worthy.

    I drive in from Renton most days to seattle, before it was crappy out it was a decent 1 hour bus/bike-light rail commute…but for $5/day and the free parking I find here and there (mostly on first hill fyi) I think I’ll stick with driving till the spring.

  14. I used to take the bus, but the one bus was replaced with two busses+the transfer and it added 12 minutes to my commute, and (double-bonus) ran 1 hour & 22 minutes later.
    If I still wanted to get to work on time I either returned to driving, or the joy of taking 4 (four) busses. To downtown, one from downtown to a tranfer point, then an “express to another transfer point.
    Awsome!

    I am just not super exited to pay car tabs the can not “force” me out of my car while the routes remain provincial. One card does not a system make.

  15. The bus is already not cost effective for me and this doesn’t help. I live about 1.5 miles from downtown and work and I can drive part way, park for free, and walk a half mile to work, or I can spend a good deal of money on a bus ride that will either get me to work a half hour early or five minutes late.

    I’ll sometimes ride the bus to go out, but honestly, its not much better or cheaper than driving with a cab one way if need be. Especially when you factor in the weighting.

    I keep 20 bucks on my ORCA card(which eliminated the convenience factor of a pass) for the couple times a month I ride the bus, but for the most part, Metro is completely useless to me.

  18. I agree that upping the fares is a terrible way to solve Metro’s problems. Fares should be roughly distance based. To save money we need to speed up the routes. Fill Seattle with bus-only lanes with timed lights and require payment off the bus (or swipe on with an ORCA). Also, space stops further apart in the neighborhoods (many are a block or two apart, and stopping wastes a lot of time). Double the speed of a route and you can move twice as many people with double the frequency.

  22. I thought only poor people and bums ride buses……and apparently Sloggers. Thanks folks, you make my 15 min drive with NPR and my Peets double cap so much easier.

  23. @14: Ridership is going down because — perhaps you’ve noticed — tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs.

    Anyone who doesn’t get free parking at work is still going to save substantial money by riding the bus. Few people accurately calculate the cost of gas, oil, wear and tear on the car, etc., when they compare riding the bus vs. driving.

    Not to mention the environment.

  24. “Long and short of it, our ridership has declined quite a bit this year,”
    I guess I should look at the numbers, because it seems kind of funny to me that ridership has declined and almost every single fucking bus I ride in and out of the city is packed….full. Total bullshit that fare increases and service doesn’t improve budget shortfall or not. Look for money elsewhere!

  25. @4: You should do a little research on what an ORCA card can do before you say what it can’t. An ORCA card has every advantage over the mag stripe cards. You can still get monthly passes for whatever the monthly rate was for the mag striped cards. You can also have an “E-purse” to add additional money such as those trips you take that are above the amount that the pass is paid for such as inter-zone or if you buy an off-peak pass and travel during peak period the overage will be deducted from your e-purse.

    You evidently neglected to do your research about what an ORCA card can do. Mag stripe cards have absolutely no advantage over ORCA cards. The only thing is those who are paranoid of “the man” knowing where they’ve been happens if you register an ORCA card. You are not obliged to register an ORCA card but if you don’t if someone steals your card you have no way to get any value on the card back.

  26. @24: According to AAA, it costs about 41.4 cents per mile to drive a small sedan. That includes gas, oil, depreciation, insurance, etc. So, assuming free parking, taking the bus each way for $2.50 is only cheaper if your commute is longer than 12 miles. And keep in mind you only save all that money if you get rid of your car. Most people don’t, so their actual savings are less; they don’t save on fixed costs like insurance.

    (Also, if you drive an old beater it can actually be cheaper, since you escape the massive depreciation that new cars experience.)

    I’m a fan of public transit but it’s important to acknowledge that even at the current subsidized fares it doesn’t pencil out financially for a lot of people — even if you assume their time has no value.

  27. @7:

    When I first started at my temporary job [I decline to say where b/c I don’t want ppl hounding me], they mentioned that they will partially subsidize [sp?] a monthly bus pass for me if I work x days in a month.
    When I offered my [free to me] ORCA card for them to put the pass on, they said they were not able to do that at this time, and that they would have to sell me a magnetic-swipe pass each month [meaning receive a new card from them each month].

    I wish all employers had their passes arranged such as yours. Not all, including mine, do.

    [How much plastic is Metro using each month from those monthly passes? And how much of it is virgin?]

    every mode has its downsides . .Pr

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