After hours of public testimony on July 25, weeks of headlines, and months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, it was time for the King County Council to choose between a temporary, two-year $20 car tab fee and a 17 percent cut in Metro bus service. A recess was called. Then another. Council members exited and entered the chambers in various groupings, raising hopes that they would reach an 11th-hour deal. Finally, budget chair Julia Patterson announced the obvious: "The council is divided," she explained. They postponed the difficult vote until August 15.

Procrastination: The one issue on which the geographically divided council could unanimously agree.

Seattle doesn't actually operate its own transit system. Metro buses are run by King County, Sound Transit is run by a three-county regional authority, and the ferry system is managed by the state. But while no city in the region relies more on transit than Seattle—and no city provides more of the taxes and fares that fund it—it's our suburban partners who are too often driving the bus. Or, rather, parking it.

There is nothing particularly unique about the Metro funding crisis or the dysfunctional way in which it is being addressed, but at a time when regional transportation solutions are more crucial to our mobility, prosperity, and quality of life than ever before, the Metro stalemate raises the sticky political question of whether regional transportation planning is even possible. And if the ongoing controversies over the future of Sound Transit, the 520 floating bridge, the ferry system, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and other key pieces of our transportation infrastructure are any indication, the answer is "no."

The problem is that while cars, buses, and trains don't stop at city or district borders, political constituencies and rivalries do, too often resulting in political gridlock. "The inability to cooperate and find solutions is at historical levels," council member Patterson recently lamented to The Stranger. "It really bugs me. It really breaks my heart." And when, after years or even decades of public debate, a plan finally emerges, it is more often hobbled by political compromise than the sensible result of regional cooperation.

Perhaps no policy better illustrates the pitfalls of regional transportation planning than the recently repealed "40-40-20 Rule," a rigid formula by which 80 percent of new Metro service hours were dedicated to the East and South King County subareas, while only 20 percent of new service went into the Seattle/Shoreline/Lake Forest Park subarea—home to 35 percent of the county's population and a majority of its jobs. For nine years, this rule pushed the majority of new service into less dense suburban neighborhoods at the expense of more efficient urban routes that average roughly twice the fare-to-expense ratio.

Now, facing a financial crisis triggered by a collapse in the sales tax dollars that subsidize service, suburban council members like Reagan Dunn talk about the need for Metro to become "more efficient," yet they balk at approving a $20 car tab fee they see benefiting Seattle riders over their own constituents. Bellevue's Jane Hague recently told the Seattle Times that she couldn't vote for a plan that would favor busier routes in Seattle and South King County while her own constituents lost bus hours. And even Patterson only tossed her support behind the fee after a new analysis showed that it would prove a net benefit to her district.

But how can Metro move forward when suburban council members demand more efficiency while ironically refusing to support a plan that reprioritizes resources away from the inefficient suburban routes their own 40-40-20 policy created? It's a catch-22, wrapped in a paradox, inside a conundrum.

To be fair, just because a suburban bus route is less efficient at the fare box, that doesn't make it less necessary. Federal Way mayor Skip Priest complains that Seattle's inability to provide affordable housing is forcing many working-class families out of the city and into the suburbs, where they're not getting the transit service they need. Patterson agrees: "When the poor move south, they need to be given transit options."

It's a lament with which Seattle voters would have more sympathy if not for the handcuffs slapped on our own transportation plans by tax-averse suburban voters and their representatives. Most recently, when Metro asked for authority to levy the $20 fee, legislators imposed a nearly impossible two-thirds supermajority vote. Insiders say it was an attempt to starve Seattle of transit in hopes of winning our support on a broader statewide transportation package expected to hit the ballot next year.

All this is prompting Seattle planners to ditch the regional approach and go it alone. An advisory committed recently recommended that Seattle put an $80 car tab fee on the ballot, with half of its $27 million a year dedicated to improving transit, while Mayor Mike McGinn continues to push an ambitious plan to expand surface rail into Seattle's neighborhoods. At the recent county council hearings, some attendees suggested that Seattle could levy the $20 fee itself to buy back service in-city, leaving suburban riders to their own devices. Some even grumbled that we should return to running our own bus system, handing off the inter-city routes to Sound Transit.

It might not make for the most integrated regional transit system in the world, but at least it would put Seattle voters and taxpayers back in the driver's seat. recommended