Now that King County voters (but not Seattle’s) have rejected Metro’s Plan B to fill a funding shortfall and preserve bus service, the transit agency has proposed a plan to cut 550,000 service hours beginning this fall.
And since it appears the Seattle voters who supported Prop 1 will have the opportunity to vote on Plan C—raising property taxes to reverse cuts to routes that primarily benefit Seattle residents—it’s a good time to consider what we’re in for, what we’d be buying back, and what kind of transit system we really want.
Some proposed cuts may increase Metro’s operating efficiency by targeting poorly performing routes—the ones with high operating costs or low ridership or that duplicate nearby transit service. Some will be painful and leave people stranded. Some might do both at the same time.
So far, Metro and its supporters haven’t done a great job of distinguishing—at least in the public debate—between cuts to low-performing routes that arguably ought to be sacrificed or restructured for the greater good and cuts to well-functioning routes with high ridership that will be gutted or cut back solely for lack of money.
Prompted by the massive funding shortfall caused by Metro’s volatile funding sources, the agency did undertake a comprehensive service evaluation last year to begin contemplating which parts of the system would make sense to cut first.
In that analysis, 11 of the Seattle routes that are now proposed to be eliminated were “high” priorities for major reductions, based on relatively low performance and the fact that acceptable levels of service already exist in the same transit corridor. Another 5 were “medium” priorities. But 10 routes on the chopping block are healthy ones that were “low” priorities for cuts.
Original Sightline Institute graphic, available under our Free Use Policy.
To be clear, if Metro had an unlimited pot of money, it’s possible that none or very few of those routes would be on the chopping block. In fact the same 2013 Service Guidelines Analysis found that Metro should actually grow its service by roughly 15 percent to reach ideal levels of service.
But what those numbers suggest is that Metro has identified some opportunities for greater efficiency, but has now been forced to keep cutting service that performs relatively well or that serves corridors where service cuts will cause real hardship. Altogether, the cuts will drive Metro’s ridership down to levels not seen since 1997. But if we have opportunities to restore some of that service down the road, the trick will lie in figuring out where the line between the “good” cuts and the “bad” cuts falls. Metro has done some of this work by proposing to cut in four phases, with the least painful—in its estimation—going first.
In South King County, the cuts will eliminate 9 routes that were slated as “high” priorities for reductions, 1 that was “medium,” and 9 that were “low” priorities for cuts. In East and North King County, 18 routes were identified as “high” priorities for reduction, 1 was “medium,” and eight were “low” priorities.
Those are the parts of the county that voted against Prop 1, as this great map from Oran Viriyincy shows, and overrode Seattle’s support. If those parts of the county want its transit system to be more anemic, it’s probably time for a candid conversation about the values that drive decisions about what parts of the system we preserve and what we give up. Do we give up on certain geographic areas of the county in order to focus on routes that carry more people? Do we cut service to highly functioning routes in order to preserve service in low-income neighborhoods?
King County Metro has essentially weighted those priorities for us with service guidelines that drive how resources are added or cut. They try to strike a balance between highly productive routes, ones that connect important geographic centers, and ones that serve low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Metro also tried to spread its proposed cuts between routes that serve Seattle’s core and those that do not.
Those criteria are an improvement over the inefficient 40-40-20 rule that used to allocate service by subregion. But now that the new guidelines are going to drive change on such a major scale, county residents should understand what they are.
In Seattle, where Prop 1 passed, Friends of Transit has filed an initiative to allow voters to raise property taxes to reverse cuts to the routes that primarily operate within the city limits. It would essentially create a pot of money for the city of Seattle to “buy back” or preserve existing service that King County Metro would otherwise cut. If there’s any money left over, the city could buy new transit hours and invest in growing the system.
The initiative would increase the city’s property tax by $0.22 per $1,000 of assessed value between 2015 and 2021. It’s estimated to generate approximately $155 million over six years, enough to fund as much as 250,000 hours of bus service.
If the initiative passes, it’s important to ensure that Metro doesn’t just take Seattle’s money and focus new bus service on the suburbs. The initiative contains a provision intended to prevent that, but it’s a political temptation worth guarding against. It would also be smart to preserve the parts of Metro’s restructuring plan that lead to a more sensible Seattle bus network. It makes little sense to buy back service on expensive or low-performing routes that don’t really carry enough people, are only a few blocks away from a duplicative route, or no longer make sense to operate for other reasons.
One of the criticisms in the wake of Prop 1’s countywide defeat was that voters weren’t being sold on improving the system, only in rescuing it. And if the ultimate goal is to improve the system, more candid discussion—particularly about which routes perform well and which ones don’t—is a great place to start.
Weezy
Re: “Plan C” — this new initiative.
Jennifer writes: “The initiative contains a provision intended to prevent [ensuring that Metro doesn’t just take Seattle’s money and focus new bus service on the suburbs], but it’s a political temptation worth guarding against.”
Here’s the thing: the drafters of this initiative did not put any teeth in that provision Jennifer references (it is called “section 8”). Anyone disagree?
A city initiative is legislation. It is an ordinance from the people, as opposed to an ordinance the city council adopts.
When will City Attorney Pete Holmes give us his opinions about whether or not the interests of the property owners and transit users in Seattle would be protected and well-served by this proposed city legislation?
sayke
The drafters of the initiative did in fact require that this money be used *only* to save bus routes that spend at least 80 percent of their annual revenue hours inside Seattle’s city limits.
Weezy
That’s true, as far as it goes.
What you are not taking into account though is Jennifer’s observation that Metro could just take Seattle property tax revenues for Seattle service, while at the same time devoting too much of its existing large tax revenue streams to bus service in the suburbs.
Robert Cruickshank
I am extremely shocked, saddened, and disturbed to see this posted at Sightline.
If we are going to build a carbon zero city, we need to reduce the single biggest source of CO2 emissions in Seattle: from transportation. That means we need to get as many people as possible to ride buses.
To do that, you have to have routes there for people to hop on board. Some of those routes will be packed. Some won’t be. But you must have a system with the capacity and coverage to pick up as many people as possible when high gas prices, traffic, or guilt about burning up our planet cause even more people to ride.
Let us be very clear: there is nothing at all good about the restructure Metro is proposing. It’s more than a cut. It’s a gutting of the network that Metro yesterday estimated would leave 10 million riders a year stranded. That’s almost a 10% reduction in ridership.
Many of the routes Metro identifies as “low performing” are not actually low performing. It’s an accounting trick designed to determine which parts of the system lose limbs and which merely lose fingers. One of the routes deemed “low performing,” the 28, is a workhorse that routinely carries full buses from Crown Hill through Frelard, Fremont, and the growing Dexter corridor to SLU and Downtown. But because some other routes have even higher ridership, the 28 was seen as expendable. That doesn’t mean it’s an inherently bad route. It just means the proposed cuts will significantly undermine our transit system at a time when we need it to grow.
But there’s a bigger point here. Sustainability advocates must utterly reject the idea that our bus system should be focused on efficiency. It’s a metric imposed on us by right-wingers who dislike transit and don’t want to pay for it. It’s also narrow because it defines “efficiency” in terms of money in and service out. If we defined “efficiency” as CO2 reduced, or fossil fuel saved, well, every single Metro route would be deemed worth funding.
Sustainability advocates have to reject the “efficiency” game because it is played with dice that are loaded against us. We must instead emphasize a robust bus and rail network that gives everyone a chance to get out of their cars and save the planet by riding a bus. Losing bus routes and thus losing riders is a huge step backward not only for transit in Seattle, but for any hope that we can lead the way to a carbon zero region.
Weezy
The percentage of Seattle residents who commute via transit is the same as it has been for the past 20 years: a bit over 18%. Even if that increased by a huge amount, to say 23%, it would not contribute in any appreciable way to what you think the goal of transit is (“saving the planet”).
You understand this, right? No matter how many people ride buses here, or how much tax Metro confiscates, it will not curb global warming, clean up the world’s air, etc.
Also, if you are truly a “sustainability” advocate, lowering taxing that adversely impacts individuals and families is just as important as reducing peoples’ “carbon footprint”. Disagree with that premise?
sayke
Appreciable is relative, and city and state policy leadership plays a key role in shaping the national agenda. If Seattle can’t even keep a decent transit system, then how can we expect decent beyond-cars and beyond-fossil-fuel policy from DC?
And I completely disagree with you about taxes, on principle. Taxes are just another kind of purchase, and purchasing public goods through taxes isn’t any better or worse than purchasing private goods through markets. It’s just a different kind of transaction, that’s all.
Bruce Nourish
“Sustainability advocates must utterly reject the idea that our bus system should be focused on efficiency.”
I’m sorry, but that’s utter rubbish. Buses get 3-5 miles per gallon. A bus with 20 people on it is thus operating very efficiently, both in terms of money and carbon emissions. A bus will two people on it is neither. It would be better if those people drove, and the bus was used elsewhere on a high-performing route.
The 28 was replaced with the 28X at roughly the same frequency, although with a little less night service. The latter is unfortunate, but the former is basically just switching from Dexter to Aurora — it’s a change in network structure, not a cut.
sayke
Metro has been operating on limited budgets for decades. They routinely cut inefficient routes, if they’re actually inefficient, via their normal routing optimization process. So far they’ve been quite good at that, and if you have any questions about their route optimization process, maybe you should take it up with them…?
Robert Cruickshank
The 28X bypasses Central Fremont and Dexter, two locations where the current 28 sees a significant number of riders. Going onto Aurora reduces the opportunity for people living or working in those locations to hop on board a bus. It’s a classic case of where something that may appear to be more “efficient” actually works against our goals of reducing CO2 emissions and increasing bus ridership.
Bruce Nourish
As this map shows, the revised 28X will still serve Fremont, although it will serve the neighborhood near the periphery, not at the 34th/Fremont stop at the center of the neighborhood. That is a disadvantage for riders going to Fremont, but riders going to Belltown or downtown will have a faster trip. This is a tradeoff, not a cut.
Dexter will now be served by a re-aligned Route 16. This will be a cut in frequency for the riders on Dexter, and that is unfortunate. But again, the change in structure is a change, not a cut — they will lose a direct connection to Whittier Heights and gain a (frankly more useful) one to Wallingford, Green Lake and Northgate).
The actual challenge of building an effective transit network is twofold: (a) get more money for transit and (b) spend that money effectively. I advocate for both. You advocate for (a) and then bleat on inanely about how efficiency is a construct dreamed by right-wingers to oppress the masses. Have fun with that; I will be over here with the grown-ups.
As an aside, I’ve finally figured out who the real Will Douglas is.
Jennifer Langston
That’s an entirely fair point, Robert. But the fact is that Metro is, for now, cutting service based on the fact that voters, at least countywide, refused to allocate more money. So I think it’s at least worth having a conversation about what assumptions went into what routes get eliminated and if there are legitimate opportunities.
I’ve pointed out in the post (perhaps not high enough) that if Metro did have adequate funding, it’s likely that few of the routes would be cut. But, right now, it doesn’t.
Robert Cruickshank
The Plan C initiative is designed to ensure that Metro would indeed have adequate funding – within Seattle. Seems to me that’s where most of our emphasis should be right now.
But I do also want to question your framing here. I do not see how eliminating routes is ever an “opportunity.” As sustainability advocates, our job is to provide enough service so that the bus or the train becomes an attractive option to people currently driving. To do that, we’re going to have to put in an up front investment and some of that goes into routes that may not currently have as much ridership as others – but, those routes are still worth operating.
If we decide that the purpose of a bus system is to achieve operating efficiency, then we do so at the expense of our CO2 reduction and sustainability goals. That’s my central objection here and the source of my genuine surprise that Sightline would endorse that kind of thinking.
Clark Williams-Derry
Robert-
I do understand your point here. “Efficiency” can be used as a cudgel: a blunt instrument to attack all bus service. That’s certainly how it was used in the Prop 1 debate, at least by some.
But I disagree efficiency shouldn’t be a concern for sustainability advocates. Back in the day, we argued that the 40-40-20 rule was a mistake precisely because it didn’t give Metro the flexibility to focus on the most efficient routes — the routes that are most likely to have high ridership, and that genuinely help get people out of cars and/or support a car-lite lifestyle..
That said, I certainly don’t think that efficiency — however you measure it — should be the only goal of a transit service! Transit planner Jarrett Walker talks quite a bit about the potential conflicts between “ridership” and “coverage” — or, more generally, between “efficiency” and “equity.” At some level transit service isn’t just about getting people out of cars; it’s also about giving people who don’t/can’t drive access to basic transportation services. The mix between coverage and efficiency
So I think that the equity question got steamrolled by the “efficiency” cudgel. Some folks with disabilities, or who have lost their license, or who can’t afford to drive will be stranded by these cuts. And some people who’d otherwise hop in a bus will drive. Both results are bad!
Regardless, I think that there should be a robust and open conversation about what we want and need in transit — about ridership vs. coverage, about efficiency and equity, about actual environmental performance and how to measure it. Pretending that tradeoffs don’t exist is a bit silly. But using efficiency as a surgical tool—and not a blunt instrument—seems like a reasonable approach.
Robert Cruickshank
I appreciate your comments here, though I do still disagree with the basic thrust of the post. I’m hoping to find time later tonight to lay out the case in more depth, and I’ll share the link with you all when I do.
I opposed 40-40-20 not out of efficiency concerns, but because it strangled ridership and route growth in Seattle. Efficiency was the justification required to move it through a County Council that had more members from the suburbs than from Seattle.
I am quite familiar with Jarrett Walker’s work, and while he has some valuable insights, I strongly disagree with his overall approach toward designing and planning a transit system. You’re right that efficiency and equity are tradeoffs. The point I’m making is that efficiency and sustainability, including CO2 reduction, are also tradeoffs.
Deric Gruen
Thanks Jennifer, important analysis. In addition to those being eliminated, among the routes being modified Metro has proposed some changes that seem to stray from the goals of productivity and equity.
For example, Metro is proposing cutting a stop serving 900 rides every weekday on the productive Route 271 stop on the Bellevue College Campus; perhaps also one of the largest single concentrations of low income and people of color in Bellevue.
Metro Proposes Cutting Stop with 900 Riders
sayke
All of the routes this initiative is trying to save are vastly more efficient than having people drive.
Genuinely inefficient routes are reshuffled routinely anyway and are not even on the table here.
Is it just me, or does this article seem reflexively contrarian? =P
Jennifer Langston
Given the realities of a constrained budget, restructuring or eliminating routes is one of the only ways to preserve service elsewhere. Obviously, there are a whole host of questions and value judgements that go into deciding which routes are more “valuable” than others and what level of service they deserve. Do we want to focus on most efficient routes, on geographic functionality, social equity? Since we are in the midst of an exercise in making those tradeoffs, at least countywide, I think it’s a good idea to at least acknowledge and talk about what those values are.
In Seattle, it appears that voters don’t want to make those trade-offs and sacrifices, and I’m very much in favor of that. But if there are a handful of restructures that do arguably make sense here (with more frequent service as a result of increased funding), I think it’s fine to at least raise the issue.
But these are all points that I hope will be raised and debated as Metro proceeds with its public process.
Robert Cruickshank
If we accept a constrained budget, which is what the right desperately wants us to do, then we are going to face a downward spiral of route cuts, declining ridership and revenues, leading to more cuts and decreased public support of the system.
Seattle voters have shown they do support their buses and will fund them. We’ll give them that option again this fall and render this discussion moot. It’s worth noting that the county as a whole has supported transit in the past, including the 2006 Transit Now package. An April special election may not be the best judge of what county voters want.
More to the point, I find it notable that nowhere in your assessment of which routes are “valuable” is listed CO2 emissions, fossil fuel reduction, or overall ridership numbers. I would argue those are the most important things for those of us who believe in sustainability and carbon zero to focus on. The only way we get there is by increasing the amount of funding available, rather than playing the right-wing’s game of “pin the tail on the unlucky people who lose their bus.”
In other words, if we want to “raise the issue” it needed to have been done more effectively than this.
BFN
Jennifer, I appreciate the concept of having an in-depth conversation about efficiency, and what things are important to us as a region as we structure our bus service (equity/ridership/etc).
Two things, though: not saying in your article what “low” or “high” priority for cuts actually MEANS (in terms or ridership or other factors) is leaving a pretty big hole. And, one overriding and important aspect of transit (that you see over and over again in polls, or focus groups, or surveys on transit) is that it HAS to be frequent and reliable for people to want to use it.
Talking about these low or high priority routes as if those designations (and cutting high priority routes) will lead to “efficiency” is thinking of it backwards. If all of these routes (and more!) were funded so that they were frequent and ran more often, what do you think would happen with ridership? Of course, there will always be ways to be more efficient. But cutting routes/ limiting hours / increasing headways does one thing for sure: it gives people an impression that the bus is a crappy way to get around.
This is why saying some of these cuts may “improve” Metro’s efficiency seems just plain wrong.
Jennifer
BFN – I should have done a better job of differentiating between cuts to service hours, which I do agree is a terrible idea for any growing region, and cuts/restructures to individual routes, which might make more sense if you could provide more frequent service with additional investment.
Doug MacDonald
Good for Jennifer and Sightline for asking some of the right questions and pointing the discussion in the direction of facing, and making, choices I confess, in response to Cruikshank, to being a big Jarrett Walker fan. And I also confess to having little personal enthusiasm without a lot more study and reflection for crawling into the route-by-route details — although I highly value Bruce Nourish’s wealth of detailed and hard-worked insights.
But here’s what gets me. People who are earnestly concerned about futures that deal with conservation and wise use of earth’s — or society’s — resources certainly take a peculiar positin when they argue a priori that it is political heresy to talk about constraints We need to do a lot more talking, not less, about constraints if we really believe in “sustainability.” What are the constraints we face? How do we manage within them? How do we make wise and responsible choices within constraints?
Ken
Although this is off topic, it is germane to the discussion of voting more taxes in support of transit.
I just read that the city plans to revise the stretch of Greenwood from 85 to 105th as an area where buses will stop in the road to load and unload passengers, and that vehicles will wait for this. This means that transportation in that area will be no faster than the slowest bus including loading and unloading.
This is a somewhat busy stretch of road with few viable alternatives other than loading more cars onto 3rd avenue or onto an already overloaded Aurora, or sending cars through narrow side streets.
Since buses already have the right of way for entering a road, why not just enforce this law?
This is not the kind of action that is like to encourage more taxes for transit.
d.p.
Would you like to pay for a cop to follow every bus around, in order to block the preponderance of drivers who happily cut off dozens of passengers in their single-occupant vehicles? No? Well then this is the only proven efficient alternative.
Contrary to the fearmongering, in-lane stops will only be placed where pulling back into traffic is notoriously difficult. In addition, the total number of stops along the stretch — Greenwood Avenue has an excess of them — will be reduced, yielding a faster trip for everyone.
If Metro takes its new efficiency mandate seriously, it will also work hard to end cash payment in order to bring dwell times down a matter of seconds. You cfan afford to wait a few extra seconds so that transit users don’t get stuck for minutes at a time.
Ken
With reminders drivers will comply. I’ve waited ten minutes at times on Dexter along with another 30 or 40 cars while a bus goes through a drawn out loading process of a wheelchair. I’m all for acces for all to buses but it just makes common sense to let everyone be efficient .
d.p.
Never in history has a driver been penalized for failing to yield to a bus. Cops don’t care, and unless one were directly behind the offender(s), it would require extraordinary effort to pull him/her/them over. Which, on a lane hemmed in by parking, would cause a much greater jam-up than an in-lane stop.
In short, enforcement is not gonna happen, and you know it. Your claim to care about “everyone being efficient” is easily unmasked as “I don’t care about anyone’s time but my own”.
Note that in most East Coast cities, where the streets are jammed but bus bulbs rare, most bus drivers have learned that stopping in-lane, even unsanctioned, is imperative to getting passengers where they need to go. Seattle is now that crowded a city. But this informal fix creates problems for those who can’t easily board 10 feet from the curb.
I agree that Metro should only be running low-floor buses — with passive wheelchair spots (no strapping) — on the kind of high-volume routes that would demand bus bulbs. Metro too needs to catch up with the kind of expedient high-volume loading and unloading that being a big city entails.
But your “out of my way, transit users” counter-offer is not a workable plan. It is, frankly, a big part of why Seattle transit is bad enough that you won’t deign to use it.
Ken
As a community, we are better than that.
We have an alley behind our house with huge potholes. There is a neighbor who is opposed to any repair as he feels it will allow vehicles to go too fast, so all suffer a dysfunctional inefficient system because a minority feel that others “won’t follow the rules”. I reject that thinking, that we must regress to a dysfunctional baseline because of a fear that some won’t follow the rules.
Nathanael
If there’s a candid conversation about what you’re willing to lose, I’d start by looking at the bus routes with very poor numbers from the 2013 Service Guidelines report. Many of these, such as routes to Enumclaw and North Bend, are proposed to be retained. The worst-performing are mostly DART routes.
I think it seems unlikely that these are the most carbon-emissions-reducing options for use of service hours.
Clearly “geographic equity” is still alive and well in King County Metro thinking.