Regional Travel: Transit Agencies in Puget Sound, Part II (Funding)

A series of articles by Brian Doennebrink on the topic of public transport

By Brian Doennebrink

In 2010, voter-approved (a.k.a. “local option”) sales and use taxes provided over 64 percent of transit funding, which is why they have all been influenced by the economic conditions of the past few years. In the Puget Sound region, the following are collecting the maximum of 0.9% sales and use tax: Community Transit, Island Transit, King County Metro, and Sound Transit. A narrow majority of voters in Pierce County recently rejected an attempt by Pierce Transit to raise their local option sales and use tax to the maximum, keeping that agency’s local option sales and use tax at 0.6%.

Sound Transit (ST) has separate taxing authority. They had the authority to levy a motor vehicle excise tax (MVET) of up to 0.8% until 2002, when the passage of Initiative 776 eliminated MVET as a funding source (MVET was up to 50% of some transit system’s funding). However, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld ST’s existing 0.3% MVET collection for bond repayment until the bond debt is fully retired (approximately 2028). This MVET tax is what many of us see on our car tab renewal form.

In King County, where its transit system (King County Metro) is governed by the county, the local option sales and use tax of 0.9% for King County Metro is the same county-wide. The RTA/Sound Transit local option is also at 0.9%, but – along with the MVET – is only collected in the parts of the county that are within its taxing borders.

In contrast, Snohomish County has a Public Transportation Benefit Area, which only applies to areas whose voters approved being included (taxed). Further, as in King County, the RTA (Sound Transit) doesn’t cover all parts of the county. Thus, the local sales tax varies from 1.2% in unincorporated areas that are not in the RTA, a total of 7.7% sales and use tax collected therein, to 3.0% in most of the cities in the southwestern part of the county, a total of 9.5% sales and use tax collected therein.

There’s even a tax rate lookup app for iPhones to search for a rate at a specific address or area!

Other major sources of transit funding include fares and grants.