King County Metro may be cutting a lot of service: what does it mean for us?

By Brian Doennebrink

Perhaps you have heard: King County Metro may have to cut 17% of their service hours, or 600,000 hours. That is a lot of service. To put it into perspective, Community Transit – which provides bus services to/from/within Snohomish County - operates or contracts for bus service totaling just under 612,000 last year.

Why is Metro potentially cutting so much service? Economics. Like most of the state’s transit agencies, Metro relies heavily on a share of the state sales tax, and due to the economy, those revenues have fallen 18% between 2009 and 2011. Metro was able to stave off cuts sooner due to an aggressive response to a performance audit that was conducted at the agency, with millions of cost savings, some one-time, most ongoing. They have also raised fares four years in a row. The King County Council also passed a temporary “congestion relief fee” – but that $20 vehicle license addition expires in June 2014.

Metro’s Strategic Plan Progress Report, required to be presented this month, shows that their current system has issues with quality, i.e. over-crowding and unreliability, and not meeting their target guidelines. If Metro’s financial circumstances do not change for the better significantly, something like the below – but with planning principles applied, e.g. restructuring – will be implemented in four parts of roughly 150,000 service hours cut each – over a year’s period starting in the fall of 2014. The below, a “data exercise” that follows their service guidelines, would eliminate 65 routes and reduce or revise 86 other routes, leaving only 66 routes, about 28% of their total, unchanged. However, getting to those routes would be. Example: if the #331 is eliminated, folks along that line would have to drive to their nearest bus, such as at Aurora Village or near Lake Forest Park Mall, adding more traffic to the roads and more competition for limited parking.

The hypothetical service reduction illustrates what could happen to these Shoreline/Lake Forest Park routes:

Could change:

• Buses to/from downtown: #5 and #355 (Shoreline Community College/SCC); #73 Briarcrest; #77 North City; #308, #309, #312, and #372 Lake Forest Park. Others: #243 between Ridgecrest and Bellevue, #331 LFP and SCC, #373 Aurora Village and UW.

Could experience overcrowding and reliability issues:

• #330 between LFP and SCC. Buses to/from Northgate: #345 (SCC), #346 (Aurora Village), #347 (Ballinger Terrace), #348 (Richmond Beach). Lastly, #358 express (Aurora Village and downtown).

If no new funding for transit happens this legislative session –  scheduled to end April 27 – Metro planners will work on service reduction proposals that we would see in public meetings next fall which, without an indication of mitigation in the beginning of the next legislative session (January 2014), will take effect in September 2014.

Brian Doennebrink writes an ongoing column about Public Transit Choices in the Shoreline / Lake Forest Park area. Find his other columns on the main page under Features.