Public officials and representatives from the task force that created a new set of recommendations for transforming the way Metro makes service and route planning decisions presented their work and heard from the community — and Metro drivers, themselves — about public transit needs in Seattle at a town hall meeting held on the Seattle University campus Tuesday night. A recurring theme for many of the community speakers: increased efficiency within Metro is good but there should be fewer cuts to public transit if regional governments are continuing to spend money on creating more roads. Meanwhile, labor was also present Tuesday night as the drivers union made its concern about increased workload and more aggressive scheduling known.
We’ve included the final recommendation report from the King County Regional Task Force, below. Despite the broad nature of the plan, much of the public comment was, of course, very specific and personal.
“I really sympathize with people who lose their favorite bus. I lost my favorite bus,” one Capitol Hill resident who spoke said.
Earlier, a large group waved signs as their representatives spoke out against cutting Route 42.
With representatives from the task force were Larry Phillips, King County Council’s transportation committee chair, Larry Gossett, also from the county council, and Tom Rasmussen, chair of the Seattle City Council’s transportation committee.
Most significantly, the task force’s recommendations propose a shift in how Metro calculates where to focus its service and at what level from a formula that guarantees increased service in all areas of King County to a new, more complicated but less constrained framework that emphasizes measurements from service performance to demographics.
Here is the task force description of Metro’s current planning framework:
The current policy for transit service growth and reduction is based on three King County subareas (east, west and south) and was established in Metro’s 2002 – 2007 Six-Year Transit Development Plan. For service growth, every 200,000 hours of new transit service is to be allocated with 40 percent to the east subarea, 40 percent to the south, and 20 percent to the west. This is called the 40/40/20 policy. Any systemwide service reductions are to take place in proportion to each subarea’s share of the total service investment. Based on the current hours of service in each subarea, 62 percent of the reduction would have to come from the west subarea, 21 percent from the south and 17 percent from the east. This is commonly called the 60/20/20 policy.
While many of the public speakers praised the idea of a more efficient public transit system, the details of the recommendation left some wanting more. One speaker called the task force “intellectually dishonest” for presenting a rational framework for planning but not including specific requirements for how Metro must implement many of the recommendations.
Representatives from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587 voiced their concern to the task force about the increasingly hectic scheduling for drivers and its impact on health, performance and safety. One driver went so far as to call for the county to “stop the barbaric treatment of Metro drivers.”
Another speaker pointed out a missing element in the plan, asking the task force why it has apparently glossed over the future of Metro’s trolley system. Metro must make a decision on how to best replace its fleet of aging electric trolley buses that serve many of the city’s most-hilly neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, other speakers offered suggestions for improving service and cutting costs. One speaker suggested Metro needed to consolidate the types of bus coaches it supports to reduce maintenance costs. Another spoke on the need for more improvements in payment systems that would speed up exiting and entering a bus. Jack Buchans, the driver pictured on this post, asked why Metro isn’t investing in better schedule technology at bus stops.
A popular target Tuesday night was the city’s downtown free ride zone. One speaker suggested the elimination of the zone. She said it was designed to bring business not poor people downtown. Cutting the zone would increase revenues another man argued. More than one driver who spoke mentioned the zone as a cause of service delays and bad behavior on buses.
Here is a summary list of the task force recommendations. Below, we’ve also embedded the final recommendation document.
Now that the final recommendation report is out, comments should be directed to elected officials and Metro’s leaders, Council member Phillips told CHS after the meeting. “It’s time now for the electeds to forge legislation based on these recommendations,” Phillips said. You can mail Phillips at [email protected] and Seattle City Council transportation chair Rasmussen at [email protected].
Recommendation 1: Metro should create and adopt a new set of performance measures by service type, and report at least annually on the agency’s performance on these measures. The performance measures should incorporate reporting on the key system design factors, and should include comparisons with Metro’s peer transit agencies.
o Evaluate individual routes – This will allow for analysis and comparison of each type of Metro service, including the different “families” of fixed route by service type.
o Evaluate overall system performance – This will allow for a better understanding of how the system as a whole is performing, including the ability to achieve some broader policy goals, such as the seven key system design factors.
o Evaluate performance against peer agencies – This will allow for a metrics-based comparison with other transit agencies that will help Metro understand how it might improve performance of its transit system.
Recommendation 2: King County and Metro management must control all of the agency’s operating expenses to provide a cost structure that is sustainable over time. Cost control strategies should include continued implementation of the 2009 performance audit findings, exploration of alternative service delivery models, and potential reduction of overhead and internal service charges.
Recommendation 3: The policy guidance for making service reduction and service growth decisions should be based on the following priorities:
1) Emphasize productivity due to its linkage to economic development, land use and financial sustainability;
2) Ensure social equity; and
3) Provide geographic value throughout the county.
Recommendation 4: Create clear and transparent guidelines to be used for making service allocation decisions, based upon the recommended policy direction.
Recommendation 5: Use the following principles to provide direction for the development of service guidelines.
Transparency, Clarity and Measurability
Use of the System Design Factors
Flexibility to Address Dynamic Financial Conditions
Integration with the Regional Transportation System
Recommendation 6: King County, Metro, and a broad coalition of community and business interests should pursue state legislation to create one or more additional revenue sources that would provide a long-term, more sustainable base of revenue support for transit services. To build support for that work, it is essential that King County adopt and implement the task force recommendations, including use of the service guidelines and performance measures, and continued efforts to reduce Metro’s operating costs.
Recommendation 7: Metro staff should use the Task Force recommendations and discussions as the framework for revising Metro’s current mission statement, and creating a vision statement (as one does not now exist_). Both draft statements should be included in the draft Comprehensive and Strategic Plans scheduled to be submitted to the County Council in February 2011.
So here’s my own points for Metro.
1- Stop degrading local downtown neighborhood service. That 40/40/20 thing is ridiculous. We who live near downtown get our services cut, because of some arbitrary formula. Stop playing downtown residents off against suburban residents. Provide better service for all, not cutting one or the other according to some arbitrary formula.
2- Drop the ride-free. It was a cute idea 25+ yrs ago. It facilitates scary crime now.
3- Stop dead-heading out to suburbia. I have lost track of the numbers of times now I see an empty bus with TRM or CB or whatever else taking up space on the street blocking 2 lanes of traffic while it wheels around to drive all the way out to Federal Way empty, just so it can turn around and bring in another 25 commuters from far away. This is ridiculous and degrades service. Any of us who work “reverse commutes” do not get a bus or train option because some person with a spreadsheet decided theres only one way to commute to suburbia: from the outside in to downtown.
4- Stop abusing your drivers. I know over 20 yrs worth of riding Metro that I have seen drivers get far more surly and angry. And I have a hunch why: they’re being treated badly by their employer. Whatever it is you’re doing to them, knock it off. We count on their friendly good natured help when we’re lost someplace or are barely able to make a connection between busses and need them to blow the horn for the next one to stop.
5- Realign transit points. Remember the black circle T on the metro maps? You used to be guaranteed you could transfer. No more. Now you are expected to ride a one way long haul suburban bus, or you’re expected to sit dead in a transfer spot for 15, 20, sometimes 30 minutes. Ridiculous.
And finally:
Do all this, and you still have lost me. I gave Metro 20 years, no more. I’m middle aged now, I don’t feel safe. Metro is packed full of criminals drunks and angry strange people.. Its like welfare on wheels. Ever since Sims and Locke in 1995 engineered that fait accompli to move old Seattle Metro out of city / independent leadership, and stick it under King County, it has been a non stop degradation of service to downtown Seattle and the surrounding neighborhoods. Any long term rider can attest to this, the way our business has been ignored and our needed short-haul busses have been dropped or cut back. I’m fricken tired of the bureaucrat nonsense Metro parades around with pretending its service.
If you live near downtown and can, walk. It’s beeter for you.
It’s not just their employer treating them poorly, it’s the passengers. And if you want to stereotype, it happens more in the city than the suburbs.
“One speaker called the task force ‘intellectually dishonest’ for presenting a rational framework for planning but not including specific requirements for how Metro must implement many of the recommendations.”
They’re playing a political game; creating something that looks rational, transparent, objective, etc, but stopping short of actually doing that b/c they don’t want to lose suburban votes. The task force recommends 3 good guidelines for allocating service: social equity, georgraphic coverage, and financial productivity. Where they’re being intellectually dishonest is pretending these goals are all harmonious and never conflict, and thus refusing to clarify exactly how much Metro service they’ll allocate to each goal (and I don’t care whether it’s 80/10/10 or 50/25/25…I just strongly believe they need to consciously adopt a clear, consistent set of numbers). A half-full rush hour-only route to North Bend is NOT financially productive; it provides geographic coverage. The 43 and 49 add little geographic coverage but are financially productive and help with social equity.
Plus this notion that “tax equity” should be taken into account–absolutely nuts. Places that contribute more sales tax should get more transit?? Do we base any other county service on “tax equity”? Law enforcement? Courts? Health and human services? ROADS? It’s like the old Newt Gingrich argument against the NEA complaining that most art funding goes to cities. Yeah; because that’s where most of the art happens! And rural areas get the farm subsidies and conservation/preservation funding. Seattle gets more transit service per capita b/c our land use patterns support it. If other places want more service (like the insane mayor of Kent), they can change their land use policies to densify and reduce car dependence and justify more transit.
Larry Phillips and Larry Gossett are introducing an ordinance to accept the task force’s recommendations whole hog. That really disappoints me.
I’ll back my words up with 20 yrs experience riding metro.
What do you have but a dumb opinion?
As for walking, yep, do plenty of that too.. Like when another 10 or 14 is jam packed because they only run one bus per 20 minutes on the route, where a few years ago (before the ridiculous suburban > downtown formula) they ran 2 or 3 per half hour during peak times.
Metro’s lost my vote. I’m out.