The City of Seattle hosted a brown bag session yesterday to discuss the county's proposal for cutting Metro Transit service. In attendance were King County Executive Kurt Triplett and Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond, Seattle Council members Jan Drago, Sally Clark, Richard McIver, Tim Rasmussen, Bruce Harrell, and Richard Conlin, Transportation Choices Coalition Director Rob Johnson and Downtown Seattle Association Policy Adviser Jon Scholes.
The big takeaways were Triplett committing to a proposal that suspends—rather than cuts—bus service and abandons the 40/40/20 plan in exchange for a service expansion plan that is contingent on funding availability. Triplett indicated this significant change in policy will be a contentious issue for many of Metro's partners and that approval will be needed from both the King County Council and Regional Transit Council prior to implementation. The proposal is currently slated for the councils' consideration in late September, right when the budget process gets underway.
These policy changes represent just one piece of Triplett's comprehensive proposal to balance Metro's budget in the coming years. Here's a quick rundown of the cost reduction measures:
- Defer bus service expansion with the exception of projects that are heavily leveraged with a dedicated funding source, such as RapidRide, or represent a contractual obligation Metro must uphold, such as the Alaskan Way Viaduct Agreement.
- Cut capital programs by reducing service hours or eliminating days of operation on select routes.
- Institute non-service related cuts such as bus stop maintenance, marketing and paper-based outreach efforts.
- Allocate new revenue from the King Couty Ferry District and implement a property tax swap to supplement Metro's current operating budget.
- Dip into operating reserves with the recognition the recession is a short-term emergency situation.
- Accelerate the 25-cent fare increase so that it goes into affect in 2011.
- Reduce the number of fleet replacements.
- Implement scheduling and service suspension efficiencies identified in the forthcoming performance audit with a goal of cutting 310,000 service hours by the end of 2011 and 585,000 service hours by the end of 2013. Achieve goals by instituting a 9 percent service redution across all Metro routes.
Following a presentation of these cost reduction measures, a number of concerns were raised by council members and community members regarding the need for additional public outreach, acknowledgement of growth management goals, disproportionate cuts to high transit demand areas such as Southeast Seattle, and the importance of jurisdictional collaboration when identifying bus service suspensions.
