News
Last Night: The Seattle Transit Blog Meetup
At Wednesday night's Seattle Transit Blog meetup, about 40 folks gathered at the downtown offices of the GGLO architecture firm to geek out on transportation and listen to city council member Tom Rasmussen and Metro planner Jack Lattemann talk about the Regional Transit Task Force, changes to Metro service because of light rail, and the city's transit master plan. Of those 40, two of us were women.
Rasmussen said he hoped the state legislature would give Metro access to a new funding source for transit in 2012 (next year, they'll be consumed with the budget), and provide stopgap funding for buses next year. And he raised objections to the current 40/40/20 funding formula for Metro, which sends 80 percent of Metro's tax dollars to the suburbs and just 20 percent to Seattle. "This is one of the few taxes where we say you have to spend the money just where it's raised," Rasmussen said. "We don't do that with health care ... We raise tax dollars throughout a region and wealthy areas perhaps contribute more."
Finally, in a surprising statement, Rasmussen suggested that the city should toll Lake Washington Boulevard, calling it the "road that comes to mind immediately for tolling in the city of Seattle."
Latteman, who spoke after Rasmussen, dug in to the minutiae of Metro service, explaining why the agency eliminated the route 194, which paralleled light rail ("Frankly, we weren't going to run a route that took nearly 50,000 [annual service] hours parallel to a $2 billion investment"); touting the performance of the route 7, which some people feared would lose riders when light rail opened (ridership is actually at an all-time high); and citing a shocking stat that highlighted the senselessness of keeping the route 42, which also parallels light rail (and which was "saved" after protests from a few Southeast Seattle residents): Since light rail opened, the 42 has just 112 boardings a day, compared to 8,000 a day on the route 8, which runs from the Rainier Valley to Seattle Center.
Rasmussen said he hoped the state legislature would give Metro access to a new funding source for transit in 2012 (next year, they'll be consumed with the budget), and provide stopgap funding for buses next year. And he raised objections to the current 40/40/20 funding formula for Metro, which sends 80 percent of Metro's tax dollars to the suburbs and just 20 percent to Seattle. "This is one of the few taxes where we say you have to spend the money just where it's raised," Rasmussen said. "We don't do that with health care ... We raise tax dollars throughout a region and wealthy areas perhaps contribute more."
Finally, in a surprising statement, Rasmussen suggested that the city should toll Lake Washington Boulevard, calling it the "road that comes to mind immediately for tolling in the city of Seattle."
Latteman, who spoke after Rasmussen, dug in to the minutiae of Metro service, explaining why the agency eliminated the route 194, which paralleled light rail ("Frankly, we weren't going to run a route that took nearly 50,000 [annual service] hours parallel to a $2 billion investment"); touting the performance of the route 7, which some people feared would lose riders when light rail opened (ridership is actually at an all-time high); and citing a shocking stat that highlighted the senselessness of keeping the route 42, which also parallels light rail (and which was "saved" after protests from a few Southeast Seattle residents): Since light rail opened, the 42 has just 112 boardings a day, compared to 8,000 a day on the route 8, which runs from the Rainier Valley to Seattle Center.
