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Seattle Transit Blog: Eliminate the Route 42
This post has been updated with comments from Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke.
Seattle Transit Blog makes the case again today for eliminating the wasteful, redundant money-suck that is the Route 42---a route that's almost entirely duplicated by Link Light Rail.
As I've reported here and elsewhere, Metro, under pressure from Asian Counseling and Referral Services, agreed to keep the 42 and forego planned service improvements on more heavily used routes in Southeast Seattle. ACRS argued that their clients are unable to use either of the two light-rail stations that are located within a five-minute walk of their building or the Route 8, which stops directly in front of ACRS. The agency is also served by Metro's Access vans and a free shuttle called the Hyde Shuttle dedicated exclusively to Southeast Seattle seniors and people with disabilities.
As STB reports, ridership on the 42 has plummeted since light rail opened, with four or five people boarding at the most heavily-used stops and only 17 people boarding daily at the stops serving ACRS---and there's no way of knowing whether those are ACRS clients or people who simply live or work near those stops. The corollary is that the route costs about $11.15 per passenger, Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke says, compared to a systemwide average of $4.41. That works out to an abysmal farebox recovery* rate of just 7 percent. In contrast, Metro's overall farebox recovery is around 27 percent.
In short, STB's Bruce Nourish concludes, the 42 is "demonstrably unnecessary for mobility, it’s costing a fortune, and riders are choosing in droves not to ride it. At this point, Route 42 is indefensible."
Changes could be on the horizon, though: Thielke notes that the new Metro strategic plan adopted this summer---the one that eliminated the 40/40/20 bus service allocation formula, which gave Seattle just 20 percent of new service---allows Metro to assign service hours based on productivity. In addition to ridership, one measure of productivity is whether a route is served by a duplicate route. "There's a lot of restructuring that's already happening," Thielke says. "The system is not going to stay static."
*Or, more accurately, revenue-to-expense ratio, a figure that also includes ad revenues. But "farebox recovery" is the more commonly used term.
Seattle Transit Blog makes the case again today for eliminating the wasteful, redundant money-suck that is the Route 42---a route that's almost entirely duplicated by Link Light Rail.
As I've reported here and elsewhere, Metro, under pressure from Asian Counseling and Referral Services, agreed to keep the 42 and forego planned service improvements on more heavily used routes in Southeast Seattle. ACRS argued that their clients are unable to use either of the two light-rail stations that are located within a five-minute walk of their building or the Route 8, which stops directly in front of ACRS. The agency is also served by Metro's Access vans and a free shuttle called the Hyde Shuttle dedicated exclusively to Southeast Seattle seniors and people with disabilities.
As STB reports, ridership on the 42 has plummeted since light rail opened, with four or five people boarding at the most heavily-used stops and only 17 people boarding daily at the stops serving ACRS---and there's no way of knowing whether those are ACRS clients or people who simply live or work near those stops. The corollary is that the route costs about $11.15 per passenger, Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke says, compared to a systemwide average of $4.41. That works out to an abysmal farebox recovery* rate of just 7 percent. In contrast, Metro's overall farebox recovery is around 27 percent.
In short, STB's Bruce Nourish concludes, the 42 is "demonstrably unnecessary for mobility, it’s costing a fortune, and riders are choosing in droves not to ride it. At this point, Route 42 is indefensible."
Changes could be on the horizon, though: Thielke notes that the new Metro strategic plan adopted this summer---the one that eliminated the 40/40/20 bus service allocation formula, which gave Seattle just 20 percent of new service---allows Metro to assign service hours based on productivity. In addition to ridership, one measure of productivity is whether a route is served by a duplicate route. "There's a lot of restructuring that's already happening," Thielke says. "The system is not going to stay static."
*Or, more accurately, revenue-to-expense ratio, a figure that also includes ad revenues. But "farebox recovery" is the more commonly used term.
