Tim Burgess: We Need to Find More Transit Funding Fast

Over on his blog City View, the Seattle City Council’s Tim Burgess is sounding the alarum about Metro’s precarious finances and its effects. Titled “More Transit Funding Needed Really Fast,” his post highlights many of the thorny issues Seattle transportation faces:

Here’s the bottom line: Metro transit service is going to be massively cut back over the next several years due to lack of funding. The equivalent of all weekend service or all service on the east side of Lake Washington could vanish. […] These terrible reductions in transit service will happen when we actually need just the opposite.

Metro’s budget woes are not precisely news. Back in 2008, the agency got a jump on the recession’s budget crunch by not imagining $4-per-gallon gasoline, which–in combination with an increase in service to meet rising demand–left them facing a $13 million diesel deficit. Add in the recession, and by mid-2010, Metro was forecasting deficits of hundreds of millions of dollars, leading to regular hikes at the fare box. They’ve cut stops and staff, and optimized schedules and service, while trying to avoid rollbacks in actual service.

Now back to Burgess. Besides the necessity of transit to meet downtown-trip growth that’s expected to occur, there’s the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement, he points out. No matter what is built, the replacement project is going to disrupt existing traffic patterns.

Then, if the tunnel is built, due to tolling and its reduced capacity (compared to the Viaduct), a substantial amount of traffic will be diverted–“estimated in a worst-case scenario at approximately 16,000 to 20,000 vehicles—as drivers attempt to avoid the tolls. (Another 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles will divert from the tunnel to I-5 and east to Capitol Hill.)”

Here Burgess takes time out to knock the surface/transit/I-5 option for diverting perhaps twice as much traffic. While he’s been reasonable to this point, this last point is disingenuous. The objective of the surface/transit/I-5 option is diversion–to increase I-5’s functional capacity (improving the daily commute of far more people than the tunnel), to increase waterfront/downtown access for drivers, and to add transit precisely where it’s most needed, as west-side feeders to downtown.

UPDATE: Simultaneously, the Seattle Transit Blog has a story on the surface/transit/I-5 option, specifically its political viability, as seen by the City Council’s Nick Licata. Concludes STB’s Martin Duke, “If the objective is to maximize investment in transit, as it is for me, Surface/Transit/I-5 is still the winner even if the state takes $1 billion away.”

As Burgess has already pointed out, public transit serving downtown is a necessity going forward. You can’t add roads to the downtown core, and once they fill up with cars, that’s that.

So where will the money come from? One source has been the farebox, but there’s a point at which the loss in ridership (when people can’t afford the bus) negates the extra amount being charged. It doesn’t take that long: A $3 fare might sound like good money for Metro, but it’s only 75 cents more than $2.25. If an existing rider decides to cut back by a single bus trip, then Metro needs three $3 riders to make up the loss.

Another source is the legislature, according to Burgess:

State Representative Marko Liias (D-21) has introduced legislation (HB 1536) in Olympia that would allow counties to charge a “congestion reduction” fee to fund extra transit service. Under Liias’ bill, the congestion reduction fee would automatically expire after two years, so it’s a bridge solution until a more comprehensive, state-wide transportation funding solution is adopted.

That alone is not likely to meet Metro’s short-term needs. Burgess is right to be worried, but it’s odd that he doesn’t note that spending billions on a tunnel so that single-occupancy vehicles can bypass Seattle more quickly may be related to the lack of money available for transit.