Surprisingly, the audience for this particular piece of political theatre is the state legislature in Olympia, as they control King County’s ability to create more stable funding mechanisms for Metro, but have been reluctant to cede that authority, despite King County’s evident willingness to pay. Continue reading Why Your King County Metro Bus Route’s Future is Up to the State
“I’m mildly nervous, having never done the 358 at this time of day, but exhilarated at the chance to perform at my best. When people tell horror stories, it’s always about their last trip of the night, or their last day on the route. You can’t check out early. People can sniff that a mile away. You’ve gotta stay on, right there with everyone, until you pull back into base and turn the motor off.” Continue reading Nathan Vass on Who Rides Route 358 (Part 2)
By mid-2014 — when two temporary funding sources expire — King County Metro will be facing a shortfall of $75 million per year. Metro chief Kevin Desmond said this morning that, without replacement funding, this could mean the termination of up to 30 percent of Metro routes. Continue reading 30% of King County Metro Routes May Disappear in “Bus Rapture”
The levy even allows the city to cut the library’s budget again in 2013, by as much as an estimated $5 million. Why would the city cut-and-fund, you ask? That $5 million would be cut from general fund support for the library, allowing the city to reallocate those monies. It’s a kind of budgetary gerrymandering, creating popular, self-funding “districts” via levy (schools, parks, libraries, roads) while allowing officials to pose dramatically with general-fund hatchets. Continue reading City Council Votes to Bring Library Levy to Voters in August
Pointedly, the justices remark: “This court cannot idly stand by as the legislature makes unfulfilled promises for reform.” Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown shot back that “the Supreme Court could help out the Legislature by taking a closer look at the constitutionality of a citizen initiative that forces lawmakers to get a two-thirds vote on any tax or fee change,” reports Tacoma’s News Tribune.
Of course, the state constitution refers only to primary and secondary education. The state has been making great strides in getting out of postsecondary education completely. Continue reading State Supreme Court Demands “Ample” Education Funding, But Careful What You Wish For
Mayor McGinn got an out-of-town boost this week, when the Federal Transit Administration announced the City of Seattle won a $900,000 grant to study a high capacity transit in downtown Seattle. (Also, Sound Transit netted $5.4 million to “replace buses in its Seattle-area fleet that are beyond their useful lives with hybrid-diesel buses.”) Continue reading Crosstown Transit? Seattle Wins Federal Funds for Study
The Transit Master Plan showed that Seattle’s greatest weakness was connecting neighborhoods to each other. It identified fifteen corridors overall, five of which will need high capacity service – and four of these are suitable for some form of rail transit. To some degree, we’ve all known this, but the rigorous approach of the Transit Master Plan clearly identifies the best corridors, and points to the better ways to serve each corridor. In a number of cases, it points to rail, specifically a concept that has come to be known as “rapid streetcar.” Continue reading Op-Ed: For Rail, Be Bold (by Mayor McGinn)
