Metro Transit delivered sobering news about the massive transit cuts coming our way in 2014 if new revenue options aren’t provided by the state Legislature. While we have known that the impending 17-percent transit cuts would strike a blow to mobility, jobs and the environment in King County, those impacts became much more real when Metro announced its proposal for implementing the cuts.
Nothing hits home more than seeing the route you and your neighbors depend on to get to work, appointments and community activities on the chopping block; yet, that is the reality for communities all over King County. Metro predicts 14 million annual rides will be lost as a result of cuts that will take our system back to the size it was in 1997, despite the decade and a half of job and population growth we’ve experienced since then. These cuts would also send 20,000 to 30,000 cars back on the road each day, making travel more difficult for everyone.
Growing needs, shrinking transit
What I hear from you and your neighbors on a regular basis is that you want more transit service, not less, and you are right. Metro’s data shows that today’s transit system needs to grow by 15 percent just to meet current demand. You see the truth of this every time you pack into a crowded bus or sit in a traffic jam — our region is growing and we need transportation options that keep pace. That is why, for many years, I have been working to save transit service and grow our transit system.
I have worked with my colleagues to transform Metro over the last four years since Metro’s revenues dropped in the Great Recession, holding off these cuts and wrenching every available dollar for service.
We’ve made the transit system more productive and efficient, eliminated more than 100 staff positions, used operating reserves and reduced capital projects. Metro has raised fares four times in recent years and cut labor costs by $17 million per year. The savings, efficiencies and temporary revenues created by Metro over the last few years have reduced Metro’s funding shortfall by more than $800 million, and every dollar has gone to keeping Metro Transit service on our streets.
Sustainable funding options?
You may wonder why Metro is still in the position of making these cuts. Despite our best efforts to close the gap, Metro faces an ongoing annual shortfall of $75 million. King County government gets taxing authority from the state Legislature, so I have joined transit riders, business leaders, environmentalists and labor leaders and scores of local elected officials in the effort to persuade the Legislature to provide Metro with long-term, sustainable funding options.
Gov. Jay Inslee called a special session for legislators to pass a statewide transportation package that includes local funding authority, and I remain hopeful that the Legislature will take action this year.
We as a state and region simply cannot abide the transit cuts coming our way. They inflict too much pain on our mobility and quality of life — particularly for our most vulnerable residents, economy and environment.
We should take King County and Washington in the direction of transportation choices and economic prosperity, not toward gridlock and stagnation.
LARRY PHILLIPS represents Northwest Seattle on the Metropolitan King County Council and chairs the Transportation, Economy and Environment Committee. To comment on this column, write to QAMagNews@nwlink.com.
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