King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine and sev­en mem­bers of the King Coun­ty Coun­cil announced this morn­ing at a press con­fer­ence in Pio­neer Square that they have struck a deal that saves Metro with­out ask­ing the pub­lic to vote on approv­ing a new vehi­cle fee to off­set dev­as­tat­ing cuts.

The deal was made between Exec­u­tive Con­stan­tine, the five Democ­rats on the Coun­cil, and two of the Repub­li­cans (Jane Hague and Kathy Lam­bert), with input from tran­sit activists, oper­a­tors, and groups that rep­re­sent riders.

Under the terms of the agree­ment, Hague and Lam­bert will sup­ply the votes need­ed for the Coun­ty Coun­cil to enact a $20 vehi­cle fee increase with­out a pub­lic vote. (The autho­riz­ing leg­is­la­tion that gives the coun­ty the tax­ing author­i­ty stu­pid­ly requires a super­ma­jor­i­ty rather a sim­ple majority).

In exchange, the fol­low­ing will occur:

• Eight vouch­ers worth up to $24 total will be pro­vid­ed to every King Coun­ty res­i­dent who pays the new vehi­cle fee.
• Any res­i­dent who does not wish to use their vouch­ers can donate them to one of the local gov­ern­ment agen­cies that pro­vides low-cost bus tick­ets to the home­less and eco­nom­i­cal­ly disadvantaged.
• The afore­men­tioned social and human ser­vice agen­cies will also receive more fund­ing to pur­chase dis­count­ed bus tick­ets for the peo­ple that they serve.
• The ride free area in down­town Seat­tle will be elim­i­nat­ed, begin­ning in Octo­ber of 2012. (When this hap­pens, ORCA will cer­tain­ly become more use­ful for nav­i­gat­ing down­town by bus).
• Ser­vice realign­ments will be made. Neigh­bor­hoods with low­er demand will get more DART (Dial A Ride Tran­sit) and van­pool ser­vice, while neigh­bor­hoods where demand is high­er will get more bus service.
• Areas affect­ed by tolling (includ­ing neigh­bor­hoods along SR 520) will see an increase in bus ser­vice so that peo­ple liv­ing in those areas have trans­porta­tion options.

The agree­ment sounds rea­son­able to us. With its adop­tion, the uncer­tain­ty of a pub­lic vote is removed, which means Metro plan­ners can begin work­ing on mak­ing smart adjust­ments to ser­vice rather than try­ing to fig­ure out how to imple­ment painful cuts. This agree­ment, as the cliché goes, is a win-win.

The elim­i­na­tion of the ride free area may be upset­ting to some rid­ers, but its exis­tence always has caused much con­fu­sion — espe­cial­ly because it is only in effect dur­ing cer­tain hours of the day. Get­ting rid of the RFA will make rid­ing the bus in down­town more straight­for­ward. You get on, you pay… period.

The one down­side that imme­di­ate­ly comes to my mind is that this will slow down the load­ing process in the DSTT (Down­town Seat­tle Tran­sit Tun­nel) and on down­town city streets, where peo­ple can cur­rent­ly just walk on.

Maybe Metro can install ORCA read­ers inside the back door or some­thing. They’ve got a year and a few weeks to fig­ure it out.