COVID-19 fallout: Metro abandons August levy proposal; transit agencies reduce service

Man­ag­ing the rapid­ly wors­en­ing coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic is the most urgent pur­pose at present for all lev­els of gov­ern­ment every­where. The pan­dem­ic has had pro­found impacts on pub­lic ser­vices in the Pacif­ic North­west, includ­ing transportation.

In the face of a rapid­ly-evolv­ing sit­u­a­tion, local tran­sit agen­cies are mod­i­fy­ing ser­vice and long-term plans to ensure the via­bil­i­ty of their operations.

King Coun­ty Metro won’t sub­mit a request for fund­ing to voters

With Seat­tle’s Trans­porta­tion Ben­e­fit Dis­trict expir­ing at the end of 2020, coun­ty offi­cials were hop­ing to ask coun­ty vot­ers in August to fund region­al mobil­i­ty improvements.

With the cur­rent pub­lic health emer­gency and antic­i­pat­ed neg­a­tive eco­nom­ic impacts, Met­ro­pol­i­tan King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci of Belle­vue announced that the coun­ty would no longer move for­ward with a levy pack­age.

Sched­uled to expire at the end of the year is a $60 car-tab fee and 0.1% sales tax levied in the City of Seat­tle. This has aug­ment­ed Metro’s exist­ing fund­ing to enable increased ser­vice fre­quen­cies, new pro­grams like Via to Tran­sit and Trail­head Direct, and ORCA oppor­tu­ni­ty programs.

Coun­ty offi­cials were hop­ing to large­ly replace that fund­ing with a coun­ty­wide sales tax increase, but that is off the table.

Also includ­ed in the pro­pos­al were increased ser­vice hours to meet Metro’s sys­tem goals, sup­port for low-income pro­grams, and the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of bus bases.

Coun­cilmem­ber Bal­duc­ci’s state­ment also indi­cates a wish for the Leg­is­la­ture to open up new fund­ing path­ways for tran­sit local­ly, espe­cial­ly with the uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing I‑976.

Seat­tle May­or Jen­ny Durkan intend­ed to main­tain the bus ser­vice improve­ments that her city has ben­e­fit­ed from since 2014, but it remains to be seen how that will be pur­sued in light of recent devel­op­ments. The City has until May 8th to send a mea­sure to the ballot.

In the long run, this is a speed bump for imple­men­ta­tion of Metro Con­nects, the 25-year plan approved by the coun­ty coun­cil in 2017. Fea­tures of this plan include increas­ing ser­vice hours from 3.5 mil­lion to 6 mil­lion annu­al­ly, upping the amount of RapidRide lines to 26, and sup­port­ing 73% of King Coun­ty res­i­dents with easy tran­sit access with­in walk­ing distance.

Sched­uled route adjust­ments will continue

King Coun­ty Metro has been plan­ning a large restruc­ture of bus ser­vice on the North East­side, to come into effect March 21st, 2020. These changes will go ahead — but be sub­ject to the same tem­po­rary ser­vice reduc­tions the entire agency is plan­ning in the face of our pub­lic health emergency.

In the past, bus­es in the Kirkland/Kenmore/Woodinville/Redmond areas were com­pli­cat­ed and not useful.

Put sim­ply, the old routes were not direct enough. They tried to serve too many loca­tions at once, which decreased the appeal of the bus for rid­ers look­ing to move quick­ly between major centers.

The new restruc­ture aims to straight­en out bus­es across the North East­side, with more direct, city-to-city con­nec­tions being pre­ferred to cir­cuitous neigh­bor­hood-cen­tric routes. Totem Lake, Brick­yard, South Kirk­land, and UW Both­ell will all receive bet­ter con­nec­tions to major hubs.

A few major route changes to note: Route 255, the main con­nec­tion from Kirk­land to Seat­tle for com­muters, will also receive an overhaul.

Instead of fight­ing traf­fic into Down­town Seat­tle, the 255 will exit State Route 520 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton and rid­ers will need to trans­fer to Link light rail.

Also com­ing into ser­vice is the new Sound Tran­sit Route 544, which will link the 520 cor­ri­dor direct­ly to South Lake Union for the first time. This will allow East­side com­muters head­ed to South Lake Union to bypass downtown.

Over at the Seat­tle Tran­sit Blog, you’ll find a detailed analy­sis of the route changes for North­east King Coun­ty. And King Coun­ty Metro has pro­vid­ed a handy map tool and infor­ma­tion­al page to keep rid­ers updated.

Tem­po­rary ser­vice reduc­tions, elim­i­na­tion of fares widespread

If you are mak­ing an essen­tial trip via tran­sit, remem­ber to prac­tice phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing and main­tain per­son­al hygiene. Allo­cate extra time for your trip, as online trip plan­ners will not account for the ser­vice reductions.

Local­ly, King Coun­ty Metro and Sound Tran­sit both announced across-the-board reduc­tions in ser­vice lev­els for the time being. Sound Tran­sit was report­ing a 69% drop in rid­er­ship at the begin­ning of last week. Ser­vice reduc­tions are tak­ing place across the board: Sounder and Express bus ser­vice are all affected.

Link Light Rail’s Con­nect 2020 project has also been extend­ed, after the last round of safe­ty test­ing revealed elec­tri­cal issues that must be resolved. The Con­nect 2020-relat­ed ser­vice reduc­tions will con­tin­ue to remain in effect until fur­ther notice.

Fare enforce­ment has also been paused on Link. Down­town sta­tions will be closed again this week­end, and dur­ing this clo­sure only all Link rides will be free, system-wide.

Local agen­cies are hav­ing to bal­ance the con­tin­ued tran­sit needs for essen­tial pub­lic work­ers and com­mu­ni­ties with­out trans­porta­tion alter­na­tives, while absorb­ing the cuts to rev­enue result­ing from the elim­i­na­tion of fare box income and decreased sales tax revenue.

Metro will be reduc­ing the amount of trips on near­ly all bus routes. Ser­vice will be entire­ly cut on eleven Metro-oper­at­ed low-rid­er­ship routes.

Metro is also sus­pend­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty Ride pro­gram. While rid­er­ship is low and irreg­u­lar, these routes pro­vide crit­i­cal access to ser­vices for folks in Black Diamond/Enumclaw, Shoreline/Lake For­est Park, Nor­mandy Park, and Sam­mamish. The imple­men­ta­tion of the new Juani­ta and Bothell/Woodinville Com­mu­ni­ty Rides will be delayed. (The Des Moines Com­mu­ni­ty Shut­tle will run reduced ser­vice while the Mer­cer Island shut­tle is suspended.)

Com­mu­ni­ty van shut­tle trips will con­tin­ue to oper­ate as long as there are vol­un­teer dri­vers. This seems to be Metro’s plan to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing access for vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. Areas served include Bothell/Woodinville, Duvall, Sam­mamish, Kenmore/Kirkland, Lake For­est Park/Shoreline, and Vashon.

The Via to Tran­sit pro­gram, which aimed to increase low-income Link rid­er­ship in South­east Seat­tle and Tuk­wila, will also not operate.

Last­ly — and cru­cial­ly — King Coun­ty Metro will also be sus­pend­ing fares on para­tran­sit, water taxi, and Metro bus ser­vices. Rear-door board­ing will be required, with the front reserved for the dri­ver and cus­tomers who require the use of the board­ing ramp.

Across our region, sim­i­lar COVID-19-relat­ed mod­i­fi­ca­tions are tak­ing place.

For the dura­tion of the COVID19 emer­gency, Skag­it Tran­sit will go FARE FREE. Under the guid­ance to pro­vide Social Dis­tanc­ing, not col­lect­ing a fare will allow rid­ers and dri­ver to observe the appro­pri­ate dis­tance. Call Cus­tomer Ser­vice at 360–757-4433 if you have questions.

— Skag­it Tran­sit (@skagittransit) March 19, 2020

Bus­es in Skag­it, What­com, and Jef­fer­son coun­ties have gone fare-free dur­ing the emer­gency to lim­it inter­per­son­al con­tact (Inter­ci­ty Tran­sit is already fare-free). TransLink, the oper­a­tor in the Van­cou­ver, BC area, has also gone fare-free on its bus­es.

Island Tran­sit is mod­i­fy­ing its Sat­ur­day sched­ule for week­day ser­vice. Com­mu­ni­ty Tran­sit is study­ing ser­vice reduc­tions but has not imple­ment­ed any­thing yet — though cer­tain peak-hour trips to King Coun­ty have been can­celled due to staff short­ages. Pierce Tran­sit is report­ing no mod­i­fi­ca­tions to ser­vice as of now.

To help pro­tect our dri­vers we are now block­ing off the first 2 rows direct­ly behind the dri­ver seat, on both sides of the bus. Help us keep them healthy by using #SocialD­is­tanc­ing and stay­ing home if you are sick! pic.twitter.com/DjV7E1chBw

— Pierce Tran­sit (@PierceTransit) March 19, 2020

Amtrak Cas­cades is sus­pend­ing all ser­vices between Seat­tle and Van­cou­ver, BC, run­ning replace­ment bus­es until Belling­ham. Ser­vice along the rest of the line from Seat­tle to Eugene has been reduced; see the Cas­cades web­site for details.

The King Coun­ty Water Taxi has delayed the roll-out of sum­mer ser­vice. Kit­sap Tran­sit water taxis are oper­at­ing with reduced capac­i­ty to main­tain distancing.

Last­ly, Wash­ing­ton State Fer­ries has sus­pend­ed all gal­ley ser­vices and sus­pend­ed no-show/­can­cel­la­tion fees, but has­n’t reduced sail­ings sys­tem-wide. The sea­son­al ser­vice from Ana­cortes and the San Juans to Van­cou­ver Island has, how­ev­er, had its launch delayed by a month. Its first sail­ing is ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled for April 26th.