The coming Metro Transit cuts are a rare opportunity
Instead of following arbitrary political allocations, let's shift to a philosophy of putting bus service where it's already working and where we want density to go.
The King County Metro bus system is at a critical juncture. The direction county leaders choose for the regional transportation agency will have profound long-term impacts on our economy and environment.
King County can take one of two paths to deal with excessive costs, looming service reductions, and the outdated policy of regional equity. It can “spread the pain” and make simple broad-stroke across-the-board budget cuts and service reductions. Alternatively, it can view the situation as a strategic inflection point — that time in the life of an organization when circumstances force it to adapt to new reality — and use the crisis as an opportunity help shape the future we want. To date the Metro debate has focused on the first path. I hope that King County will step back and take a broader look at the situation.
There are a number of strategic and tactical steps Metro can take to use the crisis as an opportunity to shape the region’s future. First, the failed "20-40-40" service allocation formula must be scrapped. Originally put in place as a political way to make each region of the county feel there was some degree of equity in the allocation of service, it has instead created an artificial barrier to the county’s ability to shape regional mobility and support our growth management goals. (The 20-40-40 percentages refer to Seattle, Eastside, and South King County respectively.)
The formula also fails to meet any rational definition of equity for a population moving around the region, taking trips that cross artificial boundaries daily. Measuring effort by neighborhood benefits no one moving between neighborhoods. Further, it has created a system that measures effort rather than performance and results in unacceptability high costs by almost every measure. The Municipal League has documented the agency’s high cost per mile. While that figure is troubling, the high cost per rider is cause for even greater alarm as it clearly indicates that the system’s routes aren’t as productive as they should be.
As a policy, 20-40-40 also fails the test of shaping mobility for the region. There is no understandable tie to our regional growth management plans, and no ties to city permitting. Metro’s strategic policy should be to put buses where they work, and where we want them to work. Putting buses where they work (drawing good ridership) will maximize the performance of the system in those markets where transit can dominate: Downtown Seattle, the University District, Bellevue, and SeaTac. These are job centers already dense enough to make transit successful, and they are designated as growth centers for regional employment. They are the “cash cows” of the system.
More interesting, though, is putting buses where we want them to work. For 20 years, we’ve had a regional strategy of growing “centers” with density sufficient to be successful transit markets. Current plans identify 27 such centers in 18 cities in the county, and propose “prioritizing transit funding” to encourage investment in those centers. The state’s Growth Management Act supports this prioritizing by requiring “concurrency,” a policy prohibiting cities and counties from permitting development where necessary infrastructure investments supporting the development haven’t been funded. In principle, concurrency focuses our scarce public resources on these designated centers.
Thus far, despite our “multi-modal” goals, our growth management policies have focused on vehicle mobility. The standard metric for measuring transportation concurrency has been “level of service” or LOS. LOS measures the volume of cars flowing through an intersection and rates the flow with an A-F grade. To comply with GMA, cities set their target LOS with a rheostat: When transportation models show development, if permitted, will adversely affect LOS, the target is dropped from “B” to “D” and the development permitted.
Recently, the PSRC and the city of Bellevue completed a pilot of a new way of measuring concurrency based on the supply and demand for transportation capacity. In short, the model asks, “How much peak capacity will the planned development require?” and, “How much peak capacity will the transportation system provide?” The answers to these questions can be time-phased, and commitments can be required of local and regional agencies to provide the planned capacity.
The last question includes all modes of transportation: vehicles, transit, bikes, pedestrians, etc. Consequently, regional plans can be connected to local plans by defining these capacities, and regional agencies can be held accountable for providing committed services. The predictability of permitting under these models will provide certainly to investors, making centers more attractive investments. In all, the focus of concurrency policy on a centers strategy creates a virtuous circle for transit: Plan to implement service connecting centers, thereby making centers more attractive investment opportunities, and then investment occurs in centers, thus making them better transit markets and ridership grows.
The philosophy being urged here is for immediate budget cuts to be made surgically and strategically. They should be informed by the twin goals of putting buses where they work and where we want them to work. Design decisions must be tied to performance standards. Standards for those markets where buses work should focus on gaining peak market shares. Accordingly, our transit planners and managers should be held accountable for setting and achieving higher targets in these key markets.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Sep 24, 7:34 a.m. inappropriate
Similar points emerge from a recently released new report about elimination of barriers to transit oriented development in Washington. See esp. p. 54 at
http://www.qualitygrowthalliance.org/PDF/Urban_Centers_and%20TOD.Analysis_of_Barriers_and_Solutions.UW_September_2009.pdf
Posted Thu, Sep 24, 1:16 p.m. inappropriate
I heard Fred talk about this during the Executive campaign, so I'm glad he's put these ideas in writing and is continuing to talk about how maximizing service between job and residential growth centers is a smart way to provide better transit service. It's especially important, as Fred points out, that we adjust our thinking and policies about transportation concurrency to further our growth management and environmental goals.
A few caveats, though:
First, we have to keep in mind that Metro and other transit systems not only exist to get people back and forth to work but also to provide transportation for people who can't get around any other way - people who can't afford the costs of driving, people with disabilities and people too young or old to drive. Dial-a-ride service is a sometimes cheaper alternative for some of these folks but in many areas fixed route service makes more sense, even if ridership is not particularly high.
There are also still very healthy transit markets in areas that fall outside the growth centers - South Seattle, West Seattle, Des Moines and Woodinville and parts of Federal Way all fall outside PSRC designated growth centers but are still good transit markets with expectations of frequent and reliable service. These non-center areas and others like them deserve to retain frequent and reliable service at least during commute hours.
Finally, moving more service away from underperforming and expensive to serve routes to growth centers, along with several of the mentioned recommendations from the audit, will certainly increase efficiencies at Metro. However, the reality is that revenue is falling off so dramatically over the next few years that these efficiencies alone are simply not enough, especially when demand for transit service continues to grow. The legislature needs to step up to the plate and provide Metro and other systems more local revenue tools (what about that 1% MVET authority promised as part of the Alaska Way tunnel agreement?), and more funding for the paltry state grant programs like the Regional Mobility Grants program. Since the legislature repealed the statewide MVET, the state has treated transit like an afterthought in our transportation system. But, the reality for urban and suburban residents around our state is that transit is central to our transportation system and our economy.
Posted Thu, Sep 24, 5:19 p.m. inappropriate
I'm confused. Don't nearly all King County Metro routes already serve Downtown Seattle, the University District, Bellevue, and other growth centers like Northgate and Redmond? How would these "strategic routes" be different?
Posted Thu, Sep 24, 8:17 p.m. inappropriate
Confused, have some maps.
http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/neighborhoods/region_text.html
Seeing nearly empty busses on rural routes, even once in a while, do not exactly encourage MORE support for more bus service in areas that have packed busses in suburban and urban areas.
The entire county should have it's needs served, not just its politicians.
Posted Fri, Sep 25, 12:25 p.m. inappropriate
I was under the impression that when the Growth Management Act was conceived that it was intended to insure growth was accompanied with the services that support the growing population. The word “concurrency” in the GMA was essentially chosen to apply to the concept that things like transportation, roads, public safety, schools water power and sewage treatment should be concurrent with growth -- not after the fact. Unless the definition of the word “concurrent” has changed, that means simultaneously with. Not providing those services leads to chaos. Roads are in gridlock schools are overcrowded absent law enforcement leads to more dangerous communities and public transportation either doesn’t exist or is so poor that it’s near useless.
So what’s the solution? There really isn’t a solution as long as politicians think cities are better if they are bigger, but as long as transportation planners rely primarily on a specific system or emphasis on one mode of public transportation, chaos will continue.
Metro, Sound Transit, Heavy Rail, Bus Rapid Transit, Zip Cars, Bikes, and private autos all vie for funding and promote their own solution to the exclusion of the others. Sound Transit cherry picked high ridership bus routes from Metro and lobbies for the lion’s share of the transportation dollars. They all badmouthed Bus Rapid Transit and the use of existing Heavy Rail routes on existing right of ways. Each agency was more engaged with protecting their jobs and ego’s that solving problems. While bike travel deserves a place in the mix of transportation choices it’s folly to believe that in our winters and terrain that they can become a major part of the solution. Part of Yes. No other form of transportation can claim they are greener or better or the only choice. We must use them all.
Politicians and transportation planners seem obsessed with the notion that commuting is where the need for transportation exists. No one would argue that this is a major source of congestion during specific hours, but urban planners are so isolated from reality that they simply don’t comprehend that the greatest demand on our overall transportation system is related to our regional commerce. Those who work in urban centers with paper somehow believe that Scotty in the Starship Enterprise will beam down the goods and services that keep our region viable. You can’t call Scotty to have a new refrigerator delivered or a machine tool for your manufacturing plant. They come by train and trucks!
As long as we have decided to abandon half of the small towns in Washington and concentrate all the jobs in urban areas there isn’t a whole lot we can do. We can establish stiff development fees dedicated to necessary infrastructure. If we believe in the GMA and concurrency in development then we must have those that profit from the growth pay for it. That doesn’t include the poor scrambling for a bus to get to a minimum wage job.
We can give tax bonuses to companies whose employees live closer to where they work or who promote even stronger ride sharing and public transportation programs in their companies or institutions. In time this will make more sense that mega projects.
We can, as a state, give funding priority to transportation plans that use existing right of ways to reduce the need for incredibly expensive new tunnels, or elevated right of ways. Why fund the most expensive solutions first? It’s nonsense. Using sections of the existing I-5 corridor as right of way for mass transit could save billions. Politicians rejected it.
And last, we have created transportation agencies that have essentially no oversight. Waste, stupid decisions and the most expensive alternatives are chosen over lower cost alternatives. Maybe we should give enforcement powers to our State Auditor or require managers to demonstrate cost benefit decisions, before we pour more money into the giant hole in the ground we call “transportation funding.”
No ballot measures that require public funding should be allowed on the ballot without a thorough and independent cost benefit analysis of an intended project.
Posted Fri, Sep 25, 2:21 p.m. inappropriate
Quixote, you have some interesting ideas, but I have to argue about a few things. First, biking is a viable option in any weather for short (say, less than 5 mi) or multimodal commutes (bike to bus/vanpool/train), especially if you live near a trail like the Burke-Gilman or Interurban. Remember, the top biking city in the world is Copenhagen:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/12/by_request_winter_biking.php
I also live and work in the U-District, but with computers not paper anymore. :) I understand quite well that trucks deliver goods to the stores in my neighborhood, but I also see every day the huge numbers of solo drivers who compete for space with delivery drivers and buses on congested streets like NE 45th. Our transportation system will remain overburdened unless we can reduce solo trips (I like via your idea for bonuses for living closer to work--though of course my spouse might work in a different neighborhood). This goes for low-cost mass transit like BRT as well. Many existing heavily used metro routes, such as the 71/72/73/74X and 41X buses, use the directional I-5 lanes but are still regularly delayed in traffic during peak commute hours. For this reason I am glad Sound Transit is investing in a tunnel to provide an additional route to Capital Hill and downtown. We needed it years ago, so I sincerely hope it is on time and on budget (I hear that can be a problem with tunnels).
Posted Sat, Sep 26, 3:46 p.m. inappropriate
This is a start, but Jarrett's ideas are way to vague to be worth investing in at this time. Jarrett talks about balancing serving denser areas with service to areas where we hope to see ridership increase. But this is basically what the 20-40-40 policy has done historically - preserving some funding for well served Seattle but investing in underserved South and East King. One would hope that the planners, unfettered by political interference, could make the best decisions as to where those services would be best improved, with some relatively simple, politically understandable, guarantees of fairness.
20-40-40 has come up recently due the need for Metro service cuts, and this is the reality of the moment. If we cut service, do we cut it equally or on some other formula - and then, when service is restored do we apply that same formula to a baseline that is different.
There is a simple answer to this question - if one respects the fact that Seattle routes are the most effective - and often operating on a standing room only basis. Either do the cuts at 20-40-40 or use a subsidy dollar figure to figure cuts (make the $ cuts equal across the region but cut more profitable routes fewer hours proportionate to their success.)
One thing for sure, cutting routes that operate with standing room only would be **stupid**.
Funding equity for transit needs to be looked at in a broader transportation role - it may well be the case that the solution is to build additional roads in rural areas - corridors designed, hopefully, to be transit friendly, in the future.
Capital improvements to service corridors is perhaps the best way to approach Jarrett's rather unspecific managerial vision. If we are to focus on serving centers, we must build transit right of way to service those centers - starting in the center and building outward is a very simple way to look at the question. The ultimate end of such an approach is a light rail corridor operating with bus, as in the Seattle Tunnel now - and eventual bus service in rural areas.
Jarrett's call for improving concurrency measures under the GMA is correct, but consider the fact that Jarrett's candidate for County executive, Dow Constantine, was praising the office of Dan Satterberg on the very day Satterberg lost an employee whistle blowing lawsuit on exactly this subject (Weyerhauser's Redmond Ridge project, represented by the counsel of ???)
Perhaps it would better to prosecute those violators of property rights and the rapists of the intellectual for their abuses of the GMA, rather than just adding more law to be selectively enforced by a crowd that has shown it's degeneracy and corruption at a national and international level?
http://motleytools.com/blog
Posted Sun, Sep 27, 9:07 p.m. inappropriate
One look at a Metro map tells me the whole system is loaded with inefficiences as well as unintelligible and duplicative route arrangements.
Take a lesson from light rail system design. Light rail lines run one simple route with bus connections routed simply to logically located light rail stations.
Bus systems could/should work similarly. BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) can be designated as regional thru-corridor transit with peripheral bus lines connecting to it, same as light rail. These connecting bus routes, being shorter in length, are easier to measure demand and meet with supply. "Oh no. We must get up on our high horses and defend the holy one-seat ride theory, the pride of our forefathers rolling over in their graves even now at the suggestion that it is ridiculous."
As for regional centers, their transit service should be separated from such regional transit systems like light rail and BRT. This methodology reduces the need for crazy expensive subways supposedly needed to deliver passengers to the most important station areas. Through Bellevue, for instance, light rail can be located outside of town as long as transit connections are arranged to make the transfer and ride to town and through developable properties convenient.
I could go on and on, but Seattlers don't want to hear it. They'd rather listen to the great panderers (aka stakeholders) deciding for them how things should be, like always. How's that working out for ya? Fail to credit Mike McGinn for his logical reasoning at your own peril, Seattlers.
Posted Thu, Oct 1, 10:12 a.m. inappropriate
Metro on the whole could be more efficient with simple steps. Out of service coaches that transit from outlying areas THROUGH the downtown core could pick up folks and bring them into the core to assist in transfers.
My commute for the last five years has included a transfer from downtown to the base of Queen Anne Hill. The 24 and 33 attempt to serve this route. The majority of the 900 in my building with passes make their first commute by Light Rail, Sounder or WSF. At the end of the day I have counted up to 14 EMPTY coaches all heading back to base THROUGH the town, while upwards of 40 of us wait for the Southbound 24 or 33.
Once a quarter, ONE may stop to pick up folks trying to meet the Sounder. We have often had coaches so crowded they pass up the group, or have room for only a few. If all the Out of Service coaches would pick up, the service would be far more efficent.
ANY coach OFF DUTY is still insured, still using fuel, and still paying the driver. IF they picked up inbound, then only DROPPED in Town as they head back to base, they could QUADRUPLE their numbers served. In the AM I see similar issues, but on a smaller scale.
Waiting at Westlake, there are 3-6 empty/end of run coaches. On occasion, ones that run along 15th will ask if anyone is heading that way and pick up... but that is more difficult, as the driver has to yell out where he or she is heading...
Unused deadhead could add a lot of capacity without hiring more driver or adding equipment.
Posted Fri, Oct 2, 1:16 a.m. inappropriate
I had a great time reading around our post. I am looking forward to hearing more from you.
Regards,
Gold
Posted Mon, Oct 19, 2:50 p.m. inappropriate
Great piece, Mr. Jarrett.
Maybe, while we're at this strategic point of inflection, we could start unifying the 17+ transit agencies that serve the region. Metro and Sound Transit can't even share scheduling information correctly, let alone coordinate to provide great mobility service. I know it would take leadership to accomplish that, but that's why we elect all of you.