Metro Transit: poor people stuck with the tab again?
In with Metro's new $20 vehicle license renewal fee, out with Seattle's old ride free area downtown.
When a supermajority of the King County Council approved a special $20 car tab fee for two years, the 7-to-2 vote forestalled draconian cuts to Metro bus service in the region as a whole but also ordered the phaseout of the popular Ride Free Area (RFA) downtown. Some social service groups, not to mention individual downtown users of the service, see that as a serious blow.
The debates about how to implement the change and, to some degree, ease the impact began almost immediately. Indeed, an amendment to the legislation, called the "transit incentive program," seems to anticipate the scramble for alternatives. It will provide eight free bus tickets for each paid car tab renewal to encourage drivers to try public transit, but car owners may donate their tickets to human service agencies for impoverished clients to use. A second amendment proposes a choice between two options: increasing the number of discounted bus tickets currently sold to service agencies at 20 cents on the dollar for distribution to clients as needed, or deepening the ticket discounts.
Beyond those amendments, however, there is a search for ideas, many of them only vaguely sketched out so far, that could help fill much more of the gap that will occur as the council's car-tab hike goes into effect next year. History helps illuminate why the County Council's decision is provoking considerable thought among some local leaders.
When Metro’s “Magic Carpet” free bus ride zone was introduced in September 1973, it was bounded on the north and south by Stewart and Jackson and on the east and west by Sixth Avenue and the waterfront. Its purpose was to encourage shoppers from outside the city as well as office workers on their lunch hour to patronize a variety of stores in the downtown core, where commerce was declining so badly that newspaper editorials of the times worried that the downtown was dying. The special zone was also intended to relieve traffic congestion caused by buses idling at stops while collecting fares from passengers.
The Magic Carpet was a big hit, an innovation that made headlines in newspapers overseas, says a chapter in the online library of county history. Today the ride-free area (RFA) extends from Jackson to Battery in Belltown, and the east-west corridor between the waterfront and Sixth stretches briefly to Convention Place Center at Ninth on Pine.
But the steep rise in American poverty and homelessness that began in the 1980s has made more people in the city depend on the free zone as their only affordable way of getting around downtown. “For a lot of people who don’t have money,” said Joe Martin, a social worker in the downtown community since 1977 and a cofounder of both Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) and the Pike Market Medical Clinic, “paying a couple of bucks for a ride has a severe impact on what little they have in their pocketbook.”
And homelessness is systemic as well as epidemic now. Martin noted that in Michael Harrington's classic 1962 study of U.S. poverty, The Other America, "not on one of those 250 pages does he use the word homeless. There were slums, rural poverty, the Bowery, but homelessness? Not. That was something that happened in the Third World." Faced with the human misery arising from this historic change, many citizens rich and poor came to view the ride-free program as part of Seattle's social safety net.
However, the expense of a ride-free zone has grown since the $64,000 it cost in 1973. It now costs Metro about $2.8 million annually in lost fares. Only $400,000 of the total is borne by the city of Seattle.
Two groups will sharply feel the impact of an RFA shutdown, said M.J. Kiser, Compass Housing Alliance program director: “homeless people, and low-income people living downtown. The latter, especially, don’t have much access to discounted bus tickets provided by service agencies.”
For both groups, she said, the RFA was a huge help to those who had multiple appointments around town on the same day — traveling perhaps from a meal program or food bank to a medical clinic, and then (for a homeless person) to a shelter for the night. Or perhaps someone had to spend an hour or more in a waiting room or long queue while the bus transfer for their trip back home lapsed. Soon people in both groups will start needing not just a ticket but two tickets in order to get around.
In an email Committee to End Homelessness project director Bill Block noted the distance between essential human services around Pioneer Square and those farther north and east: the Belltown DSHS community services office and the Family and Adult Service Center near Lenora, for instance, and the Urban Rest Stop hygiene center on Ninth near Virginia. Al Poole, homelessness division director for Seattle human services, expressed concern about lessened mobility for frail seniors and disabled individuals who are also poor.
For DESC clients, executive director Bill Hobson described ending the RFA as “inconvenient, but not catastrophic. Officially, the agency is not protesting this.” Many services are located near the DESC shelter, including free meal programs and medical care. But for the good of the city as a whole Hobson, like Block and Poole, hopes that dollars saved from the RFA phase-out will be used to phase in free city shuttles and expanded fare subsidies. Details haven't been worked out on how those could work or how much money would be needed, for instance, for a shuttle to be effective.
Other potential problems have surfaced since eliminating the RFA was announced. Simulation studies cited in an internal Metro report first discussed on Seattle Transit Blog indicate that without the RFA, delays in the tunnel while fares are collected would require significant reductions in the number of buses routed through it. Could the agreement to cut free rides, which made the Congestion Reduction Charge acceptable to a council supermajority, end up actually thickening congestion?
At a Crosscut editors meeting last Tuesday (Aug. 23), Seattle city council member Tom Rasmussen, who chairs the council’s transportation committee, said that to prevent potential tunnel congestion “perhaps we would keep the tunnel free” for riders. (But if fares aren't collected from people boarding in the tunnel, a major problem that eliminating the RFA was supposed to solve would remain: the loss of fare income from passengers embarking in the free zone, then refusing to pay when disembarking outside the zone.)
Rasmussen called the ride-free zone “a remnant of the past. It has served us in some ways fairly well, but its purpose in the 1970s was to help save a dying downtown.” Now, he says, it’s hard for the county to justify a system that costs so much annually. He added that “King County cities such as Auburn have asked, ‘Why give Seattle free bus service, when we could use it, too?’”
He would like the city to retain the annual $400,000 saved for transit-related purposes “like free bus passes and vouchers for people in need. This would let us keep some of the benefits of the RFA.” He also wants to see a free city shuttle start circulating in the commercial core.
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Comments:
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 7:42 a.m. Inappropriate
I'm on the fence about the RFA. But it must be said...if you're not injured, the whole RFA is within easy walking distance.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 7:46 a.m. Inappropriate
Metro has a policy to not enforce fare collection. If one is so inclined, the whole system is a "ride-free" area.
Alternate headline: Metro Transit: Taxpayers Stuck With the Tab. Again.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 8:06 a.m. Inappropriate
For Metro to claim that the Ride Free Area "now costs Metro about $2.8 million annually in lost fares" is a fallacy. It's just like the MPAA claiming that every downloaded movie is costing them $10 in ticket sales. People using something for free does NOT equal lost revenue. People who download a movie for free generally do so because they can't afford to see it in a theater. Similarly, people use free buses because they can't afford to pay. It's not lost revenue. People who can't afford the bus won't miraculously start paying for them, they'll just stop using them. NO extra revenue will show up if they get rid of the RFA. Very bad idea.
It also attracts tourists. Tourism agencies around the world will have to change their brochures and pitches to customers. You think tourists don't come here because they're told when they get off the boat, the buses downtown will be free?
Losing the RFA will end up COSTING the city money.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 8:27 a.m. Inappropriate
Here's an idea: legalize hitch hiking in the RFA. Motorists concerned about people now having to pay for a bus ride could just pick them up in their own cars. Drivers so inclined would assume any safety and liability risks. In fact, they would have the option to drive their free passengers anywhere, thus qualifying for the freeway commuter lanes. It's a win-win. Tourists would be particularly impressed: much better advertising than expensive media campaigns, and at no cost. Drivers could have the right to use bus stops to pick up their passengers.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 9:17 a.m. Inappropriate
I'd like an option to turn in my 8 free bus tickets for---THE MONEY! Metro is meant to serve people going into and out of downtown Seattle. It does nothing, or nothing reasonable in the time and fare commitment, for folks traveling elsewhere or east-west within the city. Metro riders should pay the full cost, and as other comments note, the whole system is a "ride free area" for those who refuse to pay.
While generally I support helping the down and out, city, county, and state government taxation is making me one of them. Can I get a subsidy for the extra hour my commute from N. Seattle to S. Tacoma for work that I'll soon be spending who knows where without the viaduct? Metro and associated transit agencies, of course, could take me. It would only increase my 2 hour round trip to 5 hours.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 9:42 a.m. Inappropriate
Gruesome behavior especially in the downtown free zone should be at least acknowledged in this article. Incidents where unstable, violent or merely obnoxious people use transit as a base for depredations downtown should be at least mentioned. There may be no solution to the behavior of mentally ill people that is fair and achievable but free bus housing/transit is surely counterproductive.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 9:50 a.m. Inappropriate
Though noahveil is correct that "people using something for free does NOT [necessarily] equal lost revenue," I take issue with his assertions that "people who download a movie for free generally do so because they can't afford to see it in a theater. Similarly, people use free buses because they can't afford to pay."
Some people illegally download content because they can't afford the asking price. Many others are entirely capable of doing so (they can afford a computer and a broadband connection, after all), but don't believe the asking price is worth it (and apparently don't care if the creators get paid, and what that might do to the future availability of content).
As for why people use the RFZ, how can it possibly be because "they can't afford to pay"? There is simply no option to pay within the RFZ. I use it when I'm downtown not because I can't afford to pay, but because on-street parking is impossible to find and paid parking costs more than I think it's worth. I would still do so if the RFZ were eliminated.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 10:35 a.m. Inappropriate
As a bus pass user, I don't care whether it's a Ride Free area or not. As for lost fares, you can't count my using the bus downtown at lunch as lost fares. I did pay. Oh on the homeless, the smart ones have a stack of multi-colored paper transfers, they wave the color of the day and get off. Mostly the drivers look just glad to be rid of them, knowing that they are scamming the system.
I suspect there will be more monthly passes sold to those regular users. Less riding around at lunch time, and more people walking instead of riding.
But lost revenue? $4Million? I doubt this change will recover anything like that.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 12:04 p.m. Inappropriate
This state once had something called 'progressive taxation' for vehicle tabs, people who bought more expensive cars paid more for the privilege of driving on state roads. But the voters threw that system out for a flat tax, and so any programs paid for out of those revenues hit the the less fortunate the hardest. So if those programs need infusions of money, either the poor get hit or the program is drowned in Grover's Bathtub. The popular monorail was killed because of the narrow taxation made the finances a nightmare, and putting all transit improvements on the back of the regressive tab fees is a prescription for killing future improvements. This is Galt's world.
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 9:23 p.m. Inappropriate
NickBob complains "[b]ut the voters threw that system out for a flat tax."
Pesky voters. They also rejected a progressive income tax! Don't they know what's good for them???
Posted Tue, Aug 30, 10:28 p.m. Inappropriate
This world sure would be better off without homo sapiens.
Seems to me that taxing each and every citizen for bus service is the fairest way. In theory they would pay a yearly fee and get free rides anywhere.
What I fail to comprehend is
1. There is a push to get people out of cars and onto the bus.
2. If that is so then how does cutting service encourage people to ride the bus?
3. The ride free area in downtown seemed to make a lot of sense. It got people onto the bus. It encouraged them to come downtown and go from one place to another without hiking all over. That hiking sure got cold in the winter - I remember it well.
4. If you want people on the bus dynamite the parking structures. If we cannot park em we take the bus OR we dont go.
5. If you want people on the bus you need to design in ability to carry large packages or medium boxes. I can remember old ladies with shopping bags of vegetables and meat from the Pike Place Market on the 2 Madrona in my youth.
Posted Wed, Aug 31, 4:56 a.m. Inappropriate
A couple points. Metro is not claiming that the $2.8m is all lost fares, but that this is the overall amount lost by continuing the RFA after considering fares, operational costs, and operational savings. Metro's fact sheet about the RFA elimination says that of the 28,000 trips taken within the RFA in 2010, about a third (~9,400) hadn't already paid with pass or already have a transfer took trips entirely within the RFA. That comes to an average of about 26 people per day. That isn't anywhere near the $2.8M figure for lost fares, but Metro is estimating the amount after including fare-evasion, differences in dwell time outside the tunnel, etc.
In terms of the tunnel, Metro's report indicates that there could be serious problems without mitigation, but outlines steps that could be taken -- including moving peak routes to surface streets. Peak-only routes in the tunnel don't amount to much when compared to the frequent service routes like the 7x series, 41, 101, 106, 150, and 550. The peak-only commuter routes should probably be moved to the surface anyhow, even if the RFA wasn't slated for elimination. Additionally, turning the tunnel platforms into proof-of-payment areas may mean that would still be no on-board fare collection (and associated dwell time) in the tunnel.
As far as attracting people to downtown, I suspect that a day and multi-day pass products would attract more riders systemwide than the ~26 riders a day that Metro estimates are actually using the RFA. When I go to places like Chicago, Portland, Anchorage, Vancouver, Victoria, etc. it is pretty easy to find a day pass to ride as much as you want -- and much easier for visitors to decipher than Metro's current system that offers no passes and requires riders to keep abreast of the time, location, direction of travel, etc. to know where they are allowed to board and exit, and when to pay (or if to pay at all.)
Posted Wed, Aug 31, 7:55 a.m. Inappropriate
"Metro Transit: poor people stuck with the tab again?"
A truly ridiculous headline, considering this article is about requiring all residents to pay their own (minimal) bus fare. The Ride Free Area is not a human service function of government. If it is, it should not be paid for using transit funds.
By the way, how about a free ride zone in the tunnel for inbound buses only? They can change their destination sign to "Free Bus" when they enter the tunnel and continue to load and unload using all doors.
Posted Wed, Aug 31, 9:16 a.m. Inappropriate
The poor have access to free and reduced fares. The homeless who are not capable of the personal planning and organization to take advantage of this are another matter. I feel compassion for Seattle's homeless, and would happily fund meaningful interventions them, but the bus sytem is not and should not be used as a substitute for custodial care of the mentally ill and deficient. (committment being a major factor behind the lack of chronic homelessness in 1963) People want to use the bus to get to work and get around. Many more would do so if they didn't have to sit next to passengers who are unhygenically filthy, disturbed and/or violent, or spend an hour in a crowed bus getting coughed on by a tubercular alcoholic. Among my friends, the more they ride the bus today, the happier they are to see the FRZ gone.
Posted Sun, Sep 4, 9:23 p.m. Inappropriate
Hillbard, the Ride Free Zone is not gone yet, so your anecdote about your friends is obviously fake. The poor do not have access to free fares. Reduced fares are $27 a month, and that's not exactly free when you're extremely low-income. The lack of chronic homelessness in 1963 had nothing to do with "commitment"; it had to do with the fact that the feds were still supporting housing, which they stopped doing under Reagan, which was 20 years later. And anyone who uses the term "deficient" in reference to a human being does not have compassion for anyone.
Posted Wed, Sep 7, 8:52 p.m. Inappropriate
Anyone who would link to “Seattle Transit Blog” from Crosscut - for any reason - is irretrievably dim or angling for credit as an advocate for corrupt government practices.
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