Public Transit Cuts Begin Next Week (Seattle, Sammamish: 2015, homes, transfer)

[Blackhawk4440]

King County's hopelessly mismanaged public transit system will see 28 routes deleted and 13 with service cuts, beginning next month with more to follow.

The County Establishment claims this was all part of a budget shortfall. Really, it's more likely more of a retaliation for voters rejected a proposed tax hike in 2013. Reasons given for the tax-hike rejection was Metro's poor service: security failures especially.

The County Council, in approving these cuts, conveniently overlooked:

1. The billions squandered on a monorail that was never built;

2. The billions wasted on the Alaskan Way Tunnel, which will also probably never be built AND comprised the existing Viaduct;

3. The ridiculous Link Light Rail System, years behind schedule and billions overbudget that only serves a limited area for the billions wasted on it; and with an atrocious safety record besides;

4. The billions spent on the Seattle Streetcars which have both a bad safety record and serve no purpose.

Maybe if King County spent as much effort improving the bus system as they do posturing with all this faux 'world class city' ostentation, the system would be efficient, used more often, and not be going bankrupt.

Seattle does it pride itself on being a 'walkable' city: they just neglect to mention that walking is frequently by necessity!

Fortunately for the City/County Establishment, though, the cuts fall simultaneously with the start of Seahawks Season, so the media can distract the locals with something...ummm...more important...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heIPc1SCSgY&feature

[Boxkicker]

[revelated]

I see no trolling. Everything he said is fact. Point me to something that isn't - and I doubt you can.

[Blackhawk4440]

Boxkicker:
No need to advertise: we already know you're a troll!

[Ruth4Truth]

Yeah, I don't understand spending money on a streetcar system, when the money is needed elsewhere. Why is there still no rail system connecting south Seattle with downtown and north Seattle?

Did Metro really spend money on the proposed monorail extension? How did it spend money on a system that was never approved?

What 28 routes are being deleted? Seattle needs more bus service, not less.

[wutitiz]

I've often said that it seems like the powers that be deliberately create congestion in order to get people to vote for transit boondoggles. The Seattle monorail was about $125 million BTW, not 'billions.' Still that is an enormous amount of money with NOTHING to show for it.

When a city spends $125 million and gets nothing, it should have been time for some self-analysis and self evaluation. How could we have been so stupid, so dysfunctional? There was almost none of that around here--instead we charged ahead to the debacle that is the 99 tunnel, and the 520 bridge replacement which will cost 18 times what the original bridge cost in 1963 (and that's 18X after adjusting for inflation).

[wutitiz]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Yeah, I don't understand spending money on a streetcar system, when the money is needed elsewhere. Why is there still no rail system connecting south Seattle with downtown and north Seattle?

Did Metro really spend money on the proposed monorail extension? How did it spend money on a system that was never approved?

What 28 routes are being deleted? Seattle needs more bus service, not less.

Metro did not spend much if any on the monorail. It was a separate agency called the 'Seattle Monorail Project.' They raised tax money via higher tab taxes in Seattle. They spent about $125 million, all told, and built nothing. Voters voted to end the agency and project.

[CrazyDonkey]

Cuts don't take effect until Sept. 27...

The bigger cuts are on the eastside and in the south county, which is where most of the worst performing routes are located (as well as voters against transit). Deleted routes in Seattle proper, this time around anyway, are of negligible significance: 7x, 19, 47, 48x, 61, 62. Seattle voters (who approved the last transit measure by a wide margin) will have a chance to approve a proposal this fall that will, within the city, roll back many of those and future planned route deletions and service reductions. Suburban commuters will have to walk farther to ride more crowded buses in more congested traffic, and likely make more transfers to get to their destinations.

[Hemlock140]

The original proposal reduced the number of 269 buses from Issaquah Transit Center to the Highlands and Sammamish, but
the final version shows that untouched. Fortunate, since I take that home every day after the ST554 from Seattle. It's far less crowded than the tunnel routes 216, 218, and 219 that have become flooded with Highlands residents. Now Sammamish is getting another 120 homes on the 30 acres that were just clearcut on 228th so I'd expect the 269 to get more crowded just in time for the next round of cuts in 2015.

[seattlerain]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Yeah, I don't understand spending money on a streetcar system, when the money is needed elsewhere. Why is there still no rail system connecting south Seattle with downtown and north Seattle?

Did Metro really spend money on the proposed monorail extension? How did it spend money on a system that was never approved?

What 28 routes are being deleted? Seattle needs more bus service, not less.

The streetcars in Seattle are designed to move people between the dense neighborhoods of Capitol Hill/First Hill and downtown. They will run more frequently than buses and will carry more people

Currently the light rail system runs from downtown, through Rainer Valley to the airport.

It is being extended up through Capitol Hill, to the U of W, the Roosevelt area to Northgate. The project is well underway and the extension to the U of W is expected to open in 2016, Northgate in 2021.

Yes, Seattle needs more bus service, but voters outside of Seattle rejected funding for Prop 1

As another poster has already mentioned, the monorail extension was not a King County Metro project. The system's construction and operation was to be carried out by a private agency.