'South Base' by Flickr user Atomic Taco
For the past month or so, a region-wide frenzy has gripped Seattle-area thinkers, voters, businesspersons, residents, drivers, and transit users. It’s no surprise, then, that a carnival has ensued from the prospect of a 17% reduction in King County Metro bus service and the stop-gap funding measure proposed to stave off the cuts. The battle has been classically partisan– on one hand, the anti-tax faction that see the cuts as the ugly result of an inefficient bureaucracy, and on the other hand a coalition of transit supporters who view the preservation of current bus service as a basic need that benefits everyone.
Though I fall within the latter faction, it makes me wonder how much truth there is to the opinion behind every view, particularly from the naysayers. To a degree, the anti-tax faction is right– there are large inefficiencies in a county-run transit agency like Metro. But the convolution in their rhetoric often turns their well-reasoned arguments into nasty ideological jabs. All of a sudden, you go from talking about eliminating a low-productivity bus route to the personal freedom that a $20 car-tab fee infringes upon.
But some cuts need to happen. And I’ve always stood firmly behind that position, as someone with fiscally conservative views. The design of Metro’s transit network is woefully obsolete and terribly bastardized by political dealings over the years. Buses are either too crowded or too empty and there’s never a shortage of blame going around as to how much Metro spends on overhead. The bus system’s complexity is commonly seen as nothing more than spaghetti on the wall and often the butt of jokes like “King County Metro: We’ll Get You There … Eventually.”
What it all boils down to is our love affair of the status quo. People do not like change, for better or for worse. A great deal of testimony heard over the past few weeks has hinged on an someone’s dependency on a certain route, whether or not that route has been productive. While you could redesign and restructure Metro’s entire network to end up with the same or even higher levels of service at a cheaper cost, you would still encounter resistance because well… people do not like change.
If there’s a solution, it’s far out of reach. Should the $20 fee pass, Metro will have two years to lobby the State legislature for new funding authority, a tough ask considering the budget crisis and recent attitudes toward transit in Olympia. Should the fee fail to pass, then King County residents will bear the brunt of longer commute times and all its side-effects. What’s most unfortunate about this situation isn’t the cuts themselves or the proposed fee, but the fact that the real culprit is our resistance to change.
Change isn’t an idea just reserved for politicians, or businesspersons, or community leaders, but it’s something that we all must embrace. And this isn’t the hopeful Obamaesque change, but change that impacts us on a real practical level day to day. This might mean a bus rider having to give up a one-seat ride for a one-transfer ride. This might mean a politician voting to prioritize pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users over drivers. This might mean a business owner giving up car parking for bicycle parking.
This might mean a lot of things. But if we don’t budge, we’ll never find out.
I agree with some of the points. I should be studying for a Japanese test but… I got sidetracked. If the metro bus want a larger response from the public they have to effect them in one way or another. For one week or day King County Metro should eliminate buses and see the reaction of riders. And ask the passengers “How do you feel, was the wait ok? ” Or inform the bus drivers and start that conversation with the passengers. ( Heck they have the security cameras they can see the riders reactions, and see how crowd the buses are to there for estimate the supply and demand curves more accurately.)
I agree with this statement” Buses are either too crowded or too empty and there’s never a shortage of blame going around as to how much Metro spends on overhead.” I’m all for change as we see today there are not longer people delivering milk but, will metro be doomed and follow the same route if something does not happen in time?
Maybe this is a positive change, maybe we didn’t need all these buses running. Hence, finally a more balanced prediction of supply and demand. Or potential riot. But one thing, I do know is we need the voices of people living in King County heard, to offer opinions and other alternatives.