Is Seattle getting it's fair share of service allocation?

[nwcitizen]

It seems to me that the 40/40/20 split is not a fair allocation of
service with Seattle getting only 20%.

Does anyone have the actual data showing the per capita tax vs.
service allocations between the subareas that would show whether
Seattle is getting a fair shake?

[Rodney Rutherford]

If I remember correctly, the 40/40/20 split was in order to bring up the level of service in the suburbs after the Metro board previously had been made up of the combination of the King County Council and the Seattle City Council; this had given Seattle double-representation, and, it was argued, disproportionally more services. 40/40/20 aimed to rectify that situation.

 

I think that 40/40/20 should be discarded, and that routes should be given priority based on their efficiency (measured in operational subsidy). Which brings us to a question that I've been pondering: how do we make routes more efficient?

 

In recent weeks, it's become more apparent to me that improving transit speeds works in everyone's interest, and is paramount to efficiency. Improving transit speeds reduces the number of bus hours required to serve a route, and therefore proportionally reduces the cost of operation, and disproportionally offsets the subsidy. How do we make buses faster?

 

 o  Speed the loading & unloading of passengers by encouraging fare prepayment, using proof-of-payment instead of pay-on-board, purchasing buses with a third door, etc.

 o  Speed buses thru city streets with signal priority and right-of-way priority (i.e., bus lanes).

 

 o  More express routes. As routes fill up, new express routes should be established between high-volume destinations in the same corridor. This is what should have been done with the 7 (before it was split into the 7/49). And then provide better bike-n-ride facilities and passenger amenities to these express stops.

 

I agree with nwcitizen that the subsidy per line should be investigated, and would encourage STRU (including you!) to pursue the gathering and analysis of this data.

 

-Rodney