Planning our next organizing meeting
Rodney Rutherford
much time to do it since Colleen is working M/W/F (meaning I have baby
duty those evenings). I'm wondering if we could at least meet for a
conference call some evening at 8pm (since Alex is in bed by that
time). There are several free conference call services available on
non-local numbers that could use. Those who have a mobile phone with
nationwide long distance and free evenings could tune in that way,
those that don't could pick up a cheap calling card and pay a buck or
two per meeting. We should still meet face-to-face, but we might make
more progress and include more people with busy schedules (like
myself) if we provide more flexible meeting opportunities like this.
Here are some services I'm looking into...
freeconferencecall.com
freeconference.com
nocostconference.com
instantconference.com
-Rodney
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 10:56 AM, Michael Taylor-Judd
<mickym...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Which is why we should have another Organizing Committee meeting?
>
> Michael 8-)
>
> "Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are
> also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation,
> and a nation of nonbelievers." --Barack Obama
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Rodney Rutherford <rod...@gmail.com>
> To: stru-s...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Monday, August 4, 2008 6:58:07 AM
> Subject: Re: Is Seattle getting it's fair share of service allocation?
>
> 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
> On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:16 PM, nwcitizen <nwci...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> 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?
>>
>>
>
> >
>