While digging through a pile of old papers, I found an article in the August 20, 2000 issue of the Eastside Journal. Using 1998 data, the reporters, Tim Larson and Mike Ullman, came to these conclusions:
Eastsiders provide about 29 percent of Metro's tax revenue, but take only 12 percent of the rides. Converted to hard cash, that's an imbalance of millions of dollars a month.
Buses that serve the Eastside, regularly do so half-empty.
. . .
The 1998 route analysis shows only 17.2 riders per "platform hour" on the Eastside. (A platform hour equals one bus on the road for one hour, whether it's hauling passengers or not.)
In the Seattle area, for the same period, the average was double the Eastside's, 34.1 passengers per platform hour.
. . .
The fewer riders on a bus, the more tax dollars are required to support it. The fare box return on that Mercer Island route [201] is 4 percent, meaning that for every $4 riders pay on the bus, taxpayers pick up $96.
After reading that article, I have a few questions, none of them rhetorical:
Let me repeat, those are not rhetorical questions. And I would be delighted if someone could point me towards more recent data, assuming there is some, so I could do an analysis of my own.
But I do wonder whether we might have a fairer, less costly, Metro if we reduced bus service in parts of the Eastside, increased bus service in parts of Seattle, and shifted taxes to match the usage a little more closely.
(One caveat: Many transit riders will begin in one area, and go to another, so it is difficult to allocate money per region. As the article says: "When Eastsiders are riding the bus, usually they are going to or from Seattle.")
Posted by Jim Miller at September 01, 2009 04:01 PM | Email ThisIf they had decided to run light rail to the Eastside first instead of Tukwila, should folks in south King County have paid for it?
Posted by: demo kid on September 1, 2009 08:55 PMIt's about spreading the wealth to the west side. Just like Obamanomics. Get the hell in line and don't ask where the money's going or you will be reported and sent to the reeducation camps.
Posted by: EastSideVatos on September 1, 2009 09:23 PMWow, it's almost like stuff that happens in one area affects stuff that happens in another, so maybe we shouldn't pit one area against another like it's a zero-sum game?
Um, what was the point of this post again? Something about 1998 and 2000?
Posted by: tensor on September 1, 2009 10:53 PMIf the train went from the Tukwilla thru Renton and Bellevue to Redmond and not to Seattle, you can darn well bet that people in Seattle would be saying "Why should we pay for that?"
It's not unfair for people in Bellevue, Issaquah, Sammamish and Redmond to ask the same question about footing a bill for a train system that doest them zero good.
As for the bus situation, I regularly see empty and near empty buses all over the I-90 corridor. The only full buses I see are the Microsoft buses. Isn't that interesting?
Posted by: Johnny on September 2, 2009 07:08 AMThe subject here is whether too much of the transit money for King County is being spent in Seattle, and whether transit is servicing the the whole of the county well.
If the subject was whether Redmond could pay for it's own roads, though, a quick look at all the major corporations, retail base and million dollar homes there would say this would probably be a slam dunk anyway.
Posted by: johnny on September 2, 2009 07:50 AMI don't have any problems with changing the balance of funding, making service on the Eastside more efficient, and so forth. I'll be the first one to say that the SLU trolley was a stupid mistake, and is completely ineffective.
The problem I have is when folks on the Eastside whine about paying for something that they "don't use". That's simply not the case, for a number of reasons. If you ever drive anywhere close to Seattle, for example, you "use it" in the form of reduced congestion. You benefit from the low-cost labor employed bussed into downtown that cannot afford to live in the city. It's a boost to the local tourist economy. And so forth.
Posted by: demo kid on September 2, 2009 08:07 AM3. Who designed this system? Some Bureaucrat
4. Would we be better off not subsidizing routes with almost no passengers? Definately.
5. Would it be cheaper to replace some routes with on-call vans? Interesting idea. Might be worth a trial run and see what the numbers bear out.
Posted by: Rick D. on September 2, 2009 08:49 AMYou keep trying to confuse the conversation. No one is trying to say that the idea of transit is bad as an idea.
What we're saying is that we aren't getting enough benefit from the current infrastructure or what is planned.
If this was a truly "integrated" system, you'd see trains to the eastside and high utilization bus systems in places like Sammamish Plateau and Issaquah. You don't see that.
Posted by: johnny on September 2, 2009 09:41 AMThe transportation system around here is built by government of patronage and privilege by the "party of the people". It's the worst kind of government you can have and we are all the worst for it. If it was built by actual need and common sense without thought of rewarding political constituency groups, it sure would look a lot different than it does now and cost less by billions.
Posted by: G Jiggy on September 2, 2009 11:02 AMDuring rush hour, I see plenty of full buses along I-90. In off hours, not so full -- kinda like I-90 itself. Imagine that...
Posted by: scottd on September 2, 2009 12:14 PMI usually ride my bicycle on the sidewalk and have a car registered.
The buses are a money pit system. I rode them about 2 dozen times about 5 years ago and they were often empty going any way.
As long as transit is subsidized and catering to welfare recipients and folks who pay less and want more then there will always be a struggle.
I'll happily ride my bicycle (200 days a year) or drive my 310 horsepower truck and wait in traffic rather than take a bus.
Posted by: Zorro on September 2, 2009 05:17 PMAlso, there was an interesting post in the comments by a poster who goes by "getting real"
"gettingreal
Seattle, WA
800 comments September 1, 2009 at 7:42
The average passenger load of KC metro buses while in service is 14.5
King Count Buses:
Annual Passenger Miles /
Annual Vehicle Revenue Miles
= average passengers
2007
466,541,901
32,168,736
14.50
"
He further calculates that a solo driver in a Prius is slightly more fuel efficient than the average passenger in a metro bus, based on the average busload, and the average fuel economy of buses.
I live on the eastside, and recently wanted to use the bus to pick up my motorcycle, which was in the shop. I wanted to go roughly from Bellevue Square to Crossroads, but there was no such route. I would have had to transfer from one bus to another. I put on my jogging shoes & jogged over in about 30 minutes, probably quicker than if had taken the bus.
Posted by: travis t on September 2, 2009 06:37 PMSwatter: You might want to wait longer than that -- I'm not sure how big Jim's stack of old newspapers is.
Posted by: scottd on September 2, 2009 09:15 PM40/40/20 says that 40% of Metro's new service hours go to the Eastside. That 20%? That's Seattle/Shoreline. This policy wasn't around in 1998. It is absurd to ignore it.
Is the Eastside getting its fair share? Depends how you look at it. Seattle pays 42% of the revenue and gets 58% of the service. But Seattle is best poised to take advantage of bus service. Its routes have actual riders.
Eastsiders provide about 29 percent of Metro's tax revenue, but take only 12 percent of the rides.
What kind of measure is that? First, it only makes sense to look at not just tax revenue, but all revenue including fares. It is also kind of odd to measure the percentage of rides taken by a particular subarea -- you do not see that metric used in transit discussions. The question is how much service the Eastside sees as a percentage of over-all service hours for the entire system.
Should we be running wasteful buses on the Eastside? Well, without offering baseline bus service, no one rides the bus. If you have a bus that comes once every two hours, it's nearly useless. If the county's goal is to reduce emissions and reduce sprawl -- and those are stated goals -- then even heavily subsidized bus service is a good option. Particularly because those who live on the Eastside and are bus dependent are the poor.
Would it make sense to have the Eastside pay less taxes in exchange for less bus service? Maybe, but that's against state law right now given how Metro is organized. And voters would probably not approve it. They like bus service. They like the environment.
Daniel, In the early days of Seattle, all transportation for the public was provided by private entities whether, it be by land or water
So were highways and roads. Are those big government gone mad? How not?
johnny, The subject here is whether too much of the transit money for King County is being spent in Seattle, and whether transit is servicing the the whole of the county well.
No, that isn't the question. Read the article.
There is no mention of a SERVICE deficit. There isn't a real one. The article focuses on a RIDERSHIP deficit. They are completely different topics. And get this: Service hours cost money. Riders, basically, do not. That's why the outrage is fake.
The plain advocacy here isn't that Metro isn't investing enough in the Eastside, it's that routes on the Eastside should be cut along with Eastside taxes. The net of this, of course, would be less Eastside bus riders.
travis, He further calculates that a solo driver in a Prius is slightly more fuel efficient than the average passenger in a metro bus, based on the average busload, and the average fuel economy of buses.
First, it's not true. Second, the "average passenger in a metro bus" is not comparable to the a Prius driver who is significantly less than average. Third, he's using confusion between mean/median/mode averages to distort the truth. The truth is that packed buses during rush hour save a significant amount of emissions, and more than make up for less-efficient routes during the rest of the day.
Why have those other runs if they're less efficient? Because you don't get high peak ridership if all you offer is peak service. People need flexibility and transit should deliver. The net outcome, even with less efficient mid-day runs in the Eastside, is a huge over-all savings of CO2, congestion, and time with bus service.
I wanted to go roughly from Bellevue Square to Crossroads, but there was no such route.
What? The 230 and 253 both run Bellevue Transit Center, two blocks from Bellevue Square, directly to Crossroads. They are among the most frequent and popular buses on the Eastside. A major investment in bus service, called RapidRide, isn't being made along this corridor in the future.
Those two places are quite possibly the easiest to travel between on the Eastside. Your comment is pretty funny.
I put on my jogging shoes & jogged over in about 30 minutes, probably quicker than if had taken the bus.
The 230 takes 12 minutes to make that trip. But okay.
scottd, During rush hour, I see plenty of full buses along I-90. In off hours, not so full -- kinda like I-90 itself. Imagine that...
----
To answer Jim's question.
1. Is that analysis of 1998 data reasonably correct?
No. The analysis was looking for a conclusion, and it used an odd metric to discover it. A ridership deficit? What causes that has little to do with Metro and everything to do with sprawl, highway investment, and data from a decade ago.
2. Would you get about the same results if you did the analysis with current numbers?
There is no evidence for that. Ridership is significantly higher than it was a decade ago. Redmond and Bellevue are significantly denser. Congestion is worse.
No one can answer your question, but the answer is probably no. And the answer doesn't matter since the conclusion is meaningless.
3. Who designed this system?
The King County Council is an elected board that approves all route decisions. All Metro decisions. The majority of this board is suburban.
4. Would we be better off not subsidizing routes with almost no passengers?
Yes. But the difference between a route and a run are significant.
5. Would it be cheaper to replace some routes with on-call vans?
There is no evidence for that, and almost certainly not. There is a similar system for the disabled called DART -- operated by Metro. It is significantly more expensive.
6. Finally, if the analysis is correct and we still have that imbalance, are any elected Eastside officials protesting this imbalance?
Your question operates on a false premise.
There is no imbalance. "Percentage of system riders" is not a valid measure of a transit system's success. Even a small percentage of Eastside -> Seattle commuters on the bus has a significant, real impact on congestion and emissions.
You ask sober questions, Mr. Miller, but they are far from real questions that a reader can answer. You are either asking us to think deeply, which is helpful for human development but unhelpful for understanding whether this article is bull. Or you are asking so we find answers -- but I ask why you couldn't find these answers before blogging about an article based on data from 1998.
Posted by: John Jensen on September 4, 2009 05:07 PMWhat? The 230 and 253 both run Bellevue Transit Center, two blocks from Bellevue Square, directly to Crossroads. They are among the most frequent and popular buses on the Eastside. A major investment in bus service, called RapidRide, isn't being made along this corridor in the future.
Those two places are quite possibly the easiest to travel between on the Eastside. Your comment is pretty funny.
I put on my jogging shoes & jogged over in about 30 minutes, probably quicker than if had taken the bus.
The 230 takes 12 minutes to make that trip. But okay.
""
I called metro, and the recommended route they gave me involved 2 buses. I am 4-5 blocks south of Bellevue Square, which itself is about 4 blocks long. It was faster to jog, plus it was free, both for me and the taxpayer. And no pollution!
I did not realize that it would turn into a point of debate. I just thought it kind of funny and ironic that it was quicker & easier to jog--kind of like John Henry beating the steam hammer (except that I did not die at the end).
You find my comment funny; I find your need to debate it funny.
Posted by: travis t on September 5, 2009 08:45 PMThere is no debate. This sentence is wrong, and Eastsiders should know that common sense routes like this do exist. You could have used Google Maps or the Metro Trip Planner to plan your trip, but it's disappointing you got bad information from your taxpayer-funded phone call. :)
Usually when using the bus you have to plan ahead a bit more, of course. The way to fix that is to have more bus service, not dismantle it.
Posted by: John Jensen on September 8, 2009 01:31 AMWell I did it, and I am 53 years old. It is not 8 miles--more like 4 I think. I just wanted to pick up my motorcycle after repairs, and it was faster to jog than to take the bus.
Posted by: travis t on September 8, 2009 01:53 AM