Tonight is the monthly Ballard District Council meeting at the Ballard Library.
On the agenda, King County Councilman Larry Phillips will talk about the planned reduction to Metro Transit, discuss long-range transit plans including Rapid Ride and Link Light Rail and he’ll discuss efforts that are being made to coordinate among public transit agencies.
Following Phillips, Dawn Hemminger and Shannon Dunn will talk about the 14th NW Planters Project that was just awarded more than $14,500 by the Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Matching Fund.
Finally, Joseph Gellings with the Port of Seattle will talk about the future of Fishermen’s Terminal.
The Ballard District Council meeting is open to the public. The meeting runs from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Ballard Library. According to the BDC website, “By urging of Ballard Rotary Club; persons attending the November 11th Ballard DC meeting are requested to bring donations for the Ballard Food Bank. Especially needed are personal hygiene supplies including soap, shampoo, disposable razors, toothpaste, and deodorant or other personal care products.”
I'm sorry, Metro SERVICE REDUCTION??? Are you %$#&ing kidding me!? Did anyone go to this meeting and have sordid details to share?
King County has a huge budget problem because it gets a huge amount of transit funding from sales tax. Income has dropped due to the recession.
The good news is that they found funding to keep things going for this year and think they have found funding to keep things going for the next 3 years via some efficiency changes and increases in fares.
For one of the efficiency changes, they might eliminate up to 6 stops for the #44 in Ballard, allowing it to be a faster and more useful bus.
Another efficiency change is looking at ways to increase ridership on the #46.
Was this information all from that meeting? If so, thanks for going and reporting back!
I wish the #44 improvements weren't a “might.” Recently, San Francisco MUNI decided to rearrange its bus stops to dramatically improve efficiency — every route, every street. They announced it and began making the changes immediately. Metro, meanwhile, picks 1 or 2 routes to “experiment” with this already-proven idea (so far, only the #7), announces that they “might” do it, and then sends it into committee for a year or more.
As for the #46: direct Ballard-Fremont service is a great idea, but nobody's going to make a habit of riding a line that runs hourly from 9 to 3. When a route is that sparse, and therefore not a regular part of people's sense of transit options, ridership will remain low. Period.
Lastly, another across-the-board fare increase is a disastrous and unjustified by the quality of service we get. Period. $72/month (peak) or $63/month (off-peak) is outrageously high when every single ride is a nightmare. Considering our non-existent fare enforecement, raising it higher will just encourage more creative-excuse-based fare dodging at the expense of those who actually pay. I recently read that Boston's MBTA, despite 2 fare increases since I moved to Seattle, still costs only $59/month for a subway+bus pass or $40 (!) for a bus-only pass, and has resoundingly rejected a 3rd increase as a solution for its budget woes (and that's for a system with 5-10 minute frequencies across the board).
What Metro SHOULD consider is eliminating paper transfers entirely (one major source of “I'll show you my expired transfer from this morning” fare evasion) and creating a 2-tiered system that rewards ORCA users with discounts (thus massively speeding up the boarding process) and makes cash-paying customers use whole dollars (again, faster) — $2 at all times, or perhaps even $3 at rush hour — rather than screwing it's regular customers as they've proposed.
Good points all….I would also suggest getting rid of the Ride Free zone. If the downtown Chamber of Commerce wants shoppers to be able to ride free they should set up some kind of a deal where stores give out free tickets, kind of like when they validate parking. If it's not worth it to the merchants then the rest of us shouldn't subsidize it either.
Right now downtown buses are just a place for people who aren't going anywhere to stay out of the rain.
Yes, this was all information that I gathered from the meeting.