Crisis averted. Changes to King County Metro service that could have cut up to 600,000 service hours of bus routes, heavily-affecting routes in Ballard will not happen.

The Metropolitan King County Council will approve $20 car-tab fees to spare Metro bus service from deep cuts, according to our news partner the Seattle Times.

From the Seattle Times:

A vote won’t come until Monday, but suburban Republicans Jane Hague and Kathy Lambert — who had been against bypassing voters — said they would supply the decisive votes in exchange for a package of reforms and efficiencies in Metro.

Those changes include: phasing out Metro’s subsidy for the free-ride zone in downtown Seattle, running smaller buses on less popular routes, and providing $24 in bus tickets to people who pay the fees; people who don’t want those tickets can donate the value to a pool of human-service agencies.

Proposed cuts would have seen drastic cuts to Ballard-area bus routes. Thankfully, they will remains as-is for the foreseeable future.

You can read the rest of the Seattle Times article here.