There was a hearing last night at King County. I wasn’t there, but any time you can get hundreds of people into a government meeting on a lovely day, you know it’s an important issue.
It was standing room only Tuesday at a public hearing on the future of Metro. The transit service is facing budget cuts that will seriously affect riders.
Ultimately, King County is going to need the authority to tax itself on a more permanent basis. And that’s where we need to make sure to contact our legislators. You can find your legislators here. As always be polite but firm that you want them to let Metro keep funding itself.
“let Metro keep funding itself”
Huh? Isn’t that the opposite of subsidized by taxpayers? If Metro funds itself, why does it need a tax?
Meanwhile, Rodney Tom and his “new-found” Republican pals were doubtless someplace else laughing their asses off.
As a Metro rider, I’ll be inconvenienced by the prospective cuts.
As drivers, you’ll be screwed.
What about raising rider fares? Is that an option?
I would like to clarify that I’m not opposed to any and all tax-funded subsidizes for Metro. Transit became a public entity in the first place because it isn’t self-supporting, which means private companies couldn’t provide bus service profitably. So, for public transit to survive, it needs a subsidy from somewhere and government’s role is to step in and provide it by taxing the general public. That’s okay, I support that, to a point. But there still needs to be a discussion of how Metro’s operating costs will be shared between riders and taxpayers. If the goal is to get people out of their cars, and certainly part of it is, then taxing cars makes sense on paper. In reality, though, car owners will continue to need their cars. For example, a senior citizen who uses his/her car to shop at a grocery store 10 blocks away, which is too much of a walk for that particular senior citizen (especially in inclement weather), and does not happen to have a bus route conveniently running from in front of his/her home directly to the grocery store, is going to use that car; and a higher tax on cars to pay for buses is just an added (and arguably unfair) financial burden on that senior citizen. Car tab taxes hit senior citizens especially hard, and are unfair to senior citizens, because the tax isn’t proportional to the amount of driving one does. A $20 car tab tax is actually a much higher proportional tax on someone who drives 2,000 miles a year as opposed to a commuter driving 20,000 miles a year. Both the amount and type of tax used to subsidize buses must be considered here, and the car tab tax is a horrible tax for this purpose, because it undertaxes high mileage drivers and overtaxes low income senior citizens and others who need a car but whose driving mileage is very low.
@5 Roger, I’m not opposed to a fare increase as part of the solution, but raising fares alone can’t solve the problem and would hurt a lot of folks for whom public transportation is their only option.
@6 How about commuters paying closer to the cost of service while low income people can get a low cost or free pass? A lot of people riding buses to work are doing fine financially and can easily afford a fare increase.
Roger,
Huh? Isn’t that the opposite of subsidized by taxpayers? If Metro funds itself, why does it need a tax?
I was saying Metro needs help from the state to impose the taxes on itself, because the temporary taxes they let King County impose on itself are going to expire. I should have been more precise and said King County instead of Metro there.
Also, as to fare increases: They are already some of the highest in the nation (anecdotal according to a friend of mine who had a 5 month road trip around the country last year). There have been several increases in recent years. The last increases were September 2011, so not that long ago.