Honestly, what a bunch of assholes:
Unfortunately for King County taxpayers, Metro’s focus on efficiency has also been like a teenager’s — wavering.
Until now.
Voters’ rejection of the $1.6 billion, 10-year King County Proposition 1 in April has forced Metro to do some soul-searching. Rather than cutting 600,000 hours of bus service, as was initially threatened if Proposition 1 failed, Metro this week said the real number is now 400,000 hours, due, in part, to suddenly found efficiencies.
It’s amazing that after a few months of budget-scrubbing, the agency can find $123 million in savings within its two-year, $1.4 billion operating budget.
Are you fucking kidding me? Do they honestly believe that these sort of savings happen overnight? The bulk of the savings in this budget come from cost-cutting efforts that have been ongoing for years—and take years to pay off. Other savings aren’t really savings at all, but rather shifts from capital spending to operations—shifts that will accumulate their own costs over time.
But even with these savings, a 400,000-hour cut in bus service is nothing to celebrate when it comes at a time when we should be adding 500,000 hours of service just to meet current demand! That’s a 900,000-hour shortfall! Almost a third of total bus service!
This is an austerity budget, pure and simple, and it is strangling our region’s ability to sustain economic growth.
Fuck the Seattle Times editorial board and its dishonest efforts to dis any proposed tax increase at any time for any purpose under any circumstances.
Well, the Seattle Times has a reputation to consider. They’re competing with the Weekly World News and Daily Mail after all.
Anyone want to guess how many ST editorial board members rely on Metro to get to work?
I used to work downtown. By the late 1980s, driving to a downtown job was becoming untenable due to traffic gridlock and lack of affordable parking; by the late 1990s, downtown employment was becoming untenable due to overcrowded buses; now just going downtown for an occasional meeting is becoming untenable due to bus service reductions. Give it another five years and downtown will be dead because no one will go there.
yes. fuck the seattle times. and, unless i’m feeling too lazy on a given day to ride my bike, fuck metro, too.
@3,
by the late 1990s, downtown employment was becoming untenable due to overcrowded buses; now just going downtown for an occasional meeting is becoming untenable due to bus service reductions. Give it another five years and downtown will be dead because no one will go there.
I think I’ve heard this one before, however it was phrased more like “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”.
@5
All it takes is two or three big downtown office leasers to move to a suburb, and the services will follow them. You would need a lot of small companies to take up the space, large companies are hard to land as new tenants. We might lose Russell Investments soon, 900 jobs downtown. Amazon is building their own headquarters outside of downtown. When they move it will open up some of their SLU office space, which could then attract smaller companies away from downtown.
And if Metro had to cut 800,000 hours, the Times would be screaming about underestimating.
Maybe the Times would like to cut WSDOT’s budget by closing I-90. We could save a bunch of money.