Mayor Mike McGinn announced June 17 the city will spend $750,000 to increase evening and weekend service on eight of Seattle’s busiest bus routes.
Beginning in September, routes 5, 10, 21, 40, 41, 48, 49 and 120 will offer more frequent service. The city’s investment comes from savings generated by Bridging the Gap, a nine-year levy approved by voters in 2006 to fund transit enhancement, bridge repair and roadway maintenance.
But the mayor cautioned the $750,000 shouldn’t be viewed as a balm for the county’s transit woes: “I want to make it clear that the money we’re putting in is nowhere near to what Metro needs to maintain its service into its future.”
The transit authority currently faces a $75 million budget shortfall. The state House of Representatives passed a statewide transportation package that could offset Metro’s deficit, and the state Senate will likely vote on the bill later this month.
If the legislature doesn’t pass the transportation bill, Metro will have to cut bus service by 17 percent beginning in the fall of 2014. The transit agency will also increase bus fares. The current nonpeak, one-zone fare is $2.25.
On the eight routes selected for increased service, passenger wait times on evening and weekends will be cut in half: routes that schedule stops every 30 minutes will schedule stops every 15 minutes; buses that run every 60 minutes will run every 30 minutes.
The additional service will continue into early 2016.
The recent release of levy funds adds 5,000 hours of bus service. That increase does not include 45,000 service hours already purchased by levy funds.
But McGinn said those additional hours pale in comparison to what riders stand to lose: If Metro fails to bridge its budget gap, he said, the transit authority will cut 600,000 service hours.
The mayor said while the service increase this fall was good news for riders on eight routes, the best news legislators could give everyone would be to pass the current transportation package.
“Transit funding needs to be a top priority for our legislators because we see increasing demand for bus service in this city,” he said.