Keep Metro rolling

A 25-cent bump in adult fares on Metro Transit will help keep buses rolling and routes expanding. That is worth an extra two bits.

The King County bus system is not immune to the same soaring fuels costs that helped fill bus seats with a record number of passengers. County Executive Ron Sims has a stark choice: raise rates in October or cut service.

If the County Council approves the increase, as it should, it would only be a scant seven months since the last increase for adult fares. Before that, it was 2001.

All of Metro's numbers are big. The system buys 12 million gallons of diesel for its 1,300 buses. Metro had budgeted for $2.60 a gallon and will end up paying an average of $3.86 per gallon in 2008. In a letter to the council, Sims notes Metro quit using biodiesel when the federally subsidized price became prohibitive.

The requested increase would raise one-zone peak transit fares from $1.75 to $2. That translates to inside the Seattle city limits during the morning and evening commutes. A two-zone peak fare, into the suburbs to the north, east and south, would rise from $2.25 to $2.50. Not inexpensive, but the household calculation is how much fuel and parking an extra 50 cents a day would buy.

The adult off-peak fare would rise from $1.50 to $1.75. Rates for seniors and youth — 50 cents and 75 cents, respectively — went up this month, and would not change.

Sims wants to rescind prohibitions on wrapped advertising — those full paint jobs — on Metro buses. Current rules do not allow for new contracts or existing contracts to be extended.

Get over it; go for the money.

He also wants to develop a fuel-hedging program "aimed at reducing fuel price volatility." This has such a scary, Enron-esque sound to it, one hopes the county gets lots of skeptical advice.

The county council is faced with Sims' dilemma: raise rates or cut service. Standing-room-only buses suggest the obvious answer.