Metro Transit scolded for unmet promises

The Transit Now tax increase probably wouldn't add as many bus-service hours as Metro Transit promises, a conservative think tank says in a new report.

The Seattle-based Washington Policy Center (WPC) says in its "Guide to Transit Now" that Metro failed to make good on promises on proceeds from a two-tenths of a percent sales-tax increase approved by voters in 2000. Metro told voters it would add 575,000 hours of annual bus service over six years but delivered 203,006 hours, WPC reports.

Now, the report says, Metro expects the proposed one-tenth of a percent tax "will provide three times more service for half as much money."

Voters will decide in November whether to again raise the sales tax to pay for expansion of Metro Transit bus service. If approved, the tax on a $10 purchase would rise from 88 cents to 89 cents. It would cost the average household $25 in the first year.

King County Executive Ron Sims proposed the tax boost in April, saying Metro, the county's transit agency, needs more money to keep pace with rapid population growth. The Metropolitan King County Council, in a bipartisan 8-1 vote, agreed to put the measure on the ballot.

The WPC report questions the ability of Transit Now to reach its goals of expanding Metro bus service by 15 to 20 percent and getting 50,000 to 60,000 car drivers into buses. Depending on sales-tax revenues, Metro expects the tax to pay for 525,000 to 700,000 hours of additional bus service a year within 10 years.

The report was written by Michael Ennis, director of WPC's new Center for Transportation Policy. Ennis, an Enumclaw City Council member, previously was an assistant to former state Sen. Dino Rossi, former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton and state Rep. Jan Shabro, all Republicans. Ron Posthuma, assistant director of the King County Transportation Department, acknowledged that the 2000 tax increase provided only a fraction of the hours promised. The primary reason, he said, was that the recession associated with the dot-com bust sharply reduced sales-tax collections. Metro had forecast steady growth in the sales tax, but collections dropped after the tax boost went into effect.

Because the recession depressed demand for bus service, Metro spent more of its limited dollars buying buses and building park-and-ride lots than on expanding service, Posthuma said.

He said Metro used more conservative financial assumptions in its Transit Now service projections.

King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, and a strong supporter of Transit Now, called WPC's criticisms of Metro "ridiculous ... . We aren't magic here. If the tax doesn't come in, we can't provide the project or the service."

Whatever Metro's explanation for the less-than-advertised bus service, said the WPC's Ennis, "the simple fact is they promised a certain service level in exchange for the tax and did not deliver."

The WPC report also challenges Transit Now ridership projections, claims transit improvements don't reduce traffic congestion and warns the tax increase may be only the first of several costly transportation-related tax increases in the coming year.

Metro's Posthuma said ridership projections are realistic because Transit Now would put much of the new service on heavily used routes where buses aren't meeting demand.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com