King County executive proposes service cuts for all Metro Transit bus routes

All of King County Metro Transit's approximately 225 routes would take a service cut in the next two years — to spread the pain caused by sales-tax shortages — under a proposal announced Thursday by King County Executive Kurt Triplett.

By trimming every route, Triplett hopes to avoid a battle between Seattle and the suburbs. Suburban elected officials tend to defend routes that give a lifeline to underserved or isolated areas, while Seattle advocates argue their buses run the fullest and must be preserved first.

Instead, Triplett would cut all routes 9 percent, or close to that amount. A busy commuter route might run buses 20 to 30 minutes apart instead of 15 minutes, while less-busy routes lose night or weekend trips, he said.

Under his plan, fares would increase 25 cents in 2011, on top of the 25-cent increase already scheduled for February 2010.

Triplett's strategy is only one alternative; various County Council members have suggested at least two other plans.

One would raise fares each of the next four years, while another would cut existing foot ferries from downtown to West Seattle and Vashon. Some members believe Metro can cut more managers.

The council is expected to vote on a final version around Nov. 23.

Metro expects a $213 million shortage the next two years, and a $288 million in 2012-13.

Strictly speaking, these are not deficits, but money that would arrive if the economy were growing. Metro has been buoyed by federal stimulus dollars and a fare increase, and has not cut service yet.

Under Triplett's plan, riders would get fewer of the service hours they approved in the Transit Now measure three years ago.

But roomier buses and improved stops would still be added to the five RapidRide lines serving Aurora, Ballard, West Seattle, Bellevue-Overlake-Redmond, and SeaTac-to-Federal Way corridors, as well as improved service in the Highway 520 corridor with federal aid, in the 2010s.

Triplett argued that not only are the big downtown peak routes valuable, but so are off-hour trips for someone who works a swing shift. "A productive route is the one you take," he said.

His plan also would:

• Cancel foot-ferry expansions and use the ferries' property tax for buses. Vashon and West Seattle ferries would continue.

• Reduce bus purchases in light of fewer service hours.

• Spend a $100 million surplus in the fleet-replacement fund.

• Cut operating cash reserves from 30 days to 14 days.

• Reduce bus cleaning, transit police and printed schedules.

Councilmember Julia Patterson of SeaTac criticized Triplett's suggestion to trim the operating cash reserve, "which is maintained in case of emergencies and natural disasters.... I believe it is too risky to cut this reserve in half, while keeping middle management and administrative positions intact," she wrote.

Andrew Glass-Hastings, an adviser to Mayor Greg Nickels, called across-the-board cuts "politically expedient" and said many people would just stop riding, rather than change their personal schedules as Triplett mentioned in Thursday's news conference.

The situation affects not just Seattle but Kent, Federal Way, Renton and Bellevue, Glass-Hastings said in an e-mail. "Metro should take more time and actually make reductions on less-productive routes to keep as many riders [as possible] in the system as a whole."

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com