Metro to Discuss Potential Bus Cuts Tonight

Metro bus riders could soon see service cuts around Mercer Island as the transit agency determines how to cope with an ongoing decline in tax revenue.

King County Executive Dow Constantine and County Councilmembers Larry Phillips and Jane Hague will meet as part of Metro's Regional Transit Task Force at 6 p.m. tonight at the Community Center at Mercer View.

Victor Obeso, Metro’s service development manager, and Metro Transit General Manager Kevin Desmond will discuss King County’s newly proposed Strategic Plan for Public Transportation, which includes a set of guidelines to help the agency decide how to distribute service as budgets continue to decrease.

The plan incorporates recommendations from the Regional Transit Task Force, a 27-member group the county formed in 2010 to build a new policy framework for upcoming service reductions, which Obeso said could total 10 or 15 percent of the system’s total service.

Task force members John Howell, founding partner of the Cedar River Group, will introduce the panel of task force members and review the process of determining Metro services in the next funding cycle.

At a Feb. 8  meeting in Redmond, Howell said projections for the ongoing decline in sales tax revenue, which makes up 62 percent of Metro’s budget, translate into a loss of up to 600,000 service hours from 2012 to 2015.

“That is equivalent to all weekend service that Metro provides, or all service in the east King (County) area,” he said. “It’s a significant body of service and potential cuts.”

The task force recommended three main considerations for future service decisions: route productivity, social equity and geographic value. Although productivity, which encompasses both usage and cost, is a priority, Obeso said providing some level of service to outlying areas is also a top consideration.

The new guidelines will replace a formula known as 40-40-20, which was put in place to guide growth in transit service. The rule dictated that 40 percent of all Metro service would go to the Eastside, 40 percent would go to south King County, and the remaining 20 percent would serve the city of Seattle and other western areas.