We heard that both service allocation and cutback policies should be based on “geographies” or community characteristics.  Considerations should include such characteristics as community size and density, the community's consensus about future development, employment nodes, and transit dependence.

The Puget Sound Regional Council in its Vision 2040 growth plan coined the term “geographies” for city tiers:  metropolitan cities, core cities, small cities, and so on.  We thought this framework a useful one that could be adapted to the transit allocation issue.

Another key message that we heard was that a cutback policy is fundamentally different than an allocation policy and requires a different approach.  Especially in light of the severity of the current fiscal crisis, which far exceeds what may have been envisioned by the current 62-17-21 cutback policy, we believe this policy would lead to unacceptably drastic impacts.

Based on this feedback, we conclude again that the subarea-based framework for allocating transit service should be reconsidered.  Our roundtable participants told us that allocation policy needs to be dynamic and should be reevaluated every few years to ensure it keeps up with demographic, fiscal and political realities.

We heard that the equity or fairness principle is still very important.  Funding equity (return on taxes generated) is a fairness factor and should be considered in allocation policy, but not be the sole factor.  Rebalancing and serving rapidly growing suburban communities continues to be important.  Also, providing basic service in outlying areas of the county must continue to be part of Metro’s core mission.

We heard that since 2001, Metro has provided “only” 140,000+ new hours of service under the current allocation policy.  However, we also noted that this has been just one increment of new service in the region.  Other programs have significantly augmented the amount of service being provided on major corridors.  Today, another 370,000 hours per year of service are provided in East and South King County by Sound Transit.  The Transit Now service partnership program has added an additional 41,000 new hours of service.  The Microsoft Connector provides 19 new routes on key corridors serving that major employer.  And still the demand in key transit markets is growing and many routes continue to be overloaded.

How can we as a community address this need?  Here are a few other key observations our stakeholder participants made:

• Let’s pay attention to the wise use of our constrained resources.

• Let’s not decimate what we have spent 30 years building.
• Let’s use performance standards and “surgical cuts” to trim back where the least harm will be done.

So in conclusion, we feel validated in many of our original recommendations, even more so in light of the fiscal crisis facing Metro.  We have been pleased to see Metro staff focusing on many of these very fundamental observations.  We appreciate the agency’s analysis of core vs. enhanced services and the development of alternative scenarios for policymakers to use in thinking about a cutback strategy.

However, based on Metro staff’s May 20^th presentation to the RTC, we are concerned that policymakers may not yet be prepared to make the hard choices about setting priorities in this financial crisis.  The existing service cutback policy is not compatible with all of the other broad goals that Metro is being directed to preserve (Rapid Ride, congestion relief, service quality, few impacts to disadvantaged populations).  While we agree that balance and service coverage are important system objectives, the most pressing current task must be to make needed cuts where they will save the most money while affecting the system as little as possible.

Municipal League Conclusions--Service Cutback Policy

• Based on our recommendations and what we heard from stakeholders, we conclude that service cutbacks should be based not on a rigid formula, but on performance standards.
• We believe that Metro’s High-Demand Corridors scenario comes closest to our recommendations.
• We urge that Metro refine this scenario based on additional transit characteristics, primarily route performance, community size and density, and transit-dependence.

Municipal League Conclusions--Service Allocation Policy

• We recommend that a new allocation policy be developed that incorporates the size and nature of each transit market, density of population and employment, and other transit-related characteristics.
  

• We urge Metro to develop and publish service allocation standards based on a new centers-based framework.
  

• Finally, we suggest that the region explore using a new framework of informal city “caucuses” based on Vision 2040 to replace subareas for allocation purposes. 

We urge you to stay focused on the important challenges facing our transit system.  Thank you for allowing the Municipal League to be involved in your deliberations and to continue to play the role as issues monitor and good government advocate that we have played for 100 years.

Sincerely,

Brad Meacham                               Kathy Elias
Chair                                              Chair
Board of Trustees                          Metro Transit Review Committee

Cc:       King County Council members
            Regional Transit Committee members
            County Executive Kurt Triplett
            Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond