Council signals support for Regional Transit Task Force recommendations

December 6, 2010

Summary

Legislation asks Executive to work collaboratively with Council to develop policy based on task force’s recommendations

Story

The Metropolitan King County Council voted unanimously today to approve the recommendations of the Regional Transit Task Force, the panel created to develop a vision for public transportation in King County.

“We are working hard to preserve transit service to protect our regional economy and people’s ability to get to jobs,” said Councilmember Larry Phillips, sponsor of the legislation creating the task force. “It’s important to show the public, the state legislature, and members of the task force that we’re taken the task force recommendations seriously and are working to implement them and improve Metro’s cost effectiveness.”

The 28-member task force was formed by the Council and the Executive in March and released their unanimous recommendations last month. Among their recommendations are the replacement of the current 40-40-20 policy of distributing transit service with a regional approach, improving transparency and performance measurement, and stabilizing Metro’s budget by controlling costs and pursuing stable funding.

Due to drop in sales tax precipitated by the Great Recession, Metro Transit is facing potential cuts of 20 percent to its transit service . The more than 600,000 hours of bus service expected to be cut within the next four years will be the equivalent of cutting all bus service on the eastside of King County or one out of every five buses.

The motion passed today by the Council accepts the task force report and guides the County's next steps in collaboratively developing new policies and beginning to educate State Legislators about what we have already accomplished to stabilize Metro’s budget.