King County Metro Transit is developing a five-year plan for alternative service delivery. Our new Strategic Plan for Public Transportation and two King County ordinances (17143 and 17169) require us to find alternative service options in areas of the county where regular fixed-route bus service is not cost-effective.
We’ll present this five-year plan to the King County Council in June. Over the next two weeks, we are inviting you to help shape this plan.
Alternative services are scaled to the market served, and might include options such as community vans or dial-a-ride transit. In the first few years of the plan, Metro expects to sponsor two or three demonstration projects in areas where fixed-route service is not cost-effective.
We invite you to learn more at Metro’s Have a Say website and take our online survey to tell us what you think. The comment period ends May 11, 2012.
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Michael Ford on April 7, 2013 at 12:17 pm said:
OR WE’LL GET YOU THERE SOMETIME JUST NOTSURE HOW LONG IT IS GOING TO TAKE AND IT IS NOT GOING TO BE A PLEASENT RIDE
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michael ford on January 17, 2013 at 4:00 pm said:
Bill that is so very true it seems to me too that metro has not heard a word from anyone here in West Seattle other than those that the RT C line works for. By taking my choices away from my ride to and from work it has added 45 minutes to my trip to work too and a 3rd bus. The RT C line is really fast getting me from where I live in West Seattle to 35th and Avalon where I now catch the slow local 21 so I can connect with my now 3rd bus to work. Coming home it is still only 2 buses so that isn’t to bad yet many a night at 9:00 PM the C line is standing room only and I’m disabled. yet I still work full time. I find it sad that metro feels nobody ever got off the old RT54 at 3rd and union/university in front of the post office there where lots of buses stop and people were able to connect with out having to walk blocks both up hill and down the street to connect.
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michael ford on January 17, 2013 at 3:48 pm said:
Betsy they use the saying “we’ll get you there” yet they don’t say how fast or how many more buses it’ll take you to get there. Sad yet true it now takes me 45 minutes longer to go to work and a 3rd bus where it used to only take me 2 buses.
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Betsy Feldman on May 30, 2012 at 11:36 am said:
Or how about we USED to get you there.
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Bill Larsen on May 11, 2012 at 11:58 am said:
I live in unincorporated King County and I work at the University of Washington. For the past twenty years I’ve commuted to the U by bus which I take from the Olson/Meyers Way Park and Ride. It drops me right on campus very close to my work and I use it nearly every day. Metro now wants to eliminate this route. This is the only direct route from Burien/White Center/West Seattle/Georgetown that exists. It is used by university students, UW workers and others who work in the U-District.
I met with Metro at an open forum they held at Sealth High School and their solution was that I could go downtown and transfer and get to work that way. That adds about another 45 minutes or more to my commute time each way. Many people on the bus have childcare and eldercare issues (as I myself have) and it would basically be forcing us into our cars and paying for parking and gas which is yet another economic burden.
The bus we take is the 133. It only makes four runs in the morning and four in the afternoon. The Metro rep said there aren’t enough riders on the bus to keep it in operation, which is hard to believe because some days it is standing room only. I suggested if this is the problem, eliminate the early and late runs and that would concentrate ridership to the middle. It fell on deaf ears. It sounded like they’ve already made their decision. I told them eliminating the route isn’t a solution, all it does is create more problems. All the longtime riders talk and we’ve tried to come up with solutions. There are far too many of us to request a commuter van and carpooling is complicated when you have so many people that need rides. I’ve been riding Metro for 35 years. It pains me that I will have to drive in. I thought Metro’s goal was to get people OUT of there cars. They should probably change their slogan to “We ALMOST get you there”. -Bill Larsen, soon to be FORMER Metro rider.
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M. Prange on May 2, 2012 at 3:00 pm said:
Please do not cut the service for the 51/57 in West Seattle. My family and many people in our community use it! It will make things extremely difficult for those who do not have other means of transportation due to lack of a car or inability to drive any longer. Thank you for your consideration.
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Lisa Reager on May 2, 2012 at 10:39 am said:
I agree with the previous comment about service reductions creating lower ridership. Fewer people in my neighborhood ride the bus now since the route 57 reductions were implemented almost 2 years ago. When taking the bus means you have to plan your day to the minute, it becomes impossible to use. Most of us are not able to schedule our day around the bus – life is just not that regular.
I live on the #51 route, which is about to be eliminated. I think eliminating the #51 is a good idea because it was a really useless route (one way service is pointless). It does leave my neighborhood without any local service at all however. In order to use the bus I need later service to my neighborhood. My option is to walk a mile in the often rainy cold weather, get a ride from one of the Junctions, or drive. Guess which one ends up being the most likely. I would like to use my car less, but…
It seems like a really easy fix for my neighborhood is to incorporate Genessee Hill into the Ferry shuttle. It goes 2 ways and if it ran just a little later, it would be perfect.
Here’s a direct link to the survey for Alternative Service Delivery: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AltServiceDelivery Please let us know if you have any problems accessing it. Thanks!
Survey isn’t posted. By the way, what areas does Metro currently see as not cost-effective for fixed-route service?
I also could not locate survey.
My comments have to do with Route 133 from Meyers Way/Olson Place park and ride lot to University of Washington that is slated to be cut.
This bus is full every morning and evening that it runs during commuter hours. It would seem to make sense to retain a route that makes a direct connection from large population area (SW Seattle) to large employment center (University of Washington). The alternative is Rapid Ride to downtown and a transfer to UW. Why would routing an additional number of commuters through downtown via soon to be under construction SR 99 make more sense then a direct connection via I5?
Couldn’t find the survey when I went to “Have A Say.”
Looking at NE map restructuring, since all streets are not marked on the pdf map, it is difficult for me to see where the new #30 route is going.