I’ve read many opinions concerning Transit Now. Some love it. Some hate it. After some research, I figured I’d throw my hat into the ring as well. I think Transit Now is a good idea.
What Transit Now is
Transit Now is a county-wide plan to improve Metro bus service by adding bus rapid transit to main corridors, improving the frequency and reliability of existing routes, adding new routes, and expanding service partnerships. These improvements will be paid for by a 0.1% increase in the sales tax totaling $50 million per year.
Why Transit Now is a good idea
Affordable – 25 bucks. A 0.1% sales tax increase will cost the average family $25. That’s a date at the movies or a half dozen lattes. Spread over a year’s worth of purchases, you probably won’t even notice.
Immediate – If Transit Now is adopted, we will see immediate improvements to Metro. Buses will run more often and be more reliable. With the Light Rail another 3-4 years away and a comprehensive rail network decades away, we need a transitionary solution now. To emphasize the point further – according to Sound Transit’s latest estimates, my son, who is due to be born in a week, could be my age before the Light Rail gets to the Roosevelt neighborhood where we live.
Effective – Transit Now will add over 700,000 hours of new transit service annually, get 50,000 drivers a day out of their cars, and generally make Metro easier to use with more frequency, better reliability, and easier connections.
What Transit Now is not
It is not a complete, long-term transit solution. Let me repeat – Transit Now is not a complete transit solution. Bus transit has many inherent flaws, the biggest being that they run on roads (not grade-separated) and are therefore subject to congestion and decreased reliability. Ultimately, buses suffer from the same scalability issues that cars face.
Transit Now is a temporary solution – a stepping stone to get us to where we need to go. I believe grade-separated, rapid transit is the most effective long term solution. The down-side to that is that it takes years of planning and construction to complete. In the meantime we need an affordable, immediate, and effective solution. We need Transit Now.