Summary

The adopted budget includes funds to increase bus service by over 200,000 hours while investing in bus bases to maintain current and future fleets.

Story

The Metropolitan King County Council unanimously adopted a 2019-2020 King County Budget that commits to increasing service hours, providing greater access to low-income riders and exploring alternatives that encourage commuters to leave their cars at home.

“Increasing transit access requires a multi-pronged approach. I’m proud that our budget includes more bus service hours, a directive to create a new low or no-cost fare program for lower-income riders, and parking management,” said Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, chair of the council’s Budget Committee. “These bold and innovative measures work within our means to deliver better quality service to County riders.”

The adopted budget includes funds to increase bus service by over 200,000 hours while investing in bus bases to maintain current and future fleets.

The budget also reflects the Council’s priority of ensuring better access to bus service for low-income communities throughout the county. The 2019-2020 Budget allocates $10 million to King County Metro for the development of a low/no-cost transit fare program for lower-income riders. Metro staff will develop an accelerated approach that will deliver a program no later than March 2020.  The implementation plan with stakeholder engagement is due to Council in September 2019.

With expanding region-wide transit, Park-and-Rides are filling up earlier and earlier, making access to transit a challenge. In order to better manage the parking lots, the budget directs King County Metro to create a plan for paid parking permits in selected park-and-rides across the County. In partnership with Sound Transit, this program could be administered in lots where utilization is greater than 90 percent. There are seventeen eligible Metro and Sound Transit parking facilities across the County. In each of these the 50 percent of stalls could be reserved for paid parking. The plan will include community outreach efforts, and a report to the Council on implementation.