Transit That Works
Background
Transit is the backbone of local transportation, and has been growing steadily in response to public investment in bus service and light rail. The Seattle area had the second highest total transit growth among all large U.S. metropolitan areas in 2017, and had the highest in 2016. This growth is a reflection of investments we've made to transit.
Seattle has a number of different kinds of public transit, run by three main organizations.
Provides bus, van and some ferry services, poised for a major expansion. We will support this when it comes on the ballot.
Provides our Link light rail service, it is quite new and in the process of major expansion. The light rail is capable of moving many people efficiently and has been a game changer for the region. Unfortunately, its completion dates go out as far as 2040. This is mainly a funding limitation; if we were able to move the funding earlier, we could move the completion times earlier as well. We should accelerate the expansion of Sound Transit.
Seattle has its own, additional bus service that is contracted with King County Metro to have more runs on high usage routes in the city. These services were recently reduced with the latest funding extension, which came while car tabs were (temporarily) ruled out as a funding source. We should increase funding back to pre-pandemic, pre I-976 levels.
