EVERETT — Everett Transit chief Tom Hingson knows when it comes to changing bus routes you can’t please everyone.
When he recommended to keep a half-mile-long bus loop in the quiet View Ridge neighborhood in southwest Everett, he was hounded by a resident for four years who accused him of ignoring safety concerns.
Now he’s recommending cutting the bus route in half, and he’s getting criticism from bus riders who would be forced to walk a quarter of a mile more to their bus stops.
The issue came up Tuesday at the Everett City Council at a hearing over the bus-route issue. The council approves Everett Transit’s budget.
Everett resident Dan Stahlberg started a crusade four years ago to get the public agency to keep buses off his narrow street.
Stahlberg says he was nearly hit by a city bus while using a leaf blower in front of his driveway on Elm Street.
He called City Hall with more than 100 complaints and he collected signatures for a petition against bus service.
“This really is a matter of safety,” Stahlberg told council members at Tuesday’s meeting, with his 3-year-old son, Tyler, slung over his shoulder.
A compromise was in the works at one time, but it appears to have fallen through.
Neighbors Kelvin and Patti Barton offered to donate part of their land for a turnaround that would have allowed bus drivers to avoid the narrow stretch of Elm Street along Stahlberg’s home and stay exclusively on Olympic Boulevard, which has sidewalks and a center lane.
Kelvin Barton works for Everett Transit and his wife, Patti, occasionally uses the bus. She’s legally blind.
Hingson said a turnaround would cost his agency about $150,000 to build and on Tuesday recommended against accepting the donation. Instead, he said his recommendation to the mayor’s office is that the route be shortened.
If approved, the change will take effect Aug. 24.
The Bartons were among the handful of people angry over the prospect of shortening the route.
Kelvin Barton read a letter to the City Council from Seattle attorney Mitchell Riese.
The letter urged the city to keep the existing loop. It also said the route’s elimination could be construed as a violation of Washington discrimination laws and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
City Councilman Mark Olson, who is an attorney, dismissed the threat as “political theater.”
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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