Shrinking sales tax revenues, which have forced Community Transit to create a much-reduced service model, are finally forcing difficult choices at Everett Transit, too.
Having exhausted the option of dipping into reserves to forestall cuts, and after several public-input meetings, a proposal that includes services cuts and fare increases is scheduled for a public hearing at Wednesday evening’s City Council meeting. If approved, the plan would go into effect Aug. 26.
One suggestion that has come up, and should quickly be put back down, is to reduce or eliminate the city’s commitment to its 4-year-old Swift bus rapid transit partnership with CT. Everett invested some $4 million to build stations and other facilities along the Swift route, which runs from Everett Station west to the Rucker Avenue/Evergreen Way corridor, and south to the King County line at Aurora Village. ET will pay CT $1.3 million this year in operating costs.
Bus rapid transit is a cutting-edge model that operates much like light rail, but at much lower cost. It’s predictable — Swift buses arrive every 12 minutes during peak periods — convenient, and gets commuters where they need to go sooner by reducing the frequency of stops.
Commuters have embraced it. Ridership has increased steadily, rising 20 percent over the past two years. More than half of Swift boardings occur inside the Everett city limits.
The future looks even more promising. King County Metro is expected to launch its own BRT service along the same corridor, from Aurora Village south to downtown Seattle, in October 2013. Coordinating that with Swift will create a seamless rapid transit corridor, parallel to I-5, from Everett to Seattle. Everett Transit director Tom Hingson was right when he told the City Council last week that “We’re at the beginning of the future of public transit.”
Undercutting that would be enormously short-sighted. The City Council recently adopted a plan for creating new transit-oriented development along Evergreen Way, centered around Swift stations. Investment won’t follow if the city’s support for Swift wavers.
And as City Council member Paul Roberts noted, Swift is a linchpin in finally connecting north and south Everett — a desire expressed by just about every council candidate for the past decade or more. It also has the potential to serve the growing aerospace jobs center in southwest Everett, long before light rail ever will.
Transit cuts are painful, to be sure, especially to riders who have no other transportation choices. Efforts to mitigate them must be ongoing, and as tax revenues improve, service to local routes should be restored.
Swift, however, is too central to the region’s future to consider weakening — now or in the foreseeable future.
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