Kirkland and beyond

RantWoman and the King County Council and many members of the public both pro and anti-transit invite readers to the next two public hearings about King County's proposed $20 congestion reduction fee to help save and restructure Metro service for the 21st century.

Tuesday, July 12, 6:00 p.m.
King County Council Chambers
516 Third Avenue, 10th Floor, Seattle

Thursday, July 21, 6:00 p.m.
Burien City Council Chambers
400 S.W. 152nd Street


Honestly, RantWoman hopes that charming and persuasive transit advocates will predominate. RantWoman hopes that the rooms will overfow with community-mindedness and vision of our communities linked together in life and growth. RantWoman hopes that the rooms will be crowded with people who can listen well to each other and take brave steps toward a brigher shared future.

And RantWoman is still just back from last week's out of sequence meeting of the Transit Advisory commission and trip to Kirkland for last week's public hearing!

RantWoman first of all gets to be glad actually to be able to GET TO downtown Kirkland on the bus and to get home in a finite amount of time after her events. Life used to be much more difficult with many fewer buses. RantWoman thinks the expansion of bus service on the Eastside over the time she has lived in the Puget Sound is a huge enhancement to community life. RantWoman is sorry for the burden--in the form of noise from 400 buses a day--this expansion of service imposes on people who live in downtown Kirkland. RantWoman has few illusions that her self-employment reasons for going to Kirkland on a non-peak-hour schedule by themselves add enough economic value to overcome this inconvenience, but RantWoman very much appreciates the access anyway.

RantWoman has been distressed to hear in multiple places that $20 / year on top of lots of other fees seems so onerous to so many drivers.

RantWoman is peeved to hear people who don't ride the bus complain about bus drivers being overpaid, either because their pay is high relative to drivers in other transit systems or because of a perception that a lot of buses are empty a lot of the time and therefore the drivers have nothing to do. RantWoman respectfully DISSENTS:

RantWoman loves the bus and the community of shared trip but, how shall we say it, not all passengers are perfect delights all the time. Driving the bus is customer service on steroids. Drivers are expected to be courteous, to handle people in all kinds of mental and physical states, to answer endless questions, and to do all this while driving a large vehicle in traffic and over streets of uneven quality. RantWoman thinks if some of the naysayers in the public were forced to try this for even 5 minutes they would immediately be diving under the nearest table to hide from the stress. Bus drivers earn every penny and a LOT depends on bus drivers knowing what they are doing.

RantWoman further thanks participants in the Kirkland hearing for voicing a number of, um, innovative ideas for dealing with our area's transit needs. All RantWoman has to say is, the King County Council does not have the authority to deal with most of them so let's get the Congestion Reduction fee passed and then move on to lasting, longterm solutions!

But previous to RantWoman's journey to exotic Kirkland, RantWoman also attended a specially-scheduled meeting of the Transit Advisory Commission. The Transit Advisory Commission, of which, full disclosure, RantWoman is a dedicated member, had agreed previously that we would like to come to consensus about SOMETHING and to write a letter to the King County Council about the Congestion Reduction Fee.

We agreed to meet. When we actually met, we much more quickly than would have been to RantWoman's taste agreed that we could not possibly come to any topical agreements in the two hours allotted for our meeting so most of the commission just fled and went home. RantWoman is not sure we could have gotten anywhere by continuing to use our allotted time to talk further, but RantWoman is inspired by the Regional Transit Task Force to ask: RantWoman keeps hearing about how exciting it was for people to meet twice as often and for twice as long as originally planned and all to come to consensus! One of these days RantWoman means to read the report so she can speak better to what next needs to happen with all this wondrous work.

Meanwhile, RantWoman repeats her invitation to this week's hearings.