By Jared Brey
Governing
(TNS)
In Brief:
- Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has proposed doubling a sales tax to support expanded bus service and more free passes for low-income riders.
- The measure, which is estimated to raise $138 million a year, was approved by the city council in July.
- Other West Coast cities are considering similar measures this year.
This fall, Seattle voters will be asked whether they want to double the city’s current sales tax in exchange for more bus service. Given their past proclivities, they’re likely to say yes.
The proposal from Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson would renew the Seattle Transit Measure, raising the transit-dedicated sales tax from 0.15 percent to 0.3 percent and putting it in place for ten years. The measure would allow the city to purchase more bus service from King County Metro, the regional public transit authority, and offer more free transit passes to low-income residents. According to the city, the measure would add 100,000 bus trips and 12,000 free passes per year. That’s on top of the 180,000 bus trips and 10,000 passes provided by the existing measure, which voters approved in 2020. If the sales tax were to remain at the current rate, the city would actually end up having to cut service because of rising costs.
The proposal to enact a 0.3 percent tax for ten years is the maximum amount allowed under Washington state law.
“We were going to need to ask people to increase that tax amount just to maintain the level of service they were enjoying right now,” says Alex Hudson, a senior policy advisor for transportation and livability in the mayor’s office. “We decided to move forward with asking voters to do the full investment over the full amount of time.”
When the transit measure was last on the ballot, in 2020, more than 80 percent of voters supported it. It was the biggest margin of victory for any transit tax measure in U.S. history. Since then the city’s transit network, already one of the best in the country, has only gotten better. Like every other major city, Seattle’s transit ridership is still below what it was in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began. But ridership has grown every year since 2020, with particular growth on nights and weekends and other times outside of traditional commuting rush hours. The transit systems have invested in more round-the-clock service. One of the city’s newest light rail links recently counted the highest ridership of any light rail service in the country. Sound Transit, the local transit authority, is carrying out a massive light rail expansion in and around the city.
Last year Seattle voters elected Katie Wilson, a co-founder of the Transit Riders Union, as mayor. Her campaign was focused on improving transit, addressing the housing affordability crisis and lowering the cost of living. Her first executive orders as mayor were to expand emergency shelter for unhoused people and to build a dedicated bus lane on Denny Way, an often-congested arterial road. She has backed a plan called “Taller Denser Faster” to accelerate permitting for multifamily housing around the city.
Before the transit measure renewal could go to voters, it had to go through the Seattle City Council. Several members of the council voiced concerns about raising taxes during a time when voters are so focused on affordability. One member proposed limiting the increase to a 0.2 percent sales tax; another proposed shortening the timeline to six years. Ultimately the council approved the measure almost as proposed, with some additional reporting requirements for the Seattle Dept. of Transportation. Wilson’s office argued that even with the additional tax levy, the measure would make life in Seattle more affordable, pointing out the high cost of owning and maintaining a car in the area.
“We were really confident that what we were putting forward is an affordability measure,” Hudson says. “It does save people a ton of money by creating an option that allows them to drive less often or less far, or to have a life where you don’t need to drive or bear that expense at all.”
Other cities have considered and are slated to consider more taxes to support transit service this year as well, with mixed results. Three Texas cities considered ballot measures that would end Dallas Area Rapid Transit service to their areas earlier this year; two elected to stay while one elected to leave. Pima County, Arizona, home to Tuscon, voted to renew a sales tax measure to pay for transportation projects there. Two major transit-funding initiatives are on the ballot in the San Francisco Bay Area this fall. One would raise $160 million annually to fund Muni, the agency that runs San Francisco’s buses and streetcars. Another initiative, called Connect Bay Area, would raise $1 billion annually to support Bay Area Rapid Transit and other systems in the area, which have suffered big financial losses since the beginning of the pandemic.
Earlier this month, voters in Spokane, Washington, narrowly approved a measure to renew an existing 0.2 percent sales tax to support transit for another 20 years. And in November, Pierce County, Washington, will decide whether to adopt a 0.3 percent sales tax to expand bus services in their area. Those campaigns are likely to be tougher than Seattle’s, says Kirk Hovenkotter, executive director for the Transportation Choices Coalition, a Seattle-based advocacy group. That’s despite the fact that areas like Pierce County have some of the greatest transit needs of any place in the state. Transit service is so spare there that residents haven’t come to see it as a viable alternative to driving. That’s not the case in Seattle.
“Transit is here. It’s not a novelty. It really is essential to our city,” Hovenkotter says. “You’re seeing the Seattle Transit Measure as a response to that.”
Photo credit: Roberto Nickson/Unsplash
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Tags: affordability, public transit, Sales Tax, sales taxes, Seattle, Taxes, transit
