Sustainable West Seattle sponsored a Transportation forum Tuesday night Feb. 22 featuring a panel of experts to talk and interact with the audience on West Seattle's transportation future.

Led by Tom Rasmussen – Panel Facilitator and Chair of the Seattle City Council Transportation Committee, the rest of the panel consisted of Chris Arkills - King County, Transportation policy advisor in the Office of King County Executive Dow Constantine, Martin Duke – Seattle Transit Blog, Brice Maryman – SvR Design, an expert on transit planning and Peter Hahn – Director, Seattle Dept. of Transportation.

Rasmussen described some of what he's accomplished as the Chair of the Transportation Committee noting that under the "Streets for All" initiative, people have urged the city to "step up to the plate and create a funding package that would help create more sidewalks and transportation improvements (...) what the City Council did was create a Transportation Benefit District which will allow the people of Seattle to fund different transportation improvements."

The "freight community" was next on his list, noting that he convinced the other council members to create a Freight Advisory Board, that would have official standing with the city to advise the city in the planning phase of transportation projects or on the implementation of policies.

Third, "on a regional level," Rasmussen said, " I worked with 28 people who were appointed by Dow Constantine to be part of a Transit Task Force." That group has made its recommendations to the county as to where transit should be increased or decreased in light of the current economic climate.

Arkills, a West Seattle resident had some very specific thoughts on transit and transportation. "We are at the maximum that Metro can collect for sales tax and do not have a sustainable funding base (...) Even if the economy became robust and we started growing at 6% it would take us years to get back to where we once were. So we absolutely need a new funding source for transit.

Currently we're facing cuts from 2012 to 2015 of about 400,000 hours of service (...) that would equal all Saturday service in King County (per year).
62% of all Metro service is in Seattle (...) Seattle is going to have to face some cuts unless we get a sustainable funding source."

Arkills said that transit is critical to keeping West Seattle moving. In the 2000 census he pointed out that 18% of West Seattle residents use transit to get to work. "Today that's estimated at about twice that," he said.

He provided some interesting facts about transit in West Seattle:

The busiest route in West Seattle is #120 which has 7000 daily rides. That route is the next best candidate for Rapid Ride service.
The Rapid Ride corridor made up of the #54 and #55 carries about 5300 daily rides on weekdays.
They have used viaduct mitigation funds to add frequency to routes #21, #22, #54 and #56 during peak hours. This coming fall they will use some of those funds to increase frequency on #54 midday and on Saturdays to 15 minute frequencies.

He reported that the first of the Rapid Ride bus lines, from Federal Way to Tukwila was doing well with customer satisfaction at 85%.

The C Line Rapid Ride to West Seattle is scheduled to begin Sept. 29, 2012 with construction on the Fauntleroy terminal set to begin this summer. This fall they will "begin a seven month process to hear from the community about how to improve bus service to link up with the Rapid Ride line," said Arkills. He acknowledged an "increasing demand to get around West Seattle and that it's not always easy with the current Metro system."

Speaking on Sound Transit Arkills said the future of light rail to West Seattle and Ballard will have to wait for a ballot measure (ST2) to be presented in a presidential election year (likely 2016) to gain enough voter support. The last ballot measure, ST2, was passed in 2008. He was not optimistic on this front, "Even if we voted today on light rail (...) it would be ten years before it was designed and built."

Hahn, had praise for Portland Oregon telling the crowd that it is the "Number one city for public transportation." He's headed there, Feb. 24 with a group to "see how the different modes are integrated in the city."

"The Transit Master Plan is figuring out what we should transition to, and where," Hahn said. "We're about to finish phase 1 of the plan and will deliver that to the City Council this Friday."

During the audience Q & A a question was raised about the deep bore tunnel (which Martin Duke concluded was probably inevitable) asking if priority would be given to transit on certain streets since there are no downtown exits from it.

Councilmember Rasmussen said there was a lot more work to be done to get the funds necessary to make these changes but said, "I think they should (...) I'm optimistic that over the next several years before the tunnel opens we will have a good plan for transit through the downtown area."

Alternative fuels as a transit option was inquired about and Arkills said,"Within 5 to 10 years I think you absolutely will see transit vehicles that can run electric for long periods of time, or you're going to see hydrogen or other options."

Hahn concluded, " I think there's hope that the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) will be a good start in a couple of years and will be a pathway to having improved transit and that we would look for ways of having better transit also to other destinations than just downtown. Hopefully, also in the next five years we'll manage to accommodate the heavy disruption that we'll have through all the construction downtown. That's a major challenge and we need to work together to do that effectively."