Bellingham Said Yes, Whatcom County Said No

The good news is the overwhelming majority (65%) of Bellingham voters support transit service. The bad news is the vast majority of Whatcom County voters outside of Bellingham voted strongly against preserving transit service.

The Bellingham Herald has a the vote breakdown at the end of a recent article discussing pending cuts to the system.

Breakdown of votes by city in the April 27 special election seeking a sales tax increase for WTA. These are preliminary numbers from the Whatcom County Auditor's Office.

Bellingham (47.4 percent voter turnout): 64.8 percent - yes; 35.2 percent - no.

Blaine (43.2 percent turnout): 45.2 percent - yes; 54.8 percent - no.

Everson (36.9 percent turnout): 31.9 percent - yes; 68.1 percent - no.

Ferndale (41.6 percent turnout): 46.7 percent - yes; 53.3 percent - no.

Lynden: (49.7 percent turnout): 30.6 percent - yes; 69.4 percent - no.

Nooksack (39.8 percent turnout): 30.9 percent - yes; 69.1 percent - no

Sumas (38.4 percent turnout): 39.4 percent - yes; 60.6 percent - no.

Unincorporated county (44.4 percent turnout): 39.3 percent - yes; 60.7 percent - no.

The debate the article focuses on is whether service should be cut less in Bellingham, which overwhelmingly supported the measure.

I wonder if this will spur a discussion in Whatcom County to shrink the service and taxing size of their Public Transportation Benefit District (PTBD). Intercity Transit in Olympia drastically shrunk their PTBD a few years ago in order to pass their last sales tax measure. As a result they have a smaller service size that has transit supportive densities. Since shrinking their PTBD they have been able to serve their community better while collecting taxes from less people. Transit agencies are often hesitant to discuss shrinking their boundaries due to the nature of their boards, which usually have elected representatives from communities that would be cut out of the PTBD if they were to shrink.

Another option to maintain bus service to transit supportive Bellingham would be to form a Transportation Benefit District. This would allow the Bellingham City Council to tax Bellingham residents with a small vehicle license fee, and buy extra service from WTA (perhaps to preserve service in the City on Sundays and evenings). Seattle has a similar arrangement and buys extra service from King County Metro

This is just a few ideas to consider as we consider the future of Pierce Transit, Whatcom Transportation, and other agencies that are on life support.

On a final note, as transit agencies across the state make tough choices about taxes and service cuts no help has come from the State Legislature or the Governor's Office. Washington State contributes less than 1% of the State's transportation dollars towards transit and gives agencies the volatile sales tax as their only option to fund operations.

Election Update: Whatcom Transportation Authority forced to Cut Service

With no options from the Legislature other than raising sales tax, agencies across the state are facing a tough decision, ask voters to approve sales tax increases during tough economic times, or cut service.

In the case of some agencies such as King County Metro and Community Transit they don't even have this choice because they are maxed out on their state allowed sales tax.

Whatcom Transportation Authority asked voters on Tuesday to raise their sales tax by .02% to stave off service cuts for their transit agency, which recently saw the largest ridership increases in the country (35% in one year).

Tuesday night the election was very close and measure was failing by a mere 274 votes. As new ballots came in last night that gap spread to nearly 1,000 votes. This means immediate cuts of 14% will have to be made by the agency, similar to the level of cuts being implemented by Community Transit in June. There will likely be no service on Sunday and in the evenings; leaving transit riders stranded.

The Bellingham Herald has the full report here.

Bellingham Herald , "Whatcom County voters narrowly rejecting WTA tax increase"

The Bellingham Herald had a preliminary story on last night's WTA returns. The full story is here.

"Obviously it's close, but I'm obviously pleased that the majority of folks are going to defeat this, I think," said Brett Bonner, campaign manager for People for Progressive Transportation, the group opposing the measure. "The later vote, it tends to lean conservative, traditionally. But at this point no one knows for sure."

Jason Heck, spokesman for the group urging passage of the measure, Transit Works, said they'll just have to see what further counts show.

"We looked at the numbers going in and knew that it was going to be pretty close," he said. "I guess we'll just see where it goes from here."

No new numbers have been released yet and its too close to call, but unfortunately it is an uphill climb for the campaign to save bus service in Whatcom County.

Future of Whatcom County Transit Decided Tonight?

Whatcom County voters will decide today whether or not to save their bus service with a .02% sales tax increase. If the measure does not pass Whatcom Transportation Authority will be forced to cut service by around 15%.

I'll report here live with the first returns. If the election is close it may be too close to call tonight. They need a 50%+1 vote to pass the modest sales tax increase to save service.

For election results directly from the source here is the link you will want.
http://www.co.whatcom.wa.us/purl/elections/results/2010/04/27/html/

For great coverage of the campaign (and I'm sure result analysis as well) check out the Traffic Blog on the Bellingham Herald's website.
http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/traffic/

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a majority of Whatcom County voters will decide to step up to save their great smaller transit system.

Win or lose, I think the pro-transit campaign did a great job getting the word out about the importance of bus service in the community and rallying a diverse spectrum of organizational and individual supporters.

Stay tuned here as the first round of results arrive in 30 minutes or so.


Update:
Jared from the Bellingham Herald reports that 39% of voters have voted as of yesterday in the special election. I think this is probably a good sign for the measure. Also according to his blog there will be only one release of numbers tonight at 8:30pm. The next one will not be until tomorrow.

RESULTS!
With 41.75% of the registered voters counted the measure is failing by a minuscule amount, 274 votes out of 47,536 counted.

Wow. This is very very tight. With these being the only ballots counted today it is way to close to call. This means ballot chasing and very likely a mandatory recount could be in order, unless things swing strongly one way or another. Wild.

According to the auditor they have 48,355 ballots returned as of today. That means they have about 800 more ballots to count as of today. Another few hundred ballots will come in over the next few days, probably meaning there is about 1,400 or less ballots to count. Very very tight.

Blog Recommendation on Bike Sharing

While thumbing through through some articles on bike sharing and rentals in America I stumbled upon this very informative blog.

http://bike-sharing.blogspot.com/

As the name suggests the blog is dedicated entirely to reporting on bike sharing programs across the world.

Bike sharing is something that King County Metro, the City of Tacoma, and others in Washington have looked at doing but it has not been fully implemented here yet.

One way bike sharing can be particularly useful in cities is helping folks make connections from transit lines to their destinations. For example, imagine if there were bikes at Columbia City's light rail station, one could hop on the train from Downtown and get a bike to speed up the .5 mi trip from the station to Downtown Columbia City. Making the trip for a lunchtime getaway or meeting on transit more accessible.

Its something to think about and it will be interesting to see if any pilot projects go forward in the near future in Washington!

According to the blog Mexico City has over 1,000 bikes distributed throughout the city, luckily for them they have much less pesky rain to deal with than we do.

Olympia Wrap-Up: Gains Made in the Legislature but State Leaves Transit Hanging by a Thread

Below is the e-mail we sent out to our supporters today summarizing the legislative session. Feel free to post questions in the comment section.

The 2010 Legislative Session was an Olympic-sized roller coaster. This session was tough because it was primarily focused on the general budget crisis. But don't worry, all of your hard work as a dedicated TCC member did have an impact! We were successful in creating a groundswell of awareness on our issues and organizing our legislative supporters around transit funding and other priorities.

Transit Funding

Thanks to the heroic efforts of some of our House champions, like Reps. Marko Liias and Geoff Simpson, we were able to successfully pass an emergency transit funding measure off the House floor by a wide margin. Unfortunately, the bill didn't make it all the way to the Governor's desk, but it was still a great show of strength for our issues. With transit agencies facing financial free falls and nowhere else to turn for revenues, agencies across the State are making or planning for drastic service cuts. We're optimistic that the Senate will also step up for transit in the next session and we'll get a long-term transit funding bill on the Governor's desk this time next year.

Complete Streets

We had a great hearing on House Bill 2911, which would have positioned Washington as one of the first states in the country to adopt a statewide Complete Streets policy. With the help of Rep. Jim Moeller and Chair Judy Clibborn, legislation easily moved out of the House Transportation Committee. While it did not come up for a floor vote, it was a great start to getting the conversation going on statewide Complete Streets and we're working on putting together a funded proposal in future sessions.

Thanks for all of your hard work this session...while our gains this year were modest, we were able to drum up awareness during this tough legislative year and we would not have been able to do that without you!

Publicola did a quick post on the contents of the e-mail on their blog.
The Sierra Club also posted their legislative wrap up today, which is worth a read.

Thanks for all you do!

The Perfect Part-Time Job

Hello friends of TCC! Our pals over at Zipcar are hiring part time help right now to get the word out about their awesome car sharing program!

Have some extra time on your hands and want to make some extra money, check it out!


http://usjobs-zipcar.icims.com/jobs/1246/job

Overview:

Zipcar, the world’s largest car-sharing company, is looking to add new talent to our team.

Today, Zipcar provides hundreds of thousands of people with a viable alternative to traditional car ownership, saving them money, time and headaches. Around the world—from coast to coast, across Canada, the UK, and college campuses in between—people are making the decision to live car free and enjoying the convenience and environmental benefits of having “wheels when you want them”.

As we continue to grow our operations, we are looking for talented, passionate people with great ideas to join the family. We aim to create an environment that is supportive, diverse, and as fun as our brand. If you’re results-oriented, dedicated, and ready to contribute to an unparalleled member experience for our community of Zipsters, we encourage you to apply.

To learn more about Zipcar, what we do, and how we do it, visit zipcar.com. For further employment opportunities, visit zipcar.com/about/jobs.

Summary

Zipcar Street Marketing Representatives are the public face of the Zipcar brand and report to the Marketing Manager. This position is requires approachable, clever, and fun individuals who can effectively communicate the Zipcar message to a variety of different people.

Responsibilities:
Responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:
* Educates members of the public about Zipcar by engaging people, distributing marketing materials, and signing new members
* Performs event set-up and break-down and associated tasks
* Submits event evualtions and particpates in team meetings
* Works with team members to achieve weekely member goals
* Will be required to wear Zip gear