Make Transit Free During Seattle Squeeze: Kshama Sawant

SEATTLE, WA - Seattle Councilwoman Kshama Sawant has an idea to make the upcoming Seattle Squeeze a little less stressful: make public transportation free.

Beginning Jan. 11, SR 99 through Seattle will be closed as construction crews shutter the Alaskan Way Viaduct and realign roadways into the new tunnel. The three-week closure is expected to make Seattle's traffic unimaginably worse.

Sawant sent a letter to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and King County Executive Dow Constantine asking them to make transit free. Sawant's mainly concerned about shift workers who can't necessarily delay travel, as transit officials have suggested - but free transit would obviously benefit anyone traveling during the squeeze.

"[T]he Seattle Department of Transportation repeatedly suggested that workers could arrange with their bosses to come into work an hour late, or leave an hour early, to avoid rush hour traffic," Sawant wrote in her letter. "This is not a realistic plan for the majority of working people. Anyone who has ever held a working class job knows that most bosses are not so accommodating. Despite words to the contrary, the burden of navigating these traffic jams falls overwhelmingly on the backs of working people who have no other option."

How much would it cost? Sawant says it would be about $10 million for the three-week SR 99 closure. That's based on how rider fares fund public transportation.

According to a 2017 Metro report, fares paid for 27.3 percent of the agency's operations. The 2017-18 operating budget for Metro was $1.6 billion. Sound Transit expects to collect $102.6 million from fares in 2019, about one-third of the agency's $345.4 million operating budget.

But the Seattle Squeeze is about more than just the three-week SR 99 closure. It's actually the beginning of several years of infrastructure projects that will - yes - squeeze the entire transportation network. Some of those projects include the viaduct demolition, the convention center expansion, construction at the Colman Dock, and, maybe, the 1st Avenue streetcar.

So, Sawant wants transit to be free throughout Seattle in perpetuity. And she wants large companies to pay for it.

"A tax on big business would also make the deeply regressive tax system less onerous on working people, replacing the flat, regressive tax of fares with a progressive tax on those who hold the real wealth in society," her letter concludes.

Patch file photo