Last Friday, Publicola reported on potential changes to METRO should a 2-year, emergency $20 vehicle license fee not pass the King County Council by a 2/3rds margin, a threshold that was imposed on the KC Council as a result of an agreement reached during conference between the State House and Senate transportation committees. Should this bill not pass the KC Council, which it doesn’t look like it has the support for, the bill would likely have to go to a public vote. The proposed changes to METRO discussed in last Friday’s Publicola article would only occur should the KC Council or public vote fail to pass the two-year, emergency $20 vehicle license fee.
Today, the Seattle Transit Blog reports today that while the proposed cuts are far from final, it does layout policies that METRO would use to make up for the 600,000 service hours METRO would have to cut. Relevant to Wedgwood, this could mean eliminating Route 68 that serves 25th Ave NE and converting Route 71 into a shuttle service to U. District. Here are some of the proposed changes to NE Seattle described detailed in a MS Excel sheet linked to today’s Seattle Transit Blog post.
| U. District/NE Seattle | |
| Route | Change to service |
| 25 | Delete |
| 30 | Operate between Sand Point and U. District only. |
| 41 | Operate between Northgate and Seattle CBD |
| 66 | Delete Route |
| 67 | Delete Route |
| 68 | Delete Route |
| 70 | Operate full-time and through-route with Route 36 |
| 71 | Operate as shuttle to U. District via Thackeray/Latona |
| 72 | Delete Route |
| 73 | Delete Route |
| 75 | Operate between Northgate and U. District |
| 80 | New route between Northgate, U. District and Seattle CBD |
| 83 | Delete Route |
| 372 TB | Add evening/midday/Weekend service to make up for loss of Route 72 |
| 373 | Operate all-day on weekdays to make up for loss of Route 73 |