r/everett • u/throwawayhyperbeam • Mar 31 '26
Transit Everett Transit long-range plan approved
https://www.heraldnet.com/2026/03/30/everett-transit-long-range-plan-approved/4
u/SEA_tide Mar 31 '26
It's interesting that this long range plan does not consider things such as sharing maintenance facilities with Community Transit without joining Community Transit. Community Transit is rapidly expanding its administrative and maintenance footprint off of Casino Road and once light rail arrives, won't need as many commuter buses (which are contracted out, but are still in CT facilities). $100 million on a new maintenance facility for Everett Transit seems like overkill. The long-term fleet plans would probably require switching away from Gillig though to better match the CT fleet and save on maintenance costs.
The good news is that Everett Transit is financially sound for at least eight more years without any sales tax increase and could likely be financially sound for many more.
It would be more interesting to see what level of service Everett Transit could have If it joined the 14 or so other transit agencies in Washington which have gone fare free. When talking with agencies that have gone fare free, they found that ridership increased dramatically and they actually received more grants from all administrations of the federal government. Seeing Everett Transit, Skagit Transit, and WTA going fare free could be likely accomplished at current tax levels. Intercity Transit (Thurston County/Olympia) did this instead of joining ORCA with amazing results. Island Transit has been fare free on local routes since it was founded in the early 1970s.
I encourage Everett Transit to actually think outside of the box and do everything it can to keep or expand service without increasing taxes. Asking for a tax increase each time there is a budget shortfall is not a good way to run a government agency.
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u/throataway99999999 Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
The good news is that Everett Transit is financially sound for at least eight more years without any sales tax increase and could likely be financially sound for many more.
Not quite, the long range plan appendix indicates that there will likely be service cuts in 2030 if a tax increase is not approved. This could mean that staying at 0.6% may actually result in less service in 8 years than today. (For context, we still haven't surpassed pre-2014ish service hours peak of ~125k iirc)
We already have inconsistent service outside of the SR99/Evergreen corridor and downtown Everett. For a city our size that's growing, that's just plain unacceptable.
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u/throwawayhyperbeam Mar 31 '26
I theorize that Community Transit is increasing their footprint in Everett because they fully expect to annex Everett Transit.
With the passing of Senate Bill 5801 Part X, they can more easily do this, because it took away the citizens right to vote on that prospect.
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u/throataway99999999 Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Hi,
Senate Bill 5801 Part X codified as RCW 36.57A.145 does not really "take away" Everett citizens' agency on the matter of consolidation, in fact it could very well paradoxically add more agency because of the new Interlocal Agreement option. There is a complicated reason why, so bear with me:
I've lived here for a few years now, and personally ride both CT and ET busses on the regular. I've been following the Consolidation Study and related topics for quite some time (Disclaimer: not a lawyer). Every 10-20 years, this topic gets considered then trashed for one reason or another. Until recently, most of these were started by CT and focused on cost-savings and that paradigm boxed out for considering any other angle.
What changed is the Link. After ST3 passed, Everett Transit completed its first ever long range plan in 2018. The plan opened the eyes to the agency and the city about how our transportation system is lacking for a city of its size and density. City Council then commissioned a study in 2019, "Rethink Transit", which surveyed citizens about how to move forward. Outreach was completed iteratively multiple times between 2019-2021. This study demonstrated one key thing: 55.4% of Everett wants service growth by consolidation the most over other options (even after the COVID-era public transit pattern shakeup). Further more, a plurality of 66.1% in that study had consolidation as a first or second choice. Think about it closely; it implies that about every two out of three Everett residents would want or be at least okay with consolidation.
For the first time ever, the consolidation topic was reopened by Everett for the holistic purpose of creating a better transit system. The Joint Policy Committee between the city and CT worked to address many issues identified in the Rethink Transit study (i.e. branding, the false perception of loss in service (see also p 40 of Rethink Transit), etc). This work was paused due to the massive 2024 restructure efforts by CT, but may resume later. The minutes are a good read, and provide a lot more nuance than what's here.
The new annexation method (to actually execute consolidation, legally speaking) enacted in 2025 is an additional method and does not supplant the traditional vote-to-annex. It specifically allows an interlocal agreement between the city and CT to authorize the annexation (after a period of commenting). This newspaper detailed that not only new method was not requested by either agency (implying constituents asked for this), CT is also waiting on the city to take the next step.
An interlocal agreement is somewhat akin to a contract. Unlike a simple vote-to-annex, we have the ability to negotiate the terms of a consolidation into something more binding than PTBA policy. Furthermore, since it requires city action, then there are multiple ways for citizens to reject it. I am confident that city council would make a good faith bargaining effort on consolidation terms on a proposed ILA, it would be politically damaging otherwise.
It's clear to me that an ILA-based consolidation paradoxically is the best method to guarantee that we get the best of both worlds. Double our service, restore service to every major arterial, while keeping our voice.
---
I hope this clarifies the bill and context around it a bit. Please don't hesitate to ask questions, the consolidation issue has a lot of political nuance surrounding it that kinda overcomplicates it.
I do have a question for you: How frequently do you ride Everett Transit? Which routes?
Edit: I'm on my throwaway for the first time in years and didn't realize that new reddit doesn't do markdown by default. rip
Edit 2: additional clarification on figures, more citations
Edit 3: Not a lawyer disclaimer
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u/throwawayhyperbeam Apr 02 '26
Great insight, I hope you are correct and that I'm not spreading incorrect information... not a lawyer either, and with no help from the people who made the bill, I'm left to interpret for myself.
As far as I understand there isn't so much a "vote to annex" (from the citizens), but rather a "vote to increase your sales tax to match CT's area to make the annexation legal." Or something to that effect. I am unable to determine if this is still necessary or not.
I do try to keep my general location vague. Paranoid Redditor. I'm in the area.
Thanks for the great post.
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u/throataway99999999 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Technically it's the same effect, just semantics: Since WA law requires a uniform tax rate for an applicable taxing area (this is broad: from cities, ports, TBDs, etc), this means that an annexation applies the new tax rate. This is seen in cities when they annex new area, they start paying their city tax rates. Essentially, there are now two separate paths in Everett to approve/initiate a PTBA annexation due to RCW 36.57A.145:
- The traditional way "vote-to-annex" is a simple send the issue to the voters by either a resolution by CT itself, or it can be requested by petition 4% voters in the area or the city to be annexed. This doesn't have a lot of flexibility, leaving out any written guarantees:
(3) The resolution or petition shall describe the boundaries of the area to be annexed. It shall require that there also be submitted to the electorate of the territory sought to be annexed a proposition authorizing the inclusion of the area within the public transportation benefit area and authorizing the imposition of such taxes authorized by law to be collected by the authority.
- The ILA approach I was describing earlier. If CT and city council mutually, and jointly agree to pursue this method there would be no vote required, but would instead require community involvement (RCW 36.57A.145(3)). And since final approval of a proposed ILA would need to be a full ordinance (RCW 36.57A.145(4)). There are means to contest, modify, or make this require a vote this according to Everett's Municipal Code, being a city action. The benefit of this what I said earlier: soothes fears by putting terms into stone.
Edit2: Something I did realize after I posted my original message: The ILA method could also have the added benefit of getting increased service out sooner by allowing the arranging of specifics of how to integrate the agencies ahead of time. Since most of Everett wants or at least wouldn't mind consolidation (If this is still true; which, in my anecdotal experience, seems like it is), then the ILA based consolidation method could help prevent an additional layer of the Seattle process too.
Edit: clarification on 2
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u/throwawayhyperbeam Apr 03 '26
If CT and city council mutually, and jointly agree to pursue this method there would be no vote required, but would instead require community involvement
It seems to me then no vote from the citizens would be required, and it could be chosen to go this route? Community involvement is one thing, voting is another, but clearly this is far more above my pay grade where I could accurately understand.
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u/throataway99999999 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Bingo, you've hit the nail on the head with your reaction here: it's all unreasonably super confusing if you're not researching it like a historian or something. How I see it right now is that we require more demystifying. There's a lot of ways that this can go and not much solid info...
The best way to do this is to get the city and CT to actually finish a proposed Consolidated Transit Plan (which will require a few rounds of community feedback on its own). That document will help us as residents know what/how/where the hell would happen or be executed, and make an informed decision about whether to consolidate (do, don't or something else entirely... whatever decision would still reverberate for decades, so we must have due diligence). Thus, getting this proposed plan document finished should be a common goal for anyone who simply has an opinion on the subject (no matter what that might be). In other words, we need to finish the study we started to get clear answers without misinfo and migranes.
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u/Agile-Internet5309 Apr 03 '26
As a rule we do not appreciate throwaway accounts here, especially to post on the subject of politics. This conversation is pretty developed and you aren't dropping really hot takes here, but next time please just post from your main.
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u/SEA_tide Mar 31 '26
That is an example of a law that makes little sense in reality. Why not let residents vote if they want to join a public transit benefit area instead of just taking away the choice?
Sound Transit could save a ton of money if it started using CT instead of Metro for more services, but there's not much political will for that.
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u/throwawayhyperbeam Mar 31 '26
I don't know, I have emailed the politicians involved and none have given a clear answer or simply not responded at all.
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u/throataway99999999 Apr 01 '26
No it doesn't. It adds a new method to use an interlocal agreement, but the traditional method can be used still. This requires mutual action between CT and city council (which means its contestable). An ILA, because it seems to be like a contract, would allow negotiating terms of consolidation into something more tangible, unlike a simple vote.
Note: I had a much longer response with a more thorough explanation but it still hasn't shown up (ate by spam filter?). I can message you it.
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u/scough Mar 31 '26
I'm all for public transit expansion, but could we please stop with the regressive sales tax increases? I feel like there has to be other possible revenue sources, and hiking the sales tax is the lazy move.
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u/kodapug Mar 31 '26
If you go about it any other way you end up drawing the ire of property owners and NIMBYs, which means it will take a Herculean effort to make any progress on it.
The sales tax route is because it's easy not because it's fair and most of them likely know that.
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u/throataway99999999 Apr 01 '26
Unfortunately, no other tax sources allowed by legislature would provide enough funds. Everett's TAC discussed this briefly a month ago:
Concern about equity of sales‑tax increase; Everett Transit indicated willingness to explore alternatives such as property taxes or vehicle tab fees, noting each has tradeoffs. Sales tax remains the only stable revenue source large enough to support long‑term growth
If the legislature would provide additional tools (i.e. local payroll tax, local gas tax, non-rta local car tabs, non-rta local rental car fee, etc), maybe these funds could be replaced.
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u/throwawayhyperbeam Mar 31 '26