Metro Announces Fall Service Improvements, Including Seattle and Amazon Investments

King County Metro Transit will invest an additional 88,000 annual service hours beginning at the fall service change in September. A good chunk of the extra service hours will be funded by the City of Seattle and Amazon. Under a special agreement, Amazon has pledged funding for up to 12,000 service hours over the next two years (about $1.5 million in funding), which works out to 6,000 annual service hours per year for six routes serving South Lake Union and Downtown Seattle. This will supplement the longer-term commitment by the City of Seattle through the voter-approved Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD) to fund an additional 20,000 annual service hours on routes operated in the city.

In total, the City of Seattle and Amazon will fund an additional 26,000 annual service hours through 2020, above and beyond the extra 270,000 annual service hours that the city already purchases from Metro. Last year, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) had requested an additional 100,000 annual service hours to be rolled out this fall. Metro at the time, however, could only promise delivery of an extra 15,000 annual service hours for Seattle routes, which appears to have prompted to SDOT policy staff to develop an ill-fated proposal for private microtransit. Luckily, Metro was able to beat their original expectations to deliver more service hours to the city.

The Amazon agreement is the latest private sector contract for transit service that Metro has received. Microsoft and Boeing contract with Metro special service to connect employees to their suburban campuses, and Amazon has also sponsored a streetcar and some operations on the South Lake Union line. David Rolf, a local labor leader, expressed serious criticism on Twitter over Amazon picking and choosing which public services they want to support. The company recently opposed and defeated a plan to boost affordable housing funding and homelessness services via a special tax on large employers operating in the city.