Ron Sims Wants More Buses More Often

Yesterday while most of the city was all a-twitter about President Hu’s visit to the city (today he will get a tour of the Fun Forest, and attend a live taping of Northwest Afternoon), Ron Sims proposed a plan to pay for more buses by raising the county sales tax one tenth of one percent.

The buses would be used to increase the amount of rides on the Eastside, along the Pacific Highway South, and between downtown and north and west Seattle. Sims claims there would be a bus on those routes every ten minutes. Kind of like a consistent mass transportation system that every other big city on the face of the earth has.

We like the plan. The idea of a dependable bus system running downtown every few minutes would be enough to get us out of our car. However, our friend is worried that such a plan would take away the region’s willingness to pay for light rail and other forms of transportation, and that the bus would still be looked at as an inferior product.

Sims claims the plan would cost the average household an extra 25 dollars a year.

The plan still has to be approved by the King County Council before it can be placed on the November ballot, next to the advisory vote on how much we are willing to spend on the Viaduct, and Mayor Nickels citywide tax plan for transportation…we are so screwed.