Rantz: King County to bilk drivers for ‘fix’ they know won’t work

It’s rather alarming how open King County Council and King County Metro act when they’re bilking commuters out of money, while pretending to address an actual issue.

We learned this week than the King County Council may vote to authorize paid parking permits at 10 park-and-ride stations, including those at Redmond, Bothell, Northgate, and Tukwila.

Driver rolls sleeper off bus during morning commute

This comes after commuters routinely complain that parking is nearly impossible to come by after 7 a.m.

“That demand has gotten so high that our park and rides are filling very early in the morning, which frustrates a lot of customers,” Daniel Rowe, supervisor of research and innovation at King County Metro, told KIRO 7.

Consequently, to guarantee frustrated drivers a spot, they’ll charge them a monthly fee that will earn King County Metro $1.2 million a year. This is supposed to help fix the issue. It doesn’t.

This is simply the appearance of doing something to address the problem. It does absolutely nothing but bilk you out of money. The only ones who benefit from this plan are the Metro managers that get congratulated for finding another way to take taxpayer dollars.

Right now, Driver Tom gets to the lot at 6 a.m. and finds a spot. Driver Sarah gets there at 7 a.m. and can’t find a spot, thanks to Tom showing up so early. Sarah will pay the $20 monthly fee to guarantee her a spot. Tom won’t. So now, Sarah gets a spot and Tom doesn’t. There’s no net increase in drivers getting spots. We’re left in the exact same scenario we’re complaining about, only now we’re out $20 a month that goes to Metro.

KIRO 7 reports that part of the money will be used to review new technologies to address the problem. They don’t need $1.2 million a year to do a review of technologies that already exist. We’re not the only park-and-ride providers in this country. Have an intern make a few phone calls to other providers and see what they’re doing.

Moreover, here’s something we can do that will offer a much better ROI than investigating technologies: build more parking spots in these structures. Plan better.

Why so man buses smell of human waste

King County Metro, WSDOT, and state and local lawmakers routinely ask you to take the bus to work and leave your car in a park-and-ride, yet they never build enough parking to meet the demand. They set it up to fail and then profit off it. This is a scam to take our money.

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