News from King County Department of Transportation
Release date:  May 7, 2007

Metro and Children’s Hospital team-up to increase transit choices

Innovative partnership part of new Transit Now initiative

The first innovative partnership created as part of King County Metro’s new initiative to deliver expanded transportation options was approved today by the Metropolitan King County Council. That public-private partnership means employees and patients at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in North Seattle will soon have a lot more transit service and incentives to choose from.

“I commend Children’s Hospital for being the first organization since Transit Now was approved by voters last fall to partner with Metro to expand transit services to the hundreds of employees and patients who rely on transit to get to its campus,” King County Executive Ron Sims said. “This proactive action means people traveling to and from the medical center will, for the first time, have more frequent and convenient bus service running at least every 30 minutes seven days a week. Equally important, this added service is expected to encourage even more hospital employees to leave their cars at home.”

As part of the service partnership with Children’s, Metro says 63 additional trips will be added to the routes 75 and 25 beginning with its scheduled Sept. 22 service change. More frequent service will be added to the eastern half of Route 75 operating between Northgate, Lake City, Sand Point, and the University District. Trips added to the Route 25 will require just one transfer for those traveling from the Eastside via State Route 520 and Montlake. The increased service will benefit both Children’s Hospital and other riders who depend on these routes.

These trips will cost about $700,000. With this partnership and others to come, Metro will match the partner’s financial contribution on a two-to-one basis. Children’s will contribute approximately $235,000 annually to help fund the service expansion.

During the five-year partnership period, Children’s Hospital will offer several additional employee incentives to complement expanded bus service. Those incentives will include:

• Free transit passes for employees.
• 100 percent pass subsidies for employees who vanpool.
• Commute bonus for using specified commute alternatives.
• The availability of Flexcars on-site for employee use in running business errands and attending off-site meetings.
• Shuttle service between Children’s Hospital main campus and primary satellite worksites.
• Covered bicycle racks and cages.

The new bus trips on these routes will be operated as regular public transit service, so other riders will benefit from the service additions, as well. Metro and Children’s will work together to promote and market the services to Children’s employees as well as other riders served by the new service.

Metro hopes its service partnership with Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center is just the first of many partnerships to come, which will be partially funded with revenues generated from Metro’s Transit Now initiative. As part of that initiative, Metro also plans to expand transit service by up to 20 percent countywide over the next ten years.