Drafter
Clerk 10/09/2024
Title
A RESOLUTION of the King County transportation district, fixing and imposing a one-tenth of one percent sales and use tax within the boundaries of the district to finance costs associated with Metro transit department public transportation improvements, as authorized by RCW 36.73.040, 36.73.065, and 82.14.0455.
Body
WHEREAS, Ordinance 17746 established the King County transportation district with the authority to fund, acquire, construct, operate, improve, provide, maintain and preserve transportation improvements, as authorized by chapter 36.73 RCW, within the geographic boundaries of King County, and
WHEREAS, RCW 36.73.065 authorizes the district to fix and impose up to a one-tenths of one percent sales and use tax for a period of up to ten years within the district in accordance with RCW 82.14.0455 upon a majority vote of the governing body of the district for the purpose of financing transportation improvements of the district, and
WHEREAS, King County's Metro transit department ("Metro") is the largest public transportation agency in the Puget Sound region, providing mobility opportunities each day throughout King County through a combination of fixed-route, contracted, shared, and flexible transit services, and
WHEREAS, in 2019, Metro served more than one hundred twenty million riders each year, with an average of five hundred thousand boardings each weekday, and
WHEREAS, the financial, operational, and public health impacts of the pandemic required Metro to reduce transit service levels beginning in March 2020, and
WHEREAS, due to a combination of changing ridership patterns and ongoing efforts to rebuild operational capacity, Metro currently provides approximately eighty-seven percent of pre-pandemic transit service levels for approximately sixty percent of pre-pandemic ridership, and
WHEREAS, to continue to provide transportation operations in a safe, reliable, and convenient manner by efficient use of a qualified...
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