
by Josh Feit
There’s a stat in the latest report from Commute Seattle that offers a glimmer of hope for transit advocates. In a report that otherwise shows a stark drop in transit commutes between 2019 and 2021, coupled with a dramatic rise in telecommuting—arguably a double whammy of bad news for future transit investments—there is one finding that points toward a potential transit renaissance.
The survey showed that a key bloc of downtown workers, employees at small businesses (between 1 and 49 employees), represent the greatest untapped market for transit.
According to the City’s Office of Economic Development, small business—places with 50 employees or less—make up 95 percent of Seattle’s companies. Given small businesses’ big footprint, it’s time for the city to make policy that not only serves this important workforce, but also serves Seattle’s goal to be a sustainable, green city.
In its report, Commute Seattle, the local nonprofit that facilitates alternatives to solo car commuting, describes the encouraging news this way: “Unmet demand for employer-paid transit is higher among employees at smaller worksites than their counterparts in larger ones.” In other words, despite all the doom and gloom soothsaying about transit, the untapped demand is actually there.
At a time when some urbanists are anxious about a post-pandemic world that sidelines train and bus commuting, the news that employees at small businesses would like to ride transit, but aren’t, is particularly welcome because small businesses employ an outsized percentage of the downtown workforce. The most recent info on downtown employment comes from a November 2020 report from the Office of Economic Development, which, in addition to the 95 percent number noted above, also found that businesses with fewer than 50 employees make up provide nearly 200,000 jobs, about a third of all jobs in the city.
The numbers about transit demand tell the story: At downtown Seattle’s smallest businesses, those with between one and nine employees, more than 40 percent of employees said that transit passes are “not available” from their employer, but “they would use them” if they were. For companies with 10 to 49 employees, the number was 25 percent. Based on Commute Seattle’s outreach work, the people who work at small businesses citywide are overwhelmingly hospitality, restaurant, health care, and in-home health care workers, they say.
Just 23 percent of employees at the smallest companies and 32 percent of workers at larger small businesses report that subsidized transit programs are actually available and that they use them. This means that interest in transit at these small businesses totals 64 percent and 56 percent, respectively, as the chart above indicates.
At downtown Seattle’s smallest businesses, those with between one and nine employees, 40 percent of employees said that transit passes are “not available” from their employer, but “they would use ‘them'” if they were.
By the way, at the city’s largest companies, 100 or more employees, transit benefit usage is high, at 60 percent. This high use is easy to explain: State law requires large employers to make a “good faith effort” to use commute trip reduction plans to meet state environmental and traffic congestion goals. What jumps out about this number is that it’s about equal to the pro-transit number among employees at Seattle’s smallest businesses. This raises a question: Why is public policy only about getting white-collar workers to the job, but not employees at smaller businesses, including working-class people?
It’s worth pointing out that the high demand for transit benefits from workers at smaller businesses is coming from people who’ve yet to experience the practical benefits of transit—no gas bills, for one—at their current jobs. Just imagine how those numbers would climb if these employers offered to subsidize their ORCA cards and word spread among coworkers about the benefits. As Commute Seattle’s communication manager Madeline Feig puts it: “The best way to get people to know if transit will work for them is to get transit passes in their hands—it makes the decision easy. It is difficult for folks to know whether they would use that type of benefit if they have never had it.” In short, total interest in riding transit may be much higher than what Commute Seattle’s report suggests.
The data about the intense demand at small worksites overlaps with another reality that became clear during the pandemic: Ridership data for transit agencies nationally, including Sound Transit and Metro, showed that that people in working-class communities and communities with high BIPOC populations continued to ride, or returned more quickly to transit, during the COVID-19 crisis.
I’m tying these two blocs of commuters together—those who work at small businesses and low-income and essential workers—because it reveals a strategy that could bring public transportation back to the forefront of our city vision, even as hybrid work models in the corporate world seem poised to undermine it. The strategy: Investing in public policy that brings transit to those who want it most.
“One of the most immediate actions we can take to address transportation inequities,” says Commute Seattle’s longtime program manager Nick Abel, “is offering transit opportunities to essential employees.”
Of course, subsidizing transit—or providing free transit— for 200,000 workers costs money. The good news is: Big employers are already paying. Sound Transit, for example, received about half its fare revenues from employer business accounts—more than $48 million of the $97 million the agency received in farebox revenue in 2019.
Given that status quo, given the environmental and city planning pluses of getting more people on transit, and given the unmet demand, it would make sense to replace this private cost with a broader, progressive business tax (smaller businesses pay less) to cover both the current cost at big companies and the cost to bring in new riders from small businesses.
Josh@publicola.com
Editor’s note: Columnist Josh Feit is an employee of Sound Transit, the regional transit agency. His views do not represent the agency’s.
Oh, no, not another idea…. tied to another tax. The B&O tax is hard enough on small businesses. We don’t need another transit tax.
Mr. Feit, I hate to tell you this, but ST3 killed the golden goose. I can’t see another public vote supporting higher taxes for transit. Maybe Sound Transit, Metro, Pierce Transit, and any other regional transit providers could get together and agree to stop building endless rail projects and work on providing a bus based transit system that actually serves the transit riding public? How many years is Sound Transit planning on digging up the International district to put in a subway? 8 years? 10 years? How could any family owned small business survive that?
There never was any reason for a city of less than one million (Seattle has about 750,000 residents) to build a massive subway with stations 150 feet underground. Sound Transit spends millions and millions of dollars to get a few rich White folks to ride a train while Pierce Transit and Metro cut service for thousands of low income bus riders. At the very core of Sound Transit is institutional racism. Trains are for Whites, Buses are for Blacks. Let’s spend billions for those trains…. and cut service for the buses.
A couple of thoughts: First, some of these lower paid service workers may be working multiple jobs and not have time to use transit. Even for people with one job, the tradeoff in time spent commuting by bus as v. commuting by car may represent, eventually, years of their lives. Second, Metro heavily prioritizes N/S travel while leaving E/W travel needs mostly unmet. I worked for years on Shilshole. It took @ 15 minutes each way by car, but 2.5 hours and 2 or 3 buses, plus long walks late at night to travel to and from my home in N. Seattle. My last job before the pandemic hit was in a downtown office. It took 45 minutes to an hour to get to and from work on the bus and I had to stand the whole time each way (and I’m a senior, but that didn’t phase the tech bros sitting in the seats prioritized for seniors). It ook 1/2 thta time or less to go by car. Granted, I paid a lot for parking, but it was actually less than an hour’s pay and considering I saved an hour of my life and was able to listen to the radio and sip my coffee, I considered it a decent bargain. Now, of course, the E line, which was the bus I used, is full of impaired and/or unfortunate people using buses as resting places or residences. While I wish them health and recovery, I definitely don’t want to share space with them. And the prices are a whole other story. I could drive both ways for less than a gallon of gas, while round trip busfare was more. I don’t know that transit will ever solve those issues. Meanwhile, I gratefully work from home now.