In April, King County voters must decide whether to approve a measure that will provide additional funding for transportation, most importantly for public transit but also road maintenance.    I urge Mercer Island voters to approve this measure in order to save what little local bus service we have on Mercer Island.   As meager as Metro’s Mercer Island service is, the few popular routes on the Island are useful for demonstrating how we might someday increase bus ridership on Mercer Island. Let them be canceled and I fear that good bus service on Mercer Island will become extinct for all time.

When I say “good bus service” I’m talking about buses that pick people up near their home and transport them to near where they work or go to school in a reasonable amount of time.   That’s the kind of bus service that will work on Mercer Island and that improves the quality of life not just for those who take the bus but also for everyone in the neighborhood.    If the funding measure does not pass then we will lose the only useful bus service we have on Mercer Island and be left with the Park and Ride which is, in reality, just a grand parking scheme for Seattle and Bellevue.   So please vote yes in April for the King County transportation measure and save Mercer Island’s last working bus system.

W. Clark Powell