Swift Network Expansion and 250 More Jobs in Community Transit’s Six-Year Plan

Community Transit’s Draft 2017-2022 Transit Development Plan (TDP) has called for hiring about 250 new employees by 2022 to help provide 38 percent more transit service for Snohomish County residents. While most of those jobs will be bus drivers, there is a need for mechanics, IT professionals and other support staff that will push agency employment above 800 in the next six years.

The employment forecast is one aspect of the new Draft TDP. Each year, the transit agency looks ahead six years to forecast sales tax revenue, and to match proposed future service expansions with the labor and fleet needed to provide that service.

Following a successful 2015 ballot measure, Community Transit has been focused on expanding service, including the build-out of a bus rapid transit network called Swift.

The Swift Blue Line, serving Everett-Shoreline since 2009, provides about 6,000 rides a day, or 1.7 million rides a year. Construction started this spring on the Swift Green Line, which will serve Canyon Park/Bothell-Boeing/Paine Field in early 2019.

A third bus rapid transit line, the Swift Orange Line, is planned to connect with Link Light Rail at the Lynnwood Transit Center in 2023.

The expansion of the Swift network, as well as creation of other new routes and added trips over these six years, will provide 55 percent more transit service than the agency provided in 2015, when county residents voted for more service.

“The best thing we can do for Snohomish County residents who supported transit expansion is provide more service as fast as we can, and that’s what we are doing,” said Community Transit CEO Emmett Heath.

Other highlights of the Draft TDP:

• By 2022, Community Transit will increase its fleet to 310 buses, 462 vanpools and 52 DART paratransit buses. 
• Bus service levels are expected to reach an all-time high in 2019 and are forecast to exceed 500,000 annual service hours by 2022 (78 percent higher than in 2012 when service was cut).
• Annual ridership is expected to reach an all-time high of 12 million in 2019 and could hit 14 million by 2022.
• The agency will order 543 new vehicles over the life of this plan to replace or expand the bus fleet, vanpool fleet and paratransit fleet.
• Expenditures over these six years total $1 billion in transit service and capital investment.