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Community Transit (CT) is the public transit authority of Snohomish County, Washington, United States, excluding the city of Everett, in the Seattle metropolitan area. It operates local bus, paratransit and vanpool service within Snohomish County, as well as commuter buses to Downtown Seattle and the University of Washington campus. CT is publicly funded, financed through sales taxes, farebox revenue and subsidies, with an operating budget of $133.2 million. The entire agency carried 9.8 million passengers in 2014 and its buses carried 8.7 million, placing it fourth among transit agencies in the Puget Sound region.〔 Community Transit, officially the Snohomish County Public Transportation Benefit Area Corporation, operates a fleet of 225 accessible buses, 54 paratransit vehicles, and 412 vanpool vans, maintained at two bus bases located in the Paine Field industrial area in Everett. Service is provided year-round at 1,500 stops on 46 routes throughout the county public transportation benefit area (PTBA). CT began operation as SCPTBA Public Transit on October 4, 1976, four months after the third attempt to establish public transit in Snohomish County was approved. Renamed to Community Transit in 1979, the agency expanded service in its first decades of existence, later taking over King County Metro commuter routes to Seattle in 1989 and adding several cities into its PTBA in the 1980s and 1990s. CT service hours fell during two funding crises in the 2000s, after the passage of Initiative 695 in 1999 and during a severe recession from 2010 to 2012. Despite the cuts, which forced service hours to fall short of rising demand, the agency debuted the state's first bus rapid transit line, Swift, as well as introducing "Double Tall" double-decker buses on its commuter routes to Seattle. ==History== Snohomish County established its public transportation benefit area (PTBA) after municipal corporations for public transportation were added to the Revised Code of Washington by the Washington State Legislature in 1975. The PTBA plan for a countywide bus system was approved during a general election on June 1, 1976, funded by a three-tenths increase of the sales tax rate in member cities. Two previous attempts to establish a bus system, under the Snohomish County Transportation Authority (SNOTRAN) in 1974, were rejected by voters from the entirety of Snohomish County. Heavy opposition came from the residents of Everett because of the high sales tax rate and planned absorption of Everett Transit, acquired by the city in 1969, forcing the SCPTBA to exclude Everett in its successful attempt at creating a bus system. SCPTBA Public Transit began operating in the cities of Brier, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Marysville, Mountlake Terrace, Snohomish and Woodway on October 4, using 18 leased GMC buses on seven routes carrying 6,414 passengers without fares during the first week. SCPTBA Public Transit, nicknamed the "Blue Bus" for its blue livery, carried 951,200 passengers in its first year of service on 15 local routes and 16 commuter express routes to Downtown Seattle and Northgate, contracted through King County Metro as a continuation of service provided by the Metropolitan Transit Corporation to southern Snohomish County prior to its merger with Seattle Transit System in 1973. The buses ran for 16 hours a day, charging a base fare of 20 cents; among the most popular lines was Route R14, accounting for 21 percent of system ridership in the first three months, running from the Edmonds waterfront to Lynnwood and the Boeing Everett Factory. The agency acquired its first federal subsidies from the Urban Mass Transit Administration for the 1978 fiscal year, to be used on the purchase of 18 new buses as well as bus stop amenities, such as stop signs and shelters.〔 Community Transit was selected as the official name of the agency on June 19, 1979, recommended by Seattle-based public relations firm McConnell Company ahead of the winners of a public contest held by SCPTBA two years prior.〔 CT continued to grow through the end of the decade, annexing the cities of Arlington, Lake Stevens, Monroe, Granite Falls, Mukilteo, Stanwood and Sultan into the PTBA by 1980;〔 the bus system had the largest growth in ridership within the state in 1980, with local routes gaining 68.3 percent more riders and Metro-operated "Cream Buses" to Seattle gaining 21.4 percent more riders.〔 Metro altered their numbering scheme for Snohomish County routes in 1981, creating the 400-series of routes, after the opening of the state's largest park and ride in Lynnwood. The annexations of outlying communities in northern and eastern Snohomish County and the completion of park and rides in Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace saw ridership rise to over 3 million passengers by 1983. Community Transit took over the remaining commuter routes to Seattle in 1989, after commuter service was subcontracted to American Transportation Enterprises in 1986. The move to a private carrier was opposed by both Metro and the Amalgamated Transit Union, but the introduction of 49 air conditioned coaches by ATE led to a 25 percent increase in ridership by January 1987. Commuter express service via Interstate 405 from CT park and rides in South Snohomish County to the Eastside cities of Bellevue and Redmond began in 1988 and 1990, respectively, while Seattle service was expanded with weekend service in 1990. The agency dedicated its own bus base at Kasch Park in 1985, replacing shared operations with the Edmonds School District and Everett Transit, at a cost of $4.8 million that was mostly subsidized by the Urban Mass Transit Administration. CT was involved in a criminal investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the mid-1990s of Ed's Transmission, a transmission shop in Everett used by the agency for bus parts. Detectives from the FBI and Snohomish County Sheriff seized records from both parties and began a two-month audit of Community Transit management. The auditors released a report that criticized the management style of Executive Director Ken Graska and his department heads, leading to the former's resignation in December 1993 after nine years at his position. Federal prosecutors accused Ralph Woodall, the 50-year-old co-owner of the shop, of 15 counts of mail fraud after intentionally overbilling for transmission repairs. Community Transit Maintenance Director Michael Lynn resigned after confessing that he had accepted gifts from Woodall in exchange for sending all of CT's transmissions to Ed's Transmissions without going through competitive bidding. A U.S. District Court jury found Woodall guilty of 15 counts of mail fraud in December 1996, with Judge John C. Coughenour sentencing him to 2.5 years in federal prison the following May, along with Ed's Transmission being forced to pay a $825,000 settlement after a civil suit was filed. In their most recent expansion in 1997, the Snohomish County PTBA annexed the Eastmont and Silver Firs census-designated places between Everett and Mill Creek, as well as the Tulalip Indian Reservation west of Marysville. During the same year, CT awarded its $31.8 million commuter service contract to Grosvenor Bus Lines, which would later fold into First Transit, replacing their first subcontractor, Ryder/ATE Management. The agency introduced the first low-floor articulated buses in the United States into its fleet in 1999, purchasing 17 buses from New Flyer to improve accessibility for older and disabled riders. Service improvements throughout the 1990s, including raising service hours to over 11 million, led to ridership peaking at 8.8 million by the end of the decade and the agency's 100 millionth rider being celebrated in April 2000. The passage of Initiative 695 in 1999, which capped the state motor-vehicle excise tax at $30, forced transit agencies throughout the state to cut service in anticipation of lower revenue. Facing the loss of $18 million, or 30 percent of its annual operating budget, Community Transit eliminated all weekend service and increased fares on its routes in February 2000. With the service cuts, CT began its VanGO program to donate its retired paratransit minibuses to nonprofit organizations in Snohomish County instead of auctioning them off. Saturday service was reinstated in September 2000, using emergency funds approved by the CT Board, while Sunday service returned in 2001 after the passage of a 0.3 percentage-point tax increase by voters in the PTBA. Further restoration of service came in 2003, with increased frequency and the replacement of 50 buses in the agency's fleet made possible by a budget surplus and the sales tax increase approved in 2002, and in 2005, with increased fares. Community Transit introduced its current logo and slogan in 2005, replacing an older one in use since 1986 and retaining its blue-and-white color scheme, as part of the roll-out of the first New Flyer Invero buses in the United States.〔 CT began a three-month pilot project in September 2005 that brought wi-fi access to buses on its longest route, Route 422 between Stanwood and Seattle, with hopes of attracting customers and partial-telecommuters to its routes. The pilot project was deemed a success and expanded into the "Surf and Ride" program on all Route 422 trips in 2006, as well as select trips on Routes 406 and 441 from Edmonds to Seattle and Overlake on the Eastside, respectively; the wi-fi program was canceled in 2010, with the removal of equipment in buses brought on by low customer response, budget constraints and the adoption of improved cellular networks that support mobile browsing on smartphones. CT and First Transit signed their third and most recent contract in 2007, continuing the latter's operation of CT commuter service to Seattle; both agencies debuted the first double-decker buses in the Puget Sound region during a year-long test in 2007, with Community Transit buying its own Alexander Dennis Enviro500s for its "Double Tall" fleet. A PTBA expansion into the unincorporated areas of Cathcart, Clearview and Maltby was attempted during the 2008 general elections, but failed to gain a majority vote. In November 2009, after three years of planning and a year of construction, Community Transit debuted the first bus rapid transit line in Washington, Swift. The service replaced Route 100 on State Route 99 between Aurora Village in Shoreline and Everett Station, featuring 12-minute headways, off-board fare payment and transit signal priority. The Great Recession of the late 2000s and subsequent loss of an estimated $180 million in sales tax revenue in Snohomish County forced CT to cut service by 15 percent in June 2010, including the elimination of all service on Sundays and major holidays, to save $16 million until 2012. A second cut, with 20 percent of service eliminated, took place in February 2012; the CT Board rejected a major restructure that would have truncated its northern and eastern express service to Seattle at Lynnwood Transit Center during this cut, instead opting to preserve its commuter service. Despite the decline in service hours, Community Transit and Sound Transit had record ridership for Snohomish County routes during the Super Bowl XVIII parade in Downtown Seattle in February 2014, carrying a total of 22,500 passengers on 50 extra trips into Seattle. In March, the 2014 Oso mudslide destroyed a portion of State Route 530 and forced CT to re-route its service to Darrington through Skagit County, offering one-seat service to Smokey Point and Everett Station in the interim as Route 231. The partial reopening of State Route 530 in June and full reopening in September restored the original Route 230 on its original route, now extended to Smokey Point. Community Transit began restoring cut service in September 2014, adding 13 percent of its former bus hours primarily to improve midday service. In June 2015, CT restored its Sunday and holiday service as part of a 27,000-hour expansion, representing 20 percent of the 2010 reduction, funded by recovering sales tax revenue and a 25-cent increase in fares the following month.〔 The agency was given approval from the state legislature in July 2015 to increase sales taxes by an additional 0.3%, dependent on voter approval via a ballot measure during the November 2015 election that was eventually won, to fund a new Swift line as well as local service expansion. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Community Transit」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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