RUMOR: "The City took the bus service away."
From time to time we hear this when people ask what happened to the bus in Sumner. No, we did not take bus service away. That was done for us many years ago when the local transit agency announced in 2012 that they were removing regular service throughout our community and limiting service only to the train station, while still collecting approximately $2M in taxes. We asked them to reconsider, but they moved ahead anyway. As a result of their decision, we removed ourselves from being in the transit district. Per their plan, a bus would have come from Puyallup into the Sumner Sounder Station and gone right back out again. There would not have been a bus throughout the city, and they would also have cancelled the shuttle to the Bonney Lake Park & Ride that hundreds of commuters need daily. Worse, their Shuttle service for disabled riders would have left significant low-income and senior residential areas in most of our City without any service at all.
When the City of Sumner withdrew from the transit agency, it lowered our sales tax rate from 9.3% to 8.8%. This was not money collected by the City and used elsewhere. It was a savings to citizens, particularly helping low-income populations that are hardest hit by sales taxes. (Please note that the sales tax rate has since gone back up to 9.3% with ST3 and would have been 9.8% if we were also still in the transit district.)
Plus, by removing ourselves from a transit district, we were eligible to bring in other transit service, notably two key services. First, Beyond the Borders service provides free bus service throughout the entire city for youth, disabled, senior and low-income citizens. They have a fixed route that runs weekdays and service the YMCA, the library, grocery stores and the senior center as well as offering direct rides in certain instances. Second, after extensive lobbying by the City of Sumner and Pierce County, Sound Transit agreed to pick up the vital Bonney Lake Park and Ride Shuttle. Had we remained in the transit district, we would have had neither service nor been able to seek them from other agencies.
A few citizens have said they have called the transit agency who said the City of Sumner cancelled buses. While that’s partially true, it’s not the whole story. What really happened is that the City canceled being in the transit agency only because the transit agency had already canceled virtually all of our bus service, hurting those who needed it most. Today, the city actually has wider service, and we hope citizens use these vital services as that’s the only way of retaining them.
