[Forbes] “I would characterize this as a safety valve,” said Dow Constantine, the King County executive and chairman of Sound Transit, a transportation agency serving multiple counties in the region. From 1999 to 2012, Mr. Constantine said, 95 percent of the new households in King County have been either rich or poor, earning more than $125,000 a year or less than $33,000, with hardly anything in between.
“It’s people doing really well, and people making espresso for people who are doing really well,” he said.
That is a stunning split of economic status. Apparently poorer people can’t afford to live in Seattle, one of the country’s homes of tech wealth, and they commute in from outlying areas. The higher fares are too much for them to afford, so essentially the region is subsidizing transportation to ensure that the people doing really well continue to get their lattes. |