Metro Transit Offers A Pick-Me-Up -- 20-Minute, Door-To-Door Service By Van To Begin In Federal Way

It's always been the same old story. If you want to catch a bus, you trudge blocks through rain, snow, cold wind or the scorch of summer to a street corner where you wait.

Soon, in Federal Way, there'll be something new: call and a van will come to your door when you want it.

It's called DART - for Dial-a-Ride Transit.

Metro Transit plans to introduce the service in April in Federal Way neighborhoods that seldom see a bus. The new dial-a-ride program will help people get to work, nearby shopping malls and community centers without a car.

"Why walk two miles . . . when you can call us?" said Tom Yoshioka, director of transportation for the South King County Multi-Service Center, which will operate the system for Metro.

With Metro and other public agencies looking for ways to encourage the use of public transit, DART is an idea that may spread in the next few years to other lightly populated King County communities poorly served by bus service.

A $10 billion long-range transit program being planned by Metro calls for massive spending in coming years on a long list of new and proven ways of moving people.

That list includes more dial-a-ride bus service, expanded ride-sharing systems, more buses running on more routes and a growing number of miles of arterial and highway lanes reserved for buses, car pools and van pools.

The heart of the $10 billion program is 150 miles of rail transit to be built over 30 years, if voters are willing. But planners acknowledge they need to strengthen other elements of public transportation to help riders get to train stations and to destinations within and between neighborhoods.

Dial-a-ride service is offered in many communities, but operators usually require customers to call at least 24 hours ahead of the time they want to be picked up. Many serve only low-income elderly and disabled persons, some of whom complain they are forced to ride for hours while others are taken home first.

Metro will offer DART to the general public in an area roughly the size and shape of the Federal Way School District with a daring offer: Riders will need to call only two hours before they need to be picked up. And, Metro promises, passengers will be delivered to their destinations in the DART service area within 20 minutes of boarding the 15-passenger vans.

"It's more in the line of a taxi service," said Mike Beck, a Metro contract administrator.

The cost will be less than a taxi, however.

Metro will charge its standard one-zone fares of 75 cents or $1 a trip, depending on the time of day. DART riders will be able to transfer to other Metro buses, paying an extra zone fare only if their trip takes them into Seattle.

Although Metro has planned the DART service and will pay for it, the South King County Multi-Service Center, a nonprofit agency, will manage the system, hire the drivers and buy the vans.

When service begins about mid-April, it's expected that most customers will want to go to nearby Metro park-and-ride lots to catch standard buses to jobs in Seattle, or to senior centers and the Sea-Tac Mall, Beck said.

Because the vans will run late into the evening, Yoshioka believes people will ride them to the movies and on other social outings.

"We're hoping that people will think of accessing curb-to-curb service and that a whole new kind of market becomes aware of this service," Yoshioka said.

Although there are about 85,000 residents in the school district, the auto is a way of life and Metro figures DART will take time to catch on. At first, the agency estimates the vans will carry five to seven passengers an hour.

DART buses will operate from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturdays and between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays.

Metro will pay the multiservice center $27.20 an hour to provide the Federal Way service. That's about half the cost of operating one of Metro's standard buses.

Metro will require the center to pay drivers and dispatchers $7.50 an hour, or about half the wages earned by union members driving Metro's standard buses. Yoshioka said the center will hire about 15 drivers and dispatchers to staff the DART program.

In Federal Way, the multiservice center will operate three of the large vans. One will be assigned to each of two zones, while the third will be used to rove as necessary across both zones.

"We have taken our best shot at what we think would work," Beck said. "But we will remain flexible.

"The challenge will be to respond quickly to travel requests and to group (passengers) so we can operate efficiently."