The ballot proposal to rescue Metro bus service in King County was being run over by voters on Tuesday night, winning just 44.72 percent of the vote in the first “dump” of election results.

Prop. 1 called for an 0.01 percent sales tax increase, and a car tab fee, with 60 percent of revenue going to stave off cuts in bus service, and the remaining 40 percent earmarked for roads. Metro has warned that it will have to cut bus service up to 17 percent without a new revenue source.

“I am totally stunned,” said Seattle City Councilwoman Jean Godden. “I felt sure it would pass. I can only hope these are early returns . . . Our buses, as is, are overcrowded. Almost every day, my office fields complaints from people who were passed on the street by overcrowded buses.”

While admitting that car tabs are not a popular tax — Seattle voters rejected a car tab measure three years ago — King County officials felt they had no choice but to come up with a go-it-alone rescue package. The Legislature failed to enact a statewide transportation package without even a vote in the state Senate.

“Don’t lose sight: The most profound truth of what is happening tonight is the Legislature’s utter failure to provide a funding option and flexibility for transit, and to come up with some kind of transportation balance to meet 21st century living patterns,” said state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle.

“The fierce ideological opposition to allowing King County to have any flexibility is at the core of the disconnect,” Carlyle added.

Prop. 1 was put on the ballot by a unanimous vote of the King County Council, including four Republicans who sit on the officially non-partisan panel.

Its supporters put together a coalition of 275 community organizations and endorsers, including urban Seattle politicians, suburban and exurban mayors, the Metropolitan King County Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association, and the MLKing County Labor Council.

The most prominent opposition came from the editorial page of The Seattle Times, which has steadfastly resisted revenue measures to solve infrastructure and education problems outlined succinctly and in detail by its own reporters.

The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce also opposed the measure, and it was excoriated in King County Republican Party blogs.

Ex-Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, burned by the previous car tab vote, acknowledged that “the flat car tab is not a popular tax. This is true of other cities that have tried it.”

But McGinn, too, pointed at Olympia as the source of the problem — and Republican state senators whose feet are, literally, planted in concrete.

“When I met with Senate Republican leaders, they told me bluntly: We’re going to starve transit until you come to the table and support more highways,” McGinn said. “It is clear that our needs have been held hostage to new highway projects. This makes absolutely no sense fiscally, economically or environmentally.”

Metro has outlined prospective cuts, from suburban feeder lines to much-used bus lines serving such Seattle neighborhoods as the Central Area, Leschi and Madrona.

Supporters have argued that Metro carries 400,000 riders each day and is vital in transporting people to work and to colleges and universities in the Seattle area. Service from the Northgate area to the University of Washington is one of the routes facing cuts.

In the initial vote dump, 162,508 people voted yes on Prop. 1, while 200,887 or 55.28 percent voted no.

A late, liberal urban vote has reversed or nearly reversed early trends in several recent elections. Socialist challenger Kshama Sawant trailed incumbent Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin on election night last year, but beat him. But despite making gains as the count wore on, McGinn was not able to catch Ed Murray in the race for Seattle mayor.

But the language of Prop. 1 supporters indicated the gap is too great, and that a reckoning awaits.

“If tonight’s vote stands, it will be a serious blow to the thousands of people who rely on transit every day,” said Collin Jergens, communications director at Fuse Washington, the statewide progressive group.

“This redoubles the need for the Legislature to act on transit and transportation. The Senate failed to even vote on the House’s transportation bill. We cannot afford inaction any longer.”