(WSB photo from October 2012, 35th SW south of Avalon)

The date’s now set for the launch meeting of the new West Seattle Transit Coalition (mentioned in WSB coverage of this week’s Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council meeting) – and you’re invited – 6:30 pm September 24th at Neighborhood House’s High Point Center. If you’re concerned about the state of transportation in/to/from West Seattle, don’t miss it. From the official announcement:

Following discussions over several months, a multitude of West Seattle groups have made the decision to attempt to form a West Seattle Transit Coalition. There are at least three factors currently working in tandem to significantly worry a lot of people in West Seattle, that we have been talking about on and off for months in our meetings.

*The looming reduction of mass transit services regionwide with the King County Metro funding crisis coming out of Olympia. All services will face up to a 17% cut in volume.

*This is only compounded for us in West Seattle, with the equally looming end of the SR-99 Viaduct and the construction headaches that will cause for all of us soon.

*Third, the population because of increasing density (whether you’re a fan or not) in West Seattle is increasing, further straining transit — transit which may soon reduce, straining it even further.

Individually, any one of these things is a topic deep enough for a three hour meeting, or more. Put together? Again, regardless of what side you’re on about any of these issues, altogether they equal out to everyone coming out of West Seattle having a pretty awful commute very soon.

If for some reason your group is unable to attend or send representatives, this will be not a closed, finite thing. For example, several ideas for draft letters and statements are floating around under discussion. These will be reviewed and possibly finalized–with the upcoming elections, ballots will go out in the beginning of October. This makes the entire thing time-sensitive, but people will be still able to endorse if desired later. This is all very sudden, and a bit of an emergency, with so many things spinning together at once.