Seattle City Council Transportation Committee 7/15/2025

Good?

Yeah.

All right.

Good morning.

The July 15, 2025 meeting of the Transportation Committee will come to order.

It is 9.31 a.m.

I'm Rob Saka, chair of the Transportation Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Rink?

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Here.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are four members present.

I've been told that Council Member Rankin is going to be logging on remotely.

All right.

Council Member Rankin is excused until she logs on remotely.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is hereby adopted.

All right, good morning.

Thank you colleagues, members of the public for tuning in today virtually and some in person.

Welcome to today's transportation committee meeting.

We have three important agenda topics to discuss today.

All informational briefing and discussion items.

Our first agenda topic will be a presentation on the District Project Fund.

This concept was ultimately delivered during our 2024 budget cycle and will be a vital tool for our council districts to better respond to acute transportation needs that impact safety in our respective communities and council districts.

So looking forward to hearing from our central staff, especially on the steps required to actualize and implement this important priority.

Our second agenda item will be a presentation from SDOT on their pothole repair program.

Now during the 2024 budget cycle, I help lead an effort to request SDOT produce a report Basically analyzing the performance and key metrics they use to measure the efficacy of their pothole repair program.

I've often noted, well, I guess I seem to have earned a reputation at least as the king of potholes, so for many this presentation will be no surprise.

But the moniker really does highlight my own personal commitment to having our city really deliver on the everyday basics of transportation in an extraordinary way.

And so really looking forward to this presentation in particular.

King of potholes, there it is.

So thank you to SDOT for the response on this important slide and looking forward to hearing more from our expert SDOT team today.

And our third and final agenda item will be a briefing and discussion related to final approval of an alley vacation.

I learned that this project is in District 3, represented by my Vice Chair, Hollingsworth, and a block away from District 2, represented by Council Member Solomon.

So we're also looking forward to hearing from the department and our central staff on this important topic as well.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have zero in-person speakers signed up and there is one remote speaker.

They're not present yet.

All right, let's read the public comment instructions and maybe they'll join us.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with the, well, if there was in person, we would start with in person first, but we'll, sounds like just move to the remote.

Clerk, could you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers until the public comment period is ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Sir, if you just want to set up to the mic.

Two minutes.

Sir, go ahead.

Thank you for signing up.

Floor's yours.

Good morning, council.

My name is Jason Lee, and I'm here to advocate in support of more bus lanes in Seattle.

I co-lead the Fix the Late campaign, and last Thursday we hosted a race where hundreds of Seattleites joined us and beat a Route 8 bus, not by biking, not by running, not even by walking.

We went even slower.

We did the cha-cha slide.

We hopscoshed.

We leapfrogged over each other's heads.

We danced on a conga line.

You get the point.

Route 8 has a lot of issues, and it needs to be fixed.

But I'm going to go further than that today.

I'm going to say that we need bus lanes all around Seattle because that's how our transportation infrastructure is going to be able to handle our exploding population.

In the last year alone, Seattle grew by nearly 19,000 people.

Statistics show that 60% of people in Seattle are in the workforce, and 30% of people who work in Seattle drive alone to work.

That means that in the last year, we've added over 3,000 cars from people commuting to and from work.

I can't even begin to imagine the amount of pollution and traffic that comes with 3,000 cars, and we're adding that every single year.

And that's before we even consider the rest of the population growth in our region that's commuting into Seattle for work.

So I'm asking you to get these drivers onto buses by adding bus lanes.

We know that people in Seattle don't like to drive.

They don't like to find and pay for parking.

They just drive because it's so much faster than buses, and our bus system can be so unreliable at times.

And bus lanes can fix that.

So I'm asking you to install bus lanes and incentivize these drivers to get onto transit because those 3,000 cars, all the traffic and pollution that comes with them, pretty much disappears once you get them on a public transit.

So I'm urging you, add bus lanes, not just on Denny Way for Route 8, but across Seattle as a whole, so that we can meet our Vision Zero goals, face our climate crisis head on, and get people where they need to be going.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now move on to the remote speaker.

We have one.

David Haynes, are you present?

I don't see you present yet.

David Haynes, last call.

All right, we'll now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, district project fund presentation.

All right, thank you.

Will our presenters please join us at the table and share your presentations?

Start off please by introducing yourselves and then you can proceed.

Excuse me.

Calvin Schell with Council Central Staff.

Good morning.

I'm Megan Shepard.

I'm the Interim Director of SDOT's Policy and Planning Division.

Good morning.

I'm Megan Hoyt.

I'm the Major Projects Manager within SDOT's Capital Project Delivery Division.

Welcome.

Council Member Saka, thank you for having us here.

You asked for a presentation on what was in the budget identified as the Council District Fund, but had previously been identified as the District Project Fund.

So I'm here to give a bit of a context setting and background, sort of current steps and where we are and what's needed for implementation of the program.

And I think it's intended to lead to a conversation about your intentions for where we go forward with this implementation.

So just for some context, in terms of neighborhood transportation funding, the city has long tried to fund neighborhood-scale projects that are identified by community members.

There's several different ways that we've done that in the past.

The Neighborhood Street Fund was the sort of long-standing program that was funded throughout the last levy.

Predated that levy, but it used a three-year implementation cycle to select projects, design them, move them through construction.

Those projects, before we had district representation on the council, they were run through district councils to approve the project lists, and since then we had moved on to participatory budgeting, including online voting for which projects would get access to funds.

There are a number of other stock programs that provide neighborhood scale projects, including Vision Zero, Safe Routes to Schools, the Neighborhood Initiated Safety Partnership, and Neighborhood Scale Traffic Safety Programs.

There's a number of other programs that Touch on these things like pedestrian spot improvements or transit spot improvements.

So Estat definitely has programs that meet the scale of project through their regular work as well.

And then council has often established specific budget earmarks, either larger projects with specific CIP project identified or as a proviso occasionally has been implemented in Estat's budget to highlight a specific need.

The council district fund was initially proposed in the mayor's initial proposal for the transportation levy as a district project fund, and it was a project that got some council interest.

Council requested a proposal for how it would be implemented in our companion resolution to that levy.

However, in the final decision of what to put before voters, the council removed the funding for that program.

And so the voter-approved levy did not include the Council District Fund.

In the 2025 budget, the proposal came back and was established by Council as the Council District Fund.

It funds neighborhood-scale traffic safety improvements and other district priorities at the discretion of the City Council.

The budget in the CIP identified $7 million in 2025 and another $7 million in 2026. Any money that's unspent would automatically carry forward to future years as this is identified as a capital project in the CIP.

Currently, there is no secured funding identified beyond 2026. And the Council also established a funding proviso that says that the money cannot be spent until authorized by future Council action.

So that leads us to where we are today with next steps for implementation.

The program does need to establish operational procedures for how it's going to be administered, and that can be done administratively on SDOT's side, or it can be done through a resolution to get some more buy-in and collective understanding of how the program needs to be managed.

The procedures are needed to identify projects, to monitor their funding commitments, to evaluate the feasibility and develop the project designs and cost estimates for the projects, and to make sure that both the council, the department, and community members have shared expectations and understanding of how the program would be delivered.

And then, of course, we do have to lift the budget proviso to allow anything to move forward.

So that's the end of my presentation.

SDOT staff is here with me.

We have been talking about ideas of how to implement this, but currently there is no proposal yet, and we are here to respond to your questions and take direction from you on if there are things that you would like us to pursue further.

Thank you.

Before I take any questions, comments from any of my colleagues, I would love to give our partners at SDOT the opportunity to chime in and say anything from your perspective, if you'd like.

Thank you very much.

We're appreciative of this opportunity to have a discussion about the best way that this program can work to meet the needs of your constituents and the priorities within your districts.

Our hope and intent for the District Project Fund One, it would allow you to address some of those priorities that may not make it to the top of the list through SDOT's regular prioritization criteria just because the scale of the needs citywide is so great.

We're also excited, I think, to discuss how operationally we can come up with a program that will balance SDOT's machine.

And that's why Megan Hoyt is here, because she understands that really well.

Like our annual cycle that we go through to identify projects, to look and see if they're feasible and if they meet all of our conditions and warrants and requirements.

And then get them into basically like the hopper so they can be designed and constructed.

So we want to develop a system that'll work with the machine we already have.

And that'll also, you know, be as expedient as possible in addressing the concerns.

So mindful of like the scale and scope.

So that's what we're generally hoping to further discuss with you, Council Member Saka, the other members of the council, as well as our continued work with Council Central staff, is to figure out something that can fit in really well, but also address your concerns in a way that you can communicate effectively with your constituents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Really appreciate the comments from both.

So really important policy priority and allows us as a city to better show responsiveness, deliver upon important safety priorities at the At the small neighborhood scale level and traditionally as Mr. Chow noted, the way council was able to exert some directional control or input into smaller neighborhood scale safety project was through the budget process.

And that is obviously an annual process that starts and ends in the fall.

And that's a one time a year thing.

And so I think the whole goal and intent of this is to provide a supplemental avenue for council members to be responsive to their respective council districts.

That at least allows us the opportunity to put things in the queue earlier than every once a year.

When and how that project gets delivered is another conversation, but we should at least be able to put items in the queue for future delivery more than every once a year.

And so this allows us to do that.

And it was such a great idea.

And the mayor's original proposal for the levy, the final, Levy that voters approved did not ultimately include this, but it was so popular among the council at the time that we brought it back and it was overwhelmingly approved during our fall budget.

So now we need to flesh out some details.

And this is an initial framework so that we've kind of been iterating on, collaborating on with the department and with Mr. Chow behind the scenes.

The past few months, in any event, important, important stuff.

Colleagues, now I welcome any questions, comments, feedback, insights from your perspective, starting first with Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Faun, Ms. Hoyt for coming, still my favorite briefer.

Although we needed a more, we needed a full brief this morning, but you still hold the number one spot.

And, of course, Mr. Chao from Central Staff.

Really, you know, this is an important topic in the sense of, you know, it's about flexibility.

It's about understanding that If you watched Council Briefing yesterday, I talked about public safety and the district rest, but even the city-wides, that we're touching these pieces so much.

Every day we're working some public safety issue because of the nature of the new district system.

And really, today, the same thing applies to transportation.

You know, we get questions all the time regarding transportation issues and the like.

And I remember doing this when I served on the Queen Anne Community Council with the earlier funds, you know, to leverage those to get improvements for Queen Anne, and we did.

And we noted My friends in Magnolia noted that Queen Anne seems to get more of this than in Magnolia.

So this is like an area where my colleague in District 6, you know, working together on ideas for Magnolia, both the D7 and the D6 side, because they didn't quite have that same engagement.

But now we have the opportunity To have a similar, because that demand signal is still there, and it's just a different way of channeling it.

So I appreciate the opportunity to basically make transportation improvements along the lines of Vision Zero, Safe Routes to School kind of pieces, you know, in that kind of vein.

I've even, that's like a primary area for me, and we have our District 7 Neighborhood Council.

We've gone out once on transportation pieces, and we'll go out again to get an updated list.

In terms of ideas for those possibilities for these funds.

And I'll be upfront too.

We've identified some safety challenges with bike lanes.

That's really citywide, but it's in my district with the Cascade Bicycle Club.

And I'm more than happy to look at this fund as a potential means to help in that process of gaining a solution to that safety challenge.

And so this is how I look at it, and I look forward to engaging on these pieces, particularly as things change.

You know, I mentioned yesterday my meeting with the First Avenue Transit Alliance about bringing bus service to First Avenue.

You know, maybe there's some pieces there where we can make some smart moves for the Belltown community, which is something that's, you know, a community that really does need to love.

They're getting some now with the Bell Street Project and the Portal Park Projects coming along, but there may be some other opportunities there.

So anyways, that's, Chair, that's my view, and for SDOT and for Central Staff, you know, these are the pieces that I'm thinking about, and I'm happy, and I know my team is happy to engage You know, whatever can help improve, particularly the safety of our roads and our streets, and in my case, District 7, but really citywide.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Go ahead.

Thank you for that, Councilmember.

I did want to just Your comments made me just want to highlight again that a lot of what we're doing with the new program here is trying to figure out how to take direction and how to be responsive and also transparent about what we're doing.

It is one of those things where I think the question can be from the council is how much direction to really go direct to the district council member.

First, how much to make sure there's some broader understanding and tracking among not just the council, but also, you know, the community members to understand what the funding is going to be used for.

Currently, it is not that much money in the spectrum of the entire citywide.

So $14 million, $2 billion per district might not address issues like First Avenue transit type things, for instance.

But the point is well taken in terms of it could fit the gap for things like potentially You know, evaluation or feasibility or some other components that might be necessary or some smaller portion of it.

Again, I think there's another issue with SDOT's regular programming of how to make that difference, too, of, you know, what should be borne by this program?

What's the district priority for these funds versus maybe having to wait longer for funding through a regular SDOT program?

All of which, you know, that's really, I think, the intent of this is to have some Buffer for the district council members, the district representation to understand, you know, what matters to that district.

But I do think to operationalize that, we're going to have to figure out what works, what does the body of the council, what makes sense to the nine of you for how to spend this money.

Not for how to spend it, but for the procedures for how we're going to spend the money.

Very good points.

And just to answer your question, yes, I do know, you know, the First Avenue, you know, bus service is a bigger project.

But you never know.

There might be smaller, like, curb bulbs.

You know, there could be things to leverage.

But I do see it more as vision zero and so forth.

But what you're highlighting is the communication.

And you're really at the fulcrum, Mr. Chao, with working with SDOT.

So to whatever comes out of this process, working with you and working with chair and the committee, That it's in sync.

This is the important part.

That's, I think, probably what you're getting to, that it's in sync with SDOT's work and to ensure that it's complementing and not stepping on each other's toes.

And that's where the communication, as you know, we will work with you 110%, and by extension, With Mr. Laborde and the gallery there to ensure that we're not working cross purposes because that would be a waste.

So it's all about communication.

And like I said, you're at that key fulcrum for that communication.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And although Ms. Hoyt did not come prepared with a formal presentation, I do think SDOT did really hit the nail on the head with the fairly brief terse remarks when given the opportunity to speak in terms of sharing out what the kind of vision and goals of this project and program are and what it could look like.

So all good.

And yes, this isn't intended necessarily to fund some of these larger scale opportunities.

If I'm sure it could fund something bigger, potentially like a block of sidewalk, curb and gutter maybe, but that would probably cost the entire allocation of whatever's left the balance for a particular council member.

But I think for the most part, paint, enhance crosswalks, More signage, speed humps.

Speed cushions, bumps, whatever they're called, all the above, smaller scale things.

And for me personally, I'm not a traffic engineer, I don't purport to be, but I do elevate concerns on behalf of my constituents and let SDOT make the final determination on how to address the underlying safety concern or underlying safety challenge.

And in any event, I also note that Council Member Rankin has joined us virtually.

Welcome, and she has her hand up.

First and foremost, I will call on Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for being here.

I do want to address, I know that we had a public commenter come and talk about the late eight.

Thank you for that.

Usually half of my email inbox is dedicated to people that are advocating for bus lanes on Denny and the late eight.

And I would also mention I had a conversation with some Garfield students And I asked them, what are some things they want us to fix in the city?

Three of the kids said, we want you to fix the late eight, obviously knowing that they go from the Central District to the Seattle Center in downtown.

And so I know that's important too.

We've talked, I know the chair, we've talked about it too, and Councilmember Kettle, close conversation with King County, Councilmember Barone as well, and have brought this up.

Numerous times, and I know just trying to move forward on that piece because obviously a lot of people, that bus is chronically late.

So just wanted to help elevate that, and I know a lot of people are hard at work trying to figure out that corridor.

So I'm not an expert, but we'll keep pounding the pavement on that.

So thank you to the public commenter who brought that up, and please continue to send us emails.

Please.

I'm advocating for that.

It's good.

I also want, and I don't really have a, I don't have a question, just a comment, quick comment about some of the projects.

I know that when I receive messages from constituents, usually the thing that I bump up the most, if it's something small like a pothole, I'm like, hey, find it, fix it, and just walk them through.

But other stuff that, like, for example, I know I elevated to Esad about a young girl who was hit off of 36 and just asked for a repaint of that crosswalk because that was really important to that community and just elevation.

And Bill responded immediately and was like, hey, you know, this is the process.

This is what we're going through, which was great.

Another kid shot out Raza.

Raza got hit in Portage Bay.

His dad reached out, and he's healed, which is great.

And he's healing, so you'll have a great summer.

But they had asked for better signage, traffic calming in the Portage Bay neighborhood and a roundabout.

So those are the things that I usually elevate to Estot, which I think would be a priority for some district projects, because those are direct constituents who have reached out, who have said, hey, you know, we just want a safer street, safer community, but also, Some of the people have gotten hit.

It's like they're elevating it because of accidents that have happened, and I know you all have been incredibly responsive to that, but it would be great to help if those were some district projects that we could do to make sure that people felt like we were prioritizing their safety, especially after someone gets hit, and elevating when these kids get hit.

Because those were two young children who got hit.

And unfortunately, the girl, she has healed, but missed out her summer for her sports.

So just wanted to highlight that and elevate that.

And thank you for all the work that you all are doing as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Right.

Yeah.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And I'll let anyone at the table go ahead.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka, and thank you for your comments, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

I think our hope is in, you know, our intent as we create this program together is that it doesn't entirely replace the way that we currently work with City Council.

You are going to continue to have these issues raised to you, and you should continue to bring them to, like, our attention.

And in places where there is an urgent or emergent need, we will continue to work with you the way we always have.

The district project fund is like another, it's adding another tool to the way we work with you to help address your constituent concerns, particularly in those places where it might not Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.'

If I may.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Because I know a lot of stuff sometimes doesn't get bumped up to the priority list, but that would be great.

Just for people to feel like, you know, there's a response that's immediate or, hey, we can fix this quick signage.

Maybe that doesn't come out of this bucket.

Maybe it comes out another bucket.

But just knowing that there's two different avenues for stuff to be able to get elevated and fixed.

So thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Let's see.

Councilmember Marine, go ahead.

You are recognized.

Thank you, Jarisaka.

Appreciate it.

And I want to also thank Vice Chair Hollingsworth for bringing up the late.

I know a number of folks might have caught the headlines that I think it was 200 of our neighbors went to race the late, which I think sent an important message just about some of the real challenges in our system when folks are able to Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Liza Rankin.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

A question to Calvin here as the next step.

I mean, we as Council have the discretion to potentially establish a resolution that supports these operational procedures.

And just thinking about the urgency, again, for a number of these projects, you know, what is an ideal timeline here when we're thinking about developing these operational procedures?

You've clearly outlined here kind of the mark that we need to hit, but I'm thinking about, you know, it sounds like we have a decision point.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.'

I guess I'd respond by saying I have been working with SDOT on a couple different variations or ideas of themes.

I think there are some fundamental choices for council about how to approach this.

So one is, you know, how much to make this sort of really driven by district council members sort of individually as fast as we can, really driving towards expediency and making decisions quickly versus how much does the body feel the need to Demonstrate some broader oversight of the program just for the sake of the council and understanding how that works.

Maybe there's ways to split the difference through just the way we do reporting and the way we make sure that we're tracking how the dollars are being spent.

There is the issue of how we get projects into SDOT's queue and what that means for project delivery.

So I think there are smaller scale projects where it might be paint, it might be a post that are easier to figure out how, if there is a need, those should be able to be implemented quickly.

There are others where the underlying problem needs to be evaluated.

We have to have traffic engineers actually do the feasibility.

Do the design work.

Find out how much the thing will actually cost.

And then once that has been sort of agreed upon, we actually have to get it into the work orders for the crews to do the work.

So there can be a delay in terms of when the project actually gets implemented, depending on how complicated that project is.

So I think those are the things that are in play a little bit.

I've taken some direction from the chair.

I've been really focusing more on how to kind of push on the expediency side of things, and I think we still have to come forward with a proposal with how we might do that.

I suspect a resolution will be what we'll want to do, just to make sure that the council as a whole is supportive of the approach.

Presumably, if it goes well, then that will be something that Council in the future will want to continue to find ways to fund, or the executive will want to find ways to fund.

Just a reminder that we've only identified two years of funding currently, although the funding automatically carries forward, so we won't lose it if it doesn't get used in the next two years.

It will still manage to be brought forward.

I'm not sure if I've answered all your questions, but I think it is one that the impetus is to get it moving this year.

And if I could add just a little, this might help the context as you think about this.

From the SDOT side, especially with the projects that are more than just a small thing that need any feasibility, it might be helpful to think too in terms of like a few different checkpoints.

You know, one of them is just actually getting the ideas because there is this kind of, Sort of beautiful stage of a project when you start seeing all the things that are slated or possible or hoped for.

And some of those, and you've hinted it already in some of your questions and comments, sometimes we can augment something that's already happening.

So one is just like learning the possibilities that are out there.

And that could be the moment where if we're already doing some work there and this adds on to it, maybe it doesn't need to be funded through this.

A program, it could add on to a project, or it's that last little bit, you know, part of a capital project that augments.

So that's kind of a first stage.

And then, as Cal just mentioned, there is this feasibility analysis.

As you've probably learned with traffic, sometimes you have to take counts and meet warrants, and there's sometimes a process, or sometimes just watching the situation at the right time of year.

So I'll just plant that thought, that sometimes you want to capture that thing on that busy school day or during that festival.

So those things can't always happen instantaneously.

So having a sense of things, being able to figure out the right way to collect information, And then there's the actual moment of, you know, getting into design.

So we just have a few.

If that helps think about the different points, we'd probably try to align with an SDOT process.

I think those are the main ones.

If I could add to that, too.

I think the other scenario that we're thinking about as well is that, you know, you as council members, maybe you have like three or four top priorities for your district.

I'm just using that number randomly.

You probably have 200. But in this scenario, right?

And so that touch point of, okay, these are your less.

And then we're going to have to go and do the feasibility analysis, whether it's light or heavy.

And then there's that moment, too, where we need to be like, this is what it looks like in terms of delivery and cost.

And I think this is where, like, that moment within these operational procedures that we're looking for is where can you as the council members say, oh, okay, within the amount that is available, these are the two that I would prioritize.

So we need that touchpoint as well as we think about how this comes together.

Thank you all for that.

I really want to commend Cal for also your work and working with the Department and trying to sort out these parameters.

Colleagues, I'd encourage and ask that as we're thinking about establishing operation procedures, we also find a way for us to be in concert and talking with each other about the kind of projects that we're hearing about from our constituents I know our office has heard about a number of problematic crossings or dangerous crossings that have posed challenges for residents.

So I would offer that as we're thinking about establishing operation procedures, also thinking about ways to ensure that Citywide council members are also able to voice and champion projects as well and us just finding ways to be complementary, whether it's having a bird's eye view of all the kind of areas that have been uplifted from constituent requests and then comparing notes with what may be on SDOT's radar just to make sure that we are having a full perspective.

I would just name that as something I'll certainly be wanting to champion during this process.

And with that, those are all the questions I had there.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Council Member Rankin.

And I have asked Cal and my direction to work with SDOT and my office to develop this framework.

And so this is really a partnership between the executive and the legislative branch.

And the idea, colleagues, just so you know, that I'm currently thinking about, I think it's consistent with the themes that I've heard today at the dais and some offline conversations individually I've had as well, is that the idea is that Individual council members would be able to propose On their own, well, on behalf of their constituents, a number of projects, possibilities to be funded and delivered under this new program.

And I've also asked, as part of this, so there's two paths, and I've also asked SDOT to curate and provide a list of Curated projects within individual council districts that would otherwise go unfunded or unbuilt under the executive department's current prioritization framework, including those set forth as approved in our Seattle transportation plan last year.

So the idea is that Council members can curate and I have my own list personally of D1 projects and ideas that we curate and we send those on an ongoing basis to SDOT and we'll continue to do the same and some of them still go unfunded and unbuilt and so ideas that we could In that example, we could pull some to be built and funded through this project, but also curious to hear from SDOT's perspective, some of those projects in our district that might otherwise go unfunded pursuant to one of the many programs that we have, like Vision Zero, Safe Routes to School, Neighborhood Initiated Safety, That just doesn't, just falls just below the cut line.

And again, wouldn't ordinarily be funded.

Certainly not this year.

So, but the idea is that individual council members can choose.

And so in any event, thank you colleagues.

Council member Rankin, is that a stale hand or do you have another follow up question or comment?

Dale Hand, apologies.

All right.

No worries.

No worries.

All right.

Any final questions, comments from my colleagues for the good of the order?

No.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chow, SDOT.

Appreciate your partnership and collaboration on this important topic and colleagues.

Stay tuned.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and Council members.

Awesome.

We will now move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Agenda Item 2, SDOT Pothole Repair Program Presentation.

All right.

Thank you.

Looks like our newest presenters are joining us at the table.

Welcome.

Once ready, please do introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Bill aboard, SDOT.

Rodney Maxey, SDOT Deputy Director.

Elsa Tibbetts, Estat Pavement Engineering Manager.

So today we're here to talk about our pothole program.

I just wanted to put a plug in, in general, for maintenance overall.

My crews and my divisions are the right-of-way maintenance and urban forestry, Division and the Paving Signs and Markings and Emergency Response Division for SDOT, which covers also crew capital delivery for neighborhood projects.

So we're looking forward to working with you guys on all these programs.

We're looking forward to continue the relationship that we've had over the many years of responding quickly.

to any concerns you may have.

But today, I have my paving engineering manager to discuss the condition of our assets, almost $20 billion worth of paving assets we have in the city of Seattle.

So, Elsa.

Thank you, Rodney.

Thank you for having us to present our pothole repair program today.

Today we'll be discussing our paving program, the technical elements of how and why potholes develop and how to report it.

We will also be discussing our operations, resources, and winter weather.

And finally, we will go over budget, pavement investments, and conditions of our pavement.

Seattle's arterial streets have 1,153 lane miles of arterial roads to maintain, and we have several ways in which we perform these repairs.

Pothole repair is traditionally looked at, like we like to say, as a Band-Aid to the overall network, to a distressed street.

Potholes are a symptom of pavement injury, and the repairs are temporary in nature.

Another form of maintenance is our arterial major maintenance program.

We consider this one of our medic responders that provides stitches and repairs to our street to gain another two to five years of life cycle, but does not repair the subgrade.

SDOT's concrete and asphalt crews deliver this work day in and day out.

And third, our asphalt and concrete program, AAC program, is like our hospital.

This is where streets receive surgery to severely injured sections or even a complete reconstruction to restore its asset back to its health.

Under the Seattle Transportation Levy, SDOT has a goal of repairing 80 percent of reported potholes in 72 hours.

A pothole is an abrupt depression in the roadway, typically where traffic loading has broken loose a section of pavement.

Over time, with heavy vehicle traffic, structural fatigue, the exposure to the elements, which is weathering, pavement steadily accumulate cracks and other distresses.

Potholes occur most frequently after precipitation when pavement layers have been weakened by water that infiltrates through the cracks of aging pavements.

Cycles of freezing and thawing over roadways exaggerate this condition.

Another cause of potholes is utility cuts, which are often restored in a temporary condition.

This is the reason that we coordinate closely with our utilities on major capital projects so that we can do utility work while the right-of-way is open to prevent utility cuts into new pavement later.

Seattle typically fills 15,000 to 25,000 potholes every year.

The long-term solution is to repave the road.

Pothole repair is SDOT's first response to pavement damage, allowing SDOT to keep streets serviceable.

SDOT receives reports of potholes from the Seattle residents through several ways.

Find It Fix It app is our most common.

They can also call our SDOT Customer Service Care Center at 206-684-7623.

Another option is the Charles Street Dispatch Office, which is 206-386-1218.

And finally, we also can report potholes online.

SDOT goal is to respond to pothole repair requests within three business days within a completion of 80% in 72 hours, starting on the day after the request is received.

In order to meet this departmental goal, the pothole crews respond with a first-reported, first-repaired method.

As the prioritization model.

In addition to those more formal means of reporting, SDOT roadway maintenance crews identify potholes during their day-to-day work while responding to the reported pothole repairs.

SDOT also receives specific repair requests through the mayor's office and through city council.

When a pothole is reported, SDOT maintenance crews mobilize to the location and determine if a pothole can be a repair is the appropriate repair method.

In the event that the pavement defect is much more than a pothole repair, SDOT Street Maintenance works with my team, Pavement Engineering, and we come up with a larger repair plan.

In 2024, SDOT's pothole program expended almost $5 million.

The program is run out of our SDOT maintenance operations division and includes four district crew chiefs, eight truck drivers, four asphalt rakers, 16 maintenance labors.

Equipment resources include raker, traffic, and dump trucks, pavers, grinders, steel drum rolls, rubber tire rolls.

Estop maintains four hotbox trucks strategically located around the city in the Northeast, Northwest, West Seattle, and Central geographical locations.

In 1997, the city bought four trucks fitted with special boxes to keep patching asphalt hot and dubbed the crew Pothole Rangers.

Greg Nichols campaigned for mayor on fast response pothole repair, establishing a 48-hour goal for responding to the most pothole requests as he came into office in 2002. As the Bridging the Gap levy came online in 2006, SDOT could invest more in SDOT paving and other crew maintenance work, as well as AAC projects.

With crews busier than ever attending to the variety of maintenance needs and costs of asphalt increasing, the city shifted to a more sustainable 72-hour goal in 2010. SDOT aims to provide 72-hour response to report of potholes by the public.

In 2024, the target was met 90% of the time.

The chart shows pothole response and potholes repaired 2014 to 2024. The weather in the winter of 2017 was particularly active, leading to a higher number of potholes in need of repair.

In 2022 and 2023, impacts of staffing during the pandemic and an active winter in both years also led to an increase in pothole requests, where the demand goes up and the response timeframe trends down due to volume.

A 72-hour pothole goal, response goal is carefully balanced to optimize the performance of what is primarily a reactive program.

SDOT has successfully achieved 80% greater response to potholes within 72 hours in eight of the past 11 years.

In 2017, despite only achieving that metric 78% of the time, SDOT filled over 35,000 potholes.

This is significant output compared to the annual average.

A 72-hour response communicates solid customer service and good governance while still providing some capacity for crews to address potholes outside of the specific goal for filling potholes in 30 days.

A few examples of other cities and their response time would be like San Francisco has 72 hours.

Baltimore has 90 days.

Washington, D.C.

is 72 hours.

Tampa, Florida, 72 hours.

Sacramento, 72 hours.

And Tulsa, 72 hours.

Good job.

In addition to severe winter weather events or seasons resulting in hundreds or thousands of new potholes, typically after a storm, SDOT will deploy crews to proactively identify potholes outside of the routine customer service response, optimizing efficiency in these circumstances.

In this graph, the blue line represents the full scope of the demand by the public, which could include duplicate reports of potholes at the same location.

The green line represents the number of potholes repaired, A single work order could be issued for repairs that include multiple potholes within the specific location, which is why you will see more work orders repaired than reported while maintaining our 72-hour response time with a first-come, first-serve approach.

We also patrol under-reported underserved areas proactively and make pothole repairs in addition to our known pothole reports.

Expenditures for pothole repair has exceeded the budget consistently over the last several years, and in the 2023 budget process, SDOT was approved to add an additional $1.3 million in budget from the Seattle Transportation Benefit District Fund, backed by vehicle license fee revenues, to establish a higher baseline budget for pothole repair going forward.

Our need exceeds the allocated budget, but we continue to meet our goal of 80 percent in 72 hours.

Potholes are a symptom of a combination of an aging infrastructure and weather and with our future payment investments.

A big shout-out and a thank you to the Seattle voters, the Seattle Council, and the mayor for passing a $1.55 billion Seattle transportation levy.

This incredible opportunity allows us to continue to invest into our assets.

In 2024, transportation levy via new dollars to the arterial asphalt and concrete program has reached the highest funding level for major paving in decades, $330 million over eight years, or $41.25 million annually, whereas the previous move Seattle levy allocated $250 million over nine years, or $27.8 million a year.

This is an overall increase of $80 million of the life of the 2024 transportation levy.

We update our pavement condition index every two years for our arterial streets.

Over the next few years, we'll be assessing our non-arterial street network as well.

This table shows the ebbs and flows of the pavement condition from 2004 to 2023, whereas the 60 percent of our network is in fair to excellent condition.

You can also see the pavement condition is trending down, but it has been maintaining a rating since 2018 and reflecting the investments that we've been able to make with the dollars that we have.

We currently have an arterial backlog of 460 million, which represents 312 lane miles in rehabilitation projects, shown in the orange.

In addition, there are another 1.4 billion in need across 286 lane miles of arterial streets that have fallen into the lowest condition range and require reconstruction.

However, with the increased funding for our AMM crew paving projects that we refer to as our Medic One, we can increase our response to stitch the areas of distress in the street segments to extend the life for two to five years versus the 20 years of reconstruction.

AMM program is where we are making a lot of investments recently with the seven to eight lane miles that we can produce out of that budget.

We know we do not have $1.4 million to make all the repairs, but we acknowledge that with the increased payment investments, we can apply all repair methods to extend the overall network quality to continue to fill potholes, repair pavement sections with spot repairs and slurry seal methods, and invest in large capital projects identified in the 2024 transportation levy.

Again, I wanted to thank you for your continued support investing in SDOT, for our pavement maintenance, and the long-term solution is repaving the road.

Thank you.

Excellent presentation.

I suppose I could be a little biased, but great job.

Thank you so much, Mr. Maxey, Ms. Tibbetts.

Colleagues, any questions or comments from your perspective?

All right.

Oh, go ahead.

Councilmember Cattle.

Thank you, Chair.

It took me a second to find my hand, my electronic hand.

Mr. Maxey and Ms. Tibbetts, thank you for joining us.

And now Mr. Laborde has come forward to the table, so thank you as well for joining us.

This is really important and really impacts our city and our district and the one in my district in the sense of there's arterials for transit.

That are just, you know, hit with potholes.

Now, the one that's in my head right now, I want to say thank you, 10th Avenue West, because you have come through and improved it.

And that's really important, so, you know, to have those kind of successes.

And even better, I really appreciate the work in terms of the, you know, the broader effort in terms of, like, Denny, you know, where it crosses 99, that whole project.

And I would add the Ballard Bridge connecting D7 and D6 and the work on both sides, the bridge itself, but on both sides, particularly going into my colleague's district.

That is a major effort, and that goes to your point about the broader maintenance, which I get 110%.

And so thank you for those efforts.

And part of this, too, is And it's not necessarily a sinkhole, a pothole sometimes, it's more of a sinkhole.

And I know there's an effort underway to go from asphalt to concrete, particularly on the transit routes.

But there's some transit routes that, you know, that are kind of secondary, that don't necessarily get the love, if you will.

But because of the heat, and right now I'm thinking about Salem Transit and the inability for rails to deal with heat, which is unbelievable to me.

Is the, you know, the massive sinkholes from the buses and these non-arterial kind of areas that have really an impact.

Is that something that you're looking out for?

Is that something that you get, you know, find it, fix it?

It's not a traditional pothole, but it has the same effect in a lot of ways.

Yeah, it's not.

I mean, the buses, again, are, you know, I grew up in this city and was born in the 60s, and the buses are A little bit heavier, let's say, than they were back then.

And the city was built to engineering standards of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s when that repaving was done.

So what we've been doing is systematically we've been going back.

If you look at a regular concrete panel that was built in 1940, it's four inches deep with no reinforced steel.

You come forward to now and you look at the concrete and the paving we did on Madison, you're looking at 8 to 14 inches and in some places 18 inches thick with reinforced steel dowels that are almost two inches in diameter.

So that's the difference.

Those new design streets with Elsa's paving engineers, we redesigned the streets so they can handle the weight.

And the way we look at it is, you know, you need the street to be in the best condition for all modes.

And so if you have the street in the best condition for transit, usually it's in the best condition for every mode of transportation.

And that's really what we're trying to get to, Councilmember Kettle.

We're trying to get to that condition gradually, hopefully over the next 30 years or so.

But as you know, with the terrain in Seattle, And the weather.

And the other interesting fact is that we have 60% of our roads are concrete.

On average, an American city only has 5% of its roads.

So those are the little bit of the challenges.

But we've made great progress because we just paved Diddy with Elsa's AAC program, because we're getting in the process right now of paving Eastlake.

Because we just paved 15th and the Ballard Bridge, hundreds of potholes are not going to occur for another 20 years.

So that's really where we're trying to work hand-in-hand with you guys and put, you know, and do the best investments at the right time.

Thank you.

Yeah, the work on Madison's incredible.

By the way, I've talked to some small businesses along Madison.

I was asking how the changes are impacting them.

And they were saying actually that there's a period of adjustment, but there's people who now take the transit to go to that business.

And so there may be some positive news.

And, you know, as we adapt to the, because that's a major change on Madison.

And I note how it comes down.

That's really good.

And we love Delridge.

Like I said, we put the Rapid Ride in there, but we had the common sense to pave it first so that it could handle the bus loads.

And that's a really, really special project.

Okay.

Well, that's, yeah, those sinkholes, and I understand maybe, you know, this is, you know, some time, you know, putting it kind of like the previous discussion.

I recognize their prioritizations on this, and I'm talking for the secondary roads as the buses are maybe turning around to get lined up for their route, you know, for the return run.

There are impacts there, too, and obviously the concrete is doing wonders, particularly at the bus stops themselves.

You obviously need those, so I really appreciate

One thing you're talking about like on Fairview and on Madison, on the turnarounds when the bus goes into the residential, we did replace all those panels because they weren't up to that spec so we can avoid that problem.

But also a lot of those sinkholes you're talking about is aging utility infrastructure.

So sometimes it takes a little bit longer for us to fix that.

We usually come back and Elsa will design Like she said, she'll design a system where we can backfill and get it safe real quick.

And then we work with the utilities.

A lot of times we have pipes leaking, things like that, that we have to replace to get the permanent fix.

That's a very good point.

Yes, I can see that.

That's part of the complete streets approach.

But yeah, very important.

I'd just like to note too, it's not just the buses that have gotten bigger and heavier over the years.

It's also our Our responders, fire department, for example.

And now we have ladder trucks and fire engines responding to medic calls.

I mean, so they're putting way more weight on our roads because of these increased call responses.

Not just for fires, but for everything.

And Medic One and, you know, Health One and that, they're not necessarily there, so we have some heavy vehicles responding to an increased number of calls, and that, too, is an impact.

And, by the way, there's been some questions, to your point, about Do all these vehicles need to be as big as they are?

That might be something as part of the considerations as we densify as part of the comp plan and forth and so forth.

Another reason for a public safety element.

I appreciate the work that you're doing.

Regarding potholes, a lot of the potholes King have been addressed in District 7.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Any other questions from my colleagues?

Thank you.

I'm going to start with the appreciation that I have for you since our last meeting, a lot of potholes and a lot of longer stretches.

And remind me, what is the term when it's not a pothole, it's something bigger and worse that takes more time?

What's the correct terminology for that?

Well, again, it's all paving defect, but it depends on the scale.

Like we said, a lot of those might be I mean, they could be anywhere from 20 yards to two blocks.

Yes.

What would you call that, just in common language?

We call it an AMM.

It's our AMM program.

It's an arterial crew maintenance program where you have to reconstruct locally Those areas in order to fix, like Councilmember Kettle said, if you had those bigger areas.

The pottle crew is more for that quick kind of just make it safe or have a shim if we have like a joint that goes up four inches or something and is jarring people on transit or causing motorcyclists to crash, et cetera.

You can use spot repair.

That's probably the most common term that we use.

Spot repair.

That's really helpful.

So spot repair is a larger section than just a pothole that needs more work.

A pothole is something that can be filled within 72 hours.

Correct.

Right.

And it's the AMM program is anywhere from three to four blocks with all lane miles from curb and gutter.

So it can be, like I said, at 10 to 20 yard, just You know, location or it can be up to three blocks.

We don't go over that usually because of the bid limits and the public works.

Thank you.

So what I'm here to say is that you're doing great work.

I can see it.

And we need to be better about communication.

And what I mean by that is just in this conversation, it's been difficult for us to even get around what is the language between what...

We are here, you're subject matter experts, and together we are governing and providing services for our city.

But I regularly, since the last time I received this presentation, you know, I've received about three times.

Maybe just since Councilmember Soccer came into office and, you know, I'd received it a number of times before.

Even since the first time I've received this presentation, The section on 24th from 80th to 85th remains one of these spot improvements.

Now, I'm not asking you to fix it today because you fixed, since the last presentation, you fixed on 24th from 80th down to 65th where you completely repaved the entire section, much like you did on the Ballard Bridge.

The Ballard Bridge, I can't tell you how many complaints I received because it had gotten so bad, but we couldn't fix it right away because you were in there to do a larger project, right?

So the communication challenge that I have is I picked up a constituent request from Councilmember Kettle, the Kettle's district, and I passed it to him.

But it was down here in Belltown where the individual had repeatedly submitted find it, fix it requests for very large potholes.

Another way to say that, a pothole that will eat your tire.

But the city hadn't responded to them.

And it was because it's one of these, again, spot improvements, spot rebuild, spot reconstruction, however you want to call what is not a pothole because a pothole is a very specific thing that is defined within our business of governing on behalf of Seattleites.

But to a common person, they just see a hole in the road that's going to mess up their axle.

And so that's my only feedback today because, again, Since the first time that I've received this presentation to today, there are still holes on 24th that make me very wary of driving through them.

And still, that's not a pothole response, which is why your pothole response numbers are so high.

Because again, you're out there doing good work, but we need to be better about communicating with the public about they've submitted a Find It, Fix It, and they just get a closed ticket that says, We've dealt with your pothole, but they still see the hole in the road that'll eat their tire.

That's my only feedback because you're doing really great work.

Our arterial major maintenance program does about three blocks at a time, and often every year they go back and do another three-block section and then another three-block section so we can just keep moving forward on making repairs to that corridor.

So I'm going to look into that section because I think we just finished, like, what you said, 60th or 65th.

I'm going to see if they're going to continue with the program, if they're going to keep mobilizing up 24th.

And again, I'm not asking for you to change resources, change your plan.

I think more the question is the longevity that this has remained an issue, that we've been through this presentation so many times and it's still there.

That's just that.

But I think the bigger problem that I've got today is that we've got residents submitting Find It Fix It's.

They're having their tickets closed.

The hole's still on the street because it's a spot reconfiguration, not a pothole, and we're just not talking to them correctly.

That's all, because you're doing great work.

I think the communication is important, and I think our director, Audiam Emery, has brought that up, and we're putting together a broader communication plan.

I think one thing that As you know, in the 11 years since I've been an executive in charge of this program, we do a great job of communicating about the big capital projects, the Delridge, the 15th, the Madison, et cetera.

What we need to do is we want to get out into the community and talk to the community about all of our programs, all of our maintenance and small capital and large capital, because we do a lot of community outreach for the big capital, but we weren't doing that for maintenance.

So I think our director, Audiam Emery, has a plan for that, and I'm so excited because we're going to get to get I get to bring Elsa and myself and Bill out into the community and communicate better about that.

And then the other point that Elsa made is a well taken point is that that particular corridor didn't qualify as an AAC project.

So what she's been doing and what she's only allowed to do because of Public Works is only do three blocks at a time on that particular corridor.

But those are the challenges that we have.

And then, like you said, the definition, the layperson feels it's a pothole.

You know, in Soto, many of those streets we can't pave because they're unimproved right-of-ways and they don't have drainage.

And if we pave them, the community will flood.

That's why we had to put in the last levy the partnership, the great partnership we did with SPU, where we put money aside and built the drainage first and then paved South Park.

So thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think we're all circling around the same thing.

I'm going to just really focus in on these blocks in Belltown that have holes that can eat your tire.

Absolutely.

The resident didn't get any response from the city other than it's not a pothole or your ticket's been cleared.

It took then them emailing us, me and Bob, the reference number.

We sent it to Bill.

Bill said, yeah, no, we got this planned.

Here's the timeline.

We were like, great.

We sent that to the resident and they were happy.

That's awesome.

But the problem there is somebody shouldn't have to email a council member to get an accurate answer.

Absolutely.

Totally understood.

And that is one thing.

Also, we're working with Find It Fix It for the city to design the back half.

So when they take a picture, put it in Find It Fix It, we should be able to have our crew chief take a picture after it's been fixed and automatically send it back to the customer.

So totally understand.

Thank you.

Keep up your good work.

It is noticeable throughout the city.

We're trying.

Just keep it up.

We're trying.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Council member Strauss.

Any of my other colleagues have any final questions, comments?

No?

Good to go.

I have a few.

If you wouldn't mind going back to slide nine, please.

All right.

Love this.

Performance targets fill 80% of potholes.

Inference there is reported potholes within 72 hours.

And love the 10 or 11 year roll up of how we've measured against that goal right there.

I'll highlight the year 2024 when our city was able to fill 90% of reported potholes within 72 hours, which is excellent work.

The teams are doing excellent work.

And this is in line with a conversation I had I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

We had some really intentional, sustained investments in boosting the pothole repair program last year.

As a policy matter, we have elevated the importance of potholes and pothole repair to our broader road maintenance and repair strategy.

Some would say, oh, 11% increase year over year.

Wow.

How did that happen?

Is it just happenstance or is it chance or is it coincidence?

No, it's not.

Not at all.

Whether we're talking about public safety improvements or, you know, in this case, pothole repair improvements.

It's not all the mythical forces of the world and the stars aligning and just pure happenstance.

This is an intentional Deliberative policy decision that we've made to better invest and focus on things like pothole repair.

And we've enshrined that at least for an eight-year period.

We funded it and enshrined the performance goal of 80 percent within 72 hours within voter-approved legislation last year.

And we're going to continue to hammer on it.

But it didn't happen by pure happenstance.

Because if the trend went in the other direction, the public would necessarily be upset with us, not you all, but us.

But that's how accountability works, works both ways.

And so we've empowered, again, with clear direction, clear legislative priorities and partnership with the executive, and importantly, investment to back this work And made clear it was a priority, got out of the way and let you all do what you all do best.

The great work to fill these potholes, but it's by no happenstance.

In this case, this is 90% last year.

We'd like to see that.

That's a fairly high mark.

It's not the high watermark of 95% that we've seen in 2016 and 2018, but we'd like to see that.

You know, those continued sustained investments and performance over time.

Certainly as long as I'm around.

Because this is important work.

And thank you for calling out Mayor Nichols' campaign pledge in 2002 to repair, to have 48 hour response times.

What we've seen is all of us, myself including, building upon that work at the elected official level, prioritizing pothole repair as an important Pillar of how we deliver effective and responsive services to the taxpayer.

And so we've been able to build upon that.

So shout out to Mayor Nichols for his initial leadership.

And I also appreciate the department Highlighting some comparisons of how other cities do similar work in terms of Miami, Sacramento, also having 72-hour response time goals.

Baltimore, 90-day response times?

Baltimore, please get with it.

What is that all about?

90 days for a pothole repair?

In any event, this is...

Mission-critical work, and I appreciate the crews being able to deliver upon that and do their work so expertly.

So my question is, on the sort of comparisons of other major cities, it sounds like what's quote-unquote marked, Baltimore 90-day outlier, but what seems to be marked is the 72-hour response time goal.

Does that, is there any indication of like how many of those are at the 80% of reported pothole as we are or do they have like 75% or 85% or like what proportion of those potholes do we have an indication of like how many is 100%?

Yeah, I don't think we have all that data at this time, Chair Sokka, but we definitely can work with our partners and sister cities to get that information for you.

Thank you.

I mean, if they're willing to disclose it.

Sure, sure.

One thing I can add from doing some of that research for other cities is that it really varies, and some are very successful at maintaining You know, a similar ratio as Seattle and others really don't come close, and there are a lot of complaints about those cities not coming close.

I found several news articles in the D.C.

area complaining about DDOT's inability to keep up with their 72-hour commitment.

At the same time, some of these cities have great weather conditions year-round.

Others really get slammed in the wintertime.

And as we saw, that's a big variable factor.

And I think one of the things in the surge we do, a strategy that I've been doing the last 11 years, is that since we know potholes occur more frequently on the presentations that we've given you in the past, in January, February, Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo' Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you all for this presentation today.

More importantly, thank you for the terrific work that you and your teams do every day to help our city better deliver upon And bring to life an effective, responsive government that prioritizes our most basic needs, starting with.

And that, in the transportation context, is often pothole repair.

So colleagues, if you have not already, I would highly encourage you to take a visit, to a site visit, alongside one of the crews performing this work.

I've done multiple pothole Visits with the frontline crews, not just focusing on potholes.

As chair of the Transportation Committee, I try to prioritize at a bare minimum on a bi-monthly or quarterly basis site visits, if not more frequent.

But I know understanding and seeing that work.

So I've done multiple pothole tours again.

As an aside, I think one of the next ones, we'd love for you to join, Mr. Maxey, but we'd love to better see some of the delivery of some of our accessibility upgrades and that work going on, because it's really important.

But anyway, colleagues, I encourage you to find time, if you haven't already, at some point, at least once during your first term here to visit, The crews within SDOT, and it doesn't necessarily have to be pothole repair, but there's any number of opportunities.

But it really does help bring to life in a concrete, for lack of a better word, tangible way, the work that we do, writing appropriations and requirements and code and legislation that guides the work It really does help bring to life in a concrete, important, tangible way and allows us as elected officials to better connect with the workers actually doing the work in the pothole case and visited the pothole rangers many times.

Many of them are members of Leona, the unions.

And so anyways, there's any number of opportunities, please do if you haven't already get a chance to visit.

I know 100% that the workers themselves really do appreciate having elected officials join them.

And we all collectively oversee 40 plus city departments and agencies.

So we can't obviously go to all and certainly dive deep within the respective departments.

This is an important piece to help us better understand and unpack what's going on and how this work is actually impacting and affecting people's lives and connect with the workers doing it.

That's the key.

In any event, all right.

Well, thank you again, SDOT.

Really appreciate the great presentation here.

And as an aside, Mr. Maxey, best of luck and we might see you in a couple of days.

Yeah, we might see you tomorrow.

I mean, we'll see.

We're down to the last four teams in the Little League State Championships.

So congratulations to your team, and we're looking forward to playing you again.

Looking forward to playing you, too.

Mr. Maxey's daughter is a star pitcher.

And it was good to see you on the sidelines there.

And, you know, West Seattle does what West Seattle does.

Came out on top of that one.

But, you know, we're still in the fight.

And in any event, we're all connected, part of the community.

And, yeah, good seeing you there.

So best of luck.

Definitely.

Best of luck to you guys, too.

My voice is running thin, yelling and shouting and hollering all crazy.

You saw me on the sidelines, but...

Yeah.

No, your daughter and the team, your team is outstanding, and that's what competition for young kids and ladies is about.

People were teaching life skills about how to work as a team and how to perform under pressure.

And these girls, all 13 teams that made it to state, were just amazing.

So I think that's something we all should be proud of.

Beautiful thing to watch.

All right, Mr. Maxey, thank you again for traveling up here in person, as I did.

From the state tournament and in prioritizing this important topic, but, and really more importantly, do appreciate the work that you and your crews do every day.

This is some of the most important work I would argue.

So thank you.

And thank you for all the support from the whole city council and then, and budget chair Strauss.

We appreciate all of the investments you've made to help us do, you know, be stronger and better and give more quick service to the residents of Seattle.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll now move on to a third and final item of business.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record.

Gin item three, Council Bill 121026, an ordinance vacating the alley in Block 14, Joss C. Kinnear's addition to the City of Seattle in the North Rainier.

Hub Urban Village Neighborhood and accepting a property use and development agreement on the petition of Grand Street Commons LLC.

Now Grand Street Commons.

Commons MBH LLLP.

Clerk file 314459. All right.

Thank you.

Looks like our presenters have joined us at the table.

So once ready, please introduce yourselves, share and begin your presentations.

Lish Whitson, Council Central Staff.

Holly Gardner, Project Manager.

Beverly Barnett, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Good morning, Michael Jenkins, Seattle Design Commission.

So Council Bill 121026 is the final approval for a alley vacation in the North Rainier, Judkins Park neighborhood.

The alley vacation facilitated the development of a three-block project near the future Judkins Park light rail station.

Transformed an area that had previously been light industrial into a mixed-use community.

The legislation in front of you would grant final approval.

Initial approval was granted in 2021. The council placed 13 conditions on the alley vacation.

Those conditions have been met, and so we were back here in front of you with final approval of the vacation.

If granted, the ordinance would accept a property use and development agreement that ensures that the improvements that have been made continue to be maintained and would grant final transfer of the alley property to Mount Baker Housing.

Okay, good morning.

And I did want to thank Chair Saka and Ian for making sure we were on this agenda.

We really appreciate it.

I think Lish has covered most of the background, and Michael's going to make a couple comments about the Design Commission review, and then Holly's going to go over the project.

But I did want to, again, talk about the fact that the City Council has established a two-step approval process for vacations.

So as Lish indicated, this was originally approved by the Council in 2021, and that is the substantive approval of the vacation.

So after the public hearing and the vote on the clerk file that contains the petition, the developer is free to go forward and build over the alley, remove the utilities, do everything.

And the policies provide for a two-step approval In order for the council to monitor the development, make sure that the developer provides all the public benefit in vision, pays all the fees, meets all of the conditions.

So we hold out the final vacation ordinance as a very important accountability tool.

So we're here now, and as Lish has indicated, we can affirm that the developer has met all of the vacations that the city council imposed on the project.

The other point that I wanted to make, which you'll see when Holly goes through, is that this vacation was really a very powerful tool in supporting this affordable housing project.

So the City Council support of the vacation allowed the consolidation of the site and really reduced the cost of developing the housing and was probably a key factor in whether this could be affordable housing or not.

So the city council supported the vacation and the waiver of the vacation fee and the city's participation in providing funding were really key in making this project happen.

And for those of you that have had the opportunity to be out there, the project turned out really well.

I think it's a great example of a partnership and the power of city support when we bring these kind of vacations in front of you.

So I think that's all I have unless there's other questions about the process.

And then we wanted Michael to say a little bit about the Design Commission, which was a very powerful voice on this as well.

Thanks, Beverly.

In 2015, the Seattle Design Commission adopted a policy on design that elevates equity and equitable outcomes.

This project is a fundamental result of that policy and really elevated what the Commission likes to see in all the projects that we look at.

How are you engaging with the community, and how can the community see their identity, their culture, and their expectations in the public spaces that are created?

This project went above and beyond the policy that we lay out, that we want people to be able to demonstrate that commitment to community.

And they did it not only in the hiring of an artist that centered the community's identity and expectations about their community in a number of ways in those public spaces.

They took an unprecedented step by creating a long-term commitment with the Cultural Space Agency to set aside a ground-level space to be used By the community, both managed and curated by the Cultural Space Agency over a significant term of life for the project.

It was unprecedented.

We didn't expect to see this.

They raised the bar for future developments to do the same thing and to take it to the next step.

The Commission pushed them very hard in this area.

They responded in ways that were unexpected and that we were very appreciative of seeing.

You'll see that in the presentation coming.

Yeah, so now we'll have the good stuff finally.

Holly will go over the project itself with Bill's Able.

He's our AV guy.

We just take him everywhere to help us.

Good morning.

I hope this is the most exciting presentation you hear today.

So as you've heard, Grand Street Commons is a three-building mixed-use affordable housing project that's located off Rainier Avenue South and Grand Street in District 3. You've heard how it was important in the delivery of affordable housing.

I know that Lish touched on the reuse of an underutilized site in that neighborhood.

It was also a brownfield site, and we did a significant environmental cleanup.

So this project brought a lot of good to the neighborhood and was very complex in its partnership.

It consists of three buildings, two of which, if you...

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you.

So two of which are labeled here GSC West and East.

Those were market rate projects developed by Lake Union Partners.

They did opt into MFTE and MHA to deliver 25% of their units at affordability levels.

And then GSC South is the building that was developed by Mount Baker Housing.

It's fully affordable, 206 units.

And then you can see South Grand Street and the plaza that was created through all of this.

So it really created a micro community within the greater neighborhood.

So in order for the affordable housing project on GSC South to be efficient in its floor plate and maximize the amount of affordable housing we could provide, we requested a vacation of an existing alley that you see here running north to south between South Grand Street and South Holgate Street.

The alley vacation was approved with public benefit conditions that included increased pedestrian and right-of-way improvements, a public plaza with a WUNERF, flexible community-oriented programming space, and enhanced landscaping, the dedicated retail space off the plaza for CSA to provide year-round cultural programming, which Michael spoke to, and then several plaza amenities and cultural elements.

The combined development provided 775 new units to the neighborhood, and 364 of these are affordable, between 50 and 80 percent AMI.

206 of those are the affordable housing project by Mount Baker, and that's at a deeper level of affordability, between 50 and 60 percent AMI.

40 of those units are three-bedroom homes because we really wanted to prioritize family-sized units in this neighborhood.

The plaza was designed to draw pedestrian traffic into and through South Grand Street between Rainier Avenue South and 23rd Avenue.

You can see the Woonerf that's created here off of Rainier through South Grand and then connects again.

It features a public splash fountain for the public to utilize.

It has five in-ground art installations that we'll look at here shortly.

There's a number of seating opportunities, abundant landscaping, and then one of the art elements that's incorporated, you can see some little glowing bulbs on here, is we have what we call garlic globes featured along the walkway.

Which is a shout out to the history of the site and the immigrants that used to settle in this location.

The other thing we wanted to make sure is that this plaza that we were creating could be used for public events.

So we did massing studies and looked at the layout and the functionality of how we could utilize it for that.

We created power bollards strategically throughout so we can host markets, events, concerts, whatever may be within this space.

And then the art that we selected was done through a competitive process, and Gabrielle Tesefe was our selected artist.

Her art, which you can see samples of here, tells a really beautiful and powerful story of the importance of water across all cultures, and it's featured in five ground plane mosaic installations throughout the plaza.

And I think you can see them on the next slide.

Yeah, so we have three there near the public fountain and two on the other side of South Grand Street.

They're all quite large installations.

We've got some beautiful plaques that tell the story of the meaning behind them and the cultures that are important to these areas throughout the plaza.

The finished plaza delivered on all of the requirements requested, but more importantly, and my favorite part, is it's even better than the rendering.

We did envision this project for almost six years, so to see the finished project here and see it activated, to see the community and the residents coming and gathering in this space and using the Splash Park is pretty powerful.

In terms of some of the more detailed requirements, the SIP work was completed in November of 2024. All public benefit coordination has been completed, including working with Metro for a last-minute request to add a rapid ride station for a future rapid expansion on this line.

We were able to get that in at the last minute.

We coordinated with the art committee, as you heard from Michael.

We've put in public access and free speech signage posted at multiple entry points throughout the plaza so the public knows they are welcome here.

And then finally, we've completed a property use and development agreement that was recorded to capture all of the ongoing maintenance obligations that will be required to maintain this site to the same level or better as it's at today.

The end result is a beautiful plaza.

If you haven't been there, I encourage you to go check it out.

It's incredibly welcoming, the art, the lighting, the landscaping, the seating.

It draws you in and feels like a place of home in this neighborhood.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ms. Barnett, Mr. Jenkins, Ms. Gardner.

Mr. Whitson, of course, as always, and then Mr. Laborde.

So, colleagues, I promised you I'd get you out of here no later than 1115, so appreciate Looks like we're on time and are on target.

Before we adjourn, I welcome any comments, questions.

And on this particular briefing, it looks like we have one from Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll be quick, keeping to your schedule.

Just to confirm, this is just south of the I-90 corridor, which is We're Deer Auto, just north of Deer Auto, which is great.

And I know that there are a ton.

So thank you all, number one, for this presentation.

Thank you for the development of this.

It's gorgeous.

I always saw this.

Saw this land and was like, oh, this would be nice to have some housing, and here we are, boom.

I also want to highlight two colleagues that there's a project just north of the I-90 corridor that is open, and Urban League, which is across the street where the old 7-Eleven, or Burger King burned down, and it used to be 7-Eleven, that's gonna be their new headquarters, which is gonna have family housing.

So that corridor of Rainier Avenue, Just that Juckins area, which obviously the development of the light rail as well, really has developed and transformed.

And I think this is a great addition to the community and having this type of space there and open space where people can walk through and just really, really appreciate the intentionality behind some of the designs and the aesthetics.

I'm a big aesthetics person, so just the aesthetics of the neighborhood and the way it feels.

Go by there often, and so just thank you all, and thank you, Mr. Chair.

Excellent.

Thank you, Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Any final comments, questions from my colleagues?

Hearing and seeing none.

Thank you again.

Great presentation.

I look forward to having you back at one of our next meetings so we can take a vote on this.

And colleagues, friendly reminder, this is the last stage, as was pointed out earlier in the presentation of a multi-year process.

So now we're at the ordinance stage.

All right.

We have reached the end of today's meeting.

Our next meeting is August 5th at 9.30 a.m.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn today?

And hearing and seeing none.

No further business come before the committee.

We are hereby adjourned.

It is 1110 AM.