Select Committee on 2024 Transportation Levy 5/7/2024

All right.

Good morning.

The May 7th, 2024 meeting of the 2024 Select Committee on Transportation Levy will come to order.

It is 1033 a.m.

I am Rob Sacca, chair of the Select Committee on Transportation Levy.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Sorry, present.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Moore.

All right, present.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Eight present.

All right, and I note that Council Member Morales has an excused absence for today's meeting.

If there are no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objections, the agenda is adopted.

All right, well, welcome colleagues.

Welcome everyone attending.

Welcome members of the public watching.

Welcome to our very first meeting of the Select Committee for the 2024 Transportation Levy.

This is truly a momentous day for this council.

The work we do here in this committee will be some of the most impactful work that any of us do during our entire time on the council.

It's an opportunity that comes just once every decade.

to build a better future for Seattle.

I want to thank the mayor's office and the Seattle Department of Transportation for their initial proposed levy.

This proposal was a tremendous amount of work.

It will serve, no doubt, as a strong foundation for this council to build upon in the weeks ahead.

However, I also have to say that what I'm most excited by this unique opportunity that we have right now is to watch the democratic process play out live right here in plain sight.

We have an opportunity to showcase our transparent process, passionate and collaborative discussions about this levy right here, again, open in plain sight in this chamber.

We're going to put our own democracy to work over the next few weeks.

So to that end, between now and July 2nd, we'll have five public meetings, two public hearings, and hundreds of individual discussions, all to help us shape the future of Seattle's transportation infrastructure.

No smoky back rooms, just these conversations right here.

happening again right here in plain sight in council chambers.

And our whole community is invited.

And I thank some folks who are showing up and attending in person today and watching on television as well.

The work of building transportation infrastructure may seem like the boring, dull, dry work of government, but to the contrary, there's very few things that we do every day that impact our city and our community more.

This transportation levy is about building and maintaining sidewalks.

Too many of our communities don't have sidewalks at all.

27% missing sidewalks in the city to be exact.

And many others that do have sidewalks are in desperate need of repairs.

We know that the burden sadly is felt disproportionately in Districts 2 in South Seattle and Districts 5 in North Seattle.

But this transportation levy is also about safeguarding the future of our bridges.

As the council representative whose district includes West Seattle, my community learned firsthand the hard way just how important our bridge infrastructure truly is to our cities, to our communities, to our economy.

But we're not alone.

Our bridge maintenance study in 2020 revealed that bridges across the city Especially the Magnolia Bridge in District 6 and the University Bridge in District 4 are also in critical needs of repairs.

Not stopping there.

This transportation levy is about making our roads safe for everyone and allowing people to better connect our neighborhoods, no matter whether people are walking, biking, rolling, driving, or using transit.

Choices to do all these things.

There were a number of those improvements, especially in District 3, called out in the Seattle Transportation Plan that we just passed and adopted just a few short weeks ago.

But now is the time for us to fund a plan to achieve these goals.

This transportation levy is about supporting our local economy by activating our streets and public spaces.

This is especially true for District 7. We have an amazing opportunity.

To envision a new future for downtown and its related corridors and create truly people centered spaces and experiences there.

Most of all, this transportation levy is about keeping our community safe.

Just a few weeks ago, the Council's Transportation Committee received a Vision Zero update from SDOT.

Unfortunately, it showed that 22% of fatal crashes and serious injuries happened in my own District 1, closely followed by District 2. And every individual district has some alarming stats.

Colleagues, that's unacceptable.

It puts into context exactly how important the work we do here is.

We obviously know it's well understood at this point that transportation and growth management and land use policy are tightly connected and interwoven.

They go hand in hand, but transportation safety is also a broader public safety issue.

So we have a, again, we have an incredible opportunity right here, right now to roll up our sleeves, literally roll up our sleeves and build a better future for Seattle.

Building and maintaining our bridges and roads and sidewalks and bike lanes and buses may seem like the boring nitty gritty work of government, but again, few things truly shape the way we interact with our city and connect with each other more.

We have a tremendous, not just opportunity, but responsibility to get this right and to deliver the everyday basics in an extraordinary way.

Bold basics, if you will.

I'm looking forward to a transparent open dialogue where voices are heard.

And you know about what the this plan should ideally include.

And again, ensuring that all communities voices are heard as part of this process before we vote on a plan.

In this body in this chamber.

All right.

That said.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Today's public comment period will be up to an hour if needed.

We have a lot of items to get through today and regular council meeting this afternoon.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

We have 20 in person and six remote.

All right.

Each speaker will have approximately one minute.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

Yes, speakers will be called in the order in which they're registered.

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

Our first two in-person speakers will be Rita Holzman, followed by Steve Rubstello.

Good morning.

My name is Rita Holzman, and I am a lifelong resident of Seattle.

I'm here today to comment on funding for bike safety and Vision Zero.

My husband, Steve Holzman, who was riding his bike in our neighborhood last December 21st when a driver turned left directly across the traffic lane my husband was traveling in.

In the resulting collision, my husband suffered catastrophic injuries and did not survive.

So four days before Christmas, Steve became a Seattle traffic fatality statistic.

But he was so much more than a statistic to me.

He was a loving dad to our three kids and grandpa to our young grandson.

He was also a much-loved brother, uncle, friend, and my husband of over 40 years.

We would have celebrated our 42nd anniversary tomorrow.

Please don't let this happen to anyone else.

Please fund Vision Zero and safety well.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Steve Rubstello, followed by Cecilia Black.

I thought Alex was hard to follow.

I'm concerned about this major proposal, and I hope that you get a good summary of what was done the last time around.

I hear a lot about bridges and overpasses every time one of these things come up.

And I also know about reallocation.

So I certainly hope that you will segregate the funds there because this seems to be a occurrence every time we have one of these, you sell on one basis and you spend on another.

And so hopefully you will help protect the city from this desire to do that with the special projects.

The other thing that I'm very concerned about is The fatalities and people getting hurt.

I think it's time to make sure that we keep mobility.

Stop taking away all the lanes and turning our roads into.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Cecilia Black and following Cecilia will be Alice Lockhart.

Hello, my name is Erin Musser, instead of Cecilia.

I am here to talk about this.

I was so excited.

I'm representing the Disability Mobility Initiative.

And I was so excited when the transportation levy passed until I learned that the most important part to me, the sidewalks, was kind of pushed down to the bottom, if not even just ignored completely.

And I really hope that that will not be done again because when I take my right to go up to take my light rail and do things I need to do, if I go over a big bump, it can jostle me and my legs are very tight with MS and I will shoot out and I can't get them back by myself.

And that takes away the independence that I love so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alice Lockhart, and following Alice will be Katie Wilson.

Good morning, Council.

I'm Alice Lockhart with 350 Seattle.

Polling has shown there is voter appetite for a bigger, bolder, and more multimodal transportation levy that builds radically more sidewalks and helps people without cars get where they are going.

Climate justice requires exactly the same thing.

Council, Seattle is not making our climate goals, and the only way to decrease the close to two-thirds of climate pollution from transportation is to get us out of our cars and onto feet, bikes, and transit.

and wheels, but the kind of wheels we've just seen here, by making it safer and more convenient to transit via these modes.

The levy isn't gonna buy me an EV, but a levy that makes buses fast and convenient is both affordable and necessary.

We look to use multimodal funding to at least half the levy and to ensure that the levy is at least as good for transit as move Seattle was and much better for sidewalks.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Katie Wilson and following Katie will be Clara Cantor.

Hi, council members.

My name is Katie Wilson, and I'm here representing the Transit Riders Union.

And this is Josephine.

mode shift goals for 2030, including more than doubling the transit percentage of all trips from 11% to 24%.

This shift is necessary not only to reduce carbon emissions, but also to keep our whole transportation system functional as Seattle's population continues to grow.

We can't achieve this mode shift without stepping up investment in our public transit system.

The current levy proposal, while a good starting point, represents a decrease in transit investment compared to the expiring levy, not an increase.

We know that Seattle voters support a larger levy.

We hope that you will increase the size of this levy proposal in part by adding transit dollars to make it possible for Seattleites to get where they need to go quickly and reliably.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Clara Cantor and following Clara is Merlin Rainwater.

Hi, my name is Clara Cantor.

I'm a community organizer with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and I'm a resident in District 2. I get around mostly by biking and on transit, often with my two young kids.

And I'm here to just say that the public supports a bigger levy that invests in sidewalks and safety.

The mayor's proposal that you'll hear about today, it dramatically increases funding for bridges and repaving, but it's a decrease in the annual investment in sidewalks and in transit in particular.

I know that sidewalks and safety are big priorities for this council and in the transportation plan that you all just worked so hard to pass.

And so we're excited to work with council to improve the package so that we can make desperately needed investments to set Seattle up for the growth of our population, our economy, and make our city accessible for the 40% of Seattleites that are non-drivers, including people with disabilities, youth, elders, and families like mine.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Merlin Rainwater, and following Merlin will be Robin Briggs.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Merlin Rainwater.

A couple of days ago, I turned 78. I get around the city by bicycle primarily.

I still ride an acoustic bike, even though the hills keep getting steeper every year.

Seattle needs more people like me In the long run, it's a lot cheaper to support those of us who walk, bike and use transit.

We don't put the same wear and tear on our streets as cars do.

We don't emit climate destroying gases.

So I really, I urge you to make the upfront that's necessary to change our priority from supporting automobiles to supporting people like me.

I hope that you will also be with me when you're 78 years old.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Robin Briggs and following Robin will be Lee Lambert.

Good morning, my name is Robin Briggs.

I live on Capitol Hill, and I'm here today to ask for a bolder vision of Seattle's transportation levy, where cars and other forms of transportation share a 50-50 split of the funding.

Where there are sidewalks for walking, protected lanes for biking, dedicated lanes for buses, as well as space for cars.

Where we don't have to mix it up, get injured, or get angry at each other.

I believe that this will get all of us where we're going faster and more safely.

But the truth is, even if it doesn't, we would have to do this anyway.

Transportation is responsible for 61% of our total emissions.

That won't change unless we make it possible for residents to choose lower carbon ways of getting around.

Seattle residents are ready for this change.

We are asking you for it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, our next speaker is Lee Lambert, and then our last speaker for this section will be Ed Ewing, following Lee.

Good afternoon and good morning, council members.

My name's Lee Lambert, I'm the exec director of Cascade Bicycle Club.

We represent people who ride bikes out of necessity for recreation or for transportation.

And I'm here to say we support and appreciate the mayor's levy proposal.

It makes critical investments in areas that build on prior investments in the Move Seattle Levy.

particularly in Southeast and Southwest Seattle and our most dangerous corridors.

People's bike rides are only as safe as the most dangerous part, and these investments will make the city more accessible by bike for some of our most financially impacted communities.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ed Ewing, and then we'll move into remote speakers.

Good morning, council.

My name is Ed Ewing.

I'm the executive director of Bike Works.

Bike Works is a Columbia City-based nonprofit.

We've been in Columbia City since 1996. We are in strong support of the mayor's transportation levy proposal.

At Bike Works, we get in the hands of 3,000 people bikes every year, and 75% of those people are black and brown youth and black and brown adults.

And about 1,200 of those are youth.

And we look at those as not just 3,000 bicycles, but 3,000 lives.

So we like the proposal.

It prioritizes transportation in critical areas in South Seattle, where they have the most dangerous streets and most vulnerable population.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Our first remote speaker will be Katie Ricudo, and following Katie will be Scott Bonjoukian.

And remote speakers, please remember to press star six when you hear the message that you have been unmuted.

Star six.

I see you, Katie.

Did you press star six?

GO AHEAD.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

YEP.

YEP.

YEP.

HI, COUNCIL MEMBERS.

HI, COUNCIL MEMBERS.

HI, COUNCIL MEMBERS.

MY NAME IS KATIE RUQUIDO AND MY NAME IS KATIE RUQUIDO AND MY NAME IS KATIE RUQUIDO AND I'M A STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER I'M A STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER I'M A STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR LID I-5 AND LID I-5 NORTH FOR LID I-5 AND LID I-5 NORTH FOR LID I-5 AND LID I-5 NORTH SEATTLE.

SEATTLE.

SEATTLE.

THE CURRENT LEVY PROPOSAL THE CURRENT LEVY PROPOSAL THE CURRENT LEVY PROPOSAL ALLOCAT The recent increase in density in the U District and surrounding neighborhoods calls for additional considerations around open space and housing.

There are at least seven acres of developable land available on the east side of the highway where this bike bridge is proposed that could be incorporated into a larger highway lid with housing, open space, and safe bicycle and pedestrian routes.

A community-led effort is currently underway to raise awareness at this site.

The city should align with these community-led efforts, including expanding the study scope, as well as considering a $40 million request for additional highway mitigation projects, not just here, but also in the rest of Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Scott Bonjoukian, followed by Akisha Chatterjee.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Scott Bonjouki, and I'm speaking on behalf of a coalition of advocates requesting freeway mitigation work in the transportation levy, following a larger transportation alliance who have requested $40 million for this category.

So far, we haven't seen anything like this in the levy, but yet the proposed projects meet all of the mayor's and council's stated goals for helping people get where they need to go quickly and affordably while improving our environment.

mitigating climate change.

These projects are in neighborhoods with growing population, disconnected street grids, and areas identified as priorities for equity investment.

Projects include living I-5s in District 3 and District 7 in downtown, in District 4 in the U District, between District 1 and 2 in Georgetown, District 5 in the future light rail station, the I-5 underpasses in District 2, reconnecting South Park around Highway 99 in District 1, safety improvements in 204 Avenue in District 5 and 6, and many more.

We will look forward to talking with the council more about the proposal, and we look forward to the discussion.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Akeesha Chatterjee, followed by Catherine Oseen Senda.

Go ahead, Akeesha.

Good morning.

My name is Akeesha Chatterjee.

I'm a campaigns director with 350 Seattle, and I'm here to ask for a bigger and bolder transportation levy that dedicates at least 50% of funding to increasing walking, rolling, and biking in transit.

As we've heard, transportation accounts for over 60% of Seattle's carbon pollution.

This air and noise pollution is concentrated along highways and other arterials built on top of and through low-income and communities of color.

And Seattle continues to build affordable housing almost exclusively along these corridors.

To meet the city's own 2030 climate goals and achieve climate justice, we need a more robust transportation levy.

one that rapidly increases investments in bike, pedestrian, and transit networks and absolutely does not increase car-centric funding.

These investments will go a long way to make our streets safer and more accessible, too.

Our streets should be oriented around people and community needs over car-centric priorities.

This is an opportunity to usher in a well-connected city that takes care of its communities, and we hope you'll help us move towards that future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Catherine Osin-Senda, and following Catherine will be David Haynes.

Catherine, you may need to press star six.

Okay, we will move on to David Haynes and we'll come back and try Catherine following David Haynes.

Go ahead, David.

Thank you, David Haynes.

We need to create pedestrian, cyclist, and resident-friendly walking neighborhoods without the road rage driving through every block.

Stop the transportation accommodation to the laziness of the modern wheel bothering residents, pedestrians, and cyclists as cars and trucks are road raging every block in community.

There is a real problem with inner city quality created road rage where toxic leukemia exhaust of the pipes of cars spew their soot and street dust and headlights right where they think people should walk on side of the sidewalk of the road where the entire path is overwhelmed with poisonous air, toxic soot, getting in nostrils, hair, Closed lungs, eyes, wondering what's causing cancer and why the quality of living isn't there.

Maybe we need to walk off the streets and give neighbors a reprieve of inconsiderate drunk drivers bothering residents and cyclists still subhuman mistreated by infrastructure always accommodating the laziness of combustible vehicles.

We need investments in noise abatement walls around transit-oriented housing due to loud, obnoxious link light rail train and King County Metro, who does not do anything about the drug pushers at the bus stop.

Thank you, David.

And our next speaker is Catherine Queen Osinsenda.

And Catherine, you may need to press star six.

Okay, she is not coming through, so we will move on to Carlo Alcantara.

Carlo Alcantara.

And Carlos is not present.

We'll move back to more in-person public comment now.

Our next public commenter will be Lily Hayward, and following Lily will be Nicole Grant.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Lily Hayward, and I am here today on behalf of the more than 2,500 members of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber came to the table with the mayor's office in Estat during the development of the levy renewal because the thriving, equitable and inclusive regional economy, which is our mission, is predicated on the safe, reliable and efficient movement of people and goods.

We thank Mayor Harrell, Estat and city staff for putting forward a levy renewal proposal that incorporates across the city.

To the chamber and our members, that means five things.

One, fixing roads and bridges.

Two, investing in safety.

Three, making our busiest transit and freight routes more reliable and making it easier to get to light rail.

Four, prioritizing downtown Seattle.

And five, doing the work equitably across the city.

This levy is important and we believe the right stakeholder and voter priorities are reflected in it.

We look forward to working with you as you consider the mayor's proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nicole Grant, and following Nicole is Gordon Padelfed.

Hello.

Nicole Grant with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 46. And my phone's ringing.

That's my walk-up music.

All right.

We saw the mayor's proposal and it has $22 million for electrical vehicle funding in it.

And we're immensely grateful for Mayor Harrell's leadership.

In 2035, you will not be able to buy a new fossil fuel powered vehicle anywhere on the West Coast.

And what happens with this levy right now, the main and only levy between now and then, is going to determine who can drive in Seattle.

Have to have more infrastructure.

we have to invest another $25 million in EV infrastructure.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Gordon Padelfed, followed by Rich Foggett.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Gordon Pedelford and I'm the executive director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

I want to start off by thanking Chair Saka for talking about Vision Zero.

I also want to talk about Vision Zero because I think it's our most paramount duty to make sure that our neighbors are safe getting to where they need to go and getting home at the end of the day to their loved ones.

And this proposal is a great base to build off of, but we need to do more to keep people safe as they're getting around on our streets.

You know, I think something that's a misconception about Vision Zero is the idea that there'll never be any crashes again.

And that's not what it's about.

It's about making sure that when we have those fender benders, no one gets seriously injured and has a lifelong disability.

No one...

dies on our streets, right?

These are not statistics.

These are family members.

These are loved ones.

These are friends.

These are our colleagues, our community members.

When we're thinking about reaching Vision Zero, we're thinking about keeping each other safe.

And to me, that is the most important duty we have together, whether you're electeds, citizens, government.

So as you work to make this transportation levy better, I implore you to think about Vision Zero and especially pedestrian safety.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rich Voget, and following Rich will be Jonathan Gonzalez.

Over 70% of U.S. climate emissions come from cities.

It was responsible for the Seattle Climate Action Plan be written with the goal of reducing Seattle's emissions 58% by 2030. Every decision, every day, you, the council, make going forward must be viewed as either acting to decrease emissions or preventing more emissions.

There is no time to make a wrong decision and then later reverse it without losing ground on climate mitigation.

The transportation levy is a long-term decision that can decrease emissions if there is a 50-50 split of funding for cars and for alternatives to cars, which include transit, bike PLANNED GOAL OF NINE TRIPS OUT OF TEN BE ZERO CARBON BY 2030. SPENDING MORE THAN 50% ON ROADS AND BRIDGES IS WRONG FOR THE CLIMATE.

THANK YOU.

OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS JONATHAN GONZALEZ AND FOLLOWING JONATHAN IS KATE WELLS.

HELLO.

MY NAME IS JONATHAN GONZALEZ.

I'M A RESIDENT OF DISTRICT SIX.

I'M HERE TO STILL ACCOUNT TO KNOW THAT I SUPPORT A LARGER 1.7 BILLION TRANSPORTATION LEVY one that dedicates at least 50% of the funding to increase walking, biking, rolling, and transit.

taking transit in the city.

I live in Ballard, and as I try to walk around the neighborhood, I met with speeding cars with little regard to my safety and the safety of people around me.

My husband works in downtown, not too far from here.

He bikes to work several days a week.

He's had several incidents with cars.

That's really scary for us.

He said that he's not sure if he wants to continue biking in the city because he's scared of getting injured in a way that we can't recover from.

So I'm asking you to support a larger levy so we can continue investing in making the city a safe place for everyone to get around in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kate Wells.

And following Kate will be Amaro Schermerhorn.

Good morning, Council.

My name's Kate Wells.

I'm a District 1 resident and a leader of West Seattle Bike Connections.

I try to bike everywhere I can, but most people I know are too afraid to ride if they have to ride with cars.

It doesn't make a difference to them whether a route is zero, 50, or 80% protected.

It's not safe enough.

The last two levees did a great job of building bike infrastructure, but a lot of it was, frankly, low-hanging fruit.

And this levee is going to need to do the hard work of finishing and connecting bike routes that will encourage these potential riders to experience the fun, healthy, climate-friendly way of getting around by bike.

Polling has shown that Seattleites will support a larger levy that prioritizes planet-friendly travel like this.

So please, I urge you to craft a bigger and bolder levy that will get us through the next eight years.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amara Schermerhorn.

And following Amara, we'll go back to Catherine in the remote and take Catherine and Carlo in the remote callers.

Hello, my name is Amara Skirmerhorn and I currently live in North Seattle.

So in order to support safe transportation across Seattle, I am asking for an enhanced transportation levy of $1.9 billion, $200 million to be added to Vision Zero projects and at least 380 million to support the Seattle Transportation Plan's goal of completing all missing sidewalks by 2044. As a low vision pedestrian with a condition called nystagmus, I have always known I would not be able to drive, so I've been taking public transit around Seattle for the past 10 years.

I believe that by investing in Vision Zero and complete sidewalks, we can ensure accessibility for all when driving is not an option, as everybody has the choice to choose how to get around.

Thank you.

Thank you, our next speaker will be our remote speaker, Catherine Osin-Senda.

And please press star six just once.

Okay, we are going to move on to Carlo Alcantara.

Carlo Alcantara, go ahead, please.

Hello.

My name is Carlo Alcantara.

I am a D5 resident.

I volunteer with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways as well as the Aurora Reimagine Coalition.

And I'm just also a neighbor who lives in the city.

I wanted to express my support for the levy and ask that the council do more.

I want to thank Councilmember Moore specifically for taking on the charge of more sidewalks.

And while the initial 250 sidewalks as proposed is a good start, It fails significantly short of the thousands that we're currently lacking.

For perspective, King County Metro's own statistics provide insight into how our community is affected by this lack of sidewalk access and transit as well.

At present, filtering down for something like the E line, which is one of our busiest and most frequent and our highest ridership lines, accounts for misridership due to what they call overload.

At present, King County Metro reports an average of 40 missed rider pickups due to wheelchair overload.

Couple that with no sidewalks, that's unacceptable for the city.

So please add more and do more for sidewalks in the levy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Ethan Campbell.

And following Ethan will be Kirk Havenkotter.

My name is Ethan Campbell and I live in D3.

This levy would make critically important investments in a safer, more climate-friendly transportation system.

I want to share two ways it can be even better.

To get around the city, I bike, walk, and use transit.

Biking is a source of joy and mobility for me and many others, but it's also a source of stress because I fear being hit and killed by a driver.

so i'm grateful that this levy will invest in bike safety but as you'll see in the map in your briefing from sdot today our city's bike network would remain almost comically fragmented under this levy safety deserves more robust funding the levee's transit investments are also a good start but they represent a 16 decrease from the current levy after inflation that will not help us reach our city's climate goal of doubling transit ridership by 2030. so council members for transit projects in this levy because to reach our climate goals, we need to invest in making sure that buses are not stuck in traffic so that there are fast and reliable alternative to driving for more residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kirk Howancotter followed by Kylie Rolfe.

Hi, I'm Kirkhoven Cotter.

I'm the Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition.

We're Washington State's nonprofit advocate for safe, sustainable, and equitable transportation.

And we strongly support the mayor's transportation levy that's before you today.

Seattle residents are hungry for transit.

People want to be able to make light rail an everyday part of their lives, and they want to be able to get around without being dependent on a car.

and we believe that the proposal before you answers those calls.

We are thrilled that it invests in additional transit priority to speed up buses and make our trips more reliable.

We also know that transit trips start at everyone's front door, which is why we're excited that this proposal invests in sidewalk gaps, making it easy for people to accessibly walk to light rail and busy bus stops.

Seattle voters want a levy that's ambitious about the basics.

And in the 21st century, the basics are more bus lanes that speed up buses, safe walks to traffic, active public spaces, and protected bike lanes.

We know that these investments will make Seattle safer and are popular.

And we're thrilled to be able to work with you on the finishing touches on this levy, as well as to promptly send it to voters.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kylie Rolfe.

And following Kylie is Sonatina Sanchez.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Kylie Rolfe, Vice President for Advocacy and Economic Development at the Downtown Seattle Association.

The DSA has long been champions of transportation solutions to move people and goods safely, reliably, and sustainably for a healthy and thriving Seattle.

Over the past few months, we've appreciated the opportunity to work collaboratively with Estat and Mayor Harrell's team to help shape a transportation levy that focuses on our shared priorities of safety, asset preservation, maintenance, and freight and transit investments made equitably across the city.

We're especially thrilled to see $15 million proposed for downtown Seattle activation and placemaking as we continue to revitalize downtown and plan for the transformation of Third Avenue in the long term.

We also strongly support the proposed People Streets program, which will partner with BIAs to improve the public realm and support thriving neighborhood business districts.

And we support increased investments in transit reliability as more people turn to office, as well as urge you to make additional investments in freight to get goods to businesses.

An accountable and transparent levy will increase public confidence.

We look forward to continuing to work with you on the continued development of this important transportation levy proposal over the coming months.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last two speakers are Sonatina Sanchez, followed by Bree Ginseld.

Hello, my name is Sonatina Sanchez.

I'm a resident of District 3, and I have been working in bike advocacy, pedestrian advocacy, and transit advocacy for the last 20 years, basically my entire adult life.

I was raised by a non-driver.

My mom is functionally illiterate and was not able to drive, so I grew up from getting into the city from Holly Park on the 7, back when it used to go all the way to the U District.

And so I've seen a lot of changes in transportation over my life.

And I know that when we invest in active transportation models, we improve the health of our community and the economic resiliency of our city.

I hope that the council is able to listen to the engineers in the Seattle Department of Transportation who have pushing these issues for the last 20, 30, 40 years.

We missed a chance with...

forward levy in 1970s, and I don't think that we should waste the next 20, 30 years by missing this chance to increase our active transportation money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last speaker today is Bree Geinkeld.

Close enough.

Hi, I'm Bree Geinkeld.

I live in District 3. And as you listen to public comment and consider how to shape this levy over the next several weeks, I ask you to think about the moment in time.

This is a very critical moment in time.

Within the span of this levy is 2030. We hear 2030 a lot.

2030 is the goal date for Vision Zero, the date by which we want to have no fatal or serious injuries in our traffic system.

2030 is also the date that we hear as a critical date for climate emissions.

And the transportation package and how we fund transportation play into both of those goals.

And this is the opportunity.

If we wait until the next levy to make changes we need to make, we've gotten past our deadline.

The city set those deadlines for a reason.

And I urge you to embrace both the opportunity and the responsibility to fund a levy that gets us to those places.

I also wanna say, I'm a homeowner and I'm asking you to tax me more.

And I think a lot of people in this city want to pay and get results, want to pay for the results that we're looking for.

We've got polling that shows that and I hope you embrace this opportunity.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We do have one more speaker, Divinity.

Hey, everyone.

My name is Divinity.

My public name is Simon Kalkovecchia.

I'm here to support the funding and increase in funding for sidewalks.

I'm relatively new to the city, but as of now, when I travel through the streets, I've just seen almost...

really difficult pathways on the sidewalks where I have to go out into the street.

I feel unsafe.

I feel like if I'm dealing with this, then there are many, many people dealing with this with disabilities.

I would really like to see an increase in funding for the bus system, even getting in and on the bus.

With my wheelchair, I am feeling really crammed.

I get stuck.

I don't feel like I can get on and off the bus as easily accessible as I should be able to, and I really support the increase of funding.

Please make that happen.

Thank you.

And that's it.

All right.

There are no additional registered speakers, and we'll now proceed to...

Our other items of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Agenda item one, move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee report and recommendations.

All right.

Will our presenters please join us at the table and share your presentation.

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

Good morning.

Morning.

Good morning.

I'm Jerry

I'm Geri Poorer, a levy oversight co-chair, and with us today is Lisa Bogardas in the chamber, levy oversight committee vice chair, and Kevin Werner, also virtual, also a levy oversight co-chair.

We want to thank you for the opportunity to share our recommendations with this select levy committee.

We have briefed the Transportation Committee on March 19, but since that time, we have submitted our recommendations letter on April 15, and we're here today to give an overview.

I'll move quickly through the first five slides and turn it over to Lisa.

Thank you, uh, we'll start with an overview of the committee purpose and our recommendation.

Requirement and then move into recommendations on the next slide.

Our bottom line up front is that the levy oversight committee does recommend.

The voters that the council submit a new levy after the current levy proposal to the voters after the current 1 expires next year.

And we have sent final recommendations in April, on April 15th, as outlined in the ordinance.

Next slide, please.

This slide shows members of the committee currently who are appointed both by mayor and council or the modal boards each send one member, bike, transit, freight, and pedestrian modal boards.

over time there have been 49 oh in addition let me um mention uh welcome council member saka on our committee and a delegate from the city budget office soros already i will further note that over the past nine years of the levy there have been 49 different people on the committee at one time or another and one of our members has been with the committee all the way through and we can go on to the next slide please The levy oversight committee, you can read these words and details at your leisure, but it's an advisory body.

Um.

Which monitors the implementation advises the council mayor and on recommendations and produces annual reports to the public.

and that is outlined in the ordinance.

Also outlined in the ordinance is our current activity.

One time here at the end of the current levy, we are asked to make a recommendation on the advisability of another letter.

And just to repeat what I said before, we have drafted that letter and send it over to the mayor and council on April 15th.

So I hope you have access to that.

At this point, I'll turn it over to Lisa.

And good morning, everyone.

I'm Lisa Bogardas, Vice Chair of the Levee Oversight Committee and also Assistant Executive Secretary for the Seattle Building Trades Labor Council.

And I was appointed to this committee by Mayor Durkan, so I've been on for for a little while.

Next slide talks about SDOT's funding sources.

As you'll see, and I'm sure you're all aware, that the Move Seattle fund comprises about 30% of SDOT's total revenue.

The next largest fund source is the general fund.

As you'll know from the letter that we submitted to you in April, we are encouraging and supportive of a new levy going forward.

But we're also encouraging that transportation dollars continue to be funded through the general fund and then other sources as well.

Even though we've had bold levies in the past, the condition of our transportation system has continued to deteriorate even as goals were met under those levies.

So ensuring that the next levy moves forward in a bold manner, but then also that we continue to fund through the general fund and other sources, as you'll see in our letter, that we're supportive of that as well.

Next slide.

In preparing for our recommendations, it was a fairly lengthy process.

The committee, the oversight committee took our role very seriously throughout the nine years, but especially in reviewing the progress under the current levy, the success and also challenges, and then also how to make our recommendations.

So it was about a two-year period.

We had the levy implementation review from about spring 2022 through summer 2023. SDOT provided overviews of all 30 levy programs to the Levy Oversight Committee.

We reviewed the availability of other revenue sources and also the Oversight Committee identified some other sources that are contained in the letter that we provided.

We also reviewed whether or not there was an underlying need for a future levy and how we can collaborate with SDOT in linking the Seattle Transportation Plan with future funding sources.

Again, trying to look outside the box of just a levy to ensure that our transportation needs can be met going forward.

We also had reflections on our oversight function as a committee and developing recommendations for how that can be improved.

Although I think we all agreed that the committee structure worked well, we did find some areas in our letter and recommended ways that it can be improved.

And finally, as Jerry mentioned, we submitted our letter on April 15th.

So overall, it was about a two-year process.

Next slide.

And the program's presentations that we received included all of the safe routes to schools, safe routes part of the program, the maintenance repair for bridges and roads, congestion relief.

The only one that we did not receive a review of was the Graham light rail station, related to the Graham light rail station, the connections, just because that's not moving forward as due to scheduling and funding through Sound Transit.

Next slide.

The implementation overview included the 30 programs and just to kind of a look back to how did we do?

How did SDOT do?

SDOT is meeting or exceeding 27 of those 30 goals from the 2015 levy.

As folks are aware, the bicycle safety program will get close to meeting the 2015 goals and will exceed the 2018 amended goals.

As folks know, there was a levy reset in 2018 where we had to look at what was promised in the levy, what was actually attainable due to a variety of issues around that time.

and had to reset the goals in the original levy.

The bicycle safety programs exceeding those, which is great, and is going to come close to the 2015, though some specific projects outlined in the levy will not be completed.

Overall, by the end of 24, we expect 80 to 90% of the 110 miles promised in the 2000 levy to be completed.

Two of the multimodal improvement programs will not be met due to project schedule changes.

As we noted in our letter, these are very complicated projects with scheduling, and we expect that those will continue to move forward but won't be completed.

The Graham Streetlight rail connection is postponed.

And then as you've heard today, and we're aware of the safety corridor program projects are meeting their goals.

The city is no closer to meeting the goal of eliminating traffic related deaths than in 2015. And again, our focus is on the kind of the nuts and bolts of the infrastructure system.

transportation system that we have in Seattle, but then also on how do we create a safer system for everybody?

And I think you'll see that throughout our recommendations.

And lastly, while the number of bridges receiving seismic upgrades in the bridge seismic program is meeting the goals, The specific bridges are different than the original work plan listed in the levy materials.

Notably, the Ballard and Fremont bridges were removed from the list, and that was due to costs far exceeding what was originally estimated for the seismic program.

And I believe five of the bridges were pulled out, major bridges and smaller bridges were put in.

So the number is there, but the scope of the program had to be significantly scaled back.

in the current levy.

Success.

There were a lot of successes, and I'll mention a few right now that we also referenced in our letter and recommendations.

The North Gate Bridge, that was completed in 2021. It's an essential bridge and pedestrian and bike link between North Gate Light Rail Station and the West Side neighborhoods at I-5.

And it also planted 465 trees.

So I know that tree cover is very important to everyone in Seattle, and that was also a priority during the levy.

The Lander Street Bridge was also a success.

This has improved freight mobility and local access and also came in under budget, which is always a nice thing to see as well.

The Fairview Bridge, this was also a seismic upgrade replacement of a decaying bridge and included improvements to the pedestrian and bike infrastructure.

We had smaller flexible programs that also proved to be very successful, safe routes to school, exceeded the goals every year of the levy and increased safety for students walking and biking to schools.

And the focus for that and the neighborhood street fund is in historically underfunded areas of the city.

So very, very positive outcomes in increasing safety for children living in those areas.

The Neighborhood Street Fund, 25 projects were completed, also expected to exceed the goals of the levy.

And also we focused through the Neighborhood Street Fund on areas that had been historically underfunded.

And then the Freight Spots Improvements Program.

This was mostly in the MIC area, the Manufacturing Industrial Center, and prioritized improvements for safer lane channelization, truck parking, and rail track removal.

Sometimes not the things that make the front page of the paper, but all very important for our transportation infrastructure system in the city so that we have a functioning system.

Tree planting, SDOT exceeded the number of trees that it anticipated planting and also replaced every tree removed due to safety or disease with new trees as outlined in the original goals.

and the partnerships with Seattle Public Utilities.

As defined in the Move Seattle Levy Goals, two specific projects are highlighted and were in the goals.

That's the South Park and Broadview projects.

These improved drainage to reduce flooding and also reconstructed streets with new sidewalks and trees.

And again, we could find efficiencies, cost saving, and also could get a better overall system when we have partnerships between agencies.

So that was a great success.

And with that, I will turn it over to Kevin, who is virtual.

Great.

Thanks, Lisa.

And good morning, Chair Saka, other members of the committee.

It's good to be here.

My name is Kevin Warner.

I am the co-chair, together with Jerry, of the Levy Oversight Committee.

I've been on the committee since 2020, and this has been a really great experience to pull together these recommendations.

I just wanted to start with a couple overarching comments before I dive into the specific recommendations.

As both Jerry and Lisa said, the committee is called on in ordinance to make recommendations to you all on the next levy.

And that's something that we've taken really seriously as Lisa just talked about our process.

We've been at this for a couple of years looking into the various nooks and crannies of the current levy.

We've done deep dives, not just in the levy, but also the total assets of the city and for transportation.

So we've been considering that pretty, pretty deeply and pretty strongly for the last couple of years.

I'll also add that these recommendations that there's 16 members of our committee that Jerry shared.

We've got by design, and I think appropriately so, a very diverse committee.

These recommendations are consensus recommendations from all 16 members.

Everybody has signed on to these recommendations.

So I think they carry some significant weight because of that process and because of the consensus process that we used.

So I wanted to start with that.

There's eight recommendations.

I'd also offer, and I think Jerry mentioned this, that you all have the full letter.

It's a 14-page letter, 10 pages of text and then four pages of appendices.

That letter obviously goes into more detail than what we're going to do here, but we have boiled it down to eight recommendations.

John Potter, To talk to you about here this morning, these are in no particular order, except for the first one, the first one is the most important if you go back one slide.

John Potter, And this is our recommendation for the next transportation package to be bold isn't bigger we clarified that with the committee and in fact there's there's consensus on the committee thinking that we need a full levy would increase funding.

for the following reasons, and we go into safety, equity, climate, accessibility, and affordability.

Appendix A in our letter goes through each one of those dimensions, you know, the rationale and motivation for why we think that we need a bigger, bolder levy going forward.

I would say that these are areas that we've, we'll talk about equity in particular here, but all four, all five of these areas are important for the committee, and I think hopefully important for you all as well.

next slide um we wanted to talk about revenue sources so as jerry showed in earlier this slide deck that the the city department of transportation's funding is is you know sort of disproportionately coming from the current levy and that was not lost on us and so we we spent some time talking about the the need to look at other revenue sources um and this is something we spent you know some significant time on in particular with respect to roadways and bridges we spent a lot of time talking about bridges and and the the cost to bring our bridges up to current standards and have them last into the future.

And so this is an area that we really wanted to highlight and encourage.

Yeah, we're making recommendations here on the next levy, but we also want to encourage the city to look at the full range of transportation funding and look at those other sources and especially around our roadways and bridges.

Along with that, and related as our 3rd recommendation, we did spend some time in our 2nd appendix.

We list out what we did sort of an exploratory exercise.

And what are the funding tools that could be available to the city to look at to support these various projects and programs?

And we had some interesting discussion around.

How do you sort of.

assign the future generations are going to be benefiting from some of these projects that have really long horizons.

Are there funding tools that can spread out the burden for paying for those tools or for those projects further into the future?

And so some of that thinking is reflected in our second appendix, and we certainly encourage you to take a look at that.

That was really an exploratory exercise by our committee.

The fourth recommendation, this is obviously a big-ticket levy, the current levy, the New Seattle levy, and the one that's proposed for the future.

And we want to encourage the SDOT to be prepared to execute on that as quickly as possible.

We, as Lisa talked about, we did have the reset in the middle of the current levy, and I think there's lessons to be learned there that can be applied as we look to the next levy.

Next slide, please.

Racial and social equity, this was not called out in the current ordinance, but it's one that we have gauged quite a lot with SDOT and have been really impressed with SDOT's work around equity and how they're thinking about equity and not just thinking about it, but actually Implementing it and executing it in their planning across many, if not all of their current programs.

And we think this is an area that's going to be important in the future and want to encourage the council and the mayor to include this in the composition and construction of the next levy.

Um, number six, this one's about the the notion of over promising, but also flexibility, right?

So the current levy, the current ordinance has a number of flexibilities built into it.

Um, those flexibilities were were exercised to some extent, but could have been exercised perhaps more.

So we want to encourage the city to.

To continue to include flexibility in the levy construction, so that it can be adapted as the as the 8 years of the next let me go go go by and we can we can adjust according to experiences that we have with the current levy.

Um.

We also, along with stone number six, we want to encourage SDOT to do what they can in terms of maximizing the value of the cost estimates and project planning.

This has been an issue I mentioned bridges before, but we want to ensure that we're operating from the best available data and the best available cost estimates.

I think that's going to make this more effective for everybody as we go through it.

Number seven, this is an area that we are uniquely positioned to offer recommendations given our experience with oversight with the current levy.

We have, as I think Lisa said, we have a really robust oversight committee now with the 16 members that are, like I said before, are sort of intentionally chosen for diversity among appointments from the council and the mayor and the different advisory boards and looking to represent geographically and other sort of elements of diversity across the city.

I think that's really important.

One area, though, that we felt like we were a bit hamstrung, more than a bit hamstrung, I felt like we were hamstrung, is the resourcing for the oversight function.

The 16 members, you know, 14 of us are volunteers.

One of us, obviously, Chair Sacco, is getting paid for his role as well as the city budget office member.

But we feel like that's really insufficient for the task, given the magnitude of the current levy as well as the one that's on the table for the future, that there should be some resourcing going into the oversight function.

And in particular, we look to an audit function that the future oversight committee could control to look into different elements of the levy as execution of that proceeds over time to really increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the levy ultimately.

So that's an area we really draw to your attention and again, an area that we are sort of uniquely positioned to offer a recommendation on.

The last one is sort of back to the funding portfolio.

You'll notice back in earlier in this presentation when Jerry was giving the breakdown of current resourcing and the large amount that's coming from the current levy.

We really want to encourage that the general fund should not be supplanted by a levy.

We should be paying attention to the general funds, and I know you all have fiduciary duties for the city to do that, and we just want to encourage that to be done effectively and done well.

Okay, last slide, just to wrap it up.

And I think we have a version control issue here.

Apologies for that.

As I said, the letter was actually transmitted in April, on April 15th, so you all have that.

We're going to continue to meet monthly and continue to do our oversight duties for the current levy until that levy is done.

So we'll be continuing to meet, continuing to produce our annual oversight report and continue to work with SDOT on the various elements of the current levy.

We also wanted to offer that we have some perspective and some knowledge of the current levy, and we're available to help you all in your deliberations as you think about how to compose the levy that will be put on the table for the voters.

So we're here to advise and support you all, and we wanted to make sure that's right.

With that, that's all we've got.

And we'll open it up for questions.

I'll pass it back to Lisa to sort of field those or toss them back to Jerry and the issues in the room.

So thank you very much.

All right.

Well, I guess first and foremost, Chair Werner, Chair Poore, Vice Chair Bogardas, thank you very much.

Members of the Levy Oversight Committee, current and former chair, Sounds like there are 40-something plus over the course of this, the life cycle of this 2015 move levy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Can't thank you enough.

And thank you in and of itself is insufficient.

But I want you all to know that You know, I acknowledge, respect, and truly do appreciate the hard work that you all do every day, every month, every year, whatever the term of your commitment has been thus far to make our city better.

And this is 100% volunteer powered oversight structure.

That means you all give a damn about your city.

And to be honest, our city couldn't function and effectively, in this case, effectively exercise its critical oversight function of important spending priorities, in this case, the levy without the work of you all and people like you all.

So I just wanna say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I know our city is better served because of you all and people like you all that do this really important critical work every day.

So quick question before I turn it over to my fellow council members.

Who is the one person that has served for all nine years now?

totally fine i believe that's rachel it's rachel oh rachel okay really appreciate rachel hat tip to her in particular for them all right let's see council member wu is first

Hi, thank you for all your work and for the letter that you have put together.

If some of us wanted to delve deeper in the Estates Ability Recommend or Implement Projects section, it says here that the list may not include noble projects that may be completed with the remainder of levy funds.

If you wanted to learn more information about what was amended, what was adjusted in terms of the previous levy, where would you suggest we go?

or do you have that information?

Are you talking about the 2018 reset?

or are you talking, I'm not quite sure I understand.

Are you asking about the reset or are you asking just about specific projects that are?

In the 2015, it says 27 of the 30 levy programs are on track, meet exceeded goals.

Identify in 2015 two of those programs did not meet goals.

If we wanted to learn more about what had happened or any amended goals that were made for these other projects, Do you have that data or is that something we should contact Estat about?

We can get it to you.

There was a significant review in 2018 that the Estat and the Levy Oversight Committee performed, and then there was recommendations for adjusted goals.

So we can get you those documents from back then.

And yeah, if you want to reach out, we can work with you after today's meeting.

Okay, thank you.

And I also have one additional question.

So have you, I was wondering if you recommended another levy, but is this the levy that you would recommend?

Or is that still in the works?

Are you still reviewing?

I think we're still reviewing.

I see Kevin has his hand up, so I'm not sure if he wanted to respond to the previous question or to this one.

I can take a stab at both.

On the previous question, thanks for the question, I'd say props to SDOT for the dashboard for the current levy.

They have on the New Seattle Levy Oversight or New Seattle Levy webpage, they have a dashboard that you can look program by program and you can see which programs are Are on track and how much money they're spending and that's that's what we look at primarily.

And then we do the deeper dives into the programs.

I'd also point to the annual letters that we send to you all.

I think we transmitted 1. I know we transmitted 1 last month.

So, we're more happy to sort of go into more depth with you and also obviously ask lots of resource to answer those questions as well.

On your second question, is this the levy that we hope for?

I mean, we didn't spell out the specifics of a future levy, but we spelled out, as I've talked about in the recommendation, sort of the attributes that we're looking to see in a future levy.

And so I'd say the answer is really sort of a crosswalking of the eight recommendations that we walked through together with the current levy.

And we'd be happy to do more of that exercise.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Osaka.

I just wanted to say thank you very much to the Oversight Committee.

I think it's a very important function to, I think that's part of our role here on the City Council, particularly with the Transportation Committee.

But I think, you know, asking those hard questions of Estat and the Mayor's team overall, I think is really important.

also to engage with the community.

And so I will look to invite the commission or an element of it to a future District 7 Neighborhood Council.

I think that would be a great way to do some outreach and to get a different perspective.

And I think that's important.

And as chair of the Public Safety Committee, I just wanted to note that, you know, this is, you know, the Division Zero piece.

The pedestrian traffic safety is really important.

And, you know, I've noted that, you know, and ma'am, since you're here, that, you know, the improvements that have happened on the current levy can really make a difference.

And I think about Second Avenue and the bike lanes and how much more robust they are right now with the, you know, not just the curve, but also the turn signals, which is very important.

And, you know, I raise this because, you know, I'm listening to you earlier, so thank you for your public comment.

I was thinking about Cher Kung, who 10 years ago, August of 14, Cher was an attorney that worked for my wife on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell case, and a key member of that team and that successful effort.

And then August of 14 at Second University, she was killed when the big truck took that left and took her out.

And I think that, you know, this is why this is important, because this work that we're doing So if we had what we had today back in August of 14, I don't think she'd be killed.

You know, and these are the things that we need to think about as we look forward.

And the oversight piece of this is important and to keep that front of mind.

So thank you and thank you for attending today.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

And yeah, I had the pleasure, you mentioned Shira Kuhn.

I had the pleasure of knowing Shira.

And, you know, she was a personal friend and mentor of mine professionally.

We worked in the same law firm at Perkins and went to the same law school at Hastings.

And, you know, that was my, when I moved back to the city from San Francisco, that was the first sort of tribute ride that I went on.

And so, yeah.

Share is missed.

She left behind a wife and a new baby, and so I'm glad those improvements came.

Unfortunately, in that case, came a bit too late, but also does highlight the opportunity for us to do more and do better with our Vision Zero goals, just more broadly.

So I have some questions for you all.

I guess starting with, so in your presentation, there's a number of successes listed and there's also some recommendations and read the terrific report.

Thank you all for that.

Just be curious to better understand from the committee's perspective, what is the singular or largest sort of learning, if you will, as it relates to performance of this move levy?

Was it something potentially, for example, tied to the 2018 reset?

I don't know, what is the singular biggest learning?

I'll start, and then if other folks chime in.

I probably would say, one, being prepared when the levy passes, kind of ready to go.

And I think Stott has indicated that that was a lesson learned, that getting projects ready, knowing kind of with the levy passes, you can get started, things don't there's not such a long period of trying to ramp up.

I also think, based on, I started in 19, so I started right at when the reset happened, so I kind of got the tail end, but making sure, and I think Kevin touched on this, that the estimating is really important, that we actually have a deeper understanding and a better understanding about the cost of projects, and I know that's very challenging in a dynamic community, and things change, and You know, we couldn't have seen a pandemic coming and all these things that happened during this last levy.

But that was part of the challenge as well, I think, was the not estimating the cost, especially like in the seismic program.

So I think just making sure that those things.

Kevin or Jerry, do you have other thoughts on a kind of a chief lessons learned or a

I was chuckling a little bit at the question just because I think you'd get 16 different answers depending on which member of the committee you asked.

But I like Lisa's answer a lot.

I'd also, just given the moment in time we're in, The importance of the construction of the levy itself, at the very beginning, really can't be overestimated.

It really informed everything that followed in terms of the 30 programs that make up the current levy, and then how we applied our oversight function, and how the SDOT executed and shared with us.

It's all based around that framework that was created back when the Move Seattle levy was put together.

So I think the awesomeness of the moment that we're in now, as we're looking forward to the next eight years, that really can't be understated.

Um, so that, I don't know, just given the where we're at in time, that would be.

Something that I would offer and I'll chime in quickly reinforcing what both of them said with the need for flexibility and accountability.

And that's, I think the council's challenge is to.

Build a levy that can be responsive to who knows what's coming next.

As we reference the pandemic or strikes or that kind of thing.

Well, thank you.

My next question relates to the governance structure.

So this body right here has a really important, exciting opportunity to make some really consequential and impactful resource allocation decisions in this levy in shaping what transportation infrastructure looks like in the city for the next eight years to come.

And table stakes, that's exciting work, of course, but the really, I think, in my view, equally important opportunity, decision-making responsibility that we have is to make sure there's not necessarily any specific .

How can we craft the oversight committee to be better?

you know, like advance, directly advance this sort of good governance theme that I think is common amongst all of us, a shared priority amongst all of us.

And Chair Warner, you mentioned that, you know, you specifically called out the ability to, or the desire to have the ability to have auditing of some sorts and mentioned in the reports.

What other kind of good governance design features or overs, like, programs, whatever it is, in your view, in this committee's view, would you like us to consider implementing to make sure that the next levy oversight committee is even more prepared and even more effectively able to carry out their solemn oversight responsibility to the next levy?

I can jump in unless you want, Lisa.

Yeah.

was a referee he mentioned you yeah thanks chair saka and thanks for for noting the the audit function um that's one that we talked about a lot as a committee and i i did reference that in my prepared remarks about um being able to resource um question asking more effectively so that when we do have questions as the or when the future committee has questions as that levy goes through its execution phase they're able to Patrick O' resource people that have expertise and are being paid to answer questions for the oversight committee that can be in turn used to make Patrick O' the levy more effective and efficient, as I said before.

I think that's a big one.

Another, a couple other thoughts I would have.

One, I wouldn't necessarily start whole cloth, like the current composition of the committee itself is pretty solid in terms of getting a diversity of voices around the room from all over the city, from people that are appointed by the mayor, people that are appointed by the council.

That's one area.

Another area we talked about as an oversight committee, and I think you'll see a little bit of reference to this in our letter, is the expertise that's represented on the committee.

So the current levy does require one of the 16 members to be a licensed engineer.

And so we have a licensed engineer on our current committee.

That's the only expertise other than the city budget shop and the city council that's called out specifically in the current ordinance, right?

So we had some discussion in our committee about, you know, are there other areas of expertise or more expertise that we'd want to call out in a future committee?

And of course, there's a tension there with like, you want to have people that are representing their communities and maybe don't have technical expertise, but have that important community voice as well.

So I'd say that's an area that the committee talked about a lot.

And you'll see, like I said, a little bit of words in the letter about that.

But I don't know that we landed too strongly one direction or another on that last question.

That's what I got.

And I would echo what Kevin said, that I feel that the sort of subject matter expertise, we could have had a deeper bench on that, I think, over the last many years, just because, again, you have many volunteers, and, you know, folks did the best they could, and I think we did really well.

But I think if we would have had folks that had a little bit more of that expertise, it would have been helpful.

Is there a, like...

area of expertise that sort of immediately jumps out in terms of glaring obvious need?

Maybe an additional person who knew the structure, the bridges, that structural engineering, but I'm not sure if there was maybe some other folks that might have transportation planning, actual, I'm not sure.

I'd have to think about that.

Kevin or Jerry, do either of you have any thoughts?

discussion i remember included financial um knowledge also which the cbo brings to the table but having a member of the public also with finance or um got it thank you all right councilmember rivera

Thank you, Chair Saka.

I really want to echo the gratitude to the Levee Oversight Committee for their thoughtful review of the current levy.

As I've said in the past, it's really important for us to be reviewing our levies in the context of proposing levy renewals to ensure that we're meeting the goals set forward by the current levies.

And Jerry, very much appreciate your comment about accountability because that is really important as we engage in discussing the next iteration of this levy.

And so I really want to thank you for that thoughtful review.

It's obvious to me a lot of work went into this by the levy oversight committee.

and to the point made earlier, most of you are volunteers, so really appreciate your engaging in this fashion because it really helps all of us.

I know it helps us at the city council level, it helps the mayor, and it really helps the public, so thank you for that.

And then the last ask I'll make, actually, is some of us didn't get the great slide deck you just presented, so if you would share that, that would be really great.

Thank you very much.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

And yeah, really appreciate this presentation again.

I'm really struck by a couple of things I heard today or emphasized today included in the report, including don't over promise.

From my perspective, one thing I'm gonna be thinking about for this next levy is making sure we don't over-promise.

And if anything, we under-promise and over-deliver and set ourselves up for success downstream, better contemplate some dependencies from which we have limited or no control, and not restrict our freedom to operate down the road.

and making sure that we as a city, and I guess more specifically SDOT, has the ability to execute and faithfully implement the priorities set by this council and this body, subject to appropriate legislative oversight, of course, but that principle of don't overpromise is really important.

And that may or may not show up throughout some of our conversations, but in any event, thank you all.

Council President.

This will be quick.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

I will echo everyone's thanks to the members of the Levy Oversight Committee, and I'm especially pleased to see the Building Trades Council represented amongst the leadership, so thank you very much for sitting at the table and fielding these questions.

I know how important bridge maintenance is and infrastructure maintenance is in general to the Building Trades Council, and not only because those jobs provide jobs, but also because those structures, roads, bridges, et cetera, convey workers to their job sites anyway.

So I'm looking at page four of your letter, and it says that recommend, so under the multimodal bridge seismic improvements, it says, quote, after updating cost estimates, SDOT's bridge seismic improvement program will not meet the original goals of the 2015 levy to seismically reinforce 16 vulnerable bridges, and then In 2020, SDOT advised the LOC of the significant deficit between, you know, the programmed and then estimated costs.

We're talking about costs for the seismic improvements was...

were not correct.

And then basically that...

And then it goes on to say that...

the LOC concurred with the memo and then it doesn't go on to say whether or not there was any discussion about what to do about the next levy to address potential, the potential need to revise estimates to make sure that there are the required or the recommended per the auditor seismic upgrades.

So my question is, was there conversation amongst the LOC about the switching out of some bridges for other bridges to make sure that the number of bridges that were given seismic improvements was the same, but perhaps not the same precise bridges?

What was that conversation?

And I don't see any in your recommendations for how this new levy should address the Ballard and Fremont bridges.

Kevin, do you want to take that or do you want, I can if you don't want to.

I can take a stab and you can jump in.

I think for the very astute question, Council Member Nelson, Yes, you're absolutely right in your observation that there was a lot of, you're absolutely right in your observation of the letter, and in response to your observation, I would say there was quite a lot of dialogue within the Levy Oversight Committee and between the Levy Oversight Committee and SDOT around bridges.

I would say there was a sense of Disappointment that was shared broadly across the committee around the inability to attain the goals that were set out in the 2015 levy.

And as you observed, you know, the cost estimation function was a big part of that.

And the sort of.

I would say the going back to 2015, and I wasn't around on the committee then, but my understanding is that the.

The level of maturity of the project estimation project planning that was going into those those bridge proposals was pretty.

Pretty immature relative to what was needed to get cost estimates that were were more accurate.

um so that is an area we called out and you you observed it in our letter um we also had a lot of discussions frankly around the the potential of seismic upgrades bridges to those costs to sort of you know gobble up all the oxygen in the air so to speak um because they are such an expensive proposition especially for some of the major bridges in the city um and you know that's an observation i think it's important to to share back with you all and i think that you know reflected in our letter to some extent How we deal with that going forward.

I think the crux of your question that's hard right?

I mean, this is this is the, this is the tough work that we didn't really get to specific consensus within the within our committee around what the future levy might look like.

There we batter and ideas like maybe there's.

maybe separate bridge seismic upgrades and pay for that with one funding mechanism and then everything else and something else.

We didn't get the consensus on that.

We batted around a lot of ideas.

I know SDOT's got ideas.

The one thing that we did come to consensus on though and is in the letter is like, hey, we would really encourage SDOT to be more advanced with their project planning and cost estimation as you go into a future levy so that they're you're matching the you know the expectations with what can actually be achieved that's the over promising in your comment Lisa how did I do do you want anything

So I would also, we did have, as you said, very significant discussion and concern.

And I think that's why you'll see Bridges is highlighted very early in our letter.

And we talked about looking, I mean, it was, when we looked at the seismic program, it was actually, I think in order to reach the seismic program's goals in the levy, the cost would have exceeded the current levy.

And that would have been if we did no other programs and only did the seismic program, it would have been more than the $980 million or very close to it.

But it was sort of like, okay, well, we're just going to swap out these other bridges.

And so we said I think the transparency piece was very important, that we wanted to be clear that folks know who are looking back at the levy and looking forward.

council members, but also people who are voting on it that yes, we met that goal, but it wasn't the exact goal, but there's a real concern about the seismic upgrades and the condition of our bridges going forward.

And so do we look for, as a city, other bonding or other sources that would focus specifically on bridge maintenance.

And bridges are, I don't think you can overstate, Commissioner Nelson, Council Member Nelson, the significance of bridges to our community, not just to workers that I represent getting in and out of the city, but I mean, to everything.

If the bridge goes down, you don't have bikes, people can't walk, you can't get goods and services moved around the city.

So I think, yeah, that it was, I think it's kind of on page, you know, kind of in the middle of the report, but it is a very important component.

So thank you for calling that out.

Thank you.

And finally, I think we're clear on this, given comments a moment ago from our colleague Council Member Rivera, thank you, but I just wanna make sure, and I'll specifically ask this of the chairs of the committee, could you please be sure to send all the materials shared today, presented today to council members after this?

You see some head nods there, great, thank you.

All right.

Well, thank you again.

Really appreciate this very insightful presentation and overview.

And thank you again for your tremendous service to the city and your, well, your sacrifice and your service to the city.

I know it's challenging.

So, all right.

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

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Agenda item two, executive presentation on the 2024 transportation levy proposal.

All right, will our presenters please join us at the table and share your presentation.

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Yeah, so please introduce yourselves when you're ready and begin your presentations.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Adyem Emery.

I'm one of the deputy mayors that helped pull together all this levy with my partners, with SDOT and key stakeholders that are, some of them are in the audience.

I want to start off by thanking you for allowing me the time to discuss something that's close to my heart and critical to our city, which is a safe transportation network.

This is the third transportation levy I'm super proud and it means a lot to me as we build this third levy.

I want to start by saying that this is not just policy for me, it is personal.

21 years ago, my sister, my older sister, life was tragically cut short by a hit and run.

This loss drives my commitment.

It is my North Star to ensure our streets are safe for everyone.

My career as a transportation engineer has been more than just a job.

I've seen my work and our professions here have also led this with a mission to save lives.

I introduce our first leading pedestrian interval in 1998. For those of you that do not know what an LPI is, it's that few seconds that pedestrian gets at a signalized intersection to cross the street.

it is saying significant prioritization for the most vulnerable as they're crossing the street.

That's what it meant to me.

As I introduced it in 1998, rejigging the technology platform that at that time couldn't address this.

And 10 years after that, we made it, I signed a policy to make it a citywide initiative.

In 1998, it was focused around senior living facility in Madison and 17th that the seniors had a hard time crossing the street.

That was just a long start for a longstanding commitment to continue to protect the most vulnerable among us.

Our city's pedestrian, cyclist, and neighborhood dwellers deserve our utmost protection.

By enhancing lighting, creating safer crossing, and improving infrastructure, we take significant steps towards safeguarding our community.

Through policy initiatives like what I talked about, the LPI policy and reducing vehicular speed throughout the city, I think 75% of arterials are at reduced speed limit.

We have made tangible improvements in pedestrian safety.

These efforts reflect a broader shift towards prioritizing the well-being of pedestrians over vehicle flow, as demonstrated by the project like the Mercer Street Adaptive.

It's also the first thing I introduced.

Initially, it was very much geared towards flow of vehicles, but with...

Advocates that are here, we work towards pivoting the prioritization to be more focused to the vulnerable user, which is the pedestrians.

The progress we've made making over the past 18 years with the first and second levies is just the beginning.

To build on our successes and protect even more lives, we must adopt a new funding strategy, starting with the third transportation levy we've presented to city council today.

This proposal is not just an investment in asphalt or signals, it's a commitment in our residents' safety and wellbeing and a better future for Seattle.

So today, I come before you not just as a deputy mayor and a traffic engineer, but as someone who has felt the pain of loss from the streets firsthand.

I urge and ask the City Council to support Mayor Harrell and this new funding strategy.

Together, we have the power and responsibility to prevent further tragedy and build a safer and more inclusive city for all.

Thank you so much for your time and I'm gonna turn it to Director Spatz to walk us through the overview of the levy.

Thank you so much, Deputy Mayor Emery, and everyone at SDOT appreciates your years of service in our department and in your current role, your partnership, leadership, and collaboration and support.

I'm Greg Spotts, SDOT director, and I'm here with some of my colleagues.

Bill Laborde is our council liaison, and next to him is our dynamic duo of levy leaders.

Francisca Stefan is my senior deputy director and the executive sponsor of the levy development.

And next to her, Megan Shepherd is the team leader for developing the levy proposal.

Thank you both so much for all of your hard work and all the people who are on the team.

There's about 10 people on the core team, and then more than 100 subject matter experts at SDOT have contributed to the development of this proposal.

Okay, Bill.

So for the last 18 years, Seattle voters have supported transportation levies that have made improvements to our streets, sidewalks, bridges, and traffic signals.

The levy to move Seattle, which expires at the end of 2024, represents about 30% of SDOT's budget for core services and new projects.

I'm very excited about the mayor's transportation levy proposal of $1.45 billion of investment over eight years.

It's a balanced and practical set of investments for a safer, better connected, and more reliable transportation system.

When the mayor put out his draft levy package for public comment in early April, we had a full month of robust outreach, including roundtables that the mayor chaired and conferences with all of our boards and commissions and many meetings with stakeholders and small groups.

And to summarize what we heard, it was yes and.

People told us it was a great start, and they pointed out some very important investments they thought that could be enhanced, and that's how the proposal grew from $1.35 billion to $1.45 billion.

Okay, Bill?

You know, at this time, SDOT as an agency and the city have a variety of plans and capabilities and advanced expertise that we didn't have in 2015 when the last levy was developed.

Thanks to all of you council members, we have a unanimously adopted Seattle Transportation Plan, the first time we've had an all modal plan, which is a 20-year policy vision to guide our investments.

Before I got here, there was a city audit of our management of the bridge network and I'm pleased to say that since then, we've completed all nine of the recommendations in that bridge audit and we've substantially strengthened our asset management strategy for bridges and roadways and other complex assets.

Also, starting in 2018, we started building up a structured practice to have equity inform everything that we do, which led to the launch of our transportation equity work group, a set of citizens who advise us on equity matters.

We have specialized dedicated staff working on equity at SDOT, and we have a codified transportation equity framework.

that guides our investments.

And finally, on the first day, when I started the job, September 7th, 2022, I commissioned a top-to-bottom review of our Vision Zero safety program.

That review was published in February 2023, and it resulted in my appointing our first-ever Chief Transportation Safety Officer, Venu Namani.

And now that Venu's been in the job for a year, he's getting ready to publish our Vision Zero Action Plan, which I'll be looking forward to discussing with you later this month.

The Mayor's Levy Package is guided by six values that are at the core of the Seattle Transportation Plan.

Safety, equity, sustainability, mobility and economic vitality, livability and maintenance and modernization.

The last two I'm very, very excited about.

The livability investments are neighborhood-based and involve co-creating smaller neighborhood-based projects rather than corridor-based projects.

And this package brings funding to the very exciting People, Streets, and Public Space Activation chapter of the Seattle Transportation Plan.

which is the first time that we had a policy framework for the kind of activation that makes our neighborhood business districts more vibrant.

And the overarching theme beyond safety in this package is to maintain and modernize our system, meaning that when we go and repave a street or a bridge, That's the opportunity.

Rather than locking in a 1960s street design, it's our opportunity to make that street more walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly, safer, better lit.

And so throughout this package, you'll see the idea that we can renew and modernize our infrastructure as we take good care of it and are good stewards of it.

Safety is at the very core of this proposed set of investments.

There is a chunk of the money that's dedicated for safety investments where safety is the core objective, but really we've infused all the investments with a safety purpose and we're bringing a safety lens to how we go about every one of those investments.

We are really glad that, you know, We're a leader, SDOT is really a leader nationally in our equity practice, informed by the citizens who are part of our transportation equity work group, and the 200 tactics that transportation equity work group members developed with SDOT staff.

We have codified all that, and that is really an incredible resource for our team every day, and those equity principles are embedded in the proposal.

And on the next slide, if I could sum up what we're trying to do with equity in this eight year package of investments.

We aim to distribute our levy investments equitably, informed by Seattle's Racial and Social Equity Index, the Seattle Transportation Plan, and SDOT's Transportation Equity Framework.

And we look forward to your collaboration and partnership in doing much better than previous generations have done in making sure that transportation investment benefits everyone.

And I'm really pleased to say that perhaps the most important addition that's been made in the mayor's package that was released last Friday is what's been done about sidewalks.

The current levy to move Seattle funded the construction of 250 city blocks of new sidewalks over nine years.

The mayor's original package put forth funding another 250 blocks of new sidewalk over eight years.

But now in the revised package, there's a bold goal to implement all 250 of those blocks in the first four years of the package.

And that would be like really a tremendous doubling, more than doubling of the rate of new sidewalk construction.

And the proposal also would create a task force to look into funding strategies and implementation methodologies so that we could continue a bold program of sidewalk construction in the second half of the levy.

And with that, I'd like to pass it to Francisca Stefan, who will start talking you through how the investments are distributed across different programs.

Great, thank you, Director Spatz.

I speak for Megan and I when I say we are both just giddy and excited to share this with you today.

We have been working on this for many months and we have been, as Greg, as Director Spatz mentioned, engaged deeply with community members, engaged deeply with staff and culling the best knowledge.

And we really have brought you something that we feel represents good work that you can be proud of and that sets you up for a very robust discussion.

So excited to jump in.

All right, so this proposal is indeed a balanced and responsive proposal meeting the needs of today, the city of today, and anticipating our needs to be flexible in the future.

It was shaped by many, many voices as Kevin had alluded to in the discussion of the LOC you take 10 people and you will get 20 opinions about what to do with roads and how to approach it in the city.

So we did our best to bring many of these divergent voices together and find consensus and deliver to you something that reflects a balance.

So starting in the upper 1 o'clock position in our circle here, 162 million for Vision Zero.

It represents 150% increase from today's funding for Vision Zero so we can scale up countermeasures citywide.

It also provides additional funds for Safe Routes to School, tackling corridors on our high injury network like Aurora as well.

Over 50% of the funds in this overall proposal for the levy go towards vulnerable users.

You heard from many of our speakers today that they wanna see that and this proposal does indeed allocate 50% and more to vulnerable users.

So I'm gonna jump across the circle over to our maroon and gold and talk a little bit.

Our pedestrian and bike safety programs are key programs that compliment Vision Zero and would receive 135 million and 114 million respectively.

This money enables the surge on new sidewalks, and there was an additional 10 million, or additional money added to it since the draft proposal, as well as some additional strategies that Greg spoke to.

The bike safety program critically improves the existing bike.

There's regular sweeping and maintenance and it closes key and crucial gaps in the network.

As many of your speakers earlier said, the path is only as good as its weakest link and we're looking to close what we have started to call unfortunately the high hanging fruit of gaps in our network.

So back to our largest investment in Orange, $423 million for street maintenance and modernization.

This is street paving and modernization, and it's important because it's the foundation of all modes that travel in the city.

It's our single largest asset, and it helps to move everybody and everything.

The need is great here.

We've identified 15 corridors that rose to the top based on multiple overlapping factors, volumes, freight and bus service, pavement condition, and ability to move multiple routes and equity distribution.

And as Greg mentioned, we will modernize these as we go along.

We also propose $220 million towards bridges.

This is enabling the creation of the city's first comprehensive bridge preventative maintenance strategy, ensuring we're making the right investment at the right time on our 134 bridges.

It's gonna combine our bridge repair, bridge painting, bridge seismic, and many other diverse components into one comprehensive approach.

It also covers a special standalone electrical and mechanical and other bridge work that Megan will discuss in more detail.

$145 million for transit corridors and connections.

We heard a lot about that this morning as well.

We share a real emphasis on transit in this with $145 million.

This time done a little bit differently than last time.

Last time we were on the precipice of working with King County Metro to create the web of rapid ride corridors, which are so key to our city.

This moment in time, what we're experiencing is this unprecedented investment in light rail.

And we heard from community members through this process, they are excited about light rail.

They're very excited to get on it.

They're excited about this expansion.

And so what this proposal does is build connections and corridors to help people get to and from light rail.

It also continues investments in bus reliability, removing some of our pinch points and investing in the continued moving of buses throughout our network.

Jumping across our maroon and gold, which we talked about already, we've got $100 million for signals and operations.

These are investments to keep our signals working, modernizing their communications, and keeping our facilities working 24-7.

People, streets, and public spaces was a new and community-driven element from the Seattle Transportation Plan that was supported strongly by residents and businesses alike.

This work will enable proactive work to improve and humanize our streets, focusing on activity hubs and equity areas and commercial districts.

I'll note, and Megan will talk more about this, there's 16 million here specifically dedicated to downtown revitalization, looking at the Third Avenue corridor and other areas in downtown.

There are also two program areas, climate resiliency and freight and goods movement, which are truly present throughout the entire proposal.

but they do have some of their own programmatic additions.

In addition to the mode shift and safety work, which will help reduce transportation emissions, these dedicated funds will actually help advance the low pollution neighborhoods, working with businesses and expanding electrification in partnership with City Light.

These investments are key because they're gonna help us build capacity to do climate related work, as we know there are significant state and federal funds to help in this effort.

Freight and goods movement is also present throughout with an emphasis on paving, bridges and operations work.

These are the key corridors that move our goods.

These dedicated funds here in this program will help address problem locations and work in partnership with the port.

Levies do help us bring in a lot of other funds.

It is important to note that these are our investments and we seek to leverage them whenever possible.

And part of having this resource is enabling us to go out and bring more to help Seattle prosper and be a great city.

Next slide.

Okay, what does it cost?

This has been a key consideration for us throughout the process.

Affordability is really, really important here.

Property owners already pay a baseline of $23 a month for the expiring move Seattle levy.

So we look carefully at any increase.

Based on the newest 2024 data of the average median household value, the increased assessment for the proposed $1.45 billion levy would be a $16 a month change for the median valued homeowner.

The homeowner of a median valued home.

I will note that the King County Tax Assessor just released some additional data.

So this is a minor adjustment from printed documents.

In prior documents, there was a $17 a month change.

With the change in value, it's down to 16. Next.

Okay, how did we get here?

So this proposal emerged from an extensive community conversation and a data rich process coming on the heels of the transportation plan, the asset management work, and many other things.

We engage stakeholders across a wide range of perspectives and priorities.

We talked to people who wanted a much larger levy.

We talked with people who wanted a much smaller levy.

We talked with people who wanted different things to be priced at different values.

And we brought these voices together with a one Seattle sentiment and energy.

We brought these whole spectrum of interests into one plan that we think balances out those interests.

Then we went out with the mayor's plan in early April for community input.

And we're here today to present you with the final.

So who do we talk to and what?

Next slide.

We did a very intense, building on the shoulders really of, or standing on the shoulders of the Seattle Transportation Plan outreach.

We did intensive outreach over the last month, doing tabling events, engaging with people online, through a questionnaire, and also through one-on-one conversations.

The mayor himself hosted four well-attended round tables.

Director Spatz met with people all over the city and in many different types of organizations, and we presented to all of our boards and commissions.

to bring and folded that input into this proposal.

We also spoke with many of you.

Your input has been key.

We heard you and wanted to make sure that you could see things that you've brought up and priorities you shared with us.

And so thank you for sharing those priorities so we could fold them in.

Next.

So quick rundown on the changes between 1.35 and 1.45 billion.

We added 26 million to help support the surge on sidewalk construction.

We added funds for transit, 23 million, including 3 million for safety and security efforts.

We added 20 million to help expand the bike network with an emphasis on connections to schools in South Seattle.

We added 14 million.

So we had a community centered, a neighborhood initiated programs to elevate safety.

We added 3 million to help fund additional bridge preventative maintenance.

And we have an exciting proposal for a transportation task force that Megan will talk more about.

So before I hand it over, just wanna say a few words about flexibility versus specificity.

And I appreciate you spoke to this as well.

We really did try to find a balance for these program areas between being too specific and too vague.

As we shift into talking through each of the 10, we wanna note that we've identified overall program budgets, sub-program budgets, project commitments, as well as candidate projects.

We've really dug deep over the last few months to try and be specific where we could bring you things that are well estimated with the best current information we have about how much things cost.

and yet leave the space for the changes that we know that you're gonna wanna make going forward.

We haven't wanted to lock the city into eight years of pre-programmed spending that would make it difficult for the mayor, the council, and SDOT to be responsive to our ever-changing city and population.

On the right, you can see some of the selection criteria that went into our major program selections and the specificity that we included based on needs, benefit, effectiveness, geographic distribution, and opportunities to leverage and co-create with others.

So without further ado, I will pass it off to Megan Shepherd.

Hi, thank you for this opportunity.

I want to thank you all for us having the chance to be here today to talk to you about the levy proposal.

I want to thank this half of the room, which is full of some really, really smart transportation experts who have brought their expertise over the past few months to this proposal.

I want to thank that half of the room as well for coming here and showing their love and their recognition of how critical transportation is every single day in everybody's lives.

So it's an honor and an exciting thing right now to be in this moment with you and to walk you through the levee.

Now, I will highlight.

The plan has a lot of detail, and I'm not gonna read everything to you today.

You guys have been sitting here for a long time, but I do wanna take each moment on these slides to highlight, I think, some of the things that resonate with the members of the public, that may resonate with you, things that have been elevated by our staff as high priorities and concerns.

So for the 10 program overview, we're gonna start with Vision Zero, school, and neighborhood safety.

Back one slide, please, Bill.

Yes.

No.

One more.

Yes.

Okay.

So our goal for Vision Zero School and Neighborhood Safety is to make targeted and community-requested improvements to schools, sidewalks, intersections, and crossings to reduce traffic collisions and eliminate severe injuries and fatalities.

And our goal to do that is by 2030. You know, we see over 10,000 crashes a year on our streets, about 28 fatalities a year, and 180 people seriously injured.

And of those, vulnerable travelers account for about 53% of people killed.

So that is people walking, rolling, biking.

So highlights of this investment include, as we have said and will continue to say, more than doubling the investments in the Vision Zero program to support the forthcoming Vision Zero action plan.

And through this would be applying proven strategies to address high collision areas, places where we're seeing collisions, We want to advance the Aurora Avenue North Corridor Safety Project.

This is one of those leverage opportunities where there's $50 million worth of WSDOT funds available to advance the design and implementation of needed changes to make this corridor safer to benefit the freight and the buses and the people walking and biking who rely on it we also have a lit missing sidewalks on aurora deficient sidewalks on aurora and on the streets leading up to it we want to continue to invest in safe routes to school that program made an improvement in almost every public school during the past levy and um we're proposing to make 70 more improvements we'll just keep going back around and making those improvements and doing that in partnership with schools and the families that attend those schools.

So we're offering two neighborhood programs here.

One of them is the Neighborhood Safety Partnership Program.

This is an evolution that we're proposing of the Neighborhood Street Fund.

which has long been a really popular program where people can apply for funds to build the projects that they need, and they are often safety projects.

Could be, you know, crosswalks, repairing sidewalks, traffic circles, things of that nature they want us to look at.

We would like to be able to extend the reach of that program to more people who may not know about our application process or how to access it.

and to take some of the newer things we've learned from the West Seattle Bridge, like Reconnect West Seattle, or our Home Zone project, where we work with the community over a little bit more time.

The other program we're proposing is called the District Project Fund.

And this program in particular is reflecting the fact that we now have districts which we did not have when the 2015 move Seattle levy was put together.

And we know that you have and will every single day get a lot of requests from people in your community who are like we really need help with this crosswalk.

This ramp here is a particular problem like this school crossing and this gives us some additional funds to help support those urgent and emerging requests.

We've identified 10 corridors for the initial Vision Zero safety projects.

They're all outlined in the plan.

What this map shows us is A, where all the schools are in Seattle.

It shows us our equity priority areas.

And then the redder the line, this is the high injury network.

These are the places where we're seeing the fastest speeds, where we're seeing the most collisions.

And we've consistently heard throughout our outreach that the five streets that are most often cited as being the most dangerous in the city, which include Aurora Avenue North, Lake City Way Northeast, Fourth Avenue South, Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard, and Rainier Avenue South, be on that list.

And throughout this program, you will see that they're all included here or in different places for our consideration, as well as other corridors.

Street maintenance and modernization represents about 30% of this levy proposal because pavement, repaired, smooth pavement is foundational to the movement of buses, the movement of freight, the movement of people.

Bike lanes are smoother and better when we have repaved.

And that repaving moment gives us the opportunity, as Greg mentioned, right?

And as Francisca mentioned, that is when we can do a complete streets analysis.

We can look to the Seattle Transportation Plan, see what's recommended, and work through community outreach to design those projects.

Our proposal for street maintenance and modernization is to repave arterial streets that carry the most buses, trucks, and cars and improve infrastructure for people walking, rolling, biking, and taking transit while we're doing it.

In addition to the $350 million proposed for arterial major maintenance, there's also another program here called Arterial Spot Repair and Potholes.

That's SDOT's crews going out and fixing one, two, three blocks of, you know, pavement where, arterial pavement where there's a need for a smaller repair, but we're not gonna undertake the whole corridor.

We've proposed to increase the amount in that as well as address potholes and then continue to refresh curb and pavement markings.

We've proposed about 15 paving projects throughout the city, and I wanted to just give a couple quick examples of how we've selected those projects.

So one example is North 130th Street, and this paving project is an opportunity to put in place improvements for people walking, biking, rolling, and taking transit to a new light rail station.

The North 130th Infill Station is...

plan to open in 2026. So this is a well-used street, carries about 25,000 vehicles per day.

The pavement is in very poor condition.

And so that's data-driven information coming through our asset management strategy.

During design, we'll consider elements identified in the STP like there is a bike plus arterial facility recommended.

the streets on the frequent transit network.

It is a minor truck street.

It has deficient tier one sidewalks and missing tier two and tier three sidewalks.

And there's also the identity opportunity for a placemaking project identified through people, streets and public spaces.

I'll just give you one more example.

Olsen Place Southwest, Avenue South.

That's from Second Avenue Southwest to Southwest Cloverdale.

This segment is a tier two corridor on the high injury network.

So safety is driving the choice.

Pavement again is in very poor condition.

This is a street that carries over 35,000 vehicles a day, and when we look at the STP networks for this location, here are some of the things that we would consider during the design and outreach process.

It's a major truck street.

It's on the heavy haul network, and the STP recommends friction treatments on the big hill there.

It is a candidate for a bike plus arterial project.

The corridor has tier one missing and deficient sidewalks, and there are places without a sidewalk on either side.

And per a legislation passed by the city council at the end of last year, we are required to address that on big projects when you have no sidewalk at all.

And so we've set aside funds in this proposal to address those missing sidewalks.

Bridges and structures.

I know it's something that you as council members have expressed your concern about.

We just talked about it with the Levee Oversight Committee.

They have certainly been concerned, as are we.

I personally was a member of the West Seattle Bridge Team.

And I know that there's a lot of people in this audience whose lives were really impacted during that two and a half year closure.

So for bridges and structures, we're proposing $221 million to keep them in reliable working condition, as well as prepare for future bridge replacement projects.

The signature item here, which we talked about a little bit is the creation of a new preventative bridge maintenance program, which is coming out of the 2020 audit that was performed on bridge maintenance in the city.

This program would make investments on optimum cycles to extend the life of the 134 bridges that we own.

So that's the right treatment like replacing the deck, replacing the joints, cleaning it, painting it are hugely critical to extending the life of these structures, and the longer that they are in a state of good repair, that is...

we don't have to decide how to replace them as soon.

So that is a sound investment and a safe investment.

These projects will be driven by a data-driven process that has looked at the life cycle condition of every single bridge, So on the next slide, in addition to that preventative bridge maintenance program, and so we've proposed for you, I would say it's an example of some key projects that are in the 2025, 2026 work plan so that you can get a sense of what that program would be undertaking.

But there's also several bridge capital projects.

structural repairs on the Ballard Bridge and structural repairs on the Magnolia Bridge.

Upgrades to the electrical mechanical systems of all three ship canal bridges so they can continue to open and close reliably.

You know, the inside of some of these bridges looks like Space Odyssey 2001. And we just did this upgrade on the lower Spokane Street swing bridge.

So if we were able to make this investment at the end of this, all four of the movable bridges the city that owns would be, modern electrical mechanical components inside of them.

But we do know that we need to be preparing actively for future bridge replacements because some of our structures will be coming to the end of their useful life soon.

So we've proposed six structures in the project readiness grouping, about a $20 million investment, to advance the design of these in preparation to either pursue grants, or as we've talked a little bit about the Transportation Funding Task Force, if that group were to be created and were to look at some of the infrastructure solutions, they could be considering the needs of our bridges as well.

So the candidates that have been put on this list are ones recommended by our structural bridge engineers, And several of them have some really critical freight improvements associated with them.

The First and Fourth Avenue South bridges over the Argo rail yard, as well as West Dravis Street over the rail yard in Magnolia, have some really critical freight connectivity benefits to them.

We also need to be preparing for the next phase of the seawall replacement.

And we're proposing to update the Magnolia Bridge alternatives analysis that was done, the cost estimates there, so that we can continue moving forward towards a preferred alternative to replace that structure.

For transit corridors and connections, we're proposing $145 million to connect people safely to transit hubs, including light rail stations and bus stops, and reduce delays on the busiest bus stops.

So this proposal would invest about $27 million.

transit spot improvement program.

So we would propose to make about 160 transit spot improvements over the next eight years.

This could be a transit signal queue jump.

This could be a transit-only red lane.

This could be other improvements to help people get access to transit.

We'd be really focusing on pinch points, places where there is a place in the network, particularly where it's affecting multiple routes.

There's $3 million here towards transit rider safety, because in addition to hearing about safety concerns for our travelers, we also heard throughout our engagement a lot about people's sense of safety and security when they are waiting for their bus and riding on their bus.

King County Metro has a transit ambassador program, and we'd love to work with Metro and Sound Transit to explore strategies that would allow us to increase people's safety in those places.

But most significantly here is $115 proposed investment in capital transit projects.

These are both for places where we know we want to benefit buses, places where we've got light rail stations that are going to be opening soon, as well as planning to advance a number of light rail projects whose schedule may be controlled by our partners.

But we have a lot of opportunity to improve upon work that Sound Transit and our metro will be doing.

A signature project here is the Rainier Rapid Ride R. So in our last levy, the Move Seattle levy, with King County Metro, we had a partnership opportunity for multiple rapid ride lines.

There's the line on Delridge.

Then the line on Madison will be opening at the end of the summer.

And then the line on Eastlake is just about to break ground.

And I would use their initials, but Francisca knows that I can never quite remember.

It's The G and the J, okay.

So the levy will continue to fund and bring online these really, really significant partnership projects.

King County Metro has one rapid ride project proposed in their next capital improvement program during our levy cycle.

It's the rapid ride, our line in the Rainier Valley.

So in partnership with King County Metro, we would be bringing funds for paving, sidewalk improvements, crossing improvements, pairing them with improved transit reliability on this critical corridor that so many people rely on.

Another example of a high-ridership bus project would be in South Lake Union.

There's two of them.

You will see them called the South Lake Union East-West Transit Corridors Projects.

And one is looking near-term about Adeni and Olive, where we know that the late eight and concerns about the Route 8 are foremost at a lot of people's minds.

So we want to bring funds there to continue to work on solutions in that heavily traveled corridor, as well as plan beyond that.

Harrison and Mercer have long been envisioned as a east-west transit corridor in South Lake Union.

And with new light rail station coming there, we want to advance our plans for a project to get more people there on transit.

For pedestrian safety, we know it's a priority for you.

We know it's a priority for you.

We know it's a priority for you.

And there's been some really creative thinking here.

I mean, the challenge of the 13,000 missing blocks of sidewalks is really, really significant and beyond the ability of one levy to address.

But we can take some firm steps forward in looking at this.

And one of them is the proposed sidewalk search.

to deliver 250 blocks of sidewalks within four years and pairing that with the establishment of a group, could be a transportation funding task force, to look longer term at our plans in the Seattle Transportation Plan and evaluate that in partnership with different funding strategies so we can see how we can move the needle The overall pedestrian safety proposal is $135 million to build and repair sidewalks, add crossings, and improve crossings, and bring curb ramps up to ADA accessibility requirements so people walking and rolling can safely get to where they need to go.

So the focus for sidewalks.

I'll just break it down a little bit.

So what we're proposing is actually 280 new blocks of sidewalks, a mix of traditional and alternative, over the levee.

250 of those would be surged in the first four years.

We would be repairing over 34,000 buckled and cracked sidewalks.

And the levy funds would contribute towards 10,000 new accessible curb ramps.

Levee Plan shows some initial locations for the sidewalk surge.

And there are locations throughout the city, because even though we know the greatest concentration of missing sidewalks are in the north and the south ends, there are places throughout, as you all know, in your districts that do not have them or have very inadequate sidewalks.

So along Renton Avenue South, along Northeast Ravenna Boulevard, First Avenue Northeast, north of 120th Street are just some of the examples of where we could get started on this as recommended by our pedestrian team.

Okay, bicycle safety.

$114 million proposed to expand the PBL network, connect schools to bike lanes, paths, and neighborhood greenways, and to maintain and upgrade existing bike lanes.

So $68 million is proposed to build protected bike lanes with a focus on closing gaps in the All Ages and Ability Network.

We'll see some of those projects on the next slide.

You can go there.

As well as five new neighborhood greenways on residential streets.

We want to focus those on connecting to K through 8 public schools.

And then part of this is we've built quite a bike network under the levy to move Seattle.

And we want to improve it and continue to make it safer.

And two of the things we would propose is to upgrade the barriers and to add regular sweeping of the bike lanes that we have.

An example of a proposed project, and again, this is a maintenance and modernization project, would be Beacon Avenue South.

So this is the long purple line that you can see up there.

It is a proposed paving project.

We haven't determined the extents of it yet, but it's also a transit improvement opportunity for the Route 36, and it's an opportunity to expand the Beacon Avenue South bike lane south of Jefferson Park to South Beacon Hill.

So signals and operations are a proposed $100 million investment.

Signals maintain and upgrade the existing traffic signals that we have for safe, reliable movement to improve the signals that pedestrians and bicyclists rely upon, to add accessible pedestrian signals for people who are blind or have low vision.

and to support traffic operations during large events and for trips in and out of the Port of the Seattle.

Signals are really at the...

Traffic operations is really at the heart of what we do, and all travelers rely upon our ability to be dynamic, to change signals in real time when we can, and to continue to upgrade our signal inventory so that more signals can offer accessible pedestrian signals or the leading pedestrian intervals that Adiam mentioned earlier.

We would propose to do 280 leading pedestrian intervals throughout this levee, which is all of the signals that can offer that.

We would finish them up.

They would all have it by the end of the levee.

One of the other things in here is operating our Transportation Operations Center.

This is people 24-7 who have an eye on the transportation network.

And what they're able to do with that, right, is adjust signals in real time, And more importantly, they're on point in the event of an incident or a big event to help coordinate with first responders and other agencies so that SDOT can help to respond quickly when those situations arise.

Freight and goods movement is a proposed $25 million direct investment here to support trucks delivering goods and providing services.

You know, large freight vehicles have special needs for lane widths, for turning radii, for stopping distances.

And so the funds in the Freight Spot Improvement Program helped to make some adjustments to support the freight network, which can be like intersection upgrades or additional truck parking.

But our commitments for freight and goods movement extend beyond this $25 million direct investment.

The maintenance and modernization projects we've proposed represent 20% of our major truck streets whose pavement is in poor and very poor condition.

There's also an additional $8 million here that is proposed to partner directly with the Port of Seattle on additional paving for streets that are on our heavy haul network.

This map here is a snapshot of the current heavy haul network.

We have an agreement with the port and we are updating this study right now on streets and would work together to identify a paving project or projects in which to co-invest in 2025. Climate and resiliency, about 60% of our emissions, I think one of our speakers earlier said this, in Seattle come directly from transportation.

It's the number one source in the city.

And we've got some really ambitious goals around this.

One is to reduce our transportation emissions by 82% off a 2008 baseline by 2030. The city has set an ambitious target so that by 2030, 90% of all personal trips and 30% of all freight trips would be zero emissions.

So there are investments throughout this entire levy proposal that support that.

in people walking, rolling, biking, taking transit, getting access to light rail, you know, riding the bus.

We are investing in climate resiliency.

But there's some additional direct investments here.

It's a proposal for 59 million to reduce air pollution and to make sustainable transportation options more available.

So funding in this program includes low pollution neighborhoods.

This is an outcome of the Mayor's One Seattle Transportation and Climate Justice Executive Order to have pilot projects in communities most affected by air quality.

Planning is going on for that right now with recommendations in 2025. So we want to help support the implementation of that.

Tree planting and tree care would continue to be a priority.

I want to thank the Levee Oversight Committee for acknowledging our tree planting is a success.

We really want to focus on tree species diversification, tree care, as well as continue to meet the mayor's requirement that when we take out one tree, we replace it with three more.

In the climate and electrification program, this is a proposed $22 million investment.

And as we heard from Nicole Grant earlier, you know, there is an increasing need to have access to transportation electrification.

Seattle City Light has a pilot project right now, and SDOT is a supporting partner, and we really want to up our game and be more of a supporting partner and have funds available to expand the number of chargers with a focus on community centers, libraries, parks, other public facilities, as well as...

do more work on our end to support electrification, whether it's through incentive programs, looking for grants.

We think there's a lot of money out there right now at the federal and the state level to help invest in electrifications.

Working with business districts on low emission strategies for the goods that they get.

So there's a lot of work that needs to be done and we're transportation folks, we're excited.

by that.

And this brings us to our last and maybe one of the most exciting areas of the levy proposal, which is people, streets, and public spaces.

As Greg mentioned earlier, this is an area, you know, street furniture and art, improving landscaping, decluttering, working with business districts to, like, put out street furniture, helping people to activate their streets or their sidewalks within their community.

We've been doing this as pilot projects for a while, but the Seattle Transportation Plan is the first policy basis we have for a broader program.

So the levy proposes to invest $66 million to activate public spaces and improve lighting in direct partnership with business districts and community organizations so that people can enjoy unique and vibrant spaces and feel...

more comfortable when they are out in the right of way.

So the map here on the next slide, this is directly from the Seattle Transportation Plan, and it shows the types of recommended projects Within the levy, we've proposed a commitment to six initial projects and retain the flexibility to identify and co-create other projects over the eight years of the levy.

So here are a few examples.

There is a proposal to invest $15 million in downtown activation with a near-term focus on maintenance and placemaking activities and projects and work towards a longer-term vision for 3rd Avenue.

Another project commitment is the Northeast 42nd Street, Green Street improvement that would activate the public right-of-way between campus and the U District, adding attractive spaces for outdoor dining and retail and create more open space.

There are other projects like the Capitol Hill Central District, East Union Street Revival Corridor, the Occidental Promenade Project to advance plans for a festival street near the stadiums, and Alley Transformation and Activation in the Chinatown International District.

These are projects that we've heard directly from these business organizations.

They have a lot of enthusiasm and excitement to work with us, but they need SDOT to play a larger role in continuing to stay engaged with them throughout activation and for maintenance activities.

Another part of this proposal is $10 million for pedestrian lighting.

This isn't something we've paid for directly with the levy before, but again, given what we're hearing from people about their desire to be safer and to feel more secure on their way to the bus stop or in a community plaza, this is a proposed investment to respond to that direct request.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it back to you, Greg, as we get to the end.

Thank you.

To talk about how we could deliver such a levy.

Thank you so much, Megan, and thank you, Francisca.

A very wise person once told me about public speaking, be very cautious about standing between your audience and lunch.

So I think we're gonna wrap it up here, and I just wanted to share one more comment.

It's absolutely legitimate to ask, can you deliver this $1.45 billion of incredible investments, projects, and programs in the next eight years?

And the answer is, yes, we can.

We've developed a delivery machine that has been substantially improved over the last four years, but particularly in the two years that I've been here, My two priorities as director have been to center safety in everything we do and build an internal system to speed up the tempo of delivery and have real accountability on deadlines and deliverables.

We've built a variety of internal systems so that all of us at the executive level are made aware when we're at risk of not meeting a deadline.

And I think we are a more speedier and more confident SDOT in delivering our projects than we've ever been.

The remainder of the slides we had are very similar to ones you saw from the Levy Oversight Committee.

So I think we'll stop there and thank you all so much for your patience in all the lengthy information that was presented today.

All right.

Well, thank you, Director Spatz, SDOT team here.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Emery, for joining us earlier.

Appreciate your presentation and this levy renewal proposal.

We look forward to thoughtfully considering it and engaging and partnering in implementation, hopefully as well.

So I have a couple questions.

but I want to first open it up to my esteemed colleagues and I will start with Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll be quick and brief.

Thank you, Estat, so much for the opportunity, this plan, and the mayor's office.

We know it's a big undertaking, and we're looking forward to working with you all.

Thank you for the briefing as well.

Things that I love, the school safety piece, the transit connectivity, I think is so crucial, especially our district, 50% of People in our district use transit and don't have a car.

Sidewalks as well.

And then I also would also want to shout out Mrs. Holzman.

I went to school with your son, Rich, and just saw him the other day.

He told me about your husband.

So I'm looking forward to working with your family.

Cascade Bike Club, Greenways, to make sure that we have and invest the right amount for bicycle safety.

So thank you for being here.

So just wanted to say that in those comments.

So thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

Council Member Wu.

I just wanted to echo Council Member Hollingsworth's comments.

Thank you so much for bringing this together and for your presentation.

Quick question, there was a map of sidewalks, new sidewalks.

Is there a area where they're listed by address?

that we can look at, and could you talk about how they were prioritized and how they were picked?

The transportation levy proposal document contains the list of initial sidewalks.

This is not the complete list of new sidewalks that would be built, but it gives an indication of where we would begin that effort.

They were recommended by many of the, like, informed by many of the same criteria that inform many of our programs, right?

We're looking at...

opportunities where it's been requested by the community and community input.

We're looking at places that it's been identified within our Seattle transportation plan and our underlying documents.

We're looking at opportunities to partner with other projects.

We're looking for places where we think we can leverage other people's funding or grants.

We're also looking at adjacent land uses, like are there schools or community facilities nearby?

Transit is a huge, important factor in sidewalk as we look to make it easier for people to get to the frequent transit network, which is the streets in the city where the most buses are traveling the most frequently.

Equity is an underlying component as well.

And as the map we showed earlier, the city's equity priority index areas are fundamental input into a lot of our project criteria where we look to address places in the city where we have historically under-invested.

Is there a list of tier one, tier two, tier three, so we're not like zooming in into this map to closely look somewhere?

is a more detailed mapping in the STP and we can certainly work with your offices to see what additional resources are helpful.

Is there also a list somewhere that names all the sidewalks that were put in from the previous levy?

We could, so we do an annual summary of the deliverables for the Move Seattle levy that includes, you know, the new sidewalk section.

So we could pull those together so you can see what was delivered under the Move Seattle levy.

Thank you.

All right, let's see.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

Thank you, Director Spatz, for coming.

I first want to note that I think Ms. Shepherd's probably our favorite briefer before the dice, across committees, by the way, not just transportation or select transportation.

Just want to throw that out there.

Yeah, let's all hear it for her.

I also wanted to note, I especially like all the public safety policy elements that are in the plan.

Note for the comp plan, I really appreciate that point.

I also really appreciate the asset management plan, particularly related to bridges.

I'm bringing in former Councilmember Alex Peterson because, as he noted, this was so important.

And I recognize this is a living document, but every now and again, taking snapshots of it to get moments in time are so important.

And speaking of Alex Peterson, by the way, thank you for all the tree planting.

The tree piece, the canopy piece is so important.

But back to the bridges, you know, the asset management plan, you know, we talk about how we could spend the whole last levy, you know, doing, you know, seismic retrofits.

Having that asset management plan is so important, and I'm reminded of a recent event with the scouts talking about be prepared, and I told the young kids, it's like, hey, be present first, be mindful, and be prepared.

And that's what this does, because...

We never know.

I mean, this is for the levy itself, but, you know, I'm noted to myself, you know, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. You know, I wasn't here in the country during the Great Recession, but that was huge.

And then recently, the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act.

We never know when there may be some federal monies coming our way, and being prepared BE MINDFUL, BE PRESENT, BE MINDFUL, AND BE PREPARED WILL ALLOW US TO FLEX, EVEN IF THIS LEVY DOESN'T ANSWER ALL THE PIECES ON THE BRIDGES, WHICH IS SO IMPORTANT.

BECAUSE AS YOU KNOW, AS I'VE SAID, WITH THE SIX BRIDGES ACROSS INNER BAY, BALLARD, FREEMONT, AURORA, THE TWO ON TOP OF QUEEN ANNE, EAST LAKE, AND THEN THE I-5 BRIDGES, D-7 IS A PENINSULA.

AND JUST TO NOTE, THE CHAIR AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE BRIEF, THE MAGNOLIA BRIDGE IS IN D7, BUT FORTUNATELY, COUNCILMEMBER STRAUSS AND I ARE SHARING MAGNOLIA AND ALL THINGS, WORKING TOGETHER, SO IT'S DEFINITELY A D6, D7 BRIDGE.

SO ANYWAYS, THANK YOU, AND I JUST WANTED TO MAKE THAT POINT REGARDING BRIDGES.

Thank you, I wanna build upon that.

I really do think that the bridge components of this plan offer the mayor and council a chance to have a legacy contribution to the city.

There's best practices embedded in it.

We haven't had a preventative maintenance program.

That's a best practice, that's a legacy improvement.

then we would be rehabbing the electrical and mechanical of the three ship canal bridges.

And when you add that to the work we're already doing in the Spokane Street Bridge, we'd have retrofitted the movement of all four of our bridges.

And the Coast Guard expects us to be able to open a bridge within 15 minutes.

And then the third part is the bridge readiness component where we're working towards competing for big time federal grants.

And so I think those three things together really offer a much greater degree of sophistication in managing this complex set of assets than what the prior levies have done.

And so, yeah, you aptly noted, Councilmember Kettle, that you and Councilmember Strauss share Magnolia, and that bridge impacts both of you and benefits both of you.

A safe, operational, functional bridge, reliable bridge, directly benefits both of you.

But, look, it's not even in my district, but it directly benefits me, too.

And frankly, I think all of us and the tax paying public and visitors to Seattle who can go through all and access reliably all parts of the city and can expect goods and services to come in the free flow of commerce to come through these critical ingress and egress routes, including the Magnolia Bridge.

And so we all benefit, we all win.

But great point.

Council Member Rivera, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, SDOT, for being here and to the Mayor's Office for their participation on this very extensive plan.

I have similar questions to my colleague, Council Member Wu, but I will say for District 4, the Vision Zero School and Neighborhood Safety piece is really important, and I also think that these pieces go to some of the other issues that the public talked about today in terms of fatalities, et cetera.

And so what I would love to know on this comments is, you know, what has the current levy delivered on the Vision Zero school and neighborhood safety points?

Where are the, for instance, which schools have been serviced to date, which are going to be added then in the new levy?

In terms of timing, signal timing, which I know has been a really critical piece, I've seen it at work, allowing a pedestrian to cross before traffic then gets the green light is really critical.

So where has that gone across the city and where is it contemplated?

I think it will be really helpful to get some of that detail so that the public understands what already has been done in this current levy and how valuable it's been, and then what we are contemplating for the new levy.

In the absence of that, it's really hard to know where these things are taking place.

And to make the public feel like they're being heard and that their particular neighborhoods are also getting some of this investment, I think will be critical.

particularly, like I said, on the school safety and the Vision Zero pieces.

Amongst many other things, there's so much here, and I know we don't have the time, and I look forward to engaging with SDOT as we move forward to get more details on this plan.

But thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And Council Member Strauss?

Thank you, Chair.

I'll be brief, seeing as we have full council starting in 55-0 minutes.

I just want to recognize everyone's work, appreciate it there, and just note that it is very rare and special that we have a traffic engineer as a deputy mayor.

Having that level of expertise and experience in the design of this levy is very important.

And also to you, I'm going to come chat with you after this.

My presence here on this dais was not guaranteed because I almost had the same fate as your husband.

And we have to do everything possible to stop the statistics from increasing.

And to SDOT, you hear me give you this charge regularly.

It's not good enough to ask us for data to increase safety standards.

standards and interventions.

I'm oftentimes rebutted when I make a request that the data doesn't support it, and we don't want the data to support it.

So with that, thank you, Chair.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

A couple of cool features and programs that I'm really excited and energized about that were presented as sort of a base starting point for further conversations and discussion in this body.

And I want to applaud and thank the mayor for including here.

Definitely love the Safe Routes to School program, echoing that sentiment.

Not just selfishly because I have three kids, younger kids, but my district happens to be number two out of all of our districts in terms of the highest population of youth under 18. And so really important for my district as well.

And, you know, like, because we, I think, all strive to endeavor or endeavor to protect vulnerable users of our transportation network, like, you know, even if our...

Our district doesn't have a high number of kids.

We all benefit when kids are safe.

And also love the district project fund.

As was aptly noted, the 2015 levy predates and did not at all contemplate the new district system that we have here in place.

Love that innovation reflected in that new program and I'm sure you all, I definitely know I do, get a fair amount of, especially for SDOT, design and feature suggestions directly from community.

Some already working with SDOT on these ideas and they want to elevate and some just net new get surfaced.

We get these kind of requests all the time.

For example, There's a gentleman from Admiral who proposed a really thoughtful design and safety enhancement, some improvements to the Admiral Junction.

We presented those to SDOT.

I met separately with some folks from the Highland Park Improvement Club.

about a month ago, who also had some very specific proposals.

Last week, during office hours, met with a different constituent from Highland Park who, sort of like the gentleman from the Admiral District, presented a really thoughtful, detailed plan of like, Okay, we would love a, this is a high traffic, high speed area, we'd love a speed bump here, we'd love an elevated pedestrian space here, you know, more like a crosswalk here, et cetera, et cetera.

Whatever the need is, we all get those kind of things all the time, those requests all the time.

And I can't personally commit to closely reviewing and monitoring and seeing through all those things, but I have to optimize for impact and the greatest good in my district and the city.

But I do appreciate seeing those things and I think this program is is really designed to help contemplate this unique feature of this current system at the council level that we have in place here, which is awesome.

Also, shout out to the Transportation Funding Task Force.

The need from a transportation infrastructure project perspective is great.

It's massive, it's huge.

I'm aware of a letter from transportation advocates earlier this year, read that, calling for, amongst other things, a $3 billion levy.

And even if we had a $3 billion levy, that wouldn't meet the need.

And we're unlikely to meet the total need, even whatever size.

Whether we keep it at its current rate, Increase it, decrease it, whatever.

We're still unlikely to meet the need.

What we do need is a plan and a strategy to meet the need.

And I think this is a great program because it relies on citizens and ideally kind of depoliticizes some of the things that, in my view, kind of got us to the current state of where we're at with respect to...

state of our broader assets.

And so that is a really cool program.

Glad it's there.

And not just looking at sidewalks, but like all of our assets, bridges, roads, and want to make sure they are supported and not just creating a task force or a group, but like funding them to make sure they're set up for success.

And we can actually validate and vet and their ideas through consultants and existing city staff.

So cool program.

Also shout out to the bridge preventative maintenance program.

Love that.

And I want to call out a really granular, specific feature or project idea reflected in here, and that is the sidewalk along Southwest Brandon.

And in my district, that particular project, there's no sidewalks on either side of the street currently.

And that is a really, really, really, really important area it checks all the boxes for what we'd like to see when we go after and build our new sidewalks it uh you know from uh safe routes to school perspective safe routes to to parks on either side of the uh brandon is is a is a city park the golf course and and uh camp long and and it also connects with brandon the the proposed new uh brandon district or or It's part of the new growth planning, comp planning process, a new sort of micro business hub there.

But transit, of course, to Delridge.

But in that area, in that vicinity, in District 1, it really, you know, like that impacted area is Snake Hill, which connects North Delridge to High Point.

And so that area, and I've looked...

That was always, it's been a perennial candidate, but never actually been funded, unfortunately, spanning at least four decades, back to the 90s.

And a few weeks ago, A constituent, Geneva, and Ryan specifically reached out to my office, had already been working with your office at SDOT, and escalated their concerns with my office about the lack of sidewalks there.

And I then, in turn, escalated, added you, Director Spods, Deputy Mayor, and Mayor Harrell to the conversation.

But why am I talking about a project that's maybe a million dollars, maybe not, out of the context of a $1.45 billion levy.

Well, these kinds of projects matter.

And they matter to the people of Snake Hill, in this case, North Delridge and High Point, all of West Seattle.

And so I appreciate you all.

Like, I didn't ask you to put it in there.

It was going to work on funding through the normal budget as part of this.

But thank you all for listening to, you know, some of those kind of specific concerns.

And also some of the things that I've been sharing and making sure higher level, some of our priorities are reflected in this proposal, including the need and imperative to build more sidewalks.

and prioritizing roads and bridges.

And again, it's a terrific starting point base and folks that are interested in adding more sidewalks, I think we'll have an opportunity to really partner together.

In any event, yeah, that concludes what I wanted to say.

Colleagues, do you have any other questions or comments?

No.

All right.

Good to go.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

If there is any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn.

I'm hearing none.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

It is 1.19 p.m.