Council Briefing 12/10/2018

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for being here for a regularly scheduled December 10th briefing.

We do have three council members who are excused from this briefing and today's action, so we'll be six-handed, so to speak.

Our program for this afternoon will be, we'll have our federal legislative session update Leslie Poldner's on standby and I would ask that with our equipment I've been sort of admonished to speak slowly if we can to make sure that there might be a slight delay such that we're using our audio equipment here and we'll type her in on a visual as well.

Then we'll go through our today's City Council actions, full council actions and regional committees and then we'll end with a briefing on a State Route 99, the Vida closure, okay?

I just want to say very briefly, we did have some unfortunate events that happened over the weekend, a loss of a CTAC counselor.

I think many of you have read about that, Amin Ahmed.

And we certainly, our love and condolences go out to that family.

And I also lost another person, Rod Jones, who was a UW football player and academic advisor to the students at University of Washington, a young man, and we lost him as well.

So just not a good, had some unfortunate events that happened over the weekend.

Maybe that's a good segue into our next session into the legislation, the federal update.

It depends on how you look at it.

Maybe it's some fortunate events or unfortunate events.

I don't know.

It's a little crazy there.

So that's my segue into.

Hi, Leslie.

How are you?

I'm great.

Happy holidays.

Hey, Leslie.

It's Sally.

How are you?

I'm great.

Nice to see you.

Nice seeing you.

So any presenters on this?

Hi.

How are you?

Come on forward.

And why don't we just start a little more formally and have introductions, and then Leslie, I'll just turn it over to you.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm Sierra Howlett-Brown, the Director of Federal Affairs for our Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

We're here just for our regular update, give you some little preview into the final couple weeks of the 115th Congress, and then we will be moving into the next two years will be the 116th Congress.

And we have some changes in November.

Change in leadership will be happening.

So Leslie will go over some of the ramifications for the city on that, and we'll We're always available if you guys have the questions or needs throughout the session, but wanted to make sure we're in here for regular updates as well.

So Leslie's going to go through some appropriations, language, explanations, and get into some key issues for the city, including census, burn jag, immigration, FCC, opportunity zones, and then some of the public rules and changes that have been coming out that the city has been considering making public comments on.

So with that, I'll let Leslie take it over.

Great.

Thanks so much, Ciara.

Nice to see everybody.

So as you may be following along, This was supposed to be Congress's last week of session, but there are now some holdups in the appropriations process.

Prior to the November elections, there were two packages that had been passed, funding actually the majority of the federal government.

And that was the energy, water, legislative branch, military construction package.

That was the first package that went.

And then the defense, labor, health, and human services, and education package that went.

afterwards.

In the meantime, though, there are several bills that are outstanding.

And the major holdup is with the Homeland Security bill, which is appropriations bill, which is connected to this package.

And, of course, the big issue is over wall funding with the president and House Republicans proposing $5 billion and Senate Democrats having reached a bipartisan agreement for $1.6 billion for border security measures.

This week, Pelosi and Schumer are set to meet with the president on Tuesday.

But to give themselves more time, they have already passed.

On Friday, they passed a two-week continuing resolution to buy some time.

There is some hope that perhaps they'll reach a deal this week and vote on it later this week or early next week to try to get out for the holidays.

As we know, things are unpredictable these days in Washington.

On the table, if they can't reach an agreement, Schumer has put on the table a full-year continuing resolution, particularly for the Homeland Security bill.

There's also been some discussion of trying to do a short-term continuing resolution that would punt into next year.

But again, I think after tomorrow's conversations, we'll have better insight into the direction that they are going.

So that is where we are on appropriations.

In the meantime, of course, Congress will recess as of December 21st, and that will be the end of the 115th Congress.

New members for the 116th Congress will be sworn in on January 3rd.

And you will see leadership elections.

Of course, the House Democratic Caucus has already selected Pelosi to be their next speaker.

They also voted for Steny Hoyer to serve as Majority Leader, Jim Clyburn, who will be Majority Whip.

Hakeem Jeffries was elected to serve as Democratic Caucus Chair.

And then on the Republican side, you'll have Kevin McCarthy, who will serve as Minority Leader, and Steve Scalise, who will be Minority Whip.

And so all of those decisions will be ratified on January 3rd.

Democrats have outlined their top priorities for the 116th Congress, and they're going to take action very rapid fire in the first few weeks.

First bill on the House floor will be a campaign finance reform slash ethics reform package.

They'll work on prescription drug pricing control, DACA, the Equality Act, and gun safety, probably something around background check.

You know, we are expecting that we'll see a number of investigations opened into the Trump administration with Democrats, House Democrats, using their oversight powers.

One piece that's also interesting that everyone is watching very closely at the moment is the possibility of bringing back earmarks.

That is becoming more and more of a topic of conversation here.

And many people think that we will see it next session, that they might do it on a very narrow set of bills like transportation and infrastructure, but that that may happen as early as next year.

You know, on the Senate side, no real changes there in terms of leadership.

McConnell will stay majority leader.

Chuck Schumer will stay minority leader.

There is going to be some movement among committees.

We're still waiting for those to be finalized.

As you may know, Republicans have term limits on their committee chairmanship.

So there'll be some movement there.

We know, for example, that John Thune will be leaving Commerce, and Roger Wicker from Mississippi is likely to become the chair there.

But more to be continued as we head into the next session.

On Census 2020, we are expecting any day to get a decision in the trial challenging the Trump administration's decision to add the citizenship question to the 2020 Census.

We expect to see a ruling within the next few weeks.

Democrats are also saying that they are going to be asking tough questions about the citizenship question and have already started submitting letters to the administration.

They'll be asking them to testify about the decision to add the citizenship question.

On Bern JAG, we've actually had some good news.

And so the 2017 JAG awards have been awarded.

And we also had a permanent injunction on December 3rd that blocks the DOJ from enforcing three immigration-related conditions on grants distributed in eight jurisdictions, including in Washington State.

So the trend is moving in our direction, which is fantastic.

and cities have begun drawing down on their burn jag funds.

On immigration-related topic on the public charge, the DHS, as we know, announced the release of the administration's proposal to significantly broaden the definition of what constitutes a public charge, which would be a major shift in our policies here.

They're looking now to look at benefits such as non-emergency Medicaid, the low-income subsidy for prescription drug costs under Medicare Part D, SNAP, housing assistance.

And so they released their notice of proposed rulemaking in October.

Public comment will close on December 10th this week.

Mayor Durkan has submitted comments individually and jointly with Conference of Mayors.

And Sarah, did you want to?

Anything on that?

I know you all received on Friday, I believe, the final 24-page public comment that the city's planning on submitting.

So if any of you wanted to join that, the deadline is today.

So we'll be sending that out this afternoon.

And so we expect to see a final rule on that in early February with lawsuits being filed shortly thereafter.

Leslie, just real quick, if I might.

Just, Leslie, hold for one sec.

Councillor Mosqueda.

Sure.

Thank you.

Hi, Leslie.

It's Teresa Mosqueda.

Hi.

Hi.

I just wanted to note for the audience and for our colleagues as well, in Council Member Gonzalez's place today, I'll be talking about the final letter that's coming from the council as well and have an opportunity for folks to see that final letter and sign on this morning so that we will be meeting today's deadline of sending our comments on the public charge rule as well.

And we will do that this morning in the public session just to make it clear.

OK.

Thank you.

Great.

A few last things, you know, in September, the FCC approved fairly sweeping regulations for 5G wireless infrastructure, many of which significantly preempt local control from local jurisdictions.

They're doing things like establishing really strict shot clock time limits.

They are limiting what local governments can charge.

And so this has been a real issue.

We, there are, there have been several lawsuits that have been filed on this issue.

The city is also taking part in a lawsuit on this issue.

So, you know, more to be, more to come on this, but this has been something that we've been tracking very, very closely.

On Opportunity Zones, the Treasury Department and IRS released their long-awaited guidelines on October 19th.

They are looking for comment on their guidelines, and they've got a 60-day turnaround time, so those are actually due quite soon.

Conference of Mayors, who we've been working with, is actually going to file joint comments on this.

We expect to see additional rules coming out in early January.

So happy to answer some questions there.

And then finally, one issue that we've been looking at is the proposed Title IX changes.

I'm sorry.

Leslie, Leslie, can you hold for a second?

On the opportunity zones, you, remember we have a viewing public that's trying to follow you as well.

Can you explain a little bit about what an opportunity zone is, why it was created, and why this is important?

Just give some background on that, please.

Absolutely.

So the Opportunity Zones were created through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. This was the tax reform proposal that Congress passed last year.

And they're census-based tracts that are designed to encourage private investment in economically distressed communities.

And they create these new tax benefits for corporations and businesses that invest in these specific tracks.

The tracks were cities were able to nominate themselves to their governors or to their states to be designated as an opportunity zone.

The governor in turn submitted those to the federal government to Treasury.

And in June, there were 8,761 communities that were designated as Qualified Opportunity Zones.

And this is a designation that they will hold for 10 years.

And so under the program, investors can defer tax on almost any capital gain until December 31, 2026 by making an investment in an Opportunity Zone.

And there are very specific requirements in order to sort of figure out the amount of capital gain that can be deferred.

And so they've now released the rules of how the investments will work, and they're asking for comment on those.

These haven't been finalized yet.

And so those comments are due in December.

And then the administration is actually going to be releasing a subsequent set of rules further clarifying how opportunity zones will work.

But this is really a brand new tool that was created, again, in the last tax reform proposal.

Thank you.

So the last piece is under Title IX.

So Secretary DeVos recently released a sweeping overhaul of how colleges and universities have to handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment.

And the proposed regulations give a lot of new rights to the accused, including the ability for the accused to cross-examine their accusers.

And these are very different rules than had been released under the Obama administration, really kind of swinging the pendulum back towards favoring, frankly, the accused.

Happy to talk kind of in more detail about any of those, but the proposed rule changes have been published in the Federal Register and They are also now open for public comment until the end of January.

This is something that the city is taking a look at to see if comment might be appropriate in conjunction with either some of the universities in our state or our K-12 system because these Title IX changes have implications for the K-12 system as well.

Very good, Leslie.

So I think we're following these buckets of issues.

in the document Leslie provided.

I had one, any specific questions?

Council Member Bekshaw.

Thank you.

Hey Leslie, it's Sally.

Thank you for this overview.

I'm really interested in what you said at the beginning around earmarks and potential funding for transportation and infrastructure.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yes, I'd be happy to.

So I think that there is becoming a general awareness that that with the loss of earmarks several years ago, that we have now given the administration a tremendous amount of control over discretionary, cost of discretionary money.

And you are particularly seeing a concern around transportation funding and how that is being distributed.

And so with Democrats taking control of the House, you see a number of folks beginning to say, we need to bring earmarks back.

recognizing that there has been, you know, that there are challenges with it and that there need to be tight controls over it.

But there has been, you recently saw Peter DeFazio, who is expected to become the chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, just last week said that he thinks that earmarks need to come back and that this would be helpful for getting government moving again.

You've definitely seen some Republicans saying that they think earmarks should come back.

The question will be how, you know, what the timing is.

Does it happen, you know, the first year of the new Congress or do they have to wait?

And then how expansive will it be?

Would it be, you know, previously it used to be on virtually every appropriations bill.

Now might it be more narrow on very specific, you know, for very specific things like infrastructure projects.

So lots of details remain to be fleshed out, but there is, definitely seems to be a growing consensus that bringing earmarks back would be a very good thing.

Thank you for that.

I know you and I talked a year or so ago about this particular administration campaigned on bringing a trillion dollars into infrastructure across the nation.

And then as far as I know, virtually nothing has happened.

So if it takes earmarks back to help us, I would like to know more about what we can do to support that.

Appreciate your help.

I will say one other thing just on the infrastructure front.

There certainly has been this discussion again about an infrastructure package.

And Democrats have said that that is going to be an ongoing item that they will talk about.

The challenge, of course, is how to fund this, right?

You've got the Highway Trust Fund that is literally running about a $20 billion deficit just to stay level funded in the next reauthorization bill.

And so, you know, as gas tax revenues have been declining, they've got to find another sustainable source of revenue.

So I think you'll see, again, lots of conversations on an infrastructure package generally, but I actually think in order to get something done, they may need to rely on earmarks and it may need to be kind of more narrow.

Council Member Bryan.

Can you speak to what the work around the Green New Deal looks like and where that likely goes?

So I think that there is really, I mean, as we've all seen these horror stories about the effect that climate change is happening, you've seen people like Chuck Schumer saying that any, literally sent a letter, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post over the weekend that any infrastructure package must contain greenhouse reducing measures, greenhouse gas reducing measures, climate change, I think, you know, what a number of the freshmen folks, including Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez with the Green New Deal, I think that they are injecting a whole lot of new light into this conversation.

So whether or not the Green New Deal itself gets legged, I'm not sure, but certainly attention to climate change will be a new focus again, will be a renewed focus.

Is that work still totally partisan?

Is there any work across aisles to do something there, or does it feel like the House will do one thing and the Senate will do the other and we'll just wait for two more years?

It feels, at the moment it still feels fairly partisan.

You know, hope springs eternal that that will change, but it feels pretty partisan right now.

Council Member Siwan.

Just on that, I wanted to share with everyone, in case you didn't already know, that the Sunrise Youth Movement, which was the movement that led the occupation of Nancy Pelosi's office, to demand that the Democratic leadership support the Green New Deal resolution.

They are also locally organizing today, organizing sort of an action with, not with, but at Pramila Jayapal's office, urging her to support the Green New Deal, which she hasn't yet.

So they're saying that some of them will be there today.

And the Facebook event shows around 350 people who are signed up to it.

And this will be at the Third Avenue Cafe at 3.30 p.m.

today.

And they're going to do a brief training and then walk into her office asking her to support the Green New Deal.

And just also to share with everybody, I don't know if you all have seen the photos of the trainings themselves, have attracted hundreds of people at each one.

I would say that what we should be demanding from our congressional delegations and from the Democratic Party as a whole in the House and in the Senate is that all Democrats support the Green New Deal, not that it's just used as some sort of left flank to push forward a few improvements here and there, but really, you know, urging Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to also embrace the Green New Deal.

Good.

Thank you.

In the description of federal activity, in light of a lot of the voter suppression activity that we're reading a lot about, I don't see that as a priority or anyone really coming on aggressively here in at least this package of legislation.

Is that, are we relying on the judicial branch to do that or state laws?

Or can you talk a little bit about any activity dealing with what I'm concerned about on the voter suppression front?

And that is actually, in fact, why Democrats are putting campaign finance slash ethics reform as one of the first.

Literally, it will be termed H.R.

1. It will be the first bill on the floor.

And much of that has to do with voter registration.

And I'd be happy, actually, to send Sierra the details of that package to share with you.

But much of that is aimed at addressing some of these issues.

Okay.

Okay.

And I would just say that's a good segue that this, what the memo that Leslie prepared is not representative of the city's kind of overall priorities for the 116th Congress.

And that is a package that we are working on right now.

And we'll, we hope to have complete by the end of January for our delegation, what the city's priorities are.

So we're currently in the stage of working with all of the departments in what their federal priorities look like and hope to work with all of your offices too.

I know that we worked individually with a lot of you last time around, but it would be great if you had a staff person that I could work directly with as well.

So, if you all could think maybe if you have a staff person that could be identified to help me work on the federal agenda in the next couple of months, that would be really helpful just to help your voices and priorities come through as well.

Good.

I didn't realize there's an ethics or finance piece.

That's great.

Okay, anything else?

Thank you, Leslie, for assisting us.

Any other questions for Ms. Paulner at all?

Are we good?

Thank you again.

We'll chat soon, and we're working on our agenda to assist you.

Look forward to it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay, thank you all.

Okay, let's make sure that's off.

Okay, so before we have a briefing on the Viaduct closure, let's just go around very quickly and talk about today's full council actions.

We don't have any items up to vote on from the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee.

We do have some possible walk-on items I've been informed and some proclamations, so I'll let the respective council members talk about that as we get to them.

So that's all I have.

And Council Member Bekshaw.

nothing on Finance Neighborhoods Committee this afternoon, but we will have a large meeting this coming Wednesday, December 12th.

This will be our fourth quarter supplemental budget package.

We will be voting it out that day so that we can get it to our committee, our full council next Monday.

the 17th.

So if you've got any issues, please make sure that you talk to me before Wednesday, because we will be voting that afternoon on it.

So we're also going to be addressing a fourth quarter employment ordinance, animal fee legislative technical cleanups from our budget.

We have a consolidated housing block grant summary and review, three landmark designations and 10 appointments to the Youth Commission.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Baxter.

Council Member Schwartz.

Thank you, President Harrell.

Good morning, everyone.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Human Services, Economic Development, and Renters' Rights Committee.

The meeting of the committee that was previously scheduled for tomorrow at 2 p.m.

has needed to be postponed because the Human Services Department is going to be in meetings that day and unable to come and do the agenda items that we had planned to do for that meeting.

So that will be moved to January of next year.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Esqueda.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I would like to first start with an overview from our council member and colleague, Lorena Gonzalez, who is not with us today.

I do have some notes for her.

There's one item that she would like to report on to the full council today.

Earlier this year, we heard about the Trump administration's desire to propose changes around who may or may not be considered for status.

including legal permanent residency and citizenship.

We just heard a report from Leslie about this as well and by way of reminder on September 22nd of this year the Trump administration announced a proposed rule change for green card consideration that would negatively impact immigrants and immigrant families who access public services that help them stay healthy or pursue education and economic stability.

This is unacceptable for many reasons.

The fear in immigrant communities is not only harmful when an immigrant family decides not to access programs like SNAP, Apple Health, WIC because of fear, but it will also have negative financial impacts.

Impacts on our healthcare system, healthcare spending, especially on our hospitals.

It can erode positive gains in our healthcare enrollment efforts.

and makes a detrimental impact on families, women, and children, making them less healthy, decreasing access to nutrition, and impairing their health.

There has been national outrage about the rule.

But there's been a lot of effort as well to make sure that people locally are educating the public about the importance of getting their comments in.

Again, the comment period ends today.

And we here at the city are poised to submit our comments today.

The resolution that we passed on Monday, November 26, directed the council to submit a joint comment letter on the issue.

I'm passing that around for your consideration and hope that folks may consider signing it.

Last week, Councilmember Gonzalez's office circulated the public comment letter that is in this document via email.

I'm asking for folks to continue to sign onto this on Councilmember Gonzalez's behalf, and we will send this to the Department of Homeland Security immediately after council briefing.

I also encourage the public to continue to submit their comments in their own voice.

Make sure that their individual comments and voices are heard to call attention to the federal government and ask them to reject the proposed rules rule change because it will harm our families and will harm our communities.

Thank you so much for signing on to this.

I know that there's been a lot of support for this effort in the community.

Thank you.

And we wish Councilmember Gonzalez the best of luck representing the city in Barcelona today.

On behalf of the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee, we have two reappointments to the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program Council.

We have four new appointments and two reappointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission at today's full council agenda.

We'll also be voting on the Office of the Employee Ombud.

We have taken a lot of effort over the last few months to make some improvement to the Office of the Employee Ombud legislation that you'll have in front of us.

So we now have a process that helps us ensure greater independence, an entity that is free from political influence, making sure that individuals feel like they have a place that they can go to talk about incidences of harassment or intimidation, and also make sure that we as a body are looking at systemic policy changes that are needed to improve training, create in-person training, ongoing training, and really dispute resolution training, which I think will be needed in the future by standard training so that we can prevent these types of behaviors and not just address them when they come up.

I think it's a really great first step.

If you haven't had a chance to look at the legislation we circulated last week, I would love for folks to do so and hope for your support today.

Lastly, we'll be voting on an ordinance to complete the joint utility trench in Bothell.

The next meeting of the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will be on January 17th.

We're going to move that meeting to 10 p.m.

for a start time given the period of maximum constraint that we'll be talking about, or I see the Seattle Squeeze is the new name.

We will be discussing at that committee meeting the Seattle City Light report that came out about harassment.

We'll be getting an update from the general manager and CEO on her first few months in office.

We'll also get a report back on the Enterprise Map, the Home and Hope Map, that provides a list of all publicly available land for building housing.

I had an opportunity to join with Councilmember Baxhaw last week at the Association of Washington City's Board of Directors meeting as we prepared to head into the legislative session.

And this Wednesday, we'll be joining the Muckleshoot Holiday Party.

I do have one item that I would love to bring to your attention.

We are very interested with your support in bringing forward a resolution.

The draft resolution is being handed around for your consideration here.

This is complimentary to the effort that Council Member Herbold led on, which is her effort to make sure that we are recognizing Human Rights Day today, December 10th, is the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed in 1948. This resolution that I would love to walk on with your support comes to us at request from the Church Council of Greater Seattle and the Faith Action Network.

They wanted to do two things in addition to having a proclamation for a Human Rights Day.

They wanted to highlight the ongoing relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 70 years later and highlight the injustices that still plague Seattle and our country.

For example, this morning when I woke up, the first three news articles that I heard was about the public charge change that we just discussed that would harm immigrant families.

ongoing conversations about family separation.

Representative Jayapal was reporting on her latest visit to the border and the tragedy of family separation that's still ongoing.

And the third thing that I heard this morning on the news was about how minors still are going without legal representation in our efforts to address this.

So this draft resolution for your consideration really builds on what we have already articulated, that we in Seattle recognize the deep need for these human rights resolutions to be fully adhered to.

For example, recognizing the sovereignty of rights of Native people, making sure that we're continuing to address and prevent nuclear war, global warming, and the dehumanizing policies towards immigrants and refugees.

and making sure that we're doing much more to address and improve the lives of those who are the most vulnerable.

So I am hopeful that you all will help us with passing this resolution today to reaffirm our commitment to these values and a commitment to also work together to promote human rights in our city and across the nation.

In addition to this, the Washington Immigrant Rights Solidarity Network are looking for folks to help provide donations to individuals who are going to the border and to help those who are seeking asylum.

You can donate to folks going to the border by going to the GoFundMe account called Help Buy and Deliver Support to Refugees in Tijuana.

And if you have any questions, Farideh Cuevas in my office is helping to coordinate that.

Farideh.Cuevas at Seattle.gov.

I'm happy to take any questions about this, and apologies for the miscommunication earlier.

We would love to be able to walk this on.

No problem.

I'm very supportive of it.

Thanks for sharing it with us this morning.

Just a quick process question, just so our colleagues know.

Our plan is to introduce this and vote on it this afternoon at 2 o'clock.

Is there a central staff member working on this, and if we had any questions, what central staff member would we talk to about that?

I will get that before we close out, but yes, there is a central staff person that's working closely with us.

Okay, and the process, everyone knows the process goes through law, and it should be ready this afternoon at 2 o'clock, and it pretty much is ready.

Yes, and we will send a final around prior to noon, just to confirm.

Excellent.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Any other questions on that?

And are you finished?

Should we go to the next Council Member?

Okay, thank you so much.

Council Member Johnson.

Thanks, good morning.

One-fourth of the agenda this afternoon is coming out of the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee, so I'm going to take just a couple of minutes to orient my colleagues to the couple of items that we're going to be voting on this afternoon.

Three reappointments to the Seattle Planning Commission, which are folks that are doing really good work as stewards of our comprehensive plan.

We also have two amendments to that comprehensive plan.

One would clarify our goals around off-street parking, which is basically a fancy way of saying we hope that off-street parking helps, and the change of eliminating the requirements of off-street parking helps to reduce the cost of housing, both affordable and otherwise.

And then a slightly longer conversation happened at the committee about the changes to future land use map adjustments to revise the Ballard Interbay manufacturing and industrial district boundary to facilitate the major institution master plan process that will start pretty soon from Seattle Pacific University.

We've got one or two pieces of property that are within a boundary that overlaps both of those two things, the major institution overlay and the manufacturing and industrial district.

And for several years, we had hoped that this issue would be resolved through an industrial lands task force process that has made a series of recommendations, but those recommendations have been stalled in their implementation.

So in exchange, we are making a decision to move forward on this one action, though we would love to have had a more comprehensive look at all of the sort of little individual adjustments that likely need to occur to clean up all these sort of inferences in the code that are kind of cross purposes with each other.

This is one of those where we're gonna take a sort of a one-off approach and allow for a change to that boundary so that There's a lot more clarity for the Seattle Pacific University folks as they enter into their major institution master plan.

Finally, we're going to be taking action on a final council bill and clerk file associated with the University of Washington's major institution master plan.

This has been a two and a half year process by which there's a whole lot of background that our council central staffer, Liz Schwitzen, can walk you through if you'd like to be reminded.

But in essence in September the council had adopted a resolution with a draft final major institution master plan that is required as part of our city's university agreement with the University of Washington.

The board of regents as well as all the appellants to the major institution master plan that had a opportunity for a reply there was a reply to those replies and then we consolidated all those replies and looked at a series of amendments that were adopted out of committee last week for consideration and the consideration this afternoon would be a final action and by ordinance of this council which then is has to be approved by the University of Washington Regents before the major institution master plan is finalized.

There were several amendments that were adopted by the committee, mostly recognizing things that were included in the resolution that were agreed to by the University of Washington.

including the construction of 450 units of affordable housing, that that affordable housing include a range of unit types and a commitment to long-term affordability, a request that child care be incorporated into that affordable housing, a request that bicycle parking be prepared, and that the university work to develop a child care voucher program as well as asking for annual reports on all of the topics that are included in the plan.

And finally, a restoration of a height of 240 feet on one of the sites that are adjacent to the light rail station or very near to the light rail station.

So I have more to say about that this afternoon, but it has and continues to be a quasi judicial process.

So I'll remind the council president this afternoon, we can take no public testimony on this.

And if folks have questions, this has been about half of Lish Woodson's life over the last two and a half years, and I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any questions that you have.

We will have a Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee meeting next week, December the 19th, to discuss three items, implementation of transportation of level service standards, briefing and discussion on a couple of design guidelines, one in Uptown and one in the U District.

And then finally, because of my absence last week, I wanted to take a quick victory lap to remind folks that though there has been a lot of strange news out of Washington, D.C.

of late, one of the good pieces of news for us is the Final full funding grant agreement for the Linwood link project which is a hundred million dollar investment in our city's expansion of our light rail program Which if had it not occurred it would have likely resulted in a delay of that Expansion of the Linwood link program and or changes to the scope I'm very grateful to say that we don't have to do either of those things and instead can continue to see that project on time and on budget and come to fruition in 2023.

Very good.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

Thanks, Councilman Johnson.

Councilman O'Brien.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnson, I had to give you some math because you brought it up.

So we are a third of this afternoon's agenda items, eight out of 24. Pretty excited about that.

There are six appointments or five appointments and one reappointment at Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board.

And then we have two pieces of legislation related to street vacations.

The first is completion of a street vacation on Terminal 18 Harbor Island.

This is something that begun I think almost two decades ago where we did conceptual approval and there was a bit of cleanup that had to be done and for whatever reason some of those cleanup pieces got held up for years and years as far as easements for certain utility things that were in the former right away.

But those are all complete.

We passed that out to committee and so I know the Port of Seattle is anxious for us to tie this one up in a neat bow.

The other street vacation related item is for City Light.

Now this is the clerk file, so this is at the front end of the process where we're granting conceptual approval.

Talked about this just briefly last week at the briefing.

This is for the Broad Street substation where Broad Street is being vacated.

There's a little corner parcel that's a triangle roughly, I don't know, 100 by 80 feet.

I'm not going to do the math right, because it's a triangle, but it does not have any impact, negative impact on the work, Council Member Bakeshaw, around siting a skate park across the street on a piece of land that also includes part of Broad Street that will be vacated later there.

So again, that's conceptual approval we'll be granting, and then they'll do some street improvements and other things over the coming months or year, and then we will have an opportunity to come back and do the final approval later.

That's it from the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

We do not meet this week.

We have the final meeting of the year a week from tomorrow.

Very good.

Thank you, Council Member Bryant.

Okay, we're ready for our briefing session, so come on up, any presenters with the, via the closure issue.

Council President.

Yes, Council Member Scata.

OSHA is currently reviewing the resolution for us.

I'm sorry?

OSHA is currently reviewing it.

We appreciate it.

Yes.

Asha Venkataraman will be the person for the Human Rights Resolution.

Any questions?

OK, welcome.

Good morning to you all.

Why don't we start with introductions?

Just please just dive in.

I'm Heather Marks.

I'm the director of downtown mobility for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I'm Brian Nielsen.

I'm the program administrator for the Alaska Way viaduct replacement.

And I'm Paul Roybal with King County Metro.

I'm leading our agency's effort to plan for the viaduct closure.

So good morning, and thank you for having us here to give this presentation.

We're all excited to be working together and able to share this information with you.

So I hope it comes as no surprise that the way that we are going to get around in the city of Seattle is about to change significantly.

We have the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which has been serving us well, but is on its last legs.

It's going to close forever.

in January.

We are taking all of the buses out of the downtown Seattle transit tunnel and putting them on the surface.

We will have to demolish the Alaskan Way Viaduct so that we can build a new waterfront.

The Washington State Convention Center Annex is also a huge project in downtown that is going to impact the way we travel, as well as finishing up the link light rail to the north.

The good news in all of this is that at the end of this disruption, we're going to have some really great stuff.

You are going to be able to walk along our new central waterfront right on up the Pike Pine Renaissance.

The Washington State Convention Center will bring visitors and tourists to our town like never before.

You all know very well that we are revamping the key arena, because I hear we're getting hockey in a couple years.

And of course, we're growing our link light rail system that will give people more transportation choices than they've ever had before.

I want to turn it over to my friend Brian Nielsen, who will give us some more details about Washington State Department of Transportation's work on SR 99. Nope, I'm not gonna do that at all.

I'm gonna talk about the five pillars that we have for downtown mobility.

In order to sort of think this through carefully, we've identified five large areas of focus.

First, we're gonna monitor and manage our transportation system so that what we have works as well as it can work during this time of constraint.

We also are investing in transit and expanding access to transit through the good graces of the Seattle voters and the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

We want to work really hard with individuals and employers to reduce the number of drive-alone trips to downtown.

In addition, we're managing the public right-of-way to ensure that during this particularly constrained period, we have maximum right-of-way available for travel.

And we're working together to communicate with the public.

Now, I want to turn to you.

Can I talk to you about a six possible pillar, just to mess things up for you?

Absolutely.

I'm going against all Greek architecture.

I appreciate that.

I'm so sorry.

So sorry.

Our freight mobility, I know you've done a ton of work on that.

I would hope that as we're looking at this, we're also talking about that last 50 feet, the work that you're doing, and also the potential that we're going to be encouraging trucks to be coming down between 8 p.m.

and 6 a.m., that kind of thing, as well as how we're functioning with some of the new apps on where people can, where trucks can park and that they can reserve time, all of that.

So, sorry about, what is it?

Not as the pentagonal, but there was a good word on how we were going to move from that to the six leg.

I think we're going to have to now add a seventh pillar so that we can keep the odd number of pillars.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

Can we just put that on your list and maybe we can get together to talk about it.

I'd love it.

Just a quick question.

So I appreciate the five pillars here and trying to reduce the number of drive-alone trips, making sure that we're communicating with the public, monitoring our systems.

Where do access to bikes and scooters and alternatives to not just cars, but alternatives to even riding the bus fit in?

So we want to encourage people to not drive alone downtown and to do that in whatever way works the best for them.

Whether it's using transit, whether it's flexing your commute trips and times, whether it's walking or biking or using some other form of transportation, we just want to encourage people To have the goal here since we have 90,000 more cars on the street grid than normal or than we're used to we just want as few people to be using a vehicle as we can and so we sort of think about it as a continuum of Taking up less and less space in the right-of-way.

So the bus takes up less space than a drive-alone vehicle Riding your bike takes up less space than riding the bus.

Walking takes up less space than bicycling.

So think of it as, and of course, working from home takes up the least space of all.

So what we're encouraging people is if you have a choice, exercise your choice.

I appreciate that.

I'm gonna write in bikes and scooters in this managing the public right-of-way section here just so that it's explicit to folks.

I would love for us to think about how it becomes a pillar so that as we think about sharing the road, it's sharing the road with buses and also making sure that bikes and scooters and people who are walking are super safe, especially in the period of maximum constraint.

Absolutely.

And that has something to do with adding bicycle lanes and connections sooner rather than later.

She's nicer than I am.

Thank you, Council Member Baxhaw.

Are we ready?

Yes.

Okay, so thank you.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the work that's going on on the SR 99 region.

I'm here to talk about the viaduct replacement program and a pretty major closure we have scheduled for early next year.

So starting with our progress this year, it's been a busy year on the program, moving toward a point in time when we're actually able to close the viaduct, remove it from the waterfront, and open the tunnel to traffic.

or the major accomplishment for this year was probably the fact that Seattle Tunnel Partners, the contractor that has built the SR 99 tunnel, reached substantial completion on the tunnel.

We're now in a period where we're spending a lot of effort on completing preparatory work in the north and south portal areas and also our maintenance operations people working inside the tunnel, getting all those last tests complete and getting ready to operate and maintain that.

And that involves a lot of work with SDOT and Seattle Police Department and fire staff as well, making sure that we're prepared to operate the tunnel in a safe and efficient manner when it opens next year.

In January of next year, we are going to close Highway 99 for a period of about three weeks, and that is going to be the permanent closure of the viaduct.

When that work is completed at the end of January, in February, we will open the tunnel to traffic, and that tunnel opening will be followed very closely by with our next phase of the viaduct replacement program, and I'll talk about all that in the next few slides.

So people often wonder why are we closing Highway 99 for a period of three weeks?

It seems fairly simple to switch traffic from one roadway onto another, but it's actually a little more complicated that.

The graphic shown here, the areas shown in yellow are the existing highway alignments in and out of the tunnel on the north and south portals.

The areas in orange are areas where the new highway alignments are in direct conflict with those.

So in all those areas in orange, we have to remove existing pavements and infrastructure and build new roadways.

A couple of key points here.

The work is actually preparatory work for this closure has been ongoing, but we are going to see a couple of things happen just this coming week.

We're going to narrow a lane in the northbound direction south of the south portal area to allow work to start on taking care of a little dip issue that's come about on the highway down in the south area.

In the north portal area, we're also going to narrow lanes up just a little bit on the alignments approaching the Battery Street Tunnel so we can get started on some critical work that will occur during the closure.

On the 4th of January, the northbound on-ramp from Royal Brougham onto Highway 99 and the southbound off-ramp to Atlantic Street will close.

And that will really be the kickoff of this SR 99 closure.

The highway itself closes on the 11th of January and will be closed for about a period of three weeks.

Quick question on that.

Sure.

On the 11th closure, that's a Friday.

after work, like midnight or 10 p.m.

or something, or is that commute gonna be?

No, it would be after the commute period, later in the evening, yes.

Great, and then on the photo on the left there for the south tunnel portal, you have an orange zone kind of close to that triangle building.

Is that like, is there a structure that needs to come down there?

Is that just representing the tunnel entrance or something?

Great question.

Actually, there's a new intersection there.

The four yellow vertical lines you see are the smokestacks from the operations building.

There's a new intersection being built there.

at Dearborn and Alaskan Way, and that connects in the orange triangular area to First Avenue.

So one of the first orders of work during the Highway 99 closure that weekend of the 11th is to remove two or three spans of the viaduct.

So once we start this closure, we are committed.

Got it.

Not going back.

Not going back.

Not going to reverse it.

Tunnel's going to stay.

We're only headed in one direction.

So to be clear, is it the viaduct itself or that offer on ramp, which is now acting as part of the viaduct that would come down there?

Yeah, good clarification.

The formal viaduct ends about a block to the north.

So these are temporary bridges that were constructed as part of the detour to build the tunnel.

Got it.

So those come down in the three week period and probably pretty quick, I guess, because then you've got to build the thing underneath it in the next three weeks.

Yes, that's correct.

You'll be busy.

And didn't you tell us, Brian, that Kiewit has agreed to bring on four teams, that it's really going to be expedited throughout this period?

Yes.

And to clarify, the contractor that is doing the work during the three-week closure will do that small scope of demolition at Dearborn Street.

And then after the tunnel opens to traffic, Kiewit Construction will start the demolition of the viaduct.

I see.

the major demolition of the viaduct.

So I mentioned that SR 99 will close for a period of three weeks.

The limits of that closure will be from Spokane Street to the Battery Street Tunnel.

So that would include the on and off ramps at Columbia and Seneca and at Western and Elliott.

This is a major closure.

About 90,000 vehicles a day use Highway 99 on a typical weekday today.

So as Heather mentioned, we have a large constraint in volumes available with that number of vehicles moving off of the viaduct.

People are really encouraged to find other ways to manage their trips during this three-week period.

Can I just throw one more thing in?

Council Member O'Brien brought up something last week, which I thought was a great idea, which is to encourage employers maybe to allow a little more flex time.

So maybe you start, you stay at home for the first hour or two, do your emails at home before you try getting in.

So I don't know whether that was something you wanted to follow up on, but I thought it was a good idea.

Yeah, maybe we'll get through the technical parts and then we can talk about some of the things we're thinking about.

And I have some questions too about capacity in the system and what you're all recommending for us and others.

That sounds great.

Thank you.

So I want to highlight there's a reason for all this, and there's some light at the end of the tunnel, excuse the pun.

And we do plan to celebrate that fact.

So during the last weekend of the planned three-week closure, we are going to have a public event to celebrate not just the opening of the tunnel, but also opportunities to say goodbye to the Viaduct itself and an opportunity to kick off really the opportunity to start rebuilding our waterfront in Seattle.

All of the information about this event is available at the website shown there at 99stepforward.com.

The general agenda for the event includes a fun run Saturday morning, public and biotic, including a ribbon cutting, public festival areas at the North and South Portal, and opportunities to walk both in the tunnel and the viaduct on Saturday.

And then Sunday morning, it'll kind of conclude with a bike ride.

And all of those events, the fun run, and the bike run on Sunday require tickets.

The public events are free.

The bike event and the run event on Saturday and Sunday mornings are pay events.

All of those events, by the way, you can get those tickets at that 99stepforward.com.

So something unique about this major closure is that when it opens to traffic, it's going to be a new Highway 99. Normally when we close a highway, we open it up in more or less the same place with the same interchanges at the end.

But in this case, those on and off ramps, as I mentioned, in downtown and at Elliott and Western, they will go away with the viaduct.

And when we open the tunnel of traffic in February of next year, there will be new interchanges at the north and south end.

So, 2019 is going to be kind of a year of evolution.

We will open the tunnel as a traffic in February and that will be open toll free.

There's going to be, we expect a period of time while folks adjust to that new system.

Later in 2019, we will start tolling the tunnel and we expect another adjustment period when that occurs as people make different decisions about tolling.

And since I was not here on council when this was discussed in more detail, we know that this was a combination of conversations with the state and local partners.

A lot of people, when I've talked about this period of maximum constraint and specifically mentioned that the Seneca and Columbia Street entrances and exits are closing, ask why.

Can you remind folks why these exits and entrances are no longer part of the plan and what the historic conversation was around that?

Sure.

I think the simplest explanation is that in the middle of downtown Seattle, the tunnel was about 200 feet underground.

So it was just not possible to make those connections.

We have redesigned the interchanges at the north and south portals of the tunnel so that access to downtown remains.

And actually, we have a couple of slides come up here that we can kind of walk through that.

Brian?

On the toll issue, we've been briefed several times, and hopefully the public is sort of aware of the tolling strategies, but let's assume people aren't following it religiously.

Can you talk a little bit about when the actual tolls will be collected, six, seven months after, or the no toll area?

And then a little bit about why there's a variance between 1 to 225 times a day, what that may look like, just so.

we share the information?

Sure.

I'm not sure I can, to be honest.

I'm not tracking the tolling policy real closely.

As far as a date to start tolling, it's later in 2019, and a date hasn't been set, more likely in the third or fourth quarter.

In 2019, as far as toll rates, there was certainly a lot of work done in setting toll rates and trying to kind of hit that sweet spot between the need to raise $200 million to fund the project and to minimize diversion onto the city streets.

transportation commission landed on these rates.

The 225 is essentially during peak hours, but I'm sorry, I don't recall exactly what those hours are.

I apologize to put you on the spot.

Perhaps Heather, Council Member O'Brien, sometime next year, we could talk about a briefing and getting all this information out.

Didn't mean to put you on the spot like that.

Council Member O'Brien, do you want to chime in at all?

Well, Council Member Johnson, I'll just say that We know that, we'll have some other statements to make later, but when this shifts over and it's up and running, obviously there's going to be a transition period where people are figuring it out, but we expect that when things settle down that there'll be a significant number of folks who previously took the viaduct who won't be taking the tunnel because of the access.

We don't know what that number will be, and so we're going to have to see what the city streets feel like, and then We suspect that, like every other time you toll a road, people will also divert off it again.

And so we don't know what that baseline is going to be looking like.

And so this spring, it's going to be far from normal this spring because so many moving parts, but we'll hopefully get a sense of what that looks like.

And my hope is that as we move towards implementing tolling, we'll be watching what that looks like.

We haven't heard a date.

In my mind, I'm bracing for some time in the summer, but I think from the city's perspective, the longer we put that decision off, the shorter we have the conflict, I think, on our streets.

And so, you know, the schedule's out there on the pricing and the time of day and when that happens.

It's just a matter of when do they turn the switch on and get the technology up and running.

But we're going to have a whole nother round of this when tolling happens, because that will be another thing that will shift some vehicles out of that new normal back onto city streets again.

And we're going to have to prepare for that, like we're going to do for the closure, like we're going to do for bus tunnels coming out.

So a lot of things going on.

And I think we've seen a lot of you in 2019. Happy to be here.

If I may, Heather, I wonder if you could just spend a couple of minutes talking about how the city is planning to do that monitoring.

You know, last time I was tracking this closely, we had 75 or 80,000 cars that were coming past the sort of south side of the Aurora Bridge screen line.

And we know some large subset of those are now going to be exiting 99 and not using the tunnel and getting off somewhere around Seattle Center and trying to make their way into or around downtown.

How is the city going to be managing that off-ramp, which is already a pretty congested environment today, and making sure that we are being cognizant of not only the period of maximum constraint, where we won't have folks accessing the tunnel writ large, but then when the tunnel opens, how many folks will then use that tunnel, and then when the tunnel gets told, how many folks will then divert back?

How is the city planning to monitoring and or shift, you know, goals and responsibilities for getting folks through that complicated intersection over those next six or eight months?

So, we have a slide a little later in the presentation that I'll get a little bit deeper into that, but initially, we run our transportation operation center 24-7, and especially during the closure of the viaduct, we'll be in constant communication with WSDOT and King County Metro so that we can do what we need to do in terms of deploying additional buses, changing signal timing.

We have several signal timing patterns that we can deploy from the Transportation Operations Center.

In terms of the specific interchange that you're talking about, I don't have any specifics off the top of my head, but one of the things that both you and Councilmember O'Brien said that is absolutely true is we really don't know how human behavior is going to impact this.

And so watching very closely every day and doing what we need to do to make sure that the system operates as well as it can is our first step.

I mean, I would just ask you to continue to be thinking about the city's hierarchy in terms of who we prioritize for use of the roadway space.

And as we think about prioritization, We want to make sure that we are maximizing the benefit to those transit riders, bikers, and pedestrians, and trying to encourage more carpooling and vanpooling.

But for those folks who might make that decision to get in a single occupancy vehicle every day to get it to and from work, know that they should be our lowest priority.

And finding ways to get all the rest of those users more quickly and reliably into and out of downtown has got to be our priority.

Thank you, I really agree with what councilmember Johnson just said can I ask you to reiterate your Your response though were you saying you're looking at various options, or do we already have a transit only?

Line in the bus tunnel and exits and entrances do we have a transit only?

Line already dedicated in the in the tunnel mm-hmm

I don't think – no, we don't.

But what we do have is once we finish the Alaskan Way, there is a 24-hour bus-only lane, both inbound and outbound, and that's where all the buses from the south are going to come in and turn up Columbia.

So that'll be the new transit route.

So they'll have bus priority there.

As far as north or southbound goes, that area at the tunnel portal, the north portal, is going to be under construction for some years.

And so we're still working with WSDOT and Metro to figure out what the final condition for transit will look like up there.

Do you guys have anything to add?

That's good.

I do want to say that transit, especially in this plan, transit is our highest priority.

Making sure that maximum people can get in and out of the city on transit is absolutely the highest priority.

We acknowledge that there are people who don't have any choice but to use their single occupant vehicles, but we're encouraging everyone who does have a choice to exercise that choice.

Are we ready?

Sure.

I think that that's a great point.

I think we also show that by putting in those transit lines.

And I think it's made a huge difference in terms of the number of people using transit coming out of West Seattle, which I'm sure your data shows.

So I would like to follow up with you on the timeline and ongoing conversation for having a dedicated transit line.

Absolutely.

Council Member, I live in West Seattle, so I benefit from those transit priorities each and every day.

All right.

So we've been talking a lot about the new interchanges.

So I thought I'd step you through exactly what those look like.

So what we're looking here at is the north portal, the new north portal.

So toward the top here in the background is Mercer Street.

Right in the foreground is Harrison Street.

This is three blocks south of Denny Way.

The blue lines are northbound alignments and yellow are southbound.

So these kind of most prominent ones in this photo, these are new on and off ramps to Harrison Street.

They essentially replace the on and off ramps that exist today to Denny Way.

This alignment to familiarize yourself is that's the alignment that Highway 99 is on right now into the Badger Street Tunnel.

So the area just off the photo to the south is Aurora Avenue going into Badger Street Tunnel.

So more or less the replacement for those Elliott and Western ramps are these on and off ramps, northbound off ramp to a new intersection at Republican and Dexter, and a new on-ramp from Sixth Avenue into southbound, which can be accessed either from Mercer or from just off the photo here to the west would be kind of that broad street corridor.

On the on-ramp at 6, can you, will folks be able to take a left Mercer westbound to get up there?

I don't believe so.

Heather, do you know if that left is permitted?

I don't think so either.

Yeah, and so folks will be, they want to come from that way, we'll need to kind of loop around to Harrison or some other way, is my understanding?

Yes, that's correct.

And then the Dexter, the off-ramp on the right side of the screen there that goes to Republican and Dexter, that's one that I have my eye on, in part because Dexter's a major bike thoroughfare and a relatively low volume street.

And I think, you know, there's a potential for a lot of folks that are coming from the south end to be using the new tunnel.

accessing either South Lake Union or northern parts of downtown and just doubling back.

And I think the character of that street is going to shift dramatically or has the potential to.

And how we manage that, especially when, especially, you know, thousands of folks who ride bikes daily use that corridor.

and are used to a certain level of volume and also a bunch of new drivers who haven't done this.

And I'm concerned about safety, especially at front where people are going to be a little lost and disoriented on both sides.

And then the long term, how we manage that.

to maintain it as a safe thoroughfare for all users.

And, you know, this is just one of those areas where there's going to be a lot of folks trying a lot of new things out, February, March, April, figuring out where to go.

And I think we just need to brace for that.

And everyone's going to have to take a breath because everything's going to take a little longer.

And I hope SDOT, I mean, the signal timing that we have to manage on that.

that are based on years of experience, kind of all that kind of goes out the window when we start new and watch that really closely.

That's exactly right.

I appreciate those observations.

They're very consistent with all of our conversations, both internally and with SDOT on that being a pretty critical intersection and the monitoring that was talked about earlier and the opportunities to make changes in that area as we start to understand how people use the new system.

And like many intersections in Seattle, there is a construction project on one of the corners there right now, which is taking up some of the right-of-way, too.

And so that's just another complicating factor for how pedestrians and people and bikes and traffic move around, and also just another safety constraint.

Absolutely.

I heard somebody say something about a period of maximum constraint.

So if we move to the south portal then, similarly, the blue lines are the northbound alignments, southbound in yellow, some of the key points of the new interchange, new on and off ramps from Royal Brougham, so good access to Soto and the stadiums there.

There's new northbound on-ramp and a, I'm sorry, northbound off-ramp and southbound on-ramp from this new intersection we were talking about earlier at Dearborn and Alaskan Way.

So those ramps essentially replace those Seneca and Columbia ramps for folks that are used to coming from the south and getting to downtown.

You would exit there, either move over to First Avenue or proceed north on Alaskan Way and take your right into the city, depending on what your destination is.

Let me ask a quick question, Brian, on that.

If you were coming out of the football game, for example, how do you get on southbound?

I see northbound, but how do you get southbound?

Southbound, you would have a choice to just turn right out of the stadiums or head south on the city streets, or you could go up to this new intersection at Dearborn and get on southbound there.

So just for complexity purposes, you go up First Avenue, left on Dearborn, and then you can get on there?

Yes.

And if you wanted to go northbound, you'd come right off Royal Bromwell Way to get on there?

Yes.

So that graphic, I believe, shows some sort of regional trail there just to the east of that whole interchange.

And it looks like, I can't tell if that's a public or private plaza looking thing there.

What is the timing on those types of investments?

Yeah, good question.

Glad you pointed out, I've been pretty focused on the vehicles here, but there's a lot more to this program.

So there are actually two paths, one that you can see well on the photo here, we refer to this as our city side trail that offers a pedestrian connection from Soto and the stadiums right into Pioneer Square into the waterfront.

There's another trail that you really can't see in this photo that runs up the left side, we call, on the west side, we call our port side trail.

And that one's there right now, right?

That one exists, yes.

This trail gets constructed in...

To be honest, I'm not certain.

I have two contracts, the ongoing contract that does the SR-99 closure project has some follow-on work after the tunnel opens, and it may include that trail.

If it's not in that contract, we have one contract left to advertise in our program.

It's our SR-99 south connections projects.

And it rebuilds a pedestrian plaza on Railroad Way here, a couple of blocks of First Avenue.

And that trail might be in that contract.

To be honest, I can't remember which contract it's in.

If it's the latter one, is that like late 2019 or is it like 2020?

I would advertise in late 2019 construction in 2020.

And where are you expecting bikes at this point, assuming that you've got the city side and the port side trails?

Are you differentiating between pedestrians and bicycles, or are they both multi-use?

They're both multi-use.

I would say that port side trail is more the commuter route for folks that are riding in from the south and west, whereas the port side is probably a little more pedestrian friendly.

The city side.

City side, sorry.

But they're both intended for either use.

Okay.

The map doesn't go this far south, but on Atlantic Street, many of the semis need to go over this overpass here.

Will the semis be able to go straight on Atlantic Street to get to the port area?

Yes, we'll be maintaining that intersection at, I guess you'd call it East Marginal Way and Atlantic Street right outside the T46 facility.

That intersection will remain.

This is actually- Right now it's currently temporarily closed, correct?

Because you have barriers there.

So will we be opening it back up?

I believe that is open to traffic today, that intersection, but it will close.

That's that ramp that we mentioned on January 4th closes.

And this structure in the foreground of the photo that you referred to is an important part of the program.

It's constructed and open to traffic now, at least the south part of it.

And what that does is normal operations of the port in that Atlantic Street intersection would allow folks to operate at surface, but there's a BNSF tail track that runs right across that Atlantic Street intersection.

So every time they're building a train, the port is landlocked, so this structure allows them to get over that tail track and continue operations with all of those activities going on at once.

The intersection I'm looking at would connect Atlantic Street to Alaskan Way South.

It was previously an underpass that allowed for the semis to connect directly to the port.

I'm sorry, what was the intersection?

It would be connecting Atlantic Street to Alaskan Way.

Maybe you can get back to me on that.

OK.

Yeah.

Boy, I'm pretty sure you can drive that today, but we'll check that out.

Thank you.

So after the tunnel opens to traffic, I mentioned that allows us to get into the next phase of construction in our program.

We have a single contract we've awarded to Kiewit Construction, but there's really three separate projects included in the scope of that work.

And shown here is the Alaska Way Viaduct removal, decommissioning the Battery Street Tunnel, and then rebuilding of the North Surface Streets.

The viaduct demolition will start in February, right after the tunnel opens to traffic, and will last about six months.

To the point about the transit routes in and out of town, a focus, a priority of that project is to remove the ramp at Columbia Street.

so that we can get that work cleared away, allow the Waterfront Seattle program to start construction.

And the intent is to have that new transit connection from the south up Alaskan to Columbia completed before the end of 2019. Also, a priority of that project has always been to avoid the busy summer tourist season as much as possible.

And to Sally, Council Member Bakeshaw's comment earlier, we have worked with Kiewit to bring in an additional crew that will allow us to hopefully have the viaduct, for the most part, removed from the central waterfront, basically from Coleman Dock or even King Street up to about the aquarium.

We expect that the primary work in that area of the viaduct to be gone by around June 1st.

So may I ask a question?

You gave this map with a schedule to us a couple of weeks ago.

Has this been updated?

I've got one dated December 5th.

And you've got it from area 1A, 1B, 1C, 2, 3A, 3B.

Is this the latest?

I'm kind of looking at it.

I'd love to have the latest if that's not it.

December 5th.

Yes, this is the latest.

Yeah, and this information we've been doing some public open houses.

There's one tonight actually 430 day 8 p.m.

I think at the armory up at the Seattle Center that Some a lot of boards with a lot of great information about this project including that schedule information is available there for folks that are looking for something to do and that aren't Seahawks fans and

Brian, remind me, these projects aren't in sequence, right?

They're overlapping timelines.

We're not going to wait for 24 months to build those, you know, re-gridding the street grid.

Yeah, that's correct.

All three of these projects we anticipate starting construction in February or March latest.

So the second of the three is the Battery Street Tunnel decommissioning.

As noted, it's expected to be about two years of construction in total.

It's noted that roughly the first half or so of that construction is primarily within the Battery Street Tunnel itself.

It'll have fairly minimal impacts on the streets at surface.

But the second half of the construction, they'll be finalizing, filling the tunnel through the ventilation grates at surface and then making improvements on Battery Street itself.

So the second year of that two-year period is expected to be a pretty significant impact to that corridor.

Brian, I know that we've had many, many conversations about that block that's right at Battery between First and Western and between Battery and Bell.

And many of the folks in Belltown are interested in acquiring that after your staging is done.

And they're looking at two things.

One is they call it an orchard pea patch just as to making it a giant lung for Belltown, and then secondly, There's a potential of having a downtown elementary school on at least part of that.

So I hope as you're going through all of these for the next two years that we can stay really close in touch about that because it is a parcel of property, great importance to Belltown.

And then also I have asked WSDOT and SDOT to be cognizant of the fact that they want to green up battery.

And that's probably going to mean trees that are in some kind of dividers.

It's not going to be below ground because we know the tunnel will be below there.

But if you'll just remember as we're going through here that water and electricity for that is going to be really important.

and not get left behind, and then somebody says, oops, we forgot water to water the trees along that Battery Street exit.

I mean, it's now just gonna be a, it's a street that I think transit is going to have priorities on, but greening it up is gonna be really important for Belltown.

Yes, I appreciate those comments.

I know that SDOT has been working on some ideas on how to green up Battery, and we have been talking about that, so it is not lost on us.

Thank you.

And the final scope of work is that north surface streets connection.

So that's that three black area I was talking about between Harrison Street and Denny Way and what used to be SR 99 Aurora Avenue.

at Denny Way is the north portal of the Battery Street Tunnel.

So Highway 99 is 20 feet or so below the grade of Denny Way.

So this project basically brings what is now Aurora Avenue up to grade and allows us to reconnect the streets at John and Tom Streets to really improve the network connectivity between the South Lake Union and lower Queen Anne neighborhoods.

Could you just talk a little bit about Thomas Street being a priority for Bikes and Peds and Harrison being a priority for Cars and Freight, I believe?

Sure, that's correct.

In the planning for the program, we worked with the community and with DOT's bike and pedestrian planning efforts, and Thomas Street is referred to as a green street, so it'll be a little narrower, have bike lanes, a little more green plantings on it, and John Street becomes more of the vehicular connectivity between the neighborhoods, as well as Harrison being a new connection across Highway 99 that doesn't exist today.

Thank you.

I just want to take a quick second to thank the Council President and Chair Baxhaw in the budget process and reiterate our appreciation for your work in the statement of legislative intent that we included in the budget to make sure that there is secure funding for the Thomas Street completion so that the braided funding that we have is analyzed to ensure that we do have enough funding before we get to a point where we've either run out of funds or for some reason it's delayed.

This is a big priority project I know for connecting east-west, especially for creating safe corridors for pedestrians, bicyclists, and those who want to ride scooters.

So looking forward to getting your feedback as early as we can, but I think it's mid-year next year.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, now we're going to turn our attention to the transit routes that are affected by these changes, particularly the changes in January.

I will talk through some of those and some of the impacts and some of the efforts we're implementing to mitigate those impacts.

First on the south end, beginning on January 11th with the Viaduct closure, The routes that currently operate on the viaduct will begin operating on surface streets through the Soto area.

The buses will continue from the Spokane Street Bridge down to the E3 busway and then head into town and serve the 3rd Avenue corridor as they do today.

We know that over the period of the closure and throughout the period, several years beyond when the waterfront route is being reconstructed, the buses will have to take different pathways to get into downtown.

Those pathways will change over time and they may change actually from day to day depending on traffic conditions because we'll be working with the City of Seattle as well as our transportation coordination office to monitor conditions and respond with different pathways.

From the rider's standpoint, it doesn't impact them, although they may find themselves on a bus that's on a different street one day from another.

And that's because there aren't any bus stops in the Soto area just as there aren't today on the viaduct.

In your neighborhood, you get on the bus at the stops you normally do.

And then in downtown, you get on or off at the same or perhaps one additional stop depending on where you're working downtown.

The graphic is complicated and I apologize for that.

But the yellow alignment supported with the orange alternative there, shows what will happen in January on January the 11th.

Later, once the tunnel opens and then a week or so later when the Dearborn ramp opens, the buses will move over to the Blue Line.

Throughout all of these potential alignments, we've been working very diligently with the City of Seattle to implement some transit lanes, connections where they don't exist today that can knit together and provide as much transit priority throughout the Soto surface streets as possible.

The routes that are impacted are from West Seattle and Southwest King County, and there's 12 of them coming in from the south end.

Just briefly, most of these routes run kind of regardless of a holiday schedule.

But during this period, we've got a couple of holidays, both MLK and President's Day.

And I wonder if the county is prepared to ensure that we are running all of our buses at what would be a traditional weekday level of service, despite the fact that we've got those posted holidays.

No, at this point, I believe that we are planning on operating on holiday or Sunday schedules on those holidays.

I'm sure that we're beyond the point of decision on that one.

However, I'd love to reinforce that if there's an opportunity for us to reconsider that.

I mean, I think every available option open to folks every available day of the week would be great.

And there are some of us who don't have that kind of flexibility to have our schedules match up with a federal holiday schedule.

considering that we're in the middle of what will be a pretty blustery traffic position, finding ways to alleviate that by bringing some of those back onto a non-holiday schedule would be great.

And I don't know whether or not there's some STBD money that we could free up or some other partnership opportunities there.

I'm sure there are labor agreements that we need to revisit.

But generally being thoughtful about how we might be able to think about this as the, you know, a high priority for us during this period would be really important.

Thank you.

I'll bring that forward and get more information on that schedule.

Just to put a finer point on that if I might.

It'd be great if we could get a report back on that conversation and to underscore our desire to make sure that there's all options.

Perhaps a known deadline by when we were going to get feedback would be helpful.

It'd be next Monday.

It's our last committee day.

So I would really support what Council Member Johnson I think it's really important and we're all looking at water taxi and everything else to get Heather over here, but that's important to have us make sure that it's open to everybody west and south.

Moving on then, it's not just from the south end where the impacts lie, and this diagram shows five routes that are impacted coming in on Aurora southbound over at the north end of the tunnel.

In this case as well, the stops that exist today remain stops and will be available to passengers.

The alignments don't change much in this area, but the impact is just ongoing traffic congestion that is the result the initially reopening the ramps down up at the north end, but then longer term with those additional projects that go on for the next 15 or so months.

Are these dedicated lanes for these buses so that it's restricted to transit?

The areas shown in orange or on light orange are existing transit lanes.

And then there's an additional block or so of transit lane that we've been successful in working with the City of Seattle to implement here during the closure to get through that next block and get a leap in the queue as you're entering the main lineup.

And those are up now?

They are up now, correct.

We mentioned that this is a project that requires us to really use all of the resources that we have to bear on this, and this slide is illustrating additional service on the King County Water Taxi.

That additional service will begin with the closure.

And basically we are adding a boat to that service and providing additional trips all the way throughout the day.

So there will be approximately 30 sailings from each of Seacrest Park and Coleman Dock daily on weekdays at this point only.

This is an area where we're really striving to implement as many of our mobility options as we have available to make this a good pathway.

That would include some free shuttles from both the Alaska Junction and the Alki area, as well as we have been experimenting with something called Ride 2, an on-demand van service that works very much like an Uber ride in a specific area that would take people to that area.

Finally, we're working to get additional parking capacity down.

We have obtained additional parking capacity down on Harbor Avenue.

Can I ask a question?

How are you coordinating with the Kitsap ferries as well?

Because I understand there's some fast ferries.

I heard over the weekend that there's interest in Kitsap, maybe even Edmonds adding routes, and what they are running out of is dock space.

That's based down here at Coleman Dock.

So what work's going on with 48 or wherever else we've got hospitalized?

That's correct.

Those entities have been working with Metro Marine Division to look at different options that are there.

I am not well versed on all of the details behind those and would have to get back to you with those.

I will just offer that this is a topic that has come up a lot at the regional level at PSRC in particular, and we are convening a set of regional stakeholders in 2019 to address this issue because waterside transport from the Olympic Peninsula, not only just from Kingston, but other points due west is going to only increase over the next year or two.

And with the options of more of our King County and neighboring counties being interested in waterborne service, this is becoming a larger, larger regional issue.

So we've got a task force that is going to get stood up next year to offer some recommendations.

Great.

Thank you.

So all of our agencies, WSDOT, SDOT, King County Metro, with our partners Sound Transit and the Port of Seattle are working hard to make sure that we're doing all the things we can do to make the upcoming viaduct closure as smooth as it can be.

We are, like I said, actively monitoring and adjusting the traffic system.

We have developed timing patterns, signal timing patterns that we can apply to the grid that will help us do things like flush traffic out or bring traffic in.

We're also staffing our operations center, not just SDOT's operations center, but WSDOT as well as King County Metro's operations center all day, all night, so that we can pay attention to that at all hours.

We're also deploying uniformed police officers, UPOs, at key transit intersections, and I can get you a map if you'd like to see where that is.

In addition, we've already extended transit priority on 3rd Avenue from 6 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

We really want to protect 3rd Avenue for transit because we want to make sure that transit continues to be as competitive as possible.

We've added bus trips.

In September, we added bus trips to key Metro routes during the peak hours.

And during the closure, we'll have, working with Metro, to have standby coaches available to fill in if things get too crowded and to maintain schedules.

And then, as Paul just discussed, we're adding additional water taxi service.

One of the big things that we've done is revoked and modified certain permits for construction that takes place in the right-of-way downtown.

So as you're moving through downtown and you see those big giant construction projects, we're pulling the boundaries.

of those construction projects back to make more of the, both the roadway as well as the sidewalk and bike lanes more available.

We're also temporarily restricting parking at key locations and where we're restricting parking, it's primarily for the purpose of facilitating transit.

There are also some, the police and fire department called them shoots.

So particular routes for emergency vehicles where we'll pull back parking to make sure that the vehicles have some place to pull over to so that emergency vehicles can make it through.

In addition, we're working cooperatively with the largest employers downtown, particularly through Challenge Seattle, to have them work with their employees to reduce drive-alone trips, whether that's by providing more flexibility in scheduling or helping folks understand what their choices are.

In addition, WSDOT has put some additional money toward Commute Seattle so that people can get individual advice about how to make this work the best way that they can.

So we encourage people to contact Commute Seattle.

All of our agencies, including the Port of Seattle and Sound Transit, are collaborating on a regional communications effort, including more than 100 meetings.

This was actually a few days ago when we wrote this slide, so it's even more than 100 meetings at this point with community groups, stakeholders, and businesses.

In addition, we have launched a website.

We all have websites, but we've launched a website that allows you to, it sort of aggregates all the information and allows you to sign up for alerts.

Is there anything you guys want to add to this one?

No.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for mentioning bikes in your remarks.

I again don't see it's necessarily written down here so I think it's important just every time we can to write it down so we all have are working on the same sheet of paper here quite literally but when you talk about modifying The permit construction.

This is something I'm really interested as in as well There was a council member out of New York City who passed legislation Requiring all of the construction sites to not only move the barriers over but to create a new bike lane So there was a protected bike lane around the construction areas as we are restricting parking temporarily and pushing back some of the construction sites will we be also providing a temporary line so that bikers and come those in vehicles We'll know where the line is so that people feel safer biking.

So the time of year that we're implementing this is not super conducive to painting lines on the street.

Just painting during the rain is not very effective.

But I think that we can work to make sure that there are some kind of visual barrier so that you can tell where, so that the traffic is organized.

We can tell where folks are supposed to be.

That would be great.

Thank you.

Heather, are we able to get information to the ride share companies with the TNCs, much like we're getting to the large employers for suggested routes, suggested times of day, or are we just relying on them to dig it out of our information?

No, we are working closely with them.

In fact, we are doing some additional enforcement.

Sometimes the transit TNC company drivers are I think the Seattle police department is very enthusiastic about where they choose to pull over and pick up rides and how they reverse direction.

gently what the rules are.

In addition, we have established a geofence on 3rd Avenue.

This is where the drivers and riders can't either request or fulfill a ride on 3rd Avenue.

You have to go around the corner.

That's going to keep Third Avenue, again, competitive for transit.

In addition, I think I might have mentioned this earlier, the TNCs are working to actually lift, I think announced this today, to give some discounts to folks who are using TNCs to get to transit facilities.

We'd really like to encourage people to use TNCs during this time as a way to connect to transit rather than as a way to come directly into downtown.

To the extent that that everybody's situation is different, we're very clear on that, but we want everybody to pay attention to reducing the number of vehicles that we're bringing downtown.

Thank you.

Council Member Bakeshaw.

Thank you.

I want to say thanks to the three of you for being willing to be subjected to all of our questions.

So thank you for keeping your good cheer.

And Council Member Mosqueda, thank you for bringing up the bike lane issue.

And we just really want to see that written down.

So, you know, Cascade Bicycle Club will be calling us within 15 minutes if they don't think that we have been asking the right questions.

Sure.

So I appreciate you doing that.

Excited to hear about the water taxi increase and Councilmember Johnson.

Thank you for the information about the regional effort one thing I haven't heard anybody talk about is akin to what Denver has done around their 16th Avenue, which is entirely transportation, but people get off on the ends which would be I mean comparable to Convention Center and our internet our ID Drop-off and then there's 90-second shuttles.

So people aren't waiting But they're moving, and it moves better.

It moves more efficiently.

I've talked with Metro about it.

They tell me that they're looking into it.

I've also heard competing information that they looked into it, decided not to do it.

30 years ago, when I was a lawyer for Metro, We looked into it, and the argument then was, well, people don't like two-seat rides.

But now it's like people are more interested in predictability and speed getting through downtown.

So I hope that you'll keep us updated, is that if the Denver 16th Avenue model is something that you're seriously considering, I think it's a good one for our downtown around 3rd Avenue.

Love to hear more.

Yeah, I think that that's something that we are having ongoing conversations about.

I'm sure you know that that's not something that we could implement for January.

We get it.

Maybe not even be able to implement it in 2020, but the concepts are good.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I want to just take a quick second to offer an alternative frame as we talk about working with the Uber and Lyft drivers, the TNC drivers as we call them, because you mentioned that it is a process that you're engaged with to remind the drivers of the rules about picking up.

The reframe I would offer is to really remind the riders because often in conversations with the drivers, we hear about individual drivers who lose their livelihood because riders will give them a one star or no star or a very poor rating because the driver wouldn't pick them up in the exact spot that the rider wanted them to.

And I think many cities, and I hope ours takes a more aggressive stance on this at some point as well, have really required riders to only go to certain locations to pick people up.

And often the rider will say, no, I wanted it here, you know, 20 feet down the way, but right in the road, right in the middle of the right-of-way for other vehicles or transit.

And often we've, just two months ago, heard directly from dozens of Uber and Lyft drivers who had lost the ability to drive their vehicle because they had been given a bad rating for not picking someone up in the exact location.

So in in our conversations with the TNC companies, I would also encourage folks to do a massive education campaign for the riders in TNCs.

Obviously we want them in transit.

We want them on buses and bicycles and scooters and in buses.

But when they decide to take a ride share, it is critically important that they also recognize that these drivers don't have an option in many cases.

And I would like the conversation to begin with the companies as well about not dinging people, not giving them a poor rating, especially in this bad period.

We all know that people get frustrated when they're stuck in traffic.

And I don't want any of these drivers to have that poor rating taken out on them for their livelihood, especially if they're not able to pick someone up.

So it's a message that I'm hoping you can deliver, but let us know how we can be of help as well, because I think Council Member O'Brien and the Council President have been heavily involved in trying to figure out how we work more closely with this new entity.

But especially in this period of maximum constraint, it's critical that we not only think about protecting the safety of I think that's a really good point and thank you for bringing it up.

of Amazon, sort of South Lake Union, north of downtown, where we are identifying those particular pin drops.

And we want to get some data to make sure that that's something that's going to be.

We want to get some data too, don't we?

Yeah.

So we're going to try that out and make sure we get some data to see if it's effective or how to make it more effective.

I agree with you that we don't want this to be a situation where the drivers are getting punished for following the rules.

And so that's one of the reasons why these kinds of fora are important, as well as the community meetings that we go out to where we mention this to everybody.

I think the key for everyone, no matter what your role in transportation is, is that we have to be a lot more compassionate and we have to pack our patients for every single thing that we do.

There's more than just one.

I'm going to give credit to Sound Transit.

That's their line.

That's a pretty good one.

Are we ready?

So now we get to what the public can do.

This is an issue that the government, WSDOT, SDOT, Metro, all the transit agencies, the port, this is something that we're all working on hard, and we've been, I don't know, we've probably been, we say a year, but I think we've actually been planning for it for more like 17 years.

working hard, but ultimately traffic comes down to individuals wanting to move from one place to another.

So we need the public and the folks who are on the rider side of the equation to be fully engaged.

We need everyone to make a plan and to be prepared.

So we all have websites that are listed here where you can learn more about all the projects that are happening, sign up for alerts, and explore your options.

We want folks, to the extent that they're capable of doing this, to shift their travel times.

I know that buses can be full right there at the peak time, but if you leave a little earlier or leave a little later, there's more room.

We want to encourage people to bike and walk and carpool and vanpool and use transit, particularly light rail and the water taxi, to the extent that folks can flex their schedules or their travel times, work from home, postpone discretionary trips, or even take time off.

We know it's right after the holidays.

That would be fantastic.

The other thing that we want folks to do is don't let January 11th be the first time you try your new route.

Give it some practice.

Try the water taxi.

Try your new transit route.

Try that vanpool or carpool or get a bike buddy in advance of January 11th because there's going to be plenty of I think we have plenty of stuff going on on the road without everybody trying to figure out what's next.

Last time.

Last time.

I saw a great sign in Los Angeles.

You aren't in traffic, you are traffic.

Why don't I take a now it's a good opportunity to say that I am working with our HR department on some messaging and with councilmember Brian's office as well should be ready in the next couple of days just getting some messaging out to our department about flexibility and about individual plans and The mayor's put something out as well I've seen citywide.

So I think we're going to have to walk our talk here.

And so to the extent we have an example would be committee meetings that start at 930. You may want to consider starting them at 10 o'clock.

So we're going to come up with some suggestions.

The key is flexibility and there might be earlier start times as well.

So we're going to try to anticipate where the choke points, the timing of choke points, where they might be and give our staffs I'm hoping to get something out this week.

Councilmember O'Brien.

Can I ask some specifics around the peak period?

Some definitions.

Specifically, we know that this is going to be, you know, the next couple of years, in particular those three to four weeks, really Not a great idea if you can avoid it at all because you'll be driving by yourself to downtown during rush hour.

And at the same time, when I tell folks like, hey, leave that car at home, take transit for your commute, what I know is most of the buses are packed at that hour and the trains are pretty full too.

And so either they're going to get passed by if, you know, if hundreds of people make that shift in or out or have a really bad experience for someone.

Help me, and we would add more transit, but there's just, you know, there's not room on the road at those hours for more buses, and short term, it's really hard to get it.

So help me understand some specifics.

It's like, when should people start work before or after to be able to, there's like, might get a seat on a bus or not be passed by?

Yeah, the peak of the peak is the one hour period in the morning from 7.30 to 8.30 in the afternoon from 4.30 to 5.30.

So those are the times when the buses are heavy, most heavily used.

We've all experienced very busy buses at other times of the day, and it's Metro's intent and hope that we don't have to pass by people who are waiting at the bus stop.

In order to be able to respond to that during this period, we have some additional coaches that we're able to insert into the schedule on certain routes.

Depending on an event that might be happening that day, which would allow us to plan for it, or just in response to key locations where there are pass-bys.

So those are some of the keys there.

We're also talking to all of our transit riders about the same issue and encouraging them to flex their schedules if they can.

That might get them off the bus during that peak hour and get them on a little bit earlier, freeing up a space so that somebody newly entering into the system doesn't have a bad experience.

It's going to be tough for everybody.

And we've been consistently messaging around the fact that it'll take longer.

Definitely it will take longer than it does today.

But we've been working to get priority where possible and keep those transit trips as reliable as possible.

And so for the morning commute then, for folks, if you can take a transit ride, say like 7 o'clock or earlier, or like 9 o'clock or later, that's going to feel a lot better.

And for an existing commuter, great.

New commuter, great.

But however it is.

And then in the afternoon, say before 4 if you can kind of head home, or after 6. That's right.

Great.

We are working with Metro and combining our data and working with OneBusAway to include that capacity information on OneBusAway so that you can, it's a prediction, so it's never gonna be perfect, but we'll be able to say that in the past, you'll find more capacity.

That's great.

Yeah, so that information will be in OneBusAway.

You know, we're going to, things are going to be changing kind of by the moment when we get into January.

And one thing that would be really helpful for Metro and Sound Transit would be any data we get on ridership on certain routes.

If that kind of rule of thumb we just talked about holds true, but if we see, you know, from the south end what we're seeing is this and we really need, you know, that window's going to be bigger.

some feedback on where we're getting overcrowded.

It would be really helpful just, I think we can be helpful in sharing information with our constituents, and obviously you will be doing a media thing.

I know that there'll be a lot of press on this, I'm sure, over the course of that whole month.

But the better data we get to folks so that they don't, I did what I was told, and I showed up, and it was just awful.

And like you said, everything's gonna be slower, we know that.

To Council President Harrell, I think we want to explore both morning and afternoon committee times and shifting those so we can get people coming and going, both city council staff and city staff who will be coming to those meetings, but also constituents who want to show up.

I know that other departments have talked about a window during the middle of the day, which is kind of your, hey, here's where we want to conduct meetings, you know, between 10 and 2 or 10 and 3. But try not to schedule meetings outside that window.

Obviously, telecommuting is something we've talked about.

For folks that can take a day and work from home, that's great.

But if you can't take the day and work from home, which can take an hour, You know, that like my computer boot up, I'm just going through my inbox for an hour and do that from home and then hop on the bus a little later.

Or for those that are more morning people, starting the day really early and getting in and then getting out early.

And, you know, the city of Seattle, we're a pretty major employer.

We have a little over 10,000 employees here.

But obviously a lot of other employers in town and really asking employees and employers to have these conversations right now.

about what that flexibility looks like.

If you're not a bike commuter, asking folks to try bike commuting in January for the first time is pretty heavy lift.

But I want to, Councilmember Howard, President Howard, you're signaling me.

It made me think of something in our discussion that we would, I'll also do is coordinate with our court system because there's a lot of hearings that start right on time in our Judges know they start on time.

So, I'm sorry, I got a little anxious there.

You just made me think about the repercussions on the court calendar.

But I'm not in queue.

After you finish, Councilman Schwantz in queue.

So that's, you know, when people start having these conversations, these are the ideas and red lights or green lights that go off in people's minds.

So let's, we wanna make sure as many of those can happen because, you know, on January 20th, it's gonna be a little late to make some of these adjustments.

Today is the time to make those.

Councilmember, I just want to mention that I spend my days going out and talking to large groups of employees.

Last week, I went and spoke to 500 employees at Starbucks, and I can say that many employers are having these conversations and trying to be as flexible as they can be.

Obviously, you know, if you work in a warehouse or you're an asphalt raker, that's not something that you can do from home, but there are lots of people who can do that work differently.

I know Commute Seattle, who is a partner with the City of Seattle and the business community in King County Metro, is doing a lot of work too for employers.

If you haven't connected with Commute Seattle or haven't been harassed by them already to make changes, they're out there as a resource.

The other thing I just want to mention is that Our system today is already stretched thin.

I mean, we are at capacity.

And what we know is when your system is at 100 or 102% of capacity, it starts to collapse.

Just a few additional people on a system can make a disproportionate amount of pain to everyone on the system.

And so we're going to be in that.

The converse is true, too, though.

We don't need to get 20% of the people out of a certain thing.

Just a handful of folks changing behavior can make enough of a difference that significantly improves the system.

And so I know a lot of folks are thinking, well, is my decision gonna make a difference?

And the answer is just a handful of folks making modest decisions can make a difference.

And so back to my bike commute.

For folks that are summer good weather only commuters, that's the way I was when I first started a couple decades ago, maybe thinking like once a week trying to go out and do a bike commute.

I will tell you that my expectation is that There will be more bikers commuting, but you won't be hitting congestion.

You probably won't get to work any slower during these four weeks than you would otherwise.

That and walking are the two modes that I expect.

Well, there's excess capacity in the system for folks.

And so, you know, those are the types of changes.

You know, just one day a week making a change.

And if everyone did that, you know, that would be more than enough to accommodate our system and allow everything to continue with his little pain.

And recognizing, as you said, there are people for a variety of reasons that can't make the change.

And so for those of us that do have some flexibility, we're carrying a little extra burden and we're just going to be asking folks.

And colleagues, I hope that we can use our various platforms to continue to ask people to be making this plan.

for the next, you know, couple weeks, because folks really need to be a little thoughtful about this.

Unlike closures in the past, where it's like, hey, we got three weeks on I-5, it's gonna be awful, and then we just come back and it's be done and it'll all be better.

It's like, no, we're going to have three weeks where it's going to be really hard, but when it comes back, it's going to be different.

And then a month later, we're going to do something different.

We're going to add a bunch of buses to the street, and we're going to change the bus configuration on 6th and 5th.

And then a few months later, we're going to add tolls to the system.

That's going to change things.

So the reality is our behavior, and all those changes are permanent, with the exception of the three-week closure.

And so we're going to have to be adapting at a really rapid pace.

It's going to make us all really uncomfortable.

It's going to make us frustrated.

People are going to be angry because they don't get the seat on the bus they used to.

Their route's not working.

They're going to be on their devices, hopefully not in a legal way, trying to figure out how to map things.

And it's just going to lead to a lot of conflict.

And so I just hope everyone Recognizes that, plans for it, anticipates it, takes a deep breath, is courteous to others, and when we can make some changes ourselves, figure out how to do that.

And if you have a good success story, please share it.

Tell your neighbors, tell your coworkers, hey, I did this today, it worked pretty well.

Go together with your boss and say, hey, you know, can we do something to encourage people to come in at 7.30 a.m., maybe some extra bagels or donuts or whatever it is.

Very good.

Off my high horse.

No, thank you.

That was very good, Council Member O'Brien.

I saw Council Member Sawant first.

She's been patient.

Thank you.

And thanks for all the information that you all have provided.

And I agree with Council Member O'Brien that those workers who have to come into downtown and have the option to use a flex time or or use the, you know, bike to work and so on.

I completely agree that those who can should exercise that option as much as possible in the larger public interest.

However, very little or none of this conversation has focused on the many, many, many workers who will not have that choice at all.

And also because they are low income, they are also going to have to commute from longer distances because they can't afford to live in the city core.

And so biking is not an option for them.

So I'm wondering what, if any, special outreach the Departments of Transportation are doing to the businesses that employ a preponderance of such workers, like the McDonald's in downtown, or the custodial workers, and really telling them that, look, this is a public project, and no individual worker should be held accountable if they are delayed.

And flex time is not an option if you have the 7 a.m.

shift at McDonald's.

You got to show up on time, and very likely you will get fired if you don't show up downtown, because that's the norm.

And so my concern is, are we doing any specific outreach with the specific guidelines?

Obviously, legally, as a Department of Transportation, you don't have the authority to tell the business what to do.

But sending a very clear message that we don't want any individual workers to be adversely impacted because this is a collective burden that we are carrying.

And that if the person who is supposed to show up at 7 o'clock showed up at 720 because of traffic delays, then you are not.

As the city of Seattle, we're telling you, you should not take any action on them.

So I feel like in addition to all the steps we're taking, we have to take a specific step towards helping workers who don't have those choices.

One, because their schedules are not flexible, and two, because they have longer commuting distances, and sometimes they're facing both.

And in addition, sorry, before you come in, in addition to what the departments do, I would really urge as a city council that we send out a specific message in some shape or form saying that the city council, as the elected body of the city, you know, has this position.

That's a great suggestion.

Absolutely.

And we are working with the largest employers to make sure that they are focusing on the full range of employees that they have.

And I think that they're very focused on that.

They understand clearly that there are some people that have flexibility and some people that don't.

that when the system is as overburdened as ours is now, and we add this additional pressure, I think folks understand that that's not something that we can hold people individually accountable for.

And so I'll make sure, I'll just go back and make sure that we're very clear on that message.

In addition, I just want to mention that we are, obviously translating all of our materials because we want to make sure that we're reaching the immigrant and refugee communities, you know, who are sort of a little bit, not sort of completely, you know, on the fringes.

So we want to make sure that we're reaching out to all of those folks.

I appreciate all that.

Just one thing I'll add is, I think, I mean, from our standpoint, I agree with you.

It seems like a logical thing.

No individual worker should be held accountable.

I agree with you.

I would urge that we not make the assumption that that's happening because that does not accord with the statistical and anecdotal understanding we have of how low income workers and lower workers down the rung are treated.

And in reality, their experience is quite terrible and nothing to do with this construction project.

I just mean that in general, when you are a low-wage worker and you show up late, you suffer consequences.

There's lots of intimidation and bullying at the workplace.

So I would urge that we not make the assumption that things are going right, but rather lean in the direction of giving more information and also stating a political position that we urge that employers don't do this.

So I would definitely encourage the City Council to do what they feel like they need to do on that political side.

The other thing that I wanted to mention is that we're all very clear that low-wage workers, they're at a higher risk.

So, you know, anybody could get dinged for coming in late, but the problem is when you are just holding on by a thread.

So clear on that.

I wonder if I could move on just to my last point, which is to say that we're just getting started, and I hope that I'll have the chance to come and talk to you many more times, because between now and 2023, there are a significant number of very large transformative both public and private infrastructure and development projects that are going to change the way that we move around this city.

I think we've already spoken about the, you know, rebuilding Alaskan Way and the waterfront, and we've already mentioned that buses are coming out of the downtown Seattle transit tunnel in March.

But then we move on to the construction of the waterfront.

We move on to the the demolition of the viaduct.

The Washington State Convention Center project is going to be under construction for years, and there are major transportation changes that take place.

We're going to have to move Olive Way.

in order for them to do their construction.

In addition, the 520 project has some construction that is going to touch the north part of downtown and change the way that that works.

The good news is, from a transportation perspective, is that in 2021 and then in 2023, those extensions of light rail are opening up, which are going to provide additional choices for folks.

So I will...

If I am welcome, I will be back to tell you more as that develops.

Thank you, Heather.

Council Member Schader.

Thank you very much.

Yes, thank you again for this briefing.

I'm sure we'll have many chances to talk with you.

I am pleased to hear that you're talking with some of the largest employers.

Do you know how many of those include an ORCA card?

So we, as one of the largest employers, we provide an ORCA card to employees.

Do you know how many other employers do that currently?

Many large employers provide ORCA cards as part of their benefit package.

Paul, I don't know if you have more specific information.

I don't.

I do know that large employers are required to implement a transportation management plan that includes getting the information out to their employers, employees, but also providing the wide range of incentives to them.

How many actually result in ORCA uses?

I'm not...

I will say that both Amazon and Starbucks who are big employers in the downtown Provide as well as the University of Washington King County Metro the city so you know these are these are really large employers but I can I can check and see who all provides that.

That'd be helpful so then that I think underscores I think how possible how feasible this ask is.

My ask would be that King County Metro work with us to provide free ORCA passes to those who don't currently have an ORCA card for that three-week period.

I think this would be the final incentive for those who might be like Councilmember Swamp mentioned, working on the margins, working in minimum wage jobs and don't really have an alternative to have flexible time.

I know Councilmember Baxter suggested next week for some of these options, but I think when originally we were thinking about the concept of free ORCA cards, period, it's a good idea, but we recognize that there's fiscal restraints that everybody has to operate within.

But given the information that you mentioned about the number of large employers that currently have some sort of incentive program, I think the universe of people that we're potentially thinking about offering it to declines.

So it seems more possible to do it for a three-week period.

Can you comment on that?

So I will say, I forgot to mention that through the Seattle Transit Benefit District, we are providing ORCA cards to all City of Seattle high school students.

So that's another gigantic universe of people.

I think we'd have to do some research.

I think, in general, offering free ORCA cards is something that we'd want to look at really carefully and just see how many talking about before we decide whether or not that's a fiscally and transportation responsible thing to do.

Especially if we've already got these large employers and the kiddos in school taking care of our large employers that the city takes care of.

It seems like the universe might be a lot smaller than we would originally be thinking of.

I would only add that we're working very diligently to get news of the word of the ORCA LIFT program out to folks so that they can understand that there is a low-income fare that's available through this program.

and get that information out to them in many different languages and forms and formats.

I think that's a great long-term goal.

I think that's especially exciting because if you think about building long-term ridership, that type of information is important.

But I think if we're thinking about this three-week period and how we address the period of maximum constraint and potentially get longer-term ridership, I would still love to hear back on Monday about what the universe is and how we can close that gap.

It's a great idea.

I think if we were able to kind of partner those two and use some transportation benefit district funds to preload OrcaLift for folks that would qualify to essentially cover their full cost for those three weeks, the delivery mechanism of getting OrcaCards to people is a year-long process for students when we know where they all are.

And so the complexity about how we might do that in the next few weeks is complex.

But let's chat offline to see if there's a possibility, you know, maybe using the existing OrcaLift delivery process, if the city had some funds to preload folks that were new signups as a way to encourage more people as another incentive to sign up and help folks use those in those three weeks.

That might be something that we could accommodate in that short window, but I think creative thinking is what we want to do, so we can talk offline on that.

Especially for just thinking about that three-week period, if it's the easiest thing to do administratively, to offer a free card, and then others who already have their work pass, you know, clearly tap it.

But I think since we're talking about such a short period of time, in theory, hopefully, knock on wood, everyone, that would be my ask.

Thank you.

So thank you for being here.

We realize you don't work for us, but we all work for the people.

And so this partnership is coming along nicely.

So thank you for taking time out of your schedule to be here.

We deeply appreciate it.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

With that, we will almost end.

Council Member O'Brien has some parting words.

Hey, I just wanted to mention a tragedy that happened over the weekend.

A colleague of ours, yeah, Sea-Tac City Council.

Which I'd mentioned that before I'd gotten here, and I was planning on having a a moment of silence this afternoon at 2 o'clock.

I'm sorry, I missed that.

No, no, that's okay.

So I was going to recognize that at 2 o'clock.

Didn't mean to cut you short.

Thank you, Council President Harrell.

Okay.

Okay, everybody good?

Council Member Esqueda?

Just letting you know, I've fulfilled my duty to get you the text before noon.

The language for the resolution has been sent to you and is in hand here, so I'll pass that out for today's walk-on.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Okay, thank you for that.

We'll stand adjourned.

Good job.

Thank you.

And Mike, if you want to say something, too, that would be...