Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities Committee 9/20/22

You can begin now, thanks.

Good morning.

Welcome to the September 20th, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We'll come to order now.

The time is 9.32 AM.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Peterson.

Present.

I have present.

Thank you.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning and welcome to the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

On our agenda today, we have 28 items, but that includes 22 appointments to the various Transportation Advisory Boards.

First on the agenda, we've got nine appointments to the Seattle Freight Advisory Board, then seven appointments to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board, and six appointments to the Seattle Transit Advisory Board.

We appreciate the willingness of all these appointees to serve their city by improving transportation throughout Seattle.

Item 23 on our agenda is an ordinance that authorizes an updated agreement between the City of Seattle and the State of Washington for responsibilities in maintaining a Portage Bay and Roanoke Lid project for a possible vote.

Next on the agenda we will be hearing about Seattle Public Utilities solid waste rates.

As you may recall Seattle Public Utilities came to our committee on September 6th to present their updated rates for solid waste removal.

So we should be ready today to vote on that.

Next, we'll have two pieces of legislation regarding drainage and wastewater services of Seattle Public Utilities to enable automatic adjustment rates.

We'll be able to vote on the drainage piece today, but due to a technical correction is the bill title, the wastewater piece is in the form of draft legislation that we can vote on at the next full council meeting, but we'll discuss it today.

Lastly, we have two information items from Seattle Department of Transportation.

The first is a plan to expand the current pilot program for shared transit stops.

And finally, we'll have an update to the long-term recommendations for the Safe Start Permit Program, which will be sponsored by Council Member Strauss.

And we'll vote that out of committee in early December.

So at this time, we will open the general public comment period for the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

For our hybrid meeting, we have people sign up to give public comment both online and in person.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

I'll start with the speakers who have registered online, and then I'll call on speakers who have signed up here in the city council chambers.

The public comment period for this meeting is normally up to 20 minutes.

I'll call on the speakers to at a time in the order in which registered on the council's website and on the sign in sheet in the council chambers here at City Hall.

If you've not yet registered but would like to speak you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov.

slash council or by using the sign-in sheet near the public comment microphone toward the front of this council chamber.

For remote speakers, once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it's their turn to speak and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

for all public commenters.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or to our committee's oversight responsibilities.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the time allotted, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call the next speaker.

If you're providing public comment remotely, once you have completed your comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following the meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or by the listening options listed on the agenda.

The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open.

and we'll begin with the first speakers on the list.

The first speaker, oh, please remember to press star six before speaking.

The first speaker is Austin Miller followed by Shane Dombrowski.

Go ahead, Austin.

Hello, council members.

Thank you for your time this morning.

My name is Austin Miller and on behalf of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance, I want to express our support for the safe start permit proposal today for outdoor dining and serriteries.

I want to thank you all for your support of the current extension of the Safe Start program, giving operators certainty to plan ahead and make investments in their outdoor space throughout the pandemic.

The street use permits have been critical in helping many Seattle diverse restaurants offer alternative dining options in all seasons and have had tremendous support for the program from all our customers across Seattle.

Making this program permanent with the proposed permit fees will ensure this program is equitable and acceptable for all that want to participate.

This program has been widely popular with residents and operators alike, and will continue to ensure the vibrancy of our neighborhood.

Thank you for your consideration, and thank you to the SDOT team for their hard work and engagement on this issue.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Shane Dombrowski, followed by Gordon Padelford.

Go ahead, Shane.

Hello, my name is Shane Dombrowski.

I would like to thank you for your time today.

I just want to call in and voice my support for the proposed updates and continuation of the safe start initiative involving the streets and sidewalk cafes.

It's been a fantastic addition to our neighborhood and the ones adjacent.

I seek it out nearby simply because it's just so lively.

And I want to see it continue.

Our communities and local businesses need our support now more than ever.

And I'm confident that much of that support will come from continuing the safe start initiative to permanence.

That's all I have to say.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Gordon Padelford.

Go ahead, Gordon.

Good morning, council members.

Good morning, council members.

My name's Gordon Padelford.

I'm the ED of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and I'm calling in about the Cafe Streets program.

Cities like Edmonds, Boston, and San Francisco have all unfortunately smothered their Cafe Streets programs with excessive fees and regulations, what some have called a regulatory hug of death, if you will.

And that's why it's just a relief to see Seattle get it right.

And overall, this proposal is affordable, it's approachable, and it's flexible.

The fees, as Austin mentioned, are modest, although some smaller businesses may still need a subsidy.

And the red tape has been significantly reduced.

Although we've heard that many small businesses will need some help navigating the application process.

And I would love to see an OED effort to take a proactive helping approach to some of these small business districts like CID and helping navigate this exciting program.

And lastly, the program is flexible by allowing further changes to be at the director level rather than through legislation to respond to any unforeseen issues that come up.

So I want to thank Council Member Strauss and Elise Nelson for Ed Estat for this commendable proposal, and I hope it's voted on as soon as possible.

And with regards to the food truck legislation, these changes seem really modest, Perhaps too modest, because that's the urbanist report, the cost to operate a food truck in Seattle is estimated at 32,000 compared to just 5,000 in Portland.

But still, it's a step in the right direction.

So I hope you'll pass this legislation soon.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That appears to conclude our online speakers.

We've got somebody else signed up named Abby, but who's not present.

And then we don't have any public speakers here in the city council chambers today.

So that concludes our list of speakers here from the general public.

So now we will move on to the first legislative item on our agenda.

Will the clerk please read the full title of the first nine agenda items into the record?

Agenda Items 1 through 9. Appointments 2355 through 2360, 2362, 2363, and 2378. Appointments of Nigel Barron, Crystal Fizer, Dan McKisson, Stanley W. Ryder, and Howard Victor Agnew as members of the Seattle Freight Advisory Board for a term to May 31st, 2024. Appointments of Daniel J. Kelly, Rachel Ludwick, Eric Wright and Al Muhlenbrook as members to the Seattle Freight Advisory Board for terms to May 31st, 2023 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Yeah, as I mentioned at the top of the meeting, we've got 22 appointments today, the first nine for the Freight Advisory Board and the Freight Advisory Board provides input on city policies, plans and projects as they may relate to freight capacity, safety, access and mobility throughout our city with a particular focus on the city's industrial lands and the businesses they support.

We actually have three appointees here in person today at City Council Chambers, or at least two appointees in person today.

And then we have some folks here through Zoom.

So bear with us here as we hear from each person who's able to make it today.

As usual, the appointment packets are attached to the agenda.

So you can see their resumes, whether it's a City Council appointment or mayoral appointment.

I do want to thank SDOT for their collaboration on all these appointments as we get people interested in these and sort of batching them together so we can bring them through our committee and to the full city council and appreciate all the appointees, their willingness to serve the city in this way.

We'll probably ask for those who are present, we'll probably ask them to tell us a little bit about their background and why they'd like to serve on this particular advisory board.

But first, we'll turn it over to our department representative here today, who is Chris Eaves, who's here in the Council Chambers.

Good morning, Chris.

Good morning, Council Member.

Thank you.

And go ahead and pull that microphone really close.

Good morning, Council Member.

Thank you very much.

As a liaison to the Seattle Freight Advisory Board, it's been my opportunity to learn a great deal from the volunteers who have had member seats over the years.

The goal of maintaining and improving goods movement to serve the people of Seattle has been preeminent for the people who have served and the people coming in, of which there are a number, have expressed some of the same interests and goals in the ability of creating a long-term network and support to make sure that the people who live within our limits of the city have what they need when they need it.

Great.

Well, let's hear from the first two appointees who are here in the chambers together, and just remember to pull those microphones close to you, and then we'll go to the appointees on joining us via Zoom.

And just tell us briefly about your background and why you'd like to serve.

Hi, my name's Nigel Baron.

I actually live in Rainier Beach, and I work in Ballard, so I traverse the city every day, and I'm excited to participate in the Freight Advisory Board, and I get to see, you know, I run a boatyard in Ballard, and we take a lot of boat, we take a lot of oversized loads, and we have a lot of freight, so I'm excited to participate in a program that's gonna keep freight moving in the city so we can have a diverse and robust economy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman Peterson and committee members.

I'm Dan McKisson.

I'm with ILW Local 19 representing Maritime.

If appointed, this will be my second term on this committee.

I look forward to continuing the work, getting freight through the city.

It's very important to the Maritime workers in Puget Sound and in our importers and exporters in the region throughout the state and beyond.

So I look forward to continuing that work.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And we've got a few more appointees on Zoom for the Freight Advisory Board.

So let's hear from them.

I may need help from the clerk to see who's here.

Oh, thank you.

Okay, so why don't we hear next from Rachel Ludwick.

Good morning, Rachel.

Morning.

Can you hear me?

All right.

Yes.

I'm Rachel Ludwig.

I am actually a tech worker, but I work in a company, a hardware startup down in Soto.

And I was interested in the freight board because of general interest in transportation and my company.

Obviously, we have learned a lot about that over the years, but the bigger reason is as someone who is disabled as well, my big interest was like, how do we make freight work for the entire community, including disabled people, because there are obviously a lot of things that are important, in particular to disabled people, but also help serve the entire community.

So that's one of my big motivations was to help out with that.

Thank you very much.

And next we'll hear from Dan Kelly and then Stanley, and then committee members may have some comments or questions.

Good morning.

My name is Dan Kelly.

I work for Alaska Marine Lines, relatively new to the Seattle area.

I've been here about five years, but worked in marine transportation for over 30 years.

Got engaged with SDOT through the West Seattle Bridge Project and the impact.

We manage about 100 acres down in the West Marginal Way area.

So interested in joining this board and understanding what challenges and opportunities there are here in Seattle for freight.

Thank you.

Next, we hear from Stanley and then we have somebody joining us in person here as well.

Go ahead, Stanley.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Stanley Ryder.

I'm a King County native, a 30-year resident of the city of Seattle.

I'm currently living in Green Lake.

I'm a professional civil engineer.

I worked a couple of decades in bridge design and transportation.

Currently, I do capital design and construction.

I'm a project manager for the Port of Tacoma.

I just have a big passion for the city of Seattle.

I have a passion for, you know, one of my main goals is to, you know, keep freight moving through the city safely.

And I know there's lots of challenges.

Seattle's a great city.

And just keeping the freight moving and keeping all those maritime jobs, related jobs is really, really important.

Thank you very much.

And lastly, we've got here in the chambers, we've got Howard Victor Agnew.

Good morning.

Why don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself and your background and why you'd like to serve on this board?

Good morning.

I'm a truck driver currently living down in Lakewood and driving for Medline, which is a medical supplier.

I've been making deliveries in Seattle area and beyond for about five years now.

I get to see a lot of things, spend a lot of time in traffic, I get to see a lot of issues, and I hope to contribute the perspective of someone who has to make deliveries in the city.

Thank you very much.

And again, committee members, we've got...

Hi.

Oh, we've got another person online here, Eric Wright.

Go ahead, Eric.

Sorry, I missed you earlier.

Good morning, my name is Eric Wright.

I was born in Portland.

I had family in Seattle and grew up between the two cities.

My grandfather owned a small business in Georgetown in the mid 2000s.

I ran a small, well I started as a driver and then ran a small courier company in Seattle and in the Puget Sound.

I've spent most of my life in logistics in some form or fashion.

And recently, in the last couple of years, I've become deeply interested in the kind of changing logistics landscape with the advent of different technologies.

And I look forward to continuing the work of the advisory board and assisting where I can.

Thank you very much.

And then we've got one last person here, Al Muhlenbroek.

Go ahead, Al.

Tell us a little bit about your background and why you'd like to serve on the Freight Advisory Board.

Al, you might be on mute.

There you go.

Go ahead, Al.

Sorry about that.

So anyway, my name is Al Muehlenberg.

I'm with PCC Logistics here in Seattle, Washington.

I currently operate five warehouses, adding a sixth.

We're approximately a million square feet.

We have about 50 truck drivers that do deliveries and different things in the Northwest area.

Background, been in marine transportation and been doing direct transportation in and around the Seattle Tacoma area for probably the last 40 years.

So kind of grew up here in Tacoma and this is hometown.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all for your willingness to serve.

We'll see if any committee members have comments or questions.

And just a reminder, the viewing public, all these appointment packets are online.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming down today in person.

It's always nice to see folks.

I've been taking this meeting from my office, and when I heard you were here, I had to come down, because Nigel, I mean, look, I pass your shop every day.

And what stands out to me is that folks don't really, don't always realize that the boat lift out of the canal is so close to Shellshall Avenue.

It's maybe, it feels like it's 50 feet.

And if folks think that a boat is unwieldy on water.

Think about it on land.

And I mean that's what stands out to me when I passed by your shop and for the ability to have a professional driver get that boat around our city that is becoming more dense congested and narrow in our streets.

It's just always impressive and so I know that you're.

perspective on this board is going to be incredibly important because our maritime community is the community, that is the economy that doesn't fluctuate as tech, aerospace, all of these other industries fluctuate.

This is the closest freshwater port to the Gulf of Alaska in the Bering Sea.

There's a reason that Our economy in Ballard has always been good even before other people thought it was cool I've always thought it was cool for the record.

So I know your, your perspective is just going to be incredible and Dan I mean same, same to you, like, if we can't get our goods off the ships into our grocery stores into the logistics hubs.

Nobody has any product.

People don't have clothes to wear, food to eat.

And so I'm just incredibly thankful because gentlemen, and Howard, you as well, everyone online, this is volunteer service.

You don't have to do this.

And it's, I just appreciate you taking the time out of your life to make sure that we're paying attention to the right things.

I had, you know, we were talking about the outer loop of Green Lake, on Aurora, where one of the lanes that is a bus-only lane to the north and south is going to be used for a bike trail, which that's not what we're here to talk about.

When SDOT was giving the plans to come back the slip lane onto Aurora right there at 63rd, I had somebody reach out to me and said, did you think about freight?

And in my mind, I'm, you know, look, I admit what I don't know.

In my mind, I was like, what kind of freight is going to come on ramp there?

And they reminded me that if a semi-truck gets off of the Aurora Bridge on Bridge Avenue down by Stoneway, and they're facing north, there's only one place for them to get back onto Aurora, and that's right there.

And so we were able to make some necessary changes so that a truck can get back on Aurora without having to take up both lanes.

I'm digressing.

All that to say is that if we don't have your perspective, we can never, we won't get our groceries.

We can't have a 15-minute city where people are able to walk and access everything 15 minutes from their house.

And that's why I'm just incredibly thankful.

And Nigel, coming from Rainier all the way into Ballard, you must see it all.

So just, and thank you, Howard, for your perspective, especially getting up from Lakewood.

Thank you for your time, gentlemen.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Committee members, any other comments or questions for the Freight Advisory Board appointees?

Excellent.

Again, thank you everybody for for joining us here today in person or on zoom and council members I like to move these items now so I now move that the committee recommend the city council confirm appointments 2355 through 2360 and 2362 2363 and 2378 on the agenda.

Is there a second.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Before we vote, are there any final comments?

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the September 27th city council meeting.

Thank you again for being here.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please read the full titles of the 10th through 16th agenda items into the record.

Agenda Items 10-16.

Appointments 2349-2354 and 2379. Appointments of Ty Boddorf as member to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board for a term to August 31, 2023. appointments of Peter Bryan, Max J. Green, Quinn Thomas Kelly, Donna McBain Evans, Christine C. Stawitz, Joseph Roberts, as members to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board for a term to August 31st, 2024, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

The Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board, as we know, advises the city on concerns and needs of the bicycle community.

They work to make bicycling a viable transportation choice by encouraging active participation in local policy and planning efforts.

And we have here Simon Blenski from SDOT, who's the liaison to the bike board.

Good morning, Simon.

Hi, good morning, committee members.

Again, my name is Simon Blonsky with SDOT, and I am the staff liaison for the Bicycle Advisory Board.

Council Member Peterson, as you mentioned, the board advises the mayor, city council, and city departments on projects, policies, and programs that improve or affect biking conditions in Seattle.

We have 12 seats on the board, including one seat for a Get Engaged member.

And I'm here today to recommend the appointment of a big batch of seven new members, most of which are here today.

And I'm happy to speak on behalf of the, there's at least one member that's not able to join, possibly two, and I'm happy to speak on their behalf at the end.

Thank you.

And we do have we do have some of them joining us via zoom and just a reminder, their appointment packets are also online with our committee agenda.

And I've got a list of who we've got here in person or on zoom.

And I can just go alphabetically by last name.

And if you could just, when I call your name, if you could just briefly tell us a little bit about your background and why you'd like to serve.

So I think first we've got Ty Bottorf.

Hi, good morning.

I'm Ty Bottorf and I'm a graduate student at UW studying biology.

I live in the U District and I work in South Lake Union.

So I usually bike down to work around Lake Union.

I've lived in Seattle for five years and I've been biking a lot and I'm really interested in promoting bicycling as a means of transportation and improving conditions for bicyclists in the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pachai.

Next, let's hear from Peter Bryan.

Good morning, everyone.

My name's Peter Bryan.

I currently live up in Lipton Springs, up in Council District 5. And like I think everyone today, I'm a keen cyclist.

I'm speaking today from my office in Redmond, where I commuted out by bike this morning.

But I'm also someone who cycles recreationally and for transit around the city.

And so I have a lot of engagement with different groups of cyclists with different needs.

different kind of priorities.

And so by serving on the board, I hope to kind of bring my knowledge and experience of those groups to the work the city does to help tackle some of the most pressing challenges our city faces through the advancement and uptake of cycling.

And as you can probably tell from my accent, I'm not from Seattle originally, I moved here about three and a half years ago now.

And prior to that, I lived in a number of big cities across Europe where they went through their own bicycling transformations.

And so I hope to be able to kind of bring my lived experience in those places to help inform the great work SDOT's already done and is planning to do in the future.

Thank you very much.

Next, we can hear from Quinn Kelly.

Hi everyone, my name is Quinn Kelly, I'm a planner at Tool Design, so I work about a block away from City Hall, and I frequently bike into work from Columbia City.

My professional experience really centers around planning and design for complete streets, trails, public spaces.

I also have several past and ongoing research projects that are focused on issues of transportation equity and climate adaptation.

Outside of work, I like to spend time exploring the city, bikepacking, mountain biking, reading in the park.

I grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and I spent the last 10 years living in New York.

I just moved to Seattle a little over a year ago.

And yeah, I'm really thrilled to be part of the Bike Advisory Board and, you know, helping shape the city's approach to improving biking conditions and hopefully working with many of you.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And let's circle back to Max Green, who joined us.

Max Green.

Good morning.

Hi, good morning.

Morning.

We're doing intros.

Sorry, I just literally just joined.

Yeah, a little bit about your background, briefly about your background, and then why you'd like to serve on the Bike Board.

Yeah, awesome.

My name is Max.

I've been in Seattle six years.

I've been biking that whole time and before then, believe it or not.

I work at REI in our marketing department and love the outdoors, love bicycling.

Three years ago, I would have said I was a road cyclist during the pandemic I discovered mountain biking, and also became a father so now most of my biking experience in the city involves a bike seats and a toddler and dodging traffic so just a really different experience and so really excited and just get more engaged in the community around safety and especially with, you know, trying to use a bike instead of a car and making those safety decisions as a parent.

So that's what I'm really here to represent and excited to talk about.

Thank you.

And next we've got Donna Evans.

Go ahead, Donna.

Yes, good morning.

Can you hear me all right?

Yes, thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Donna McBain Evans, and I'm delighted to have been nominated to the Bicycle Advisory Board.

I've called Seattle my home since 1983. I now live in Belltown, although I've lived in many other neighborhoods of the city, and I've been an avid cyclist most of my adult life, both as a commuter and a weekend rider.

I've had my share of car doors opening on me and riding through broken glass and rubble and close calls due to inattentive drivers and angry drivers.

And I think that long history of riding has helped me understand what it takes to make bicycling in cities both safe and pleasurable.

I think we're really lucky to live in Seattle where in the last 10 years, particularly the bicycling infrastructure has really been improved.

In my home neighborhood in Belltown, the second avenue protected bike lanes are amazing.

There's also a nice bikeway on Bell Street, and there's an amazing path on West Lake Union.

And then the new early signals for walkers to cross the street are really fantastic.

I think all of these things have helped transform the experience of walking and cycling in the city center.

I'm very excited to be part of a team that will expand these kinds of improvements to other parts of the city and help make better connections between neighborhoods and to learn more about transportation planning and what it takes to accommodate lots of competing interests.

So I'm really excited to join the team and that's That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

And next, we've got Christine Stalwarts.

Hi, my name is Christine Stawicz.

I'm really excited to be on the Bicycle Advisory Board.

My background, my undergraduate degree is in systems engineering.

And then I moved to Seattle in 2008 and worked for Microsoft for a few years, then got a PhD from UW in fishery science.

And so I'm really interested, both because as an engineer with, I'm interested in the process of traffic engineering and kind of optimizing the city routes for different types of transportation.

And then as a fisheries researcher at NOAA fisheries now I work a lot on making fisheries remain sustainable and profitable under climate change.

And I think adapting our transportation systems to more climate friendly modes of transportation is a really big part of doing that.

I've been in Seattle for 14 years and bike commuting that whole time.

And I've also recently started using biking as a way to get my kids to and from school and daycare.

So I share that concern.

And I also, for part of my time in Seattle, I lived on East Lake Avenue and now I live in Northeast Seattle.

So I'm also really excited to see the East Lake bike lane project go through as someone who's experienced a lot of time biking on East Lake in the past.

So thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you very much.

And I think those are the appointees that we have joining us today.

Again, everybody's packets are online.

Just wanted to see if council members have any comments or questions about this group of volunteers.

Council Member Morales, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I first want to say thank you to everyone who is willing to serve, especially happy to hear that there are parents here who are have an understanding of what it means to try to navigate with your kids on a bike through our city streets that's going to bring a really important perspective for you to bring.

So I first want to say thank you for your willingness to serve on this board.

I think my question is really for Simon.

I suspect if Council President Juarez was here, she might be asking the same question, which is, can you talk a little bit about how you recruit for this board, I'm noticing on the sheet that lists out the membership, the districts they represent, the sort of demographics of the board members, it is mostly male, it is mostly white, and there are a few people from, well, there's nobody from West Seattle or from Council Member Wattis' district, which is similar to mine in terms of the representation being predominantly people of color.

So I would just like to hear a little bit about how we as council members might support the bicycle board, the pedestrian boards, in helping bring to your consideration people who have different kinds of lived experience.

Council Member Morales, thanks for the question.

Our recruitment, we try and cast a wide net as possible, as well as focusing in on areas of the city and demographics that we know that are not currently represented on the board.

In addition to just sending out broad communications, we also reach out to bike-specific organizations throughout the city, including bike-specific organizations that work with historically underserved communities, communities of color.

I recognize your comments and the current makeup of the board, but it's definitely something we're always trying to work on going forward.

We have heard you know from in the past it's just a general comment about the board and probably applies to most boards is just general commitments, and you know the time that's required to participate and.

We are always trying to kind of reduce the barriers to participation and so you know once we do find good members we really try and support them and make it easier to part easy to participate participate so they're not having a poor experience and maybe can kind of spread the word that.

they are really, it's an effective place to participate in and make change.

So yeah, thanks for your comments.

I think as we, we have to do recruitment every year, basically.

So I think there's always opportunities to continue to make this, improve the recruitment process.

Okay.

And you, are you meeting virtually?

Are your meetings virtual right now, or are you meeting in person?

It's similar to this council meeting where there's hybrid options, both in person and virtual.

Most members are participating virtually though.

Okay, I might follow up with you and get your schedule.

I'm assuming that the public is welcome to attend and participate.

So at the very least, I would be interested in sharing a virtual link to folks who might be interested in engaging with you in some way.

That'd be great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, Councilmember Strauss.

Oh, thank you, Simon.

I thought I heard somebody from D5.

Was that on the Freight Advisory Board from Licton?

Yes.

Yes, Peter Bryan is from District 5 on the bike board.

Oh, okay.

can never unring that bell of D5 once you hear it in your ears.

This is a question for all of the nominees today.

Feel free to jump in as you feel fit.

The question really is around electrification of bicycles and scooters, allowing for more people who may not have previously felt comfortable or felt that they had the energy or felt that they had the ability to use bicycles, scooters, and other modes of transportation.

How do we need to shift our thinking now that this is becoming a more prevalent use of getting around?

Well, I guess none of the nominees have anything to share on that.

I'm happy to share some of my thoughts on electrify.

Well, personally, I think the electrification of bicycles is a huge opportunity, particularly in a city like Seattle with as many hills as it has.

There's plenty of barriers to entry for cycling, hills being one of them.

And so my wife is someone who basically adopted cycling as a main form of transport for electrification.

So it's something we should definitely embrace.

There are obviously challenges inherent with it.

You're starting to mix multiple speeds of traffic in narrow bike lanes.

But I certainly think it's something that should be much more encouraged than it should be discouraged.

Thank you.

And I think Christine has her hand up too.

Christine, go ahead.

Uh, yeah, I agree with Peter on embracing, uh, electrification.

I certainly appreciate it when you have, you know, 60 pounds of kids on the back of your bike and you're trying to go up a hill.

I appreciate my e-bike a lot.

Um, there's a wide range in terms of max speed, it seems in e-bikes where mine has a cap of 20 miles per hour.

And I know that.

speed limit on the Berkman trails 15 miles per hour, so some of the ones sometimes people are flying by me, and so I think there are some models of a bike that maybe go too fast to be on some of the bike trails and should stick to the streets.

Um, I also think that, um, there's a cost barrier getting back to that equity piece.

I mean, most e-bikes are out of the price range of a lot of people.

Um, and so I know REI recently introduced a lower cost model of e-bike, but I would love to see more lower cost e-bikes, um, become available to different communities.

I think is a big barrier there.

Thank you, Christine and Max Green.

Yeah, I heard REI, so that's when I come in, I guess.

Yeah, I think e-bike has a huge place in the overall transportation ecosystem to play.

I agree with everything that was said around speed, and I think there's safety and also people who are at various skill levels as well.

I think especially about, you know, the rentals that sit around the city that you can access with a smartphone and the right way of mixing those.

So what's the right ownership model for these things as well?

I do think accessibility is the number one piece with e-bike.

I think it has served very well in terms of replacing cars and in terms of decarbonization.

It's, I think, doing really well.

But bringing down the price point and making e-bike ownership to be able to get around town.

I think that is really top of mind when you think about what is my first vehicle.

It could be really interesting.

It could change a lot.

everybody for joining in on that.

Councilmember Morales, did you have anything else?

Thank you, sort of along these lines of the.

the ease of getting around on an e-bike and the expense of them.

I'm wondering if y'all have thoughts about bike share and how those programs work.

I was visiting last winter our sister city, Nantes in France, and they have an amazing bike share program that offers cargo bikes, electric bikes, kind of an array of options for folks.

It's very popular, and they even offer subscriptions.

So you can rent a bike for the whole year.

And they're working with corporate partners to do that for some employees.

So I wonder if y'all have any thoughts about how and whether something like that might work here, more of a subscription service rather than rent it for 15 minutes to get somewhere.

Okay, I see hands going up from Peter and then Max, and go ahead, Peter.

Hey, this is one of my favorite topics.

So very happy to talk about this.

Personally, I think the current methods of being able to rent and use electric bikes in the city are terrible.

They're expensive, they're unreliable, and they're unpredictable.

Now, having lived in a couple of cities, notably London and Brussels, that have very successful bike hire programs, I think that the key things that made them successful were the fact that they were city run, which kept them affordable, like the cost of an annual use of a bike in London was much cheaper than it was taking any other form of transit.

Secondly, having a dock-based system rather than just having bikes left anywhere is, I believe, safer for other pedestrians, but also it allows you to predict your journeys.

You can say, I want to go from point A to point B.

There is a docking station at A and B.

They will most likely have bicycles there.

Whereas at the moment, when I've tried to use line bikes, you pull out your phone, you look at the app, There may be bikes near you.

They might have charged batteries.

They might be in a serviceable condition.

You don't know.

And then even when you do get on them, the cost to go even a relatively short trip on them is is prohibited, even for someone like myself who has a relatively high income.

So, yeah, we should we should definitely be prioritizing a bike rental system that is a much more equitable and be much more reliable for people.

Thank you, Max.

I would just add, I think the number one issue that I've become aware of in recent years is just where bikes end up, and especially on the sidewalk, and how that creates mobility issues for a whole nother set of street users, particularly people with mobility issues like in a wheelchair.

Or the blind as well, which we have a large population in Seattle, especially in South Seattle.

So, I totally agree with what Peter saying around, you know, is there are there docking stations are there things like that.

I also agree with what you said around costs.

I think that's hugely important.

I also think that in terms of a subscription.

One of the benefits of the rental programs that we do have in place is that there's no storage prohibition of it.

So you can just go to the street and pick one up, which I think especially as we're increasing the housing supply with smaller and smaller units, we think about like a younger demographic or potentially a less affluent demographic, being able to access a bike that they don't have to store themselves could be hugely impactful.

Thank you very much.

Well, colleagues, I appreciate the comments and questions, and if you're ready, we can go ahead and move these appointments.

Okay, council members, I'd like to move that the committee recommend the city council confirm appointments 2349 through 2354 and 2379 to the Bicycle Advisory Board.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Any final comments or questions?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the September 27th city council meeting.

Thank you, Simon.

Thanks everybody.

Okay, well, the clerk, we're gonna do the Transit Advisory Board in two sections here, because we have a technical correction on one of them.

So we'll do the first one by itself so we can make that correction, vote on that, and then we'll go to the larger batch.

Will the clerk please read the full title of the 17th agenda item into the record?

Agenda item 17, appointment 2367, appointment of Oshwin Christopher Miller as member of the Seattle Transit Advisory Board for a term to August 2nd, 2024, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, as I mentioned, we have a technical correction to the title of this appointment.

I'll be introducing that shortly, but let me first introduce the public to the Transit Advisory Board.

It's a board of 12 members, five appointed by city council, six appointed by the mayor, and one get engaged member, a youth adult member.

The board advises on matters related to public mass transit.

And let's go ahead and get started.

say hello to SDOT.

We've got Cliff Mountjoy-Venning from SDOT here.

The technical correction is just the appointee's name.

The person's name is Christopher Miller, not Ashwin at the beginning.

Ashwin's the name of another appointee.

So we'll go ahead and hear from Cliff Mountjoy-Venning if you want to introduce Christopher Miller to us.

Yes, thank you Council Member Peterson.

As you mentioned, the Transit Advisory Board advises the Council and City Departments on matters related to transit.

We hear it from STOT staff, as well as our colleagues at King County Metro and Sound Transit.

And we have a specific task to provide oversight for the Seattle transit measure among all other transit projects.

I'll go ahead and introduce Chris Miller, who I believe is here in the meeting.

So Chris, you can go ahead and unmute and turn on your camera.

But Chris Miller is a Master of Urban Planning student at the University of Washington and used to be a bus driver previously.

So go ahead and introduce yourself and you can say why you're interested in the board, Chris.

Thanks for the introduction, Cliff.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Chris Miller.

As Cliff mentioned, I'm currently a master's in urban planning student at the University of Washington in Seattle.

I previously have a background in political communications.

I worked for Alex Padilla when he was Secretary of State of California on his communications team as his communications coordinator.

Prior to that, I attended UC Davis, University of California Davis, where I received a degree in environmental policy analysis and planning with an emphasis in environmental policy and politics.

And while I earned my undergraduate degree, I also, as Cliff mentioned, was a transit driver.

UC Davis's transportation system, Unitrans, is a completely student-driven and operated transit system.

So during my undergraduate career, I drove buses for four years, everything from a single-deck 40-foot bus to a vintage London double-decker bus as well.

And so as a now 27-year-old who has previously driven transit and service, I think I have just a perspective on transit in terms of the fact that I don't own a car, I get around via transit wherever I go, and recognize that in the United States it's very difficult to do that relative to other countries and other municipalities.

And so I'm hoping that in serving on the Transit Advisory Board I can just continue to make Seattle's transit system better.

I think that Seattle out of a lot of municipalities in the country has a really robust transportation system.

And that's one of the reasons that I wanted to move to Seattle was because of the access and freedom that the transportation system that we already has offers.

And I really am looking forward to working with the board and just seeing how far we can take Seattle's transportation system.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And this is gonna be a great perspective to bring to the Transit Board.

Thank you for your willingness to volunteer for this.

Colleagues, I'll go ahead and make the motion to correct the appointment's name, and then we can vote on the appointment, and then we'll get to the other Transit Advisory Board appointees.

Any comments or questions on this appointee before we go ahead and move it forward?

Okay, so I'll go ahead and make the motion.

As I mentioned, I'm making this technical amendment to correct the appointee's name for appointment 2367. And the correct name is Christopher Miller.

So deleting the name Ashwin in the beginning.

So if there's no objection, the record will be amended to correct the name of the appointment by deleting the name Ashwin before Christopher.

Hearing no objection, the appointment is amended to reflect the correct appointee's name.

And so let's go ahead and move this confirmation.

I'd like to go ahead and move appointment number 02367 as corrected.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Any final comments before we vote?

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the corrected appointment?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries and the recommendation to confirm this appointment as corrected will be sent to the September 27th full council meeting.

Let's talk to more Transit Advisory Board members here.

Will the clerk please read the full titles of agenda items 18 through 22 into the record.

Agenda items 18 through 22. Appointments 2364 through 2366, 2368, and 2380. Appointment of Ashwin Bhumla, Joshua Cooper Hirschland, and Cristiano Martinez as members to the Seattle Transit Advisory Board for a term to August 2nd, 2024. Reappointments of Sandro R. Pani and Arthur Kuniyuki as members to the Seattle Transit Advisory Board for terms to August 2nd, 2024. For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, colleagues.

We're continuing with our appointments to the Transit Advisory Board.

And so we'll go ahead and turn it back to, turn it over back to Cliff from SDOT to introduce these appointees.

Go ahead, Cliff.

Thanks.

So yeah, as you heard, we have five more appointments.

Three are going to be new members and two have served on the board already and are excited to continue.

We'll go ahead and get started with Ashwin, the actual Ashwin this time.

You can go ahead and introduce yourself, Ashwin.

Hi, everybody.

My name is Ashwin.

I'm a new member of the Transit Advisory Board.

I'm very new to Seattle.

I have just moved here over a year ago, and I'm incredibly excited for the opportunity to serve on this board.

My roommate has a car that we use to get out for hikes every now and then, but besides that, I moved through the city entirely through transit.

The one line, the 10, the 8, the 2. And I truly believe that transit is the lifeblood of every city and the ability to be able to move within a city is incredibly important and a human right.

And I believe that transit is the future, especially as fossil fuels begin to wane and climate continues to change.

And I think Seattle is such an exciting city with how much it is investing in all of its various transit options.

there's so much more to do going forward.

So I'm incredibly excited to join this board and give my perspective and help Seattle's transit system become the best version of itself that it can be.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

And in our council chambers, we have Joshua Hirschland in person.

Good morning, Joshua.

Tell us a little bit about your background and why you'd like to join the Transit Advisory Board.

Good morning Councilman.

So, I have always been interested in urban planning and the transportation of goods and services and people.

I have a degree in urban studies from Columbia University.

I previously interned at New York City Hall working on congestion pricing.

At my day job at Amazon, I work on delivering grocery boxes from government agencies and from community organizations to food insecure families who are in need.

And I've been a resident of Seattle for eight years.

I spent my entire adult life living in cities, almost all of that without a vehicle of my own until I had kids and that became more difficult.

I believe that transit is necessary and vital, and my parents taught me that something to do is to be of service and to commit yourself to giving back to the community.

So my hope is to bring my knowledge and background and passion to this work to make sure that Seattle has affordable, accessible, and reliable transit for all who need it.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for being here in person too.

Let's turn it over to I think we've got Sandro Pani and then Arthur Kuniyuki.

So Sandro.

Good morning.

Yeah, I'm here for a reappointment.

It has been very exciting and very interesting to be able to participate and as part of the Transit Board I'm very grateful for all the agencies who come and present to us and look and seek the board's opinion and input and the different projects, plans going on.

So it's even more interesting to also hear about our other transit boards.

Today, I know within our board, we're looking forward always towards new goals and we've already been discussing more collaboration with them with the bicycle, freight and pedestrian boards and just hearing the different.

and why people are joining the boards today.

I think it's even more important because there is so much interconnection between our transportation and how we move people and goods.

So yeah, I'm excited to continue on and supporting the city and our agencies with transit.

Thank you very much.

And let's go to Arthur.

Thanks for being here again, Arthur.

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody, and my name is our key I'm a third generation satellite, I live in West Seattle and working downtown.

I like Sandra and be would like to be appointed to the transit advisory board and.

I've learned so much in the last two years and I'm hoping to continue my knowledge and and give back to the community.

We have so many things happening.

Very shortly we'll be meeting with the new SDOT director and learning about his goals and objectives.

And we're also able to work with our other modal boards and contribute to the amazing Seattle transportation plan and help guide our future.

And finally, on a personal note, I'll just say that I was so happy to see my phone light up after 9 p.m.

on Saturday with the news that the West Seattle Bridge is reopening early, so I'd like to thank everybody who had that and made that possible.

That was a great thing for those of us living in West Seattle, and it was wonderful to see.

Thank you very much, Art.

And as Cliff had mentioned earlier, just to highlight this, that this particular advisory board has a special role in overseeing sales tax that we administer to boost transit service in Seattle, the Transportation Benefit District, also known as the Seattle Transit Measure.

so we appreciate that that oversight role that they provide for that and that's going to be important as we um every year we have a we have to decide how to spend those funds that were approved by voters so it's a very important role that they play in advising us for that so really appreciate everybody's willingness to serve um and um are there any comments or questions from committee members before we vote on the transit board All right, colleagues, I'll go ahead and move that the committee recommend the city council confirm appointments 2364 through 2366, and also 2368 and 2380. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of these appointments before we vote.

Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the September 27th City Council meeting.

Thanks to all the appointees for being here and also their willingness to serve.

Thank you, Cliff.

All right, well, let's get into some legislative items here.

Agenda item 23, will the clerk please read the full title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda Item 23, Council Bill 120419, an ordinance relating to the State Route 520 Bridge Replacement and High Occupancy Vehicle Program, authorizing execution of an amendment to the General Maintenance Agreement GMB 1094 between the City of Seattle and the State of Washington to add the Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid Project for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

This council bill outlines the maintenance roles and responsibilities between the city and the state that have been worked out between the Washington State Department of Transportation washed out and the Seattle Department of Transportation s dot, as well as Park City light Seattle Public Utilities.

This is all regarding the Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke LID project, the rest of the West, 520 State Highway Project.

This project has gone through extensive design review through the Seattle community design process from 2011, 2012, and the West side design refinements from 2014, 2015. This is involving the city government and other stakeholders.

And according to staff, this legislation is basically consolidates nearly a decade of community engagement in this agreement.

In addition to WSDOT and SDOT, we have Calvin Chow here from city council central staff who also wrote a memo on this council bill and can help to answer questions today if they arise.

I really appreciate SDOT being here as well and WSDOT.

Calvin, are there any introductory remarks you'd like to make about this legislation before we turn it over to our presenters?

Thank you, Council Member.

I think you covered most of it.

I just wanted to reiterate that a lot of the design decisions went through a very extensive process directed by the state legislature over the past 10 years or so.

And what this legislation in front of you is doing is really focusing on the next construction project to come out of this program and really make sure that the existing maintenance agreements between the city and the state consider how that is how that affects the new infrastructure.

So I know that SDOT and WSDOT have a very thorough presentation, and I'm happy to help support the discussion going forward.

Thank you.

And before we start the presentation, you can go ahead and actually put that up on the screen.

I do want to thank the state legislature for providing the funding for this project.

All right, let's get started here.

Hello, members of the City Council Transportation and Utility Committee.

Thank you for having us here to discuss about this amendment to the existing O&M agreement at 1094. To add the upcoming Portage Bay and Roanoke Cliff project.

My name is Kan Lingam.

I'm currently serving as interim director for interagency program at Seattle Department of Transportation.

I'm joined here by Omar Jefferson, who is the program administrator for SR 99 and SR 520 program, and also joined by the deputy program administrator, Don Jankaskas.

With that, I'm going to hand it over to Dawn to provide an overview of the South by 20 program and specifically about the Portage Bay and Roanoke Bridge project.

All right, if you can advance to the next slide.

So thank you, Ganth, and hello city council members.

As Goff mentioned, my name is Dawn Young-Caspis, and I'm the Deputy Program Administrator for the 520 AWB program.

Before we discuss the amendment to the existing 520 Maintenance Agreement to add the upcoming Portage Bay and Roanoke Lid project, I want to give a brief overview of the 520 program, including what we've accomplished over the past decade and what we have left moving forward.

As you know, we've rebuilt the highway's east side segment between 405 and Lake Washington.

We replaced the old Fulham Bridge and we completed the first of two parallel west approach bridges over Union Bay.

We're now delivering what we were calling the rest of the west, and this slide shows the four projects that make up the rest of the west, which include the Montlake project in orange, which you've likely experienced, is currently in construction and we're projecting to end on that project in 2024. And then the I-5 express lanes project, which is in turquoise, this project is in construction as well and it's slated to end in early 2024. And then the Portage Bay and Roanoke Lid project in dark blue, which we'll be focusing on today, For reference, this project is slated to begin construction in 2024 and last approximately six years.

And this project faced a $400 million budget shortfall last year.

by the governor and the legislature recognizing the critical safety needs and included 400 million in the final budget to keep the project moving forward on schedule.

The last Rest of the West project is the Montlake-Cutt-Baskill Bridge project in green.

This project currently is not funded and we would need to engage with stakeholders to try to plan forward.

Moving on to the next slide.

So this is our Porridge Bay and Roanoke Lid project.

This slide shows the key features of the upcoming project.

As you're likely aware, the current Porridge Bay Bridge is supported by hollow columns, which are at risk of collapse if there is a severe earthquake.

To make the bridge safer from earthquakes, we will be replacing the old bridge and building two new parallel bridges to modern seismic code.

In addition to the new bridges, the project has several other key features that are a result of over 15 years of environmental collaboration, design refinements, enhancements with the City of Seattle, the Seattle Design Commission, communities, and many other city partners and stakeholders.

This includes three extensive design processes that were mentioned Following issues of the 2011 final environmental impact statement and the record decision.

The first was the Seattle Community Design Process in 2011-2012.

The second was in 2014 and 2015, where we finalized the final concept design report that provides the basis for the design of the rest of the West project components.

Most recently in 2019, we hosted a series of extensive community stakeholder workshops paired with extensive coordination with the Seattle Design Commission to build upon the outcomes of these previous design processes and develop the conceptual design for the Porridge Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid project.

Some of the elements that were refined as a result of these processes are identified in the graphic on the slide, which includes creating three acres of accessible open space for the Roanoke Lid, which is located between 10th Avenue East and Del Mar Drive.

with four identified viewpoints extending the 14 foot wide, 520 regional trail across Bridge Bay, Vermont Lake to Capitol Hill.

We also refined the non-motorized trails in the Roanoke Lid area and cleaning connections from the 520 trail to the city's non-motorized network, both in the vicinity of the Lid and the East side of Bridge Bay.

Also constructing a bicycle and pedestrian connection across I-5 south of the Roanoke crossing.

So on this project, it's going to be a design-build project, which means that the contractor is going to actually finalize the project design and construct the project.

With respect to timeline, we are currently focused on finalizing the initial design of the bridge and drafting the language for our request for proposals or RFP for contractors to bid.

So we'll be publishing the request for qualifications this November.

And from there, based on how many contractors apply, we'll be narrowing down the pool to probably about three qualified bidders.

Then we'll advertise the request for proposals to those that are qualified in January 2023. then in late summer of 2023 and begin construction 2024. It's estimated that construction will be approximately six years.

We anticipate the project will be complete sometime in 2030, 2031. And so that if we could advance to the next slide.

And so that here there are several renderings of the new Cordish Bay Bridge Milnok Lid project.

As I mentioned in the previous slide, community feedback and work with the City of Seattle significantly influenced the design concept.

including the box girder structure for the upcoming bridges, which is the picture to the left, and then the non-motorized connections for non-motorized travel and usable open space on the Roanoke grid for community members, which you can see on the slide to the right.

These refinements are a result of the 2019 conceptual design process, which were endorsed by the Design Commission in 2020. And so these are exciting improvements for the community that will greatly improve connectivity and non-motorized travel in the area.

But they also require some coordination regarding who, what, and how the amenities and the facilities will be maintained.

So with that, I'll hand it back to Gant.

So that brings us to the proposed amendment to the maintenance agreement between City of Seattle and WSDOT for the Portage Bay and Roanoke project.

In year 2019 Council passed an ordinance authorizing the execution of general maintenance agreement GMB 1094, and which was executed in May 2019 that established the operation and maintenance responsibility for the Mountlake project between Washtenaw and City of Seattle.

As with the Mount Lake project, the Portage Bay and Roanoke Lake project, it also includes many improvements to city infrastructure and improvements added as a result of the outreach process that Dan was referring to earlier.

The Mountlake maintenance agreement coordinated between WSDART and the city identifies and document the maintenance responsibility for the project elements and elements once built.

And this proposed legislation would authorize an amendment to that existing agreement that covers the Portage Bay and Roanoke Lake project, which builds upon the same methodology.

Both maintenance agreement and this amendment upon RCW, AWC, which is associated portion of Washington city's guidelines and prior SR 520 maintenance agreement, which provide a framework, how the agency's responsibilities are delineated.

And the And the important thing is that SDOT work closely with WSDOT, Parks, City Light and SPU to reach an agreement on the operation and maintenance improvement and the replacement responsibilities for this new infrastructure that we'll build as a part of the Portage Bay and Roanoke project.

With that, I will hand over to Dan again for the review of this complete list.

As Gonf mentioned, the Portage Bay project includes new city infrastructure, improvements to city infrastructure, and improvements as a result of outreach processes and coordination with the City of Seattle and the Seattle Design Commission.

As with the Montlake project, the Portage Bay project includes city infrastructure, city interest improvements, including such items as city street and sidewalk improvements, pedestrian bicycle paths and connections, a new Roanoke lid, including new community connections, open space, overlook areas and other related amenities and landscaping.

The amendments build upon the same methodology that was used for the Montlake project and outlines maintenance, operation, improvement and replacement roles and responsibilities for improvements that will be constructed as part of this project.

In general, WSDOT is responsible for 520 facilities within the highway, a right away and cleaned on and off ramps such as westbound off ramp to East Roanoke Street.

The city is responsible for improvements in the city right away.

For city streets that cross 520, such as 10th and Delmar, there are shared responsibilities as the state owns the structure as responsible for the structure and the city's responsible for the roadway and associated amenities.

The city is also responsible for maintenance.

unique features of this project that were driven by the processes and coordination with the city in WSDOT right away, such as the local trail connections from the 520 Trail.

WSDOT is responsible for the 520 Trail itself.

The overlooks and viewpoints on the lid, neighborhood open spaces and landscape areas, such as the Roanoke Lid, In those cases, WSDOT's responsible for the lid structure, and the city is responsible for things above the lid structure, such as topsoil, irrigation systems, plants, illumination pathways, sidewalks, urban design elements.

Just as with the Montlake project, WSDOT's providing funding towards landscaping to Seattle Parks and Recreation.

As mentioned earlier, we are finalizing the project's request for proposals to make way for the RFP advertising in January.

So this is really important that the operation maintenance roles and responsibilities are identified and formalized through this amendment now, and so that the applicable entities requirements are included in the contract.

as well as identifying and review approval and acceptance responsibilities during design and construction of the project improvements.

And so with that, moving on to the last slide, I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee today, and we're happy to take any questions that you have at this time.

Thank you very much.

I did get a pre briefing on this last week and I've been following the project and wanted to give our city council central staff analyst Calvin challenge opportunity to address anything he wants to highlight something in his memo, one question I have for just what you've already answered but you know in terms of the Ian Swallow, Boulder Housing Partners, Applicant OLIVE:" The financial deal here, it seems that the state's paying for this necessary replacement of the bridge so it's a it's an infrastructure safety improvement, and there are. amenities and mitigation and beautiful projects going in. And then there, even though the City of Seattle will be maintaining some of those, we are getting some funds from the state to do that each year. And this agreement is providing clarity about who does what. Does that sum it up or please elaborate or let us know your thoughts on this, Calvin?

Council Member, I think that's a good summary.

The executive did identify some of the increased operating and maintenance costs associated with the project going forward.

They identified about an annual cost of about $56,000 for SDOT and about $100,000 for SPU related to the project.

They were not able to provide estimates for parks or for Salisbury Light, but those would be sort of taking care of the infrastructure, taking care of the assets once it's turned over to us.

But as you mentioned, as the project is being built, they are producing new infrastructure that supports these city services, city uses as part of the project.

Colleagues any questions or comments about this bill which has an amendment to the operations and maintenance agreement for the Portage Bay Roanoke project.

Okay, and so.

In terms of what's next for this, Calvin, after this gets approved, I guess WSDOT will be doing what they just presented here about continuing with the construction.

When do we expect that the city will be taking over certain aspects of this?

Approximately what year?

When the construction will be complete, there'd be a close-out process and transfer of assets.

I believe we're looking at something like Actually, that's probably the best question for Don or for Omar about sort of what the construction schedule is looking like now.

Yeah, so we anticipate we would be done with construction of this project in 2030-2031.

Okay, thank you.

Great, colleagues, we'll appreciate the thorough presentation today that we got from WSDHA and appreciate the involvement of all those city departments and the ongoing community engagement that's been happening and appreciate Calvin Child taking a final look at it for us today to recommend it to us for a vote.

So if there are no further comments or questions, I'll go ahead and move this item.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120419. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

This is Council Bill 120419. Any last minute comments or questions?

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120419?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass council 120419 will be sent to the September 27th city council meeting.

Thank you everybody for being here today on this item.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the next agenda item into the record.

Agenda item 24, an ordinance relating to the solid waste system of Seattle Public Utilities, revising rates and charges for solid waste services, revising credits to low income customers for solid waste services, and amending sections of the Seattle Municipal Code, Council Bill 120410, for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you, colleagues.

We had a presentation on September 6 that our committee, and we've gone ahead and reattach that to today's agenda.

That presentation confirms big picture that the overall Seattle Public Utilities rates will increased by an average of only 4% instead of the rate path we had previously approved of up to 4.2%.

So that's good news for the overall Seattle Public Utilities rates.

And that's even with the slight adjustment that we will vote on today for solid waste rates.

And so we've got Brian goodnight here from city council central staff.

Thank you for your memo and we've got the CEO and general manager of Seattle Public Utilities here as well and really appreciate your being here today and I know we had the full presentation last time.

So today is an abbreviated summary and also having central staff discuss their memo.

So let's go ahead and turn it over first to central staff.

And then we've got Andrew Lee here and his team, if there are any questions.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

Good morning, council members.

Brian, good night with your council central staff.

As Chair Peterson indicated, this proposal was initially discussed at the committee's last meeting on September 6th, and it did include a briefing from Seattle Public Utilities.

As a reminder, Council typically considers rate-setting legislation for one of SPU's three utilities each year, with rates being set for a three-year period.

Council Bill 120410, which is before the committee today, would establish solid waste rates for the 2023 through 2025 period, including collection rates for residential and commercial garbage and organic service, special service fees and charges, and transfer station rates for self-haul customers.

The bill would also revise low-income assistance credits for qualifying customers who don't directly receive SPU bills.

So in addition to the presentation provided by SPU staff, there is a staff memo attached to today's agenda, and there's just a few things that I'll highlight from the memo.

First, unlike the rates for residential and commercial collection that are proposed to increase every year, the proposed transfer station rates would only increase once during the three-year period.

This modification was suggested by solid waste operation staff in SPU as a way to simplify administration of the rates by transfer station staff and also to reduce customer confusion.

Second, consistent with the previous solid waste rate setting cycle, SPU is proposing to fund its entire solid waste capital program with cash rather than issuing additional debt.

Total capital spending planned during the rate period is approximately $52 million.

And third, the rate study performed by SPU staff projects that the solid waste fund will have an operating cash balance of approximately $118 million by 2025. SPU has an adopted financial policy to maintain a cash balance that is sufficient to cover at least 20 days of their contract expense.

But for the last seven years, the department has met a more conservative internal target of having a cash balance sufficient to cover 45 days of operating expense.

For 2023, this internal target would be approximately $27 million, so it's clear that SPU is projected to have more cash on hand than is necessary to meet this financial policy.

A portion of the projected cash balance is attributable to delayed capital projects that are expected to occur in future years, and SPU is also considering other possible uses for the remaining cash balance, such as paying down outstanding debt obligations.

And at this point, if it's okay, for my last few comments, I'll share my screen so that you can see rate amounts that I'll be referring to.

Let me share this right here.

Hopefully you all can see that rate screen.

So in May of last year, the council adopted resolution 3200, which adopted an updated strategic business plan for SPU covering the period from 2021 to 2026. Strategic business plans, which are referred to as SBPs, identify things such as the department's long-term goals, short-term strategies, and recommend a three-year rate path and a three-year rate forecast.

So as you can see, SBPs also cover all three of the department's utilities, which are separated into four lines of business, covering water, wastewater, drainage, and solid waste.

And SBPs are also typically the reference point for comparing proposed rate legislation for SPU.

So as Chair Peterson said, from a big picture perspective, the overall projected rate path in the SBP over the six-year period averaged a rate of 4.2%, and the six-year average rate for solid waste was 2.4%.

The bill before you today proposes solid waste rates that are slightly different than those adopted in the SBP with a lower rate in 2023, the same rate for 2024, and a higher rate for 2025. And as was described by SPU staff in the last meeting, these differences are the result of an updated rate study for solid waste, and the rates are largely driven by higher contract expenses and inflationary estimates.

And then lastly, this final slide shows the entire rate path and forecast period, updated to reflect the current solid waste proposal, as well as additional rates that the council has adopted since the SBP was approved in May of 2021. So those are the additional blue boxes.

It also incorporates revised forecast estimates from SPU, which are shown in the yellow tinted cells.

And as you can see, the overall combined rate path average is now estimated to be 4% or slightly lower than the 4.2% adopted in the SBP.

And that concludes my remarks.

And if there's any questions, as Chair Peterson said, SPU staff is here to help me answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Brian.

Really appreciate your pulling everything together like that and clarifying it.

We know that Seattle Public Utilities, with all those lines of business, it can get complicated over multiple years to make sure that we're keeping the promises of the original rate path that we approved, and in this case, coming in a little bit below overall.

And today, the ordinance is specifically for one of the lines of business, solid waste, and just wanted to know if Andrew Lee, if you had any comments, feel free.

I know you're here to answer questions, but we can give you the floor if you want to discuss this at all and see if we have any comments or questions from colleagues.

No, I think Brian did a great job of summarizing the proposal.

Thank you, Brian.

Terrific.

Again, colleagues, we know for the viewing public, for their benefit, we had an extensive presentation at our last committee meeting, and so we're voting on the bill today.

So if there are no questions or comments, that's why counselor Strauss and customer salon.

Councilor salon can go first, sorry I didn't see your hand.

Go for it.

Oh, go ahead Councilmember salon.

Okay, thank you, Chair Peterson and customer stress.

I just want to, I mean, my comments are about the vote, and I just want to make sure that we are describing this correctly.

And you're right, Council Member Peterson, Chair Peterson, you did have a discussion about this at the last committee.

There are increases in the rates, just that they are lower than they were projected originally.

Yeah, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

So, as my staff informed you Jared Peterson, a little while ago I will be voting no on this bill, which is consistent with the vote from my office on rate increases and this bill includes the SPU rate hikes for this next year.

really appreciate all the work that has gone into making those rate hikes smaller than they were previously projected to be, because every bit counts for working people.

However, at a time when inflation is out of control and workers' paychecks are being stretched farther and farther, and as we head into a recession that economists are predicting will have a rough landing for ordinary people, I believe elected officials especially have an obligation to ensure that all of the increased utility costs are covered by increasing taxes on big business and the super rich instead of any rate increases on working families.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you for the comments and clarifying.

Yes, these are rate increases.

It's one of the highlights is that they're not overall increasing as high as we had originally or the council had originally approved.

Um, per the rate path, but, um, but you're right.

Councilor Swann, they are, they are an increase.

So thank you for bringing that, um, bringing that to us, that perspective.

Councilor Strauss.

Uh, thank you, chair.

Uh, I just want to thank, uh, Mr. Goodnight for your analysis and your briefing of me beforehand and director Lee, your team, your team's work on this, because it has been mentioned a couple of times already.

The rates that you're bringing forward to us are less than what we had authorized you to bring forward.

And it's less than inflation.

I know that inflation is the word on everyone's mind because everything is costing more.

And I just really appreciate you keeping the customers, Seattleites, everyday Seattleites in mind when you are trying to keep your rates as low as possible.

either through deferred projects, which we know we need to keep drinking water and using our sewer system.

And so I just appreciate you keeping the rates as low as you possibly could.

Thank you, Council Member Seraf.

Thank you, everybody.

Any other comments or questions about the solid waste rates?

Okay, yes, I echo those thanks to Seattle Public Utilities for managing the costs so well and trying to keep that north star of, you know, here's what we had promised and you came in, you're coming in below what the council had authorized previously.

Any increase is difficult, but these are, you're managing the costs from several different angles on multiple lines of business and ultimately the rate increase will be lower than we had authorized.

So thank you for that.

All right, colleagues, I'll go ahead and move this item.

I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120410. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120410. Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120410. Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

No.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, one opposed.

Thank you.

Okay, the motion carries, and the committee recommendation to pass Council 120410 will be sent, I believe, to the October 4th.

We'll send it to the October 4th full city council meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, everybody, for that discussion.

I appreciate the robust discussion, as we like to say.

Will the clerk please read the full titles of the next two agenda items into the record?

Agenda item 25, council bill 120417, an ordinance relating to drainage services of Seattle Public Utilities, adjusting drainage rates code to automatically pass through changes to treatment rates charged by external wastewater treatment providers.

Amending section 213330 of the Seattle Municipal Code to enable automatic adjustment of treatment rates and amending section 217640 of the Seattle Municipal Code to enable automatic adjustment of credits to low-income drainage customers for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Agenda item 26, draft legislation relating to wastewater services of Seattle Public Utilities, adjusting Wastewater Rates Code to automatically pass through changes to treatment rates charged by external wastewater treatment providers.

Amending section 21-2840 of the Seattle Municipal Code to enable automatic adjustment of treatment rates.

and amending section 21-7640 of the Seattle Municipal Code to enable automatic adjustment of credits to low-income wastewater customers for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Colleagues, I know Seattle Public Utilities and I are eager to have us streamline how the city accepts the mandatory pass-through rates we're required to accept from King County relating to drainage and wastewater services.

And those charges appear on each customer's bill from Seattle Public Utilities, but their pass-through rates were unable to change unlike the control we have over solid waste rates.

drinking water rates.

It's similar to the Bonneville Power Administration pass-through on electricity.

Council Bill 120417 for drainage can be voted on today due to a technical drafting change needed for the bill title on the wastewater bill.

That's presented as draft legislation, but we can signal our support for that today, hopefully, and that'll just be sent directly to full council at a later date.

So, we want to vote on this legislation before we vote on the city budget.

Otherwise additional legislation would need to be drafted and adopted.

So, Brian good night from Council Central staff has written a memo on this legislation as well attached to the agenda and we have Seattle Public Utilities here with us for a presentation.

I just want to open up to Brian Goodnight if he wanted to make any introductory remarks before we turn it over to SPU's presentation.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll just echo what you said, which is that the policy that will be discussed today applies both to the drainage rates and to the wastewater rates.

And so the bill that is that is separate that is being introduced today or is on the IRC calendar for today deals with the wastewater rates.

That's Council Bill 120421. And unfortunately, it'll have to be, it is planned to head straight to full council, but the policy discussion applies to both of the bills.

So I just wanted to reiterate that, but I'm happy to turn it over to SPU for the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Andrew Lee again.

Hi, Maria.

Hi.

Chair Peterson and members of the committee, thank you again for having us here.

I'm the general manager and CEO for Seattle Public Utilities, and I'll just provide a few introductory comments before passing it off to Maria Koh, our budget manager.

The City of Seattle, along with 33 other sewer agencies in the greater King County area, all have a long-term agreement with King County to treat our wastewater, and the City also has an agreement to treat our stormwater.

The county and its predecessor, Metro, have been performing this function since the 1960s.

And as part of that contract, the King County Council sets rates for their services.

And by contract, as Councilmember Peterson referenced, we are contractually obligated to pass those rates onto our customers.

And historically, we have run legislation every year to formally update our treatment rates and recoup the expense.

So today we're here to propose legislation that would automate this process So the county's adopted wastewater treatment rates are automatically incorporated into the city's drainage and wastewater rates without separate legislation.

As Chair Peterson referenced, this proposed legislation is consistent with the city, with the Bonneville Power Administration.

The Seattle City lights automatic pass-through for BPA rate changes.

It is also similar to legislation that other cities and agencies around the county have adopted.

The proposed legislation does not take away the City Council authority to set SPU drainage and wastewater rates, which will continue to occur on the current three-year cycle, nor does it change how SPU presents its strategic business plan rate path every three years.

This proposed legislation also does not remove our ability to provide input to the county on their proposed rates.

We retain the ability to provide input through the Metropolitan Water Pollution and Abatement Advisory Committee, or MWPAC, which is established by state law, as well as the Regional Water Quality Committee, which is established by county charter.

And we also have continuous direct communication with the county executive, the county council, and staff at the county's Department of Natural Resources Wastewater Treatment Division.

Lastly, I just want to mention that there was work that was initiated by Chair Peterson in 2021, and SPU is continuing to work with the county and the region to evaluate governance alternatives for the regional wastewater system.

And we're very hopeful that that study, which will wrap up towards the end of the year, will yield some good outcomes that improve the city's voice in county's wastewater decisions in areas such as rates, capital improvements, policy, and long-term comprehensive planning.

So with that, I will pass it on to our rates manager, Maria Ko, who will go into more detail on the proposed legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

So, as you mentioned are discussed meeting to discuss the legislation that would remove.

The need to update the treatment rate on an annual basis through the legislative process.

The idea behind this legislation is to create efficiencies and to mitigate financial risk.

We're going to begin with a quick overview of the proposed legislation, move on to the drainage and wastewater system, and then look at the King County treatment costs and finally discuss our next steps.

Our current practice is twofold.

Every third year when council is approving a rate study for drainage and wastewater, we include the King County treatment rate for the ensuing rate year.

This was last done in 2021 when we proposed the 2022 through 2024 rates.

King County had adopted the 2022 treatment rate increase at that time, so we were able to incorporate it into the 2022 rate council approved.

For years in which we are not proposing new rates, this year 2023 and 2024 for this rate cycle, we would be coming to council with legislation in each year to adopt a new treatment rate.

In an effort to mitigate our financial risk and easy administrative burdens, we're proposing this new mechanism that would allow for seamless integration of the county's wholesale treatment rate into the drainage and sewer rates.

The mechanism and legislative language are borrowed from Seattle City Light's treatment of the Bonneville Power Administration wholesale rates that are similarly integrated into city light rates.

There are multiple advantages to this automatic pass-through.

Council still retains authority over rates through the strategic business plan and three-year rate setting process.

It allows SPU to manage our financial risk by recouping the contractual expense increases.

It streamlines the process and it also is consistent with how other municipalities approach this charge.

And finally, it aligns SPU with City Light's wholesale rate process.

This slide shows, sorry, this slide shows the two different components of our wastewater and drainage rate structures.

One is the treatment rate, which accounts for about two thirds of the overall wastewater rate and is set to recover all funds associated with treatment costs.

This includes city utility tax and credits associated with the utility discount program.

The one third component is our system rate, which pays for operations and maintenance expenses, our capital program, debt service, taxes, and also program credits related to the utility discount program.

There are three components to the revenue that needs to be collected for treatment.

The treatment expense paid to King County, which is based on water consumption, the city tax paid on revenues collected by the utility, and the amounts of credits provided through the utility discount program.

You can see the total sum of 203.1 million is what we need to collect for treatment revenue.

That's called a revenue requirement.

And then we divide this by the number of billable units or 100 cubic feet, which is CCF.

And with that, we come out with the $9.96 treatment rate that will be added to the system rate to create the total rate passed on to customers for sewer.

Stormwater rates are determined, have the same two components with the added step of allocating to individual drainage rate classes that are done during the rate setting process every three years.

Seattle and the majority of the King County area are in a long term contract with King County for sewage treatment.

This has been since 1960s.

The contract requires annual adoption of a treatment rate that we as the agencies participating in the contract are required to cover from our customers.

While King County Council is responsible for adopting the treatment rate, we do have the opportunity to provide impact through several sources.

The Metropolitan Water Pollution Abatement Advisory Committee, or MWPAC, the Regional Water Quality Committee, or RWQC, and also direct communication to King County Council, the King County Executive, and the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks.

As general manager Andrew Lee also stated, we're continuing to evaluate governance alternatives.

And approving this automatic treatment rate is also in alignment with our contractual obligations to King County.

It's consistent with how other municipalities approach the charge.

And it's also consistent with our sister utility Seattle city light and their treatment of Bonneville power administration rates.

So under this legislation, SPU will continue to propose for Council to adopt six-year strategic business plan assumptions and three-year rate studies so that Council retains close legislative control over the wastewater and drainage rates.

SPU's adopted strategic plan assumed a 4% treatment rate increase based on the county's projections at the time of adoption of the plan.

However, the rate adopted by county council for 2023 is actually 1.75 percentage points higher, coming in at 5.75% instead of the 4% that was originally assumed when the strategic business plan was adopted.

These annual treatment rate increases will require us to submit legislation every year to increase that treatment component.

To reduce the administrative burden and financial risk, we're proposing this legislation to allow us to automatically increase the treatment portion of the sewer rate to recover the additional revenue requirement or expenses increasing due to the county treatment rate changes.

So this final slide shows the current rate path with this proposal for the King County treatment rates at 5.75% for 2023 and the out years.

This is also the same rate path that you saw on September 6 when you reviewed the solid waste rates.

Notice in the light gray, the solid waste rates in there are the ones that were just voted on by this committee.

Also, this still shows the 4% strategic business plan annual rate path.

So our next steps are consideration at this committee.

And if this does not receive a favorable vote, we will need to pursue legislation for adoption of the standalone treatment rate increases associated with wastewater and drainage immediately.

Any questions?

Thank you very much.

Really appreciate how you articulated this and appreciate Brian Goodnight's work on this.

Basically, the way it's structured now, we have no say and no power to change what the King County Council approves on wastewater and drainage rates.

There's simply, it's a mandatory pass through to us so the fact that it typically shows up to us in the form of an ordinance that we're approving doesn't make sense.

So this will be making it similar to on the Seattle city light side, where the Bonneville power administration simply passes through that.

their increases and their rates to us where there's no vote, there's no separate vote on that.

But there are ways that we can get involved.

A couple of us serve on the King County Regional Water Quality Control Committee.

We don't have a vote there either.

But that is where those rates are first discussed from the wastewater treatment division of King County puts those together as staff, and then it's really the King County executive and.

King County Council, that's who people should be calling when they see their wastewater rates go up because they're the ones that have complete control over those.

So this is simply streamlining that process because it really has no impact to come through us.

But happy to hear from any more from Maria or Brian on that before we get comments or questions from council committee members.

Does that sum it up?

Okay.

Councillor Herbold.

Thank you, and thank you Chair Peterson.

You did address one of the questions I had.

I do understand that this is a legally required pass-through.

We don't have discretion on it.

It just feels to me that although it is not streamlined, and it may be bureaucratic to do a thing every year and vote on it when we legally don't have discretion on it, it kind of, feels to me that it at least gives us an entry point to engage with King County about wastewater rates.

I do recognize that we do have representation on the Regional Water Quality Committee.

As you say, we don't have a vote on rates and I know you share my concern about some of the projected rate increases over the next several years driven by a lot of capital expenditures.

So I'm a little bit hesitant, although I do hear the logic of your argument that the potential for political leverage may not be in reality, something that we can use in having to approve these pass-throughs every year.

I'm just kind of talking through my thought process there and recognizing and appreciating your addressing it, Peterson.

I do have a question about the transparency around the pass-through.

We work with Seattle Public Utilities to create transparency for the utility tax, and so that is shown on SPU bills.

I'm wondering, is this pass-through shown broken out on bills similar to the utility taxes are?

Yes.

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry, Maria, please.

So on the bottom of the bill, it does state that it moves that we updated every when it shifts, but 60 to 67% of the bill is attributable to the King County treatment rate.

Thank you.

And Council Member Herbold, when we receive the ordinance, when it's finalized, it's already been approved by the King County Council.

So it's, there's really no, if we were to vote, if we had a majority no vote on that, then we would be in violation of our legal agreement with King County on how this whole system is set up.

And so, and on the King County Regional Water Quality Control Committee, we have attempted to use that as leverage, like, well, next year, we're, you know, just you wait, we're gonna, you know, raise concerns about these rates.

And then it just falls on deaf ears because we don't have any legal authority to do that.

So we're really just setting ourselves up to miscommunicate to the public that somehow we're involved with those rates when they really need to be calling their King County Council members when waste water and drainage rates increase.

And again, this is, yeah, and it's similar to, and the idea kind of came from the Bonneville Power Administration issue where that's just passed right through, but we're not asked to, you know, a mandatory vote, a yes vote on that.

It just, but we do have, as the presentation points out, we do have multiple entry points to discuss it and raise it and get a heads up on it and talk to King County Council members and tell our constituents to call King County Council.

And if Andrew Lee or Maria want to add anything to that, and then we can go to council members so on.

We are actively, actively engaged.

I cannot stress how much we try to engage with the county to give feedback on their rate increases, to really evaluate all their proposals as well as their options.

And so we definitely try to exercise that ability that we have right now.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I will be voting no on this item for similar reasons to the previous agenda item.

If this legislation passes, Seattle elected officials will, for the most part, no longer be required to take a proactive role in the rates that originate in King County, and certainly there won't be an explicit vote on rate increases that originate in King County.

I understand what You're saying about, you know, other forms of engagement which certainly should be done but ultimately I think the buck should stop with elected officials and the boat is where it comes.

While it is true that those rate increases are.

voted on by the King County Council and the Seattle City Council is not directly in control of them.

The King County Council has as much of an obligation as does the Seattle City Council to ensure that rate increases do not land on the shoulders of working families.

There could be a time when a sufficiently strong working class movement could push Seattle City Council members to reject the rate increases from King County Council elected officials.

And then it will force the King County position and subsidize rate increases with taxes on big businesses.

I know I would want to have the opportunity to vote no on rate increases if that were to happen.

And this bill would remove that option for the future.

So for that reason, I will be voting no.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Swann.

And for Seattle Public Utilities, just a reminder for us in terms of when we're approving, for example, the strategic business plan and the rate path, like the slides we saw earlier today where we see the four lines of business, there is an opportunity there for us to opine on what we think is coming down from King County, to see how it fits with the overall Seattle Public Utility Bill of our ratepayers, and to get on the phone and try to ask King County Council members and the Wastewater Treatment Division and the County Executive to see what they could do to manage their costs.

I know that Seattle Public Utilities is doing that on solid waste and fresh water, and I know that The wastewater treatment division tries to do that I think that.

We do have multiple points where we can raise our concerns.

It doesn't have to be at the time when it's too late, when we're forced by law to do a yes vote on something we don't like.

So I encourage anybody who wants to join me for those Regional Water Quality Control Committee meetings to push on that issue to make sure those costs are being managed.

We do have aging asset management problem with wastewater treatment.

We do have a lot of stress on the system.

Often rates do need to go up there, but maybe not as high or in the time in the year that they're being proposed by King County.

There are plenty of opportunities for us to weigh in on that, including an official opportunity here when we approve our strategic business plan and rate paths.

And even today, when we're talking about solid waste rates, where we get the full picture and we see the increases from wastewater and drainage, that is an opportunity for us to complain about those rate increases and to protest those.

It doesn't have to be on a mandatory vote for something we have no control over.

And so I really appreciate Seattle Public Utilities putting this together, similar to the City Light pass-through from Bonneville.

Anything to add from Andrew Lee, Brian Goodnight, Maria Coe?

Okay.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions about this bill?

We're gonna vote on the drainage portion and then that it's basically identical, the wastewater one, it's just that there was a technical error in the title that's being fixed and those will both arrive at the city council, full city council at the same time so that We don't have to take separate votes on those.

Okay, well I'll go ahead and move the item that we have before us.

One moment here, let me get my notes straight.

Yeah, so I'm what I'm going to be doing is moving the drainage one which is 120417 as Brian goodnight said the new, the new version of the the waste water one is 120421 that'll show up later at full city council, potentially on October 4, we'll see how it goes with the vote.

Council members I'd like to move at the committee recommend passage of Council 120417 is there a second.

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded, recommend passage of Council Bill 120417. Any last minute comments or questions?

Thank you, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120417.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

No.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, one opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries, and the committee recommendation to pass Council 120417 will be sent to the October 4 City Council meeting, and then Council 120421 will show up at that same time, so they can be voted on together by the full City Council.

Appreciate the discussion about that, and appreciate Seattle Public Utilities' hard work on that, and also Brian Goodnight from Central Staff, the hard work on those two bills.

Okay, next we're gonna, we're going to pivot back to transportation, and we've got two more items on our agenda.

Yeah, customer shares.

I have a hard stop at 1145 unfortunately actually a couple minutes before is it possible to switch the two items.

Yes, yeah, so thank you, Councilor Strauss.

Councilor Strauss is the sponsor for the Safe Starts, the street reads legislation, which is currently the last item on the agenda.

We'll go ahead and read agenda item 28 in the record and then pivot back to item 27 if there's no objection from council or from committee members.

Okay, hearing no objection, we'll go ahead and hear the last item first, the streeteries, the safe starts.

So will the clerk please go ahead and read the full title of item 28 into the record.

Agenda item 28, long-term recommendations for safe start permitting for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, and this legislation is sponsored by Councilor Strauss that would make permanent SDOT Safe Start program or street areas program that expands how the city allows restaurants to use our public sidewalks and streets for outdoor dining and other purposes.

And Councilor Strauss, do you wanna make any introductory remarks?

Let me put you on the spot, or we can just go straight to SDOT.

Oh sure I've got I mean I'm going to say a lot of the things that you'll hear them say I'll get this out of the way so that in case I have to leave this.

You'll hear what what we have going on so my bill before the committee is the final step in the pathway to permanence to have outdoor dining and businesses as a permanent feature of our city's fabric.

When we give Seattle lights the permission.

and avenue to use their entrepreneurial spirit.

We see the increase of vibrancy in our city, our neighborhoods, and our business districts.

The requirement for business owners to use their entrepreneurial drive to their fullest extent is that they need certainty, and certainty is what this bill is providing.

As a reminder, this program opened in August 2020, and it was a wild success from the beginning.

The August 2020 start date meant we missed the first round of warmer summer months, And it gave us the opportunity to test it in the winter.

Still businesses.

succeeded.

They built structures during what was told was a temporary situation, meaning business owners did not initially invest in the structures to truly meet their needs, rather they invested in a temporary measure.

And businesses did need their structures to be warm in cold weather and then provide shade and respite for outdoor diners in the summer months.

I really want to applaud SDOT for focusing on getting permits out the door rather than finalizing those permanent regulations in those early days of the pandemic.

It was a smart move as it meant that the immediate needs of local businesses were prioritized.

And this decision means that the pathway to permanency did take a little bit longer and more businesses were served.

So after the initial years of temporary permits, SDOT needed this time to finalize regulations, which is why we had a couple extensions.

So we had an extension in May 2021. and then in February 2022 as well.

And this temporary program is currently scheduled to sunset in 2023 as SDOT returns to existing permit options that we're here to talk about today.

This program is not just for restaurants, retail and other businesses can also benefit from utilizing their outdoor spaces.

And businesses like Standard Goods in Ballard on Ballard Avenue have an outdoor area that they share with an adjacent restaurants and it's attracted both more people to the restaurant and more people to that outdoor dining area, this is more than dining.

There are so many different types of permits.

We'll get into them in just a couple minutes.

There's six different types of permits.

There's the outdoor cafe permit, outdoor merchandise display permit, vending permits, outdoor fitness, street closures, and my favorite, well, can't have favorites, one of my favorites, priority pickup zones.

that are designated spaces that delivery drivers, food pickup drivers, or anyone else can pick up food from.

Some of the most important changes were to the cost of permit to these businesses.

In the past, we did not take into account the fact that these businesses are creating increased sales tax.

We had a somewhat punitive cost structure with annual fees for some in excess of $3,000 a year.

While I still have a couple of questions in what is before us today, we're now talking about an initial fee of $1,200 per year or $100 a month or a renewal at $588 per year or $50 a month.

So I know we've done a couple extensions.

It's taken a while since my initial coming to you, Chair Peterson, with the idea of having these as fixtures in our streets during the pandemic.

And by taking the time needed to understand the needs of our business owners and Seattleites Rather than rushing to create rules too stringent or too loose, we have the bill before us providing certainty and policies right size for our city.

We've heard feedback from all types of businesses.

To date, SDOT has over 300 safe start permits across the city.

And during this period, SDOT ran a survey with over 10,000 responses in 2021. high levels of support for the program.

Every neighborhood in the city showed high levels of support, and that came from residents, customers, and business owners, even business owners not participating in the program expressed a high level of support.

And so SDOT is setting these rules that you'll hear before us, talking about equity, wanting to make sure that it's successful in all neighborhoods, not just some.

Safety, as we move out of the initial phase of the pandemic, ensures structures are structurally sound and safe for people out walking, rolling, or driving, access to make sure that there's still access for the deliveries and pickups, drop off space, customers, et cetera, and sustainability to make sure that it's financially sustainable for SDOT and also with the certainty to be sustainable for business owners.

Just so happy that s dot is here, ensuring that we have a good set of rules that allow adequate transition time for businesses options for year round vibrancy of use in the right away, and are supporting sales businesses as they continue to recover from the pandemic.

So just in closing I know I said a lot, we have the opportunity to shift the way we have used our streets.

We have the pathway to make street cafes a permanent feature of our city.

We have the entrepreneurial drive of business owners to make this a success.

And now we have the certainty businesses need to succeed.

Street dining in Seattle is here to stay permanently.

And I'm just excited that we've taken the time to get it right.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Esther.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Welcome, Estat.

So go ahead and put your presentation up.

And I do want to thank Calvin Chow on central staff for his analysis.

And I know maybe there'll be more to come on that.

But Calvin, did you want to make any opening remarks before we go through Estat's presentation?

Thank you, Councilmember.

I guess the Okay.

So.

A couple items.

I just wanted to highlight one.

The legislation is not before the committee today.

So this is an informational briefing.

They did.

Publish.

Publish a public draft of this in August.

So there are draft directors rules and draft legislation that, that is the basis for this.

But the legislation will come more formally to the committee in after the budget.

This is as much about how SDOT is proposing to run their program.

They were able to do the existing temporary Safe Streets program with existing code language.

And really, their legislative requirement was to deal with the permit fees.

And so this is really a cleanup of the code language in general to allow them to continue to do these types of administrative changes.

But I think they should probably talk about how their director's rules are proposed to be used.

and do their presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Calvin.

Good morning, SDOT team.

Hi, my name is Elise Nelson.

I'll be leading the presentation today for SDOT.

I'm happy to be here, Council, and to give you this update on where we're at with our transition from the Safe Start permitting back to our long-term permit opportunities.

I am the public space manager for SDOT street use division and with me here today is Joel Miller.

He is on my team and then we also have Liz Sheldon who's the street use division director and they'll help with questions as we go through.

Next slide please.

We always like to ground our programs in SDOT's vision and mission values and goals.

So with this program we really see how that people really have enjoyed Safe Start permits, and they're asking for more cafes, more street closures, more displays, and vending opportunities, not less.

And we also want to take a moment and make sure that we're aligning with our core values.

So for this program area, we really see how we're delivering on our livability core value to make great neighborhoods.

But we have permit processes in place to make sure we're also thinking about safety and mobility, sustainability, and making sure we're building equity into our framework.

Next slide.

So today we're going to give you a brief background to talk about where we've been for outreach during the program, give an update on our timeline of next steps, and then highlight our proposed changes.

Next slide.

Just to orient today, I think actually Council Member Strauss did a great job, but there are basically four program areas that are affected with this package.

So we have outdoor dining, which includes sidewalk and curb space cafes, merchandise display that could be on the sidewalk.

You think about a sale rack, that kind of thing.

Street food and flower vending, and then street activation, which includes street closures.

And that would be both mid and small scale community events.

Next slide.

So just a quick background, we launched our program in summer of 2020 to respond to the pandemic conditions.

And we use existing tools that we already had, but introduced free and streamlined permits to get businesses out and on the sidewalks and streets quickly so they could keep their business going.

To date, we've issued 300 permits, and we are looking to sunset this program and return to existing permit options, but taking the lessons we've learned along the way into this package, and that's what we're here to talk about today.

In addition to SDOT's core values, we also want to look at how this program aligns with overall city policy.

So we really looked at the COMP Plan, Seattle's Climate Action Plan, SDOT's Pedestrian Master Plan, as well as the Transportation Equity Framework.

And we see that this program is helping deliver on goals and policies that are contained within those planning documents.

Next slide.

So next we'll talk briefly about our outreach process, and we really have been doing a lot of outreach and engagement.

We have had a multi-pronged approach, so including all the things that you see on the slide, surveys, community meetings, focusing on BIPOC outreach, evaluations, and then general public awareness, including blogs, web updates, our CEPA process.

So we've done a lot and we've heard from a lot of people and overwhelmingly people have enjoyed the Safe Start program.

Our survey had over 10,000 responses as Council Member Strauss noted, and there was high level support in every neighborhood, including from businesses, from residents and customers, even businesses that didn't participate directly in the Safe Start program expressed a high level of support.

After our survey, we looked to see what gaps we had in our outreach and then reached out directly to key stakeholders including The Seattle Restaurant Alliance, the BIAs across the city, disability rights advocates, as well as making sure we talk to BIPOC stakeholders.

And since we came to you in July, which was our last time we were here, we did publish all our drafts, the draft director's rules and ordinance, as well as our SEPA environmental review.

And since then, we've continued to hear overwhelmingly positive things.

Just to note that some folks expressed concerns about fees, although many also found that they were pretty reasonable where we landed.

We've heard some concern from restaurants about our vending changes, although the vendors are very supportive of these changes.

And just in general, overall, we continue to hear excitement and enthusiasm about the program.

Next slide.

This is our graphic that kind of highlights the results of our 2021 survey that had the 10,000 responses.

And you can see that there was great success, overwhelmingly positive, 90% support for cafes, really close to that for food trucks, a little less for retail displays, although still positive.

Next slide.

So just a brief timeline of what's next.

So we're here today.

We plan on having legislation that council can vote on in December.

So that will be when the new legislation becomes effective.

We have safe start permits.

All of them are currently set to expire in January 31st of 2023. We'd like to ask for an extension for the outdoor dining display and street closure permits to allow them to be extended until June 30th.

And that will build some time for people to come in and apply.

We'd like to keep our vending permits at January 31st so we can kind of get those handled, figure out what vendors still need sites and open them up to new vendors as there's interest.

So we'll do that kind of sooner than later and then also work with the cafes and displays out there to get them under a new permit by June 30th and then give a little bit of a grace period for people to actually build any changes that might be required for their cafes or display structures.

So, before we dig into the nitty gritty, just some overall goals from how we're thinking about this program.

We really want to continue to build upon the vibrancy, livability and resilience benefits we've seen during the pandemic.

We want to make sure we're lowering barriers to participation, especially for BIPOC owned small businesses, including our vendors.

We want to provide new tools and new options for activating Seattle's public space, make sure our program is financially sustainable, and build a flexible approach into our program.

Next slide.

For programmatic goals, kind of looking at the four areas that we're talking about, we have outdoor dining, and we want to make sure that we're planning for year-round vibrancy, and that includes recognizing that structures are here to stay, but we need to make sure they're durable and designed for the longer-lasting seasons that they'll be out.

We also want to make sure we're managing the curb appropriately and balancing curb space loading for passengers and freight, along with activation benefits that these cafes and street closures bring.

For merchandise display, we're looking at simplifying our process when we have those simple storefront displays against the building.

For vendors, we want to really help our BIPOC-owned small businesses.

These are some of Seattle's smallest businesses.

We want to make sure we're opening partnership opportunities between businesses and food trucks.

That includes things like breweries that really want to have food trucks nearby, allow for food truck pods where that's appropriate, and just create more opportunities for new vendors to try out vending in Seattle.

Finally, street activation.

We really want to encourage more community and business use of Seattle streets.

And in addition to just short-term events, we want to include seasonal and year-round activations as well.

Next slide.

All right, we're going to dig in.

I'm going to try to stay quick because I know there's still one more SDOT presentation.

For outdoor dining, we were actually with council not too long ago, 2019, and we did some pretty major overhauls of the Seattle Municipal Code Chapter 1516. So we don't really have much more to do with that.

And the big changes that you will be voting on are fee fee related.

So you'll see that we have, we're looking at a long term permit issuance of $1,220 for a cafe, a year round cafe, and then $200 for any additional area.

So if you have a curb space cafe and a frontage zone cafe, you would pay that $1,200 plus the $200.

That's the first year and then after that, it would be $588.

We're also opening a seasonal option that's kind of if you want to just take advantage of the summer months, the nicer time of the year, you could have a permit from April through October for $500.

We are no longer going to be charging occupation fees for use of the public right of way.

And just to note that these issuance fees cover our public space management team time, but you may have other charges from other secondary reviewers across the city that might need to review any given application.

So those are the fee schedule updates.

Just to quickly highlight some of the director's rule changes that we're working on.

We're enhancing standards for structural design.

We're looking at establishing a maximum length to help balance the curb space use of 40 feet.

That's about two parking spaces.

We do have some flexibility on either side to go above or below that as necessary.

We're looking to establish emergency access gaps, make sure firefighters can get into the sidewalk and to businesses.

We want to continue to be flexible about platforms so they won't be required, but they will be encouraged and allowed on the sidewalks in more cases.

And finally, we do have pretty robust permitting responsibilities for maintenance and operation to make sure that these spaces are being well maintained and used.

Next slide.

Alright, so for vending, this is a place where there are more changes happening within the Seattle Municipal Code.

We're basically following the format that we used for the sidewalk cafe changes in our vending code, so removing details that are better housed within SDOT director's rule from the code and moving them into rules.

So that's like kind of the gist of the changes to the ordinance.

We're looking to remove strict prohibitions that are existing in the code, but then move towards setbacks and guidance that are in the director's role to help reviewers and businesses understand how we'll be thinking about these uses.

We're also looking to open more flexibility in the type of vending that we can allow.

Right now, we only allow food and flower vending in Seattle.

We'd like to allow for merchandise and arts and crafts vending, but we want to start out slow by allowing that during events only.

So that's one thing that we're looking to add and to build upon a successful pilot that we had during the pandemic called Market Streets.

And then our fees are pretty much staying similar to current state for vending.

We will keep occupation fees for vendors to use the right of way.

The issuance fees are maybe going up a little bit, but they also include review rather than that being an hourly review that's separated.

So it does provide more certainty for vendors.

And we're adding some more tools for new vendors with a trial permit, for example, and reducing costs of temporary vending.

So those will be a little bit less expensive and allow for new vendors to try things out.

So I think that, you know, just to note, a lot of the buffers are moving from the code into the rule.

We're looking at kind of providing more opportunities for vendors to be cited, just really recognizing that they've been very, very impacted during the pandemic.

As workers left offices downtown and in South Lake Union, their customer base dried up.

And so we really want to provide more opportunities for them to get back to business.

and be able to try out more sites to see where the customers are, where they can be successful with their business model moving forward after the pandemic and kind of into the new normal.

Next slide.

For merchandise display, we're creating a new chapter, really mimicking the sidewalk cafe code again, just to clarify our merchandise display rules, which are kind of packaged within the vending code in the past.

We're also introducing a new director's rule where we will make standards that are applicable to those frontage zone business displays.

So if you have a sales rack or a table outside of your front of your building, kind of touching your building, you can do that without an SDOT permit.

Now, if you follow the rules that we'll have in the director's rule, And then we still offer permits for furniture zone siding.

Those are a little bit trickier to get right.

So we want to make sure we have a permit review process so we can work with businesses so they set up correctly.

We are going to disallow curb space retail display, which we tried out during the safe start permitting.

We didn't see that used very often with exceptions for street closures.

And so we will allow curb space retail display as part of an overarching street closure.

But outside of that, we think, you know, it's just there's so much.

need to balance curb space use, so we kind of thought that this would be one that doesn't make sense to allow moving forward.

We'll be adding a requirement for diverters for cane detectability, make sure that we have better universal access, and then again permitting responsibilities for maintenance and operation will be in effect.

Next slide.

So this is the fourth and final area for the Safe Start package.

There's no modifications for street activation that need to be made to the Seattle Municipal Code.

We're looking at creating program requirements to really encourage not just events like day of events, but also for full year and seasonal activations in the streets, both businesses and community groups can take advantage of that.

We will continue to allow businesses to close the street, but if it's a single business, We want to make sure they're also offering public seating or community programming so there's better balance of the public and private use.

And then private street closures, things like weddings that sometimes get permitted, will only be allowed for those shorter duration events.

The fee schedule will charge full cost recovery for our private events.

We will have some reduced costs for those public events and activations that we see having an important role in bringing livability to neighborhoods in Seattle.

All right, last slide.

There's also some overall changes we're making to Title 15 that will add some additional flexibility for us that we're using in this proposal and may build upon in the future.

So one is to allow uses of the right-of-way without a permit if there's SDOT director's rule.

So that's being used for a merchandise display and we'll look at where it might make sense to build upon that model in the future.

We're also making some allowances to create exceptions from insurance and identification requirements.

Again, that will be moving from the code into SDOT director's role and we'll work closely with the city risk management group as well as city attorney's office to make sure we get that right.

Finally, we want to have some ability to close old permits that are kind of stale where there hasn't been activity.

Right now, there's not like really clear code authority for that.

So we want to make sure we can close those out and keep our permit software system clean and with good information.

So with that, I think it'll be the last slide.

And again, I really thank you for your time today.

I have Joel and Liz here.

So we're happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you very much.

So, just to assure you we are going to hear the legislation and plan to vote on it on our December 6 committee meeting.

As you know, we were about to enter our two month budget review and amendment and adoption process.

So appreciate this full explanation of the legislation today so that we can move quickly on December 6, I do have a couple of questions and then We've got some other council members who may have comments or questions.

On your survey, how many, I know you had several thousand respondents, but how many of those were actually businesses or small businesses?

I believe we had around 275 businesses that responded to the survey directly that reported that they were a business.

Okay, okay thank you for clarifying that.

So, and then I know that New York City has implemented a similar program and they've, you know, the New York Times wrote several articles on on this and this sort of.

concerns raised by residents who live nearby and but the mayor is trying to work through those and just didn't know if you had if you could just let us know if you've looked at the New York City experience and and how that you might be mitigating those concerns with this legislation and I know you know in my district we've got a lot of takeout businesses that might want to ensure that their, their, their food can be picked up and delivered.

And so want to make sure that delivery services can can access their, their, their restaurants, even though they're not taking advantage of sort of on the sidewalk or, you know, outdoor dining situation so just want to make sure that takeout restaurants are accommodated.

I think in our pre briefing you talked a little bit about that but if you could just talk a little bit about the temporary spaces you provide for pickup.

there.

And you mentioned in the survey, has Disability Rights Washington officially opined on this bill yet, or is that something you're going to be seeking?

I'm interested to hear what Disability Rights Washington has to say about it.

And then I did want to, yeah, I might have one comment at the end, but if you could address those real quickly, I'd appreciate them.

We'll go to Council Member Herbold.

Yeah, I'm happy to.

So, Um, I'll go kind of an order the New York City experience.

Um, you know, we've been also paying attention to the news and talking to our colleagues across the United States and and in Canada to understand, you know, we're kind of in this period of everybody's doing it all at the same time.

So, you know, we're doing a lot of learning and listening from other cities that are either a little ahead of us or a little behind us.

Um.

In New York City, I think that they have had different experience than Seattle and I think that we aren't seeing some of the concerns from residents that they've seen in New York and perhaps some of that is related to just the different urban form.

But I guess I would note, as far as the structures that they are having to take out of the right of way, for example, that aren't being used by businesses, I think we're a little ahead of the curve from maybe some other cities.

We do have a small but mighty team of inspectors within our team.

We have code authority to write citations and other types of enforcement actions that we can take.

We proactively do annual inspections on these uses.

So I think there's a lot that we do already and will continue to do and build upon regarding enforcement, as well as we've, you know, with our director's rule, we've looked to really beef up our maintenance and operation conditions.

And so that's kind of what the permittee is agreeing to, to get a permit.

And so we want to make sure that they understand what we're expecting.

And so I think those types of tools will help us Avoid some of that that the concern about, you know, maintenance or operation that we've seen in other cities, such as New York.

Um, for takeout restaurants, you know, kind of.

Again, as we look at the overall length that we're allowing for curbspace cafes, I think during the early part of the pandemic, it was like, hey, activation, getting people out and able to use the street is like number one priority.

And so we really didn't do a lot of like, everything was an option.

Well, maybe not bus lanes and bike lanes, but we kind of wanted to make sure that if we could fit a restaurant on the street, we would.

And so that was kind of how we were thinking about it and working really closely with our colleagues in curbspace.

which is a group within SDOT that manages curb space allocation and parking.

And as we return into the new normal, so to speak, I think that's why we've set the standard of 440 foot as kind of a maximum length.

Really providing the intent that we want to make sure we're balancing the curb space, that loading in particular is important both for freight and commercial activity as well as for people loading.

And so there will be some changes that we need to make to kind of rebalance that allocation of the curb moving forward.

And then I'm going to let Joel take the question about disability rights.

Yeah, that's a great question.

We did have a number of meetings, both with disability rights, Washington and the Washington chapter of the National Federation for the blind, you know, we didn't go so far as to say, hey, like.

do you fully sign off and approve of this?

But we didn't hear any big issues or protests from them.

I think they really appreciated a lot of the different uses of the right-of-way, but also really trying to center the pedestrian experience and the experience of people with disabilities so they can navigate our sidewalks and get through these areas.

And I think that is addressed in these director's rules as well.

Thank you.

We've got Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, appreciate it.

A couple questions about the survey, and if you covered this, I apologize.

The survey notes that 90% approval for the sidewalk cafes and sidewalk retail and sidewalk display at 65 and 59% respectively.

retail display is that just a definitional question first is that they're not actually selling products they're basically advertising their product products by having maybe a selection out out front that are not for sale but that if you go inside the store they are for sale yeah that's correct okay and can you can you Maybe give what your conclusions are about the lower levels of support for those 2 categories.

Yeah, well, just 1 thing to note because of the lower level of support that and just the need to balance curve space allocation.

That's one reason why we're no longer going to allow retail display in the curb space, except when there's like kind of an overall plan for the street closure.

So an example of that being like the Ballard Avenue street closure includes some retail spaces and that could continue, but a standalone retail display in the curb space wouldn't be something that we would allow moving forward with this legislative package.

I think that- That's helpful.

Okay.

Thank you for underscoring that.

And I guess I just say people in general, I think really responded to kind of the vibrancy benefit of seeing people kind of out using space kind of talking and and maybe the experience that they were seeing the people kind of navigating a sale rack wasn't quite, you know, kind of what they what they enjoyed or appreciate most.

It was still overall positive.

We still definitely see a value in having retailers being able to put out a sales rack or that kind of thing on the sidewalk.

We also are making sure that there's adequate mobility.

And I think that might be part of the problem, too, is just making sure that we're getting that right, that there's sidewalk space for people to walk and it's not like you're getting kind of crowded and having like a less than ideal experience.

So again, our rules will help make sure there's adequate sidewalk space and clearance.

We're looking at buffering sales racks with a diverter or a planter to make sure that somebody who's navigating with a cane will kind of see that first and know that they need to kind of move on their path away from the building frontage.

So I think with some of those improvements, it'll be a really good and important value add for Seattle's neighborhood residential districts or commercial districts rather.

Thank you, and just a quick follow-up.

My gut is that it's somehow linked to pedestrian circulation as well.

And maybe just having, as you say, sort of a more positive feeling about seeing people, eating and drinking and having community outside versus selling a product.

As it relates to the pedestrian circulation issue, though, what can we do to mitigate those impacts that we aren't already are already doing.

I have a hard time conceiving of there being more pedestrian impacts with the retail use of sidewalks than the outdoor dining that I've seen, where we go to great lengths to mitigate the impacts, but the impacts are greater.

And so maybe we're just doing more for the outdoor eating as far as the requirement for buffers than we are thinking is necessary for the retail side.

I'm speaking out loud here.

Yeah, I mean, they have similar requirements around, you know, what we look for for sidewalk pedestrian clearance.

And I guess I would say We are looking at how we have better eyes out on our neighborhoods with our inspectors, we definitely have an education first type of activity when we think about enforcement, we want to make sure everybody knows the rules and so I think.

Partly what we're working on now, you know, kind of in between now and when this package is finalized is those educational materials.

How do we make sure that businesses know what the rules are?

They're set up for success.

You know, we're looking at, can we do more to explain the importance of ADA guidance and universal access and that kind of thing.

So I think maybe through tools like that, we can help make sure folks are more aware.

And then as we need to, we can use our and our inspectors that are out in the field to have eyes on the street and to work with businesses to kind of be like, Hey, this isn't quite right.

Let's, let's get it right.

So that this can be a win-win for neighborhoods.

I see you have your hand up.

So maybe it also might have to do with, I mean, clearly the outdoor seating space for dining is generally speaking a bigger use.

I'm wondering if that's reflected in sort of the, The uptake and businesses who are asking for these different permits, I mean, of the 300, you have a sense of.

Sort of the breakdown to get a sense of where the businesses are coming from.

Yeah, so for for the 300 safe start permits we had, they were overwhelmingly issued to cafes doing outdoor dining.

I think that we had around maybe.

I don't have the numbers offhand, but around a dozen or maybe 18 maximum that in a given time we're doing retail display.

And many of those were within street closure permitted areas.

So, and then pre pandemic merchandise display has been relatively underutilized and I think.

You know, it's something that, you know, people either, you know, they don't want to deal with having their goods on the sidewalk.

You know, that's kind of more to kind of handle.

So it's not a, you know, overwhelmingly utilize permit option that we've had.

I think we're hoping by removing the permit requirement.

Um, for frontage zone that maybe we'll see more, or at least there'll be more out there that were, um, you know, we might have some that are unpermitted that.

you know, hopefully through this education process to learn, you know, about the requirements that we have and set up more successfully moving forward.

Thank you.

One last comment, or just wanted to make sure you got the, there was a concern raised by the Broadway Business Improvement Area about the food truck proximity, and maybe you'll get more comments on this, but just wanted you to make sure you consider that.

because they seem to have that particular, you know, we have 10 BIAs in the city and that particular BIA had some concerns about the food truck proximity to existing businesses there that are trying to reestablish themselves post pandemic.

So just wanted to make you aware of that.

Yeah, thank you for sending that to us.

We'll definitely follow up with them.

You know, we've been doing a lot of talking and briefings with across the city, but I don't think we've had a chance to talk directly to them.

So we can definitely follow up and kind of dig into the details both to kind of.

Let them know what's in there and hear their concerns and see what we can, what we can do to kind of make sure we're all on the same page.

Thank you.

Colleagues, if there are no further comments or questions, we do wanna thank Estad and Calvin Chow for this, and we'll go to the last item, which I know we'll zip through quickly here.

We'll go ahead and read this into the record, item 27. Go ahead and read the item into the record.

Committee Clerk.

Agenda item 27, shared transit stops for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

So this is our final item, and we've got SDOT back here on their, with the recommended permanent program for shared transit stops.

We appreciate them doing a pilot program and studying that carefully.

So this is building off the lessons learned from that pilot program with our goal of trying to make transit options available to as many people as possible.

So, to this ask.team.

Go ahead and run through your slides and we'll see if we have any comments or questions.

Hi there.

Thank you so much for having us.

First off, I want to introduce myself, Michelle Bonaggia, and Ben Smith, who's on the call but unable to present today, so he'll be taking questions later if needed, and Transit Service and Strategy Manager Brianna Lovell, who will be helping me out with this presentation.

Next slide.

So, we're going to I'll be as quick as I can.

We're going to cover the program goals and background lesson learns from the lessons learned from the shared.

Stops pilot our shared stops program proposal and a review of the council action versus the director's role and a general timeline for current action and future changes of the program as well as next steps.

So, for our program goals for the employer shared transit stops program, we're hoping to maintain public transit as a priority in the transportation system and manage shuttles as complimentary to the existing system, especially where there's peak our service constraints.

We're hoping to also provide employers with consistency and clarity for shuttle loading, encourage increased use of shared modes by offering more options to take.

transit through this program, support downtown recovery, and we also have forthcoming action in December, including the proposed ordinance permitting SDOT to establish a permanent program, amend the Seattle Municipal Code, and adopt a fee structure.

For the background of our program, single employer shuttles were authorized by state law, and then the pilot program was established in 2005 to create a more congruous system.

The pilot established what's known as the White Curb Zone and the shuttle vehicle permit fee of $300 in the Seattle Municipal Code.

And it was in response to the growing demand for reliable access to the curb.

Next slide.

So, in 2017, the employer shared Transit Stops pilot, partnered with Seattle Children's, who had four stops, and Microsoft, who had eight shared stops.

In 2018, our evaluation report found that there were no major impacts to the transit or our roadway operations, and there were also best practice recommendations, including active management and close partnerships with employers in the future.

The pilot was overall successful, and we had no negative feedback from employers as well.

I'm going to pass this to Brianna.

So just a reminder that this is an informational item today and what we're proposing and what we would transmit in the future is a proposal to make the pilot program into a permanent program.

As part of that action, we would establish a new fee structure.

We would formalize the application process and add some clarity and criteria to that part of the program.

And then we would also introduce some new requirements for data that we would collect about shuttle operations through the permitting process.

In terms of the fee structure, it's maybe nice we're following on the prior presentation because we looked to street use to inform our fee structure.

We would be increasing the annual shuttle vehicle permit fee from $300, which has been We would set an hourly staff fee that would cover the time for managing this program and make sure it's not detracting from our other baseline work and priorities.

per year, although there's some reduced rates available for certain types of institutions that meet our criteria for medical and educational institutions.

And we did model this fee structure after the street use vending right of way program, which we just heard a little bit about.

In terms of the process, We would be collecting some additional data in this new program and current conditions, we don't necessarily have a lot of insight into shuttle operations.

So that would begin with the implementation of the program.

We would also have a new application process, which would streamline the intake process, whereas right now, or managing requests for a new shared stop on sort of an ad hoc basis.

And then we would also have various or clearly defined process for how we account for staff time and how that's charged through the permitting process.

We have tried to be very thoughtful about which stops are appropriate for sharing which transit transit stops are appropriate for sharing with private employer shuttles and really keeping an eye towards modal conflicts.

We have a number of criteria that would exclude stops with very high ridership, rapid ride stops, and also looking at bike facilities and loading needs and other potential conflicts.

The approval of any given permit really depends on the shuttle and the details of that stop location.

All of the details of the application process are included in new director's rule.

And that also includes a cap on the number of stops that any single employer can request and also has some citywide caps on the number of stops that could be part of this shared stops program.

And then it also provides some clarity in terms of how the permitting process works and if we need to revoke or change a permit.

So what we would be transmitting in terms of council action, there would be an ordinance that updates the Seattle Municipal Code in Title 11, and that's what gives the program authorization and updates all the relevant definitions and terms and adopts the proposed fee structure.

And then that is accompanied by a director's rule, which, like I said, defines kind of the application process and clarifies what employers need to do in order to apply and under what conditions their application would be approved.

And then also outline sort of the SDOT staff procedures and rates.

So our intent is to provide this information here today and then to transmit the legislation before the end of the year and hopefully implement the program in 2023 and then annually beginning in 2024 through the budget process, we would review the shuttle vehicle permit fees as well as our own Hourly review fees and keeping those in lines with what street use uses.

And then every two years, starting in 2025, we would.

take a more holistic look at the sort of mix of fees, how the process is working, whether the caps that we have are working well, come back to the council if any changes are needed and update the director's role if we need to.

And then we could also update the director's role administratively if needed in the future.

We've conducted a pretty significant amount of stakeholder outreach from the initial pilot program in 2017 to now.

We've worked really closely with our transit partners and have done some peer review with other cities and just wanted to highlight that we've also had really great engagement from employers who are overall supportive of this approach and are welcoming of sort of some options to to add into their mix of transportation demand management and helping provide employees with a lot of travel options.

And just want to highlight that many of these employers also do offer their employees transit passes and bike benefits.

And I think the employer shuttles is seen as kind of one additional tool in the toolkit to try to really disincentivize folks from driving alone.

So in terms of next steps, I think we're still hoping to transmit the legislation in October and publish the draft director's rule.

We would then hope to return in December to this committee.

And if we're able to keep moving on that schedule, we can implement the program in early 2023 and start transitioning the current pilot participants to the full program and also be able to accept applications from any new employers that are interested in participating.

So that's all that we have for today and happy to answer questions and then also happy to answer questions when we next come back.

Thank you for that thorough presentation, and I'm very supportive of this program.

I appreciate all the research you've done through the pilot, and we definitely will have you back here to consider the legislation in December in our committee.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on this last item on our agenda?

Okay.

Well, thank you so much for this and we'll look forward to diving into the actual legislation and reviewing the draft director's role shortly.

All right, well, colleagues, that was our last item.

The time is 12.22 p.m., and this concludes the September 20th, 2022 meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Due to our exhaustive city budget review process that typically suspends meetings of regular committees during October and November, we are planning our next committee meeting on Tuesday, December 6th.

Thank you, and we are adjourned.