Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities Committee - Public Hearing 81622

Good morning, welcome to the August 16, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

It will come to order.

The time is 9.31 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Chair Peterson?

Present.

Three present.

Thank you, and I think Council Member Herbold will be joining us shortly.

Approval of the agenda.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

A quick chair's report.

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

On our agenda today, we've got five items.

First on the agenda, we have part one of two public meetings with Mayor Harrell's nominee for the new Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Second, we have a preview of an alley vacation on 6th and Taylor, a couple of blocks east of the Space Needle.

Third, we have a briefing discussion and possible vote on an ordinance accepting two parcels related to the South Park Bridge project.

Fourth on the agenda, we'll hear the annual report from SDOT on the Seattle transit measure.

And lastly, we have a public hearing briefing discussion and hopefully a vote on granting utility easements to the city of Renton.

Public comment.

At this time, we'll open the general public At this time, we'll open the general public comment period for the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

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

I will 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 council chambers.

I'll moderate the public comment period by granting the normal 20-minute period.

We'll call on speakers two at a time in the order in which they're registered.

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

or by signing up at the sign-in sheet near the public comment microphones toward the front of this chamber.

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 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.

Our speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time, and once you hear that chime, we ask you to begin wrapping up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on 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 this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listing options listed on the agenda.

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

We'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six to begin speaking.

And first, we're gonna hear an online speaker, Actually, they are registered but not yet present, so we'll come back to them.

So we'll go to our in-person speakers.

And we've got Gordon Padelford.

Good morning, Gordon.

Hello.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Gordon Padelford with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

First of all, let me just say that I'm really optimistic about Greg's thoughts, excited about his nomination.

I also want to thank you for the Vision Zero funding and the last year's budget process and the walking tour we had in District 2. I thought that was really informative and helpful.

And my hope is that you all saw the op-ed we've placed in the Seattle Times about the need to do more on Vision Zero.

That of course was directed towards the mayor's office, but there's a lot that Seattle City Council can do as well.

You know, the most important thing we can do to get Vision Zero back on track is to redesign our streets.

And some of the challenges around that include funding and the mayor's office has a large role, but so does Seattle City Council in terms of working with our state and federal partners to find grant funding for those projects.

There's also the need to prioritize safety over speeding when it comes to internal project creation.

And I hope you'll ask Mr. Spatz about that in terms of how he sees the department evolving away from vehicular level of service and towards one focused on safety.

And then last but not least is championing projects and streamlining the Seattle process.

So we're actually able to deliver these really critical safety redesigns.

And furthermore, there are also policy levers that Seattle City Council can pull around, you know, pedestrian headstart beacons, designating left and right turn lanes and phases, thinking about more raised crosswalks around town.

And, you know, as a last resort, thinking about enforcement and how to move enforcement out of SBD and into SDOT, something that Seattle voters support.

And that's just scratching the surface.

I'd be happy to provide a menu of policy levers that Seattle City Council could investigate.

There's a lot of really interesting thinking happening in other cities, like New York just announced this week that they're gonna move ahead with speed limiters on their municipal vehicles.

So I hope we can work together to get reason zero back on track.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

We're gonna go back to the online speakers.

We've got Max Baker.

Go ahead, Max Baker, press star six.

Hi, thank you, Council.

So I'm a resident of the Delridge neighborhood, and as of today, it's been 876 days since the West Salem Bridge closed, so nearly two and a half years.

This closure provided the city with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to examine the infrastructure opportunities on either side of the bridge and to provide potentially life-saving facilities for those outside the cars.

This has unfortunately not happened to any great extent, and we as a community now ride in the shadow of Robert Mason's ghost bike, which itself is in the shadow of a bridge we've urgently spent millions of dollars on to get cars flowing again.

The reality is that we have seen few to no improvements to bike and walking infrastructure around the west.

Greenwood were promised as part of the Delridge reconstruction were put on hold indefinitely, promised pedestrian improvements never materialized as it remains a nearly half mile section of Delridge near the neighborhood's community center crosswalk.

These marginal bike lanes continue to remain in limbo and bike paths through the Spokane and its direction intersection remain convoluted and are at this point nearly faded off the pavement.

It's quite a thing to realize that we were able to run 50 miles of steel inside the Westdale Bridge in two and a half years, but we've not been able to provide 900 feet of safe bike facilities connecting the trails along East Marginal Way.

Now as the bridge is reopening looms, we as a community anxiously anticipate the reality that exists before.

Cars backing up on the greenways, using neighborhood streets as cutthroats and not stopping at unmarked crosswalks.

Our unintentionally quiet streets will again be choked with traffic.

Without changes to the local infrastructure, it will again be a free-for-all where those outside of cars risk their lives just to get around the neighborhood.

I hope the city will reflect on Mr. Mason's ghost bike as each of us do every day as we bike to downtown in our unprotected bike lanes and realize that it doesn't have to be this way.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you.

And I did want to note that Council Member Herbold has been here for the public comment.

It looks like we've got two more public commenters.

We've got Ellen and then Travis.

Go ahead, you can come up to the microphone here.

Yeah, sure.

Hi, my name is Ellen Butzel and I'm with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

I live in Ballard.

I work with Central Seattle Greenways as a volunteer I've been biking in Seattle since I was about 23, and I'm 54 now.

I've also been involved in Vision Zero since 2015. I got to hold a sign for Vision Zero a long time ago, and I'm just gonna read off the names of the people that have been killed recently.

It seems like we're going in the wrong direction, and this is a public health emergency, I feel like, because we really need people to feel safe in our city and not not get killed just being on a sidewalk.

So I'm going to go ahead and read the names and Travis is going to help me because I didn't bring my reading glasses.

Gon Howley, Clifford Jones, Nicholas Wolfe, Betty Jacobson, Mike Thompson, Frankie Thompson.

Bell, Bellis Wayne, Rob Mason, Gloria Stage.

Juan Robles, Carpintero Ramirez, Benton Monroe, Rana Balter, Dean Torkelson.

I just really think that it's important as city council that we find an answer for this public health situation.

Not to mention that we're trying to be a vision zero, a carbon neutral city.

And I'm not sure what the answer is, but I elected city council to resolve or at least address these situations.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah, go ahead.

Hi, my name is Travis.

I live in Cap Hill.

I have been biking since I'm twenty-four and now I'm twenty-five and already just see how insane it is in the city.

I'm not a public policy expert.

That's your job but just anecdotally, I have had so many expletives screamed at me on Seattle streets and It's a nationwide problem.

In Chicago, I was the victim of a hit and run where a woman purposefully ran into me with her car while I was biking.

And Chicago police, of course, did nothing.

And even last night on the way home from the airport, right outside of my building in Capitol Hill, I witnessed a car with a woman who was incredibly intoxicated, I learned later, barrel through the traffic circle somehow going in between two trees, which probably saved her life, destroying a traffic sign, and then getting out of the car, taking it out from underneath her, and then like driving away where I police found her later.

But it's just, it's insane.

And truly, I think the only way out of this situation is to reduce the reliance on cars.

As long as people have to drive to go to work, go get groceries and evidently go to the bar, there are going to be traffic deaths.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That concludes the list of our public speakers.

We'll go ahead and close the public comment period and move on to the first item on the agenda.

Let's see, we'll go ahead and have the clerk please read the full title of the first agenda item into the record.

Agenda item one, appointment 02333, appointment of Greg Spatz, Director of Seattle Department of Transportation for a term to August 1st, 2026 for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, I'd like to give a warm welcome to both Adiem Emery, Mayor Harrell's Executive General Manager, and Mr. Greg Spatz, Mayor Harrell's nominee to be the next Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Thank you both for being here today.

I'm grateful to Mayor Harrell and his team for delivering such a strong candidate for our consideration.

At today's committee, we will just hear Mr. Spatz's introductory remarks, and we'll reserve a full question and answer period for our September 6th meeting.

We're following the vetting process for all executive nominees as outlined in resolution 31868. We sent to Mr. Spatz formal written questions from the council just a few days ago and we expect to circulate his answers next week.

I will have plenty of time at the September 6th meeting for a robust Q&A period, followed hopefully by a committee vote on the nominee.

And I know that Mr. Spotts is also available to each of the council members individually at any time.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Adia Memory.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council Member Peterson and members of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

It is my pleasure today before you to introduce Mayor Harrell's nominee for Director of Seattle Department of Transportation, Greg Spatz.

Considering that transportation accounts for 60% of our carbon emissions, it's no accident that Mayor Harrell elected Los Angeles' Streets LA Chief Sustainable Officer to serve as head of SDOT.

Greg has demonstrated commitment to both mitigating and warding off the effects of climate change.

Given his background, he intends to use data and evidence to define our approach to serious challenges ranging from pedestrian safety, to maintain our infrastructure, to equitably investing in our right of ways.

He's unafraid to reevaluate past decisions if the evidence doesn't justify them.

The mayor elected Greg Spotts following an extensive nation's national search that has overseen and that was overseen and informed by 15 members of Seattle stakeholder committee, featuring representatives from backgrounds in freight, bikes, transit, business, labor, neighborhoods, and more.

Additional information about the selection process is included in the mayor's cover letter to you.

But we wanted to acknowledge and thank the search committee members who helped inform the mayor's decision to refer Greg for your consideration today.

As the mayor noted in his letter, Greg understands that we must embed safety across all projects, view every decision through a climate lens, and build a transportation system centered on equity, quality infrastructure, and multimodal solutions.

Council members, I know each have your transportation priorities, and Greg has made himself available to meet with you to discuss his background and your interests.

You know your district better than anyone, so he's excited to learn from you and hear your ideas.

After spending some time with him, I think you will recognize his talent, his capability to manage SDAT in a way that aligns with our values.

With that, let me just turn it over to Greg to offer his introductory remarks.

Greg.

Thank you, Executive General Manager Emery for the kind introduction.

I'm very happy to have the opportunity to join this hearing virtually, and I look forward to meeting each of the council members individually very soon.

In the three weeks since Mayor Harrell announced me as his nominee for Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, I've had opportunities to meet with staff, stakeholders, and the various department directors.

These conversations have made me even more excited about joining SDOT and becoming a member of the Seattle community.

I also had the opportunity to host Committee Chair Peterson on a visit with SDOT crews on the University Bridge.

Thank you, Chair, for your warm welcome to Seattle.

I've spent the past 10 years helping Los Angeles become more walkable, bikeable, transit friendly, safer, greener, and climate resilient at the LA Bureau of Street Services, otherwise known as Streets LA.

For the past seven years, I've had the privilege of serving as Assistant Director and Chief Sustainability Officer.

And since January, I've served as Executive Officer, supporting our director across the 1,500 person organization.

Prior to joining Streets LA, I worked in the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for nearly four years.

The first two years as Director of Performance Management, and the following two years as Director of Transportation Project Delivery.

These two roles gave me a chance to launch, accelerate, or troubleshoot large, complex programs and projects.

including serving as the mayor's lead on a $10 billion portfolio of transportation megaprojects, which included the construction of two dozen bridges and a handful of subway tunnels.

I'm confident that my experience in Los Angeles has prepared me well for delivering on SDOT's goals of equity, safety, mobility, sustainability, livability, and excellence.

I would like to share a few thoughts about each of these goals.

Regarding equity, one of my top priorities will be to actualize SDOT's transportation equity framework and embed its principles and recommendations into the daily work of every part of the department.

I've been studying the framework since the very beginning of the recruitment process, and it's one of the reasons why I became so passionate about pursuing this role.

In meeting SDOT staff over the past six weeks, I'm impressed with their expertise and skills, and also with the passion for equity that exists at all levels of the organization.

I plan to work closely with Adiem Emery, the SDOT team, and community members on realizing the full potential of the framework.

Regarding safety in my interactions with Seattleites, I've heard loud and clear that safety is priority number one.

Safety for pedestrians, safety for people biking, safety for the thousands of Seattleites who drive, walk, and roll across bridges every single day.

My first two areas of focus from Labor Day to New Year's will be a top-to-bottom review of Vision Zero and a close look at the bridge program.

I want to ensure that SDOT has the people, systems, and technology to engineer our streets for enhanced safety and to utilize best practices and asset management to maintain, repair, retrofit, and, when necessary, replace our bridge assets.

Regarding mobility, you will find me to be a creative change agent to help make Seattle more walkable, bikeable, and transit friendly.

I'm eager to meet my counterparts at King County Metro and collaborate on expanding bus ridership.

And I'm thrilled to be joining SDOT as plans for the sound transit expansion get underway.

In addition to moving people, our transportation system needs to move goods.

You may have heard the phrase, if you've got it, a truck brought it.

It's true today, but in the near future, your package or dinner might be delivered by a person on an e-bike or even by a small autonomous vehicle.

I look forward to learning how goods move across Seattle currently and discussing with stakeholders how to support zero carbon goods movement in the future.

Regarding sustainability and livability, I intend to unlock SDOT's creative potential to design, construct, and maintain holistic multi-benefit infrastructure.

Working with our sibling departments, we can incorporate emerging innovations in urban greening, stormwater management, biodiversity, and climate resilience.

I also hope to lead the way to greening Estat's physical operations, drawing on my recent experience bringing plug-in vehicles, solar charging stations, and low-carbon renewable fuels into the fleet operated by Streets LA.

The last of SDOT's values is excellence, and I'd like to repeat something I said at last month's press conference.

In my view, an excellent public agency must be responsive, collaborative, innovative, transparent, and accountable.

I've built my public sector career on these principles, and you can count on me to be guided by them in this new role.

In Los Angeles, we have 15 council members, and I've built strong and collaborative relationships with each one.

You will find me to be a forthright, helpful, caring, and open-minded partner in our important work together.

I'd like to conclude with a thought about my leadership style.

I'm a boots-on-the-ground leader with an aspirational and inspirational style.

I plan to launch a listening tour as soon as I begin work as acting director on September 7th, meeting Seattleites for coffee and walking, biking, and riding transit with them in every neighborhood of the city, including our industrial zones.

I commit to each of you that I'll meet you and your constituents on the streets to see what's working and what needs improvement.

At Streets LA, our greatest successes involved co-creating projects with the community, according to each community's unique history, needs, and aspirations.

If confirmed as SDOT director, I will be guided by the mayor's One Seattle vision, bringing people together around common goals to realize the full potential of this innovative, diverse, and progressive city.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.

Thank you, Mr. Spotts, for making yourself available to us today.

For the viewing public, the appointment packet from Mayor Harrell, which is on our online agenda today, has a lot of information about Mr. Spotts and his background.

and has a letter from the mayor as well.

The council looks forward to receiving your written answers next week, which we will post online.

I appreciate all the participation by the committee members to submit questions on several things, including Vision Zero.

The committee will see you again at our next meeting on Tuesday, September 6th at 9 30, where we will ask you to go through your questions and answers for the public.

All right.

Thank you very much.

We'll see you soon.

We'll go ahead and move on to agenda item two.

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

Agenda item two, clerk file 314497, a petition of BRE BMR LLC for the vacation of the alley and lots seven through 12 being the block bounded by John Street, Thomas Street, Taylor Avenue North, and Sixth Avenue North for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Clerk file 314497 is an early preview of a petition from real estate developers asking the city of Seattle to vacate an alley two blocks east of the Space Needle, specifically the alley currently bounded by Thomas Street and John Street and by 6th Avenue North and Taylor Avenue North.

And we're not voting on this item today, but SDOT will welcome comments from committee members, such as any hope for public benefits in exchange for the potential alley vacation.

So we will turn it over to our presenters, starring Beverly Barnett from SDOT.

And I did wanna say hello to Lish Whitson from our city council central staff and to ask if he had any opening remarks about this particular item.

Just to expand a little bit on what you said about the purpose of today's meeting, it's an opportunity for you to provide input both on the appropriateness of the vacation and to identify any concerns you may have with the vacation proposal and identify any concerns or priorities for the proposed public benefit package.

I'll hand it over to Beverly.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Thank you, Lish.

Thank you, Council Members for getting this project up.

As the Chair and Lish indicated, this is provided for in the policies that we come to the City Council with an early presentation on a new project before we start the really heavy review procedures.

It creates an opportunity for the public to know it's in the door.

And specifically an opportunity for the council to raise questions or provide guidance on things they want us to look at as we go through the review process.

So today I'm going to do just a couple minutes talking about what s dot will look at with an alley vacation.

We have Michael Jenkins from the design commission is going to talk for a couple minutes about the design commission process and expectations.

And then we have a PowerPoint that Ryan Broussard and Brad rock will cover and they represent.

The applicant side, Brad is with biomed realty and Ryan is with architecture firm, and we have about 12 or so slides so given the depth of the agenda, if we're going.

too deep on anything, please let us know and we'll move more quickly so that when we get through everything, you can share your thoughts with us.

I will start really quickly just talking about with an alley vacation, what does SDOT look at?

What are we guided by the policies to spend our time on in the review and in our recommendation to city council?

With alley vacations, the biggest thing is that we don't want to see an inside out block.

where we do an alley vacation that does cool things in the interior.

but then there's not a place for services and access and loading and recycling bins.

So a key look within alley vacation is for SDOT and really everyone in the review to look at how is the block accessed?

Where are there drop-off and loading spaces?

How are services and parking and bike parking handled?

So that's kind of a key for us.

The other thing we look at is the context.

So this is an area that, is really anticipated to see a lot of change.

So we'll look at how will this project fit into this neighborhood that we're seeing a lot of change in and how does it relate to what we know about development activity that will occur around it.

We also always look at community engagement.

How involved is the community?

Are there things that came out of the community engagement plan that we should be addressing, whether it's Concerns about access or recommendations on design or goals around public benefit.

So that's always a key piece.

And the last thing we look at of course is public benefit.

And this is a key element I think for the council consideration.

We try to look at community priorities, we look at whether there's adopted plans or goals, what is SDOT or other city departments working on that we can maximize things.

We also look at whether we're seeing things that might be considered good design because they want this to be a really successful project, or whether the items proposed really elevate to be a public benefit as defined by the city council and street vacation policies.

That's a nutshell of what our work will entail.

Once we get through this, we'll start the formal review process more in earnest.

Then I think we anticipated that Michael Jenkins would speak, and then Brad and Ryan will jump in with the PowerPoint.

Thanks.

Actually, Beverly, I think you gave my presentation.

You know, and just in a nutshell, the Commission really looks at two fundamental questions for the Council and makes recommendations to the Council on the implications of the loss of the alley and moving functions from that alley into places within the public realm that the public may not normally interact with that.

All the things I think that Beverly had indicated, as well as larger questions about how the reconfigured site and potential public benefits actually truly are public and interact with the public as an extension of that public realm.

And I think Beverly really hit it on the head, underscoring the need and the expectation for the city to see a robust public engagement strategy that results in tangible public benefits that the public can identify, see, and utilize that really have a public labor to them and not necessarily elements that may reflect or extend the identity and function of the building, rather that they truly are public space.

So with that, I'll mute and throw it to the presenters.

So Ryan, Brad, you're up.

And then I think Bill will share the screen for the presentation.

Perfect.

So you're on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Beverly, and thank you, Michael.

First off, my name is Brad Rock.

I'm with Bottomhead Realty.

We're locally here, a developer of life science buildings and office as well.

We currently own and operate various buildings throughout the city area.

And I know this is an exciting project for us for multiple reasons, but one is just how we kind of take this space and redevelop it to activate the lower levels, the ground plane, to enhance the community experience and the public experience.

I know Ryan's going to walk us through the slide deck, so I'll go ahead and hand it over to Ryan.

Okay.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Ryan Broussard.

I'm an architect with a local architecture firm, Perkins & Will, and we've been working on this project for quite some time, so we're excited to show you kind of the development of it.

Next slide, please.

There's some really interesting aspects to the project, we are looking at building a kind of a high tech office of life science block with two buildings nine and eight stories on the block.

As part of that we are requesting the alley vacation and we think there are some really interesting.

benefits to that happening within the project.

I'm looking that in order.

One is that it allows us to really think about creating kind of safer pedestrian flows and improved pedestrian flows on the site.

Within this project area we're actually looking at creating a new northwest open space kind of parklet on the northwest corner of the block and one on the southeast.

So we're seeing The vacant alleys being this new green streak or green strip connector between the buildings that really allows us to link diagonally those new public open spaces we're creating.

The other is, as you can see in this diagram, Thomas Street, we know urbanistically and through all the work at the city, is a really important green street connector spanning east and west across the site connecting Seattle Center to South Lake Union neighborhood.

This will allow us to actually reinforce that green street, remove a curb cut that currently exists from the alley onto that, as well as really connect the open space and the public amenities we're providing on the site with that new green street.

We also think by removing the traffic and loading functions within the block to pushing it below grade, we can actually minimize the number of curb cuts and the loading and vehicular loading of the alleyway.

And we think all these things are going to contribute to a positive and enforced kind of neighborhood character.

Next slide.

We always make large slides, so they take a minute to load up, I'm sure.

Great, thank you.

This shows us where we are in the process.

It is indicated in the kind of green bar.

That's where we are today.

We have submitted our master use permit submittal.

Prior to that, we've done a number of community outreach meetings with Uptown Alliance, as well as community outreach.

We've had our preliminary meetings with SDOT, as well as our early design guidance meetings, of which we passed on April 20th.

Next slide.

Community outreach has been an important aspect of the project.

We've contributed to that in a number of different ways, both through electronic and digital methods, printed outreach with over 750 letters sent to businesses and residents within the community within 500-foot radius of the site.

We've had our project hotline, virtual open house meetings, as well as a number of community conversations, in particular with Uptown Alliance Group.

Next slide.

To familiarize you all with the site, indicated in blue here, it's at a really interesting urbanistically spot within the city.

It's in the uptown neighborhood, but it is at this kind of intersection of the downtown core, Seattle Center, this kind of nine square remnant between 5th and 7th Avenue, and the South Lake Union, as you can see, bordered here to the north by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and infrastructure that fulfills and supports all those with the substation directly north.

The interesting aspect in particular, the north-south alley vacation really allows us, as shown by this red dashed line, to make this kind of vertical connection between these open spaces that were established on the southeast, lower right, and upper left-hand corners, northwest corners of the site, and really think of this pedestrian walkway, which connects Denny Park to Seattle Center across our site, as well as reinforcing Thomas Street, as you can see here, and the Green Street located to our north.

Next slide.

We wanted to show you what would happen potentially with the project if we weren't allowed to vacate the alley.

This is a kind of prescriptive analysis we prepared for our EDG package showing the massing on the site.

In this, the site's been rotated 90 degrees, so the alleys, even though it spans to our south, is going left to right on the page.

You can see here with a traditional configuration of an alley, and I should mention once again, Thomas Street, with the substation directly to the left, the alley does not continue in terms of the pattern to the north.

However, if it was kept on site, you can see the number of loading spaces for potentially loading areas that would be off of the alley.

So it would become much about the alley being a loading service zone, as well as we'd need at least two parking ramp entries into our garages because we'd need to maintain the infrastructure as well as the space of the alley below grade.

So it will result in two below grade podiums.

Next slide.

As you can see here in the view on the upper right and down below, it really creates the alley as a space for vehicles, vehicles loading and service.

Next slide.

Our proposal tried to rethink this in many ways.

You can see here, Thomas Street on the left, the idea of creating this large open space that connects to it and really nurtures kind of the green street, the space to the southeast on the upper right, and this idea of really having this kind of alley space converted to pedestrian friendly connector full of greenery full of people activity.

We've actually moved our bike locker room and storage areas up off of the that alley space as well as the fitness area.

So there's lots of activities eyes on the street as well as really turn that back to people and commuters that space.

You can also see here we would be proposing only one curb cut for the entire project and we push all of our loading and service below grade.

Next slide.

In many ways, you can see here in the lower left vignette of our proposed project, the idea that Thomas Street now does not have a curb cut off of the alley.

It allows us to really think about enhancing the Green Street, extending that into our plaza, an open space.

Then you can see in the upper right-hand views, ideas about how we can start to incorporate art, greenery, seating areas into the alley space.

Next slide.

We really think that there are a number of kind of public benefit concepts we're working on to have that.

Once again, as I mentioned, the improvement of the Green Street, having the open space and this kind of diagonal connector connecting plaza spaces across the site.

So see if they give the continuation of kind of this kind of plural of open spaces.

The idea that would also ask for enhanced placemaking, not only inside the site, but around the perimeter of the site, looking into the park spaces.

We also don't want to forget our class 3 pedestrian streets to the south.

So John street.

So the ability to have that new plaza space.

And once again, thinking about that connection from Denny park up and diagonally through the site over to Seattle center, becoming a new pathway and new pedestrian connection.

And I think we have three more slides to just show you some views of that space.

So this is looking at the new kind of parkland on the southeast, where the kind of evergreen and plantings are shown is where the alley exists today.

So we're replacing that and make it part of this park space.

Next slide.

This is now standing at the north end of the station and Thomas Street would be at your back looking south.

So really thinking about activity, the fitness center, lobby spaces, the commuter kind of bike stations, seating area of art, all taking over the space, making it a rich public realm.

Next slide.

And also thinking about, you know, really enhancing Thomas Street.

This is looking north.

So really pulling the Green Street down into the plaza and into this new space we created between the buildings.

And that's our last slide.

So that covers our presentation.

So we're all here to answer questions and to hear what guidance and direction we should include in our review moving forward.

Thank you.

Yeah, I've got a couple of questions.

First of all, thanking prior city councils for setting up this process by which we have three bites of the apple here.

This is the early preview.

Then you'll be coming back for us to approve it or not with the public benefits, et cetera.

And then finally, after it's done, to confirm that it's been done according to our approval.

In terms of the, and I know the district city council member, Andrew Lewis, I know his office will be looking carefully at this too and connecting with constituents.

In terms of the existing buildings that are there, and this is a bit outside the scope of the alley vacation issue, but are there any residential units?

I just wanna confirm there's no displacement that's occurring with the development.

The existing buildings on the site are a motel and a group of small office buildings, so no residential units will be displaced.

Okay.

And then part of your normal process will be to check in with the fire department and make sure that they don't, wouldn't need access to the alley.

I know that's part of your standard process, correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

Through S dots street improvement permit process, all of the utility and emergency access impacts are are examined and I think they do a very thorough job with that so that that definitely is a factor.

In terms of the public outreach, thank you for explaining your process for that.

And are you, have you gotten any specific feedback from residents that would be, or residents or small businesses or anybody that would be impacted in the immediate area?

I mean, how has that public engagement informed what you're proposing to do here?

That's for the developers.

Sure.

We've had a couple different town hall meetings, which didn't garner much feedback, but Uptown Alliance was a very positive meeting with them where we were able to take in their feedback, hear their thoughts and ideas around this.

And they were very supportive of the LA vacation and like the idea of how it created connectivity for the neighborhood.

So Uptown Alliance has been great in providing us feedback and comments so far.

Thank you.

And I admit, at first glance, it's nice that it's not the building taking over the entire block, but it's enabling that public access through some, greenery there as well, but how do we know that the public will see it as public access, that it's in the public realm?

What sort of signals will be given that people can cut through in between the two buildings on foot?

Go for it, Katie.

Oh, Councilmember Peterson, Katie Kendall with McCulloch Hill Area Land Use Council for Biomed.

And I'll let Brad Jeff in here a little bit, but I want you to also understand the number of public meetings that we still have to go.

We really are just at the beginning of this process.

So through both the Seattle Design Commission meetings, as well as the Design Review Board meetings, one of the focus, focal points of those meetings has been making this open space feel as public as possible.

And that has been, that will continue to be the focus, I think, both for Biomed and the design team, as well as the agencies looking at this and responding to any public comment as well.

And my last question is, oh, go ahead, Brad.

No, I just was going to say, you know, it's really critical from our perspective as well, both from the public realm, but also from the tenant realm to have that open space feel open and public.

So it's very important to us as well that it feels open and public.

Thank you, and my last question's about how your workers will be getting to and from the building.

So you mentioned the Green Street there that's being developed by Thomas.

Will you have vehicle parking, bike parking, electrical vehicle parking?

How are people gonna be encouraged to get there?

Will they be taking the monorail and other non-single occupancy vehicles?

So we are looking at both having, you know, a variety of items.

So we talked a little bit in the Ryan was talking a little bit about bike storage and lockers to promote community transit via bikes.

We will also have stalls and everything else.

The other nice thing about this location is it is on bus routes that are very connective, both north, south and east, west.

So we feel that this has great accessibility in that direction as well.

We are in the process of continuing to do our topic management plan and work through that.

And through that, we'll have a better lens of how to answer that question as well.

But I think for the infrastructure side, we're starting to plan that direction.

OK.

Thank you.

I'd like to encourage you to also look into ORCA cards for your employees.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Returning to the subject of the open space, a few years ago, the city put a lot of effort into identifying and signing privately owned public spaces through the what was, I think we call it the POPs, it was POPOs for a while, and then we decided POPOs wasn't good.

We were going to call it POPs.

And I'm just wondering, are open spaces like these that derive from a public benefit agreement also signed under the POPs program?

Yes, we sign them and provide for open public use and we provide First Amendment protections.

That's part of the property use and development agreement that would be recorded so that if the building is sold or changes over time, those are guarantees.

Whatever ends up, any on-site private open space that is intended to be public benefit and accessible to the public, we would work on all those guarantees to last over time.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions about this early preview of this proposed alley vacation?

All right.

Oh, Council Member Morales, please.

Yeah, thank you.

I just have a procedural question.

Can you give the timeline for when we will hear next and actually be voting?

We would not anticipate that this would be up before next spring.

This really is just the kickoff.

They'll be doing the design commission review, the design review board at SDCI.

The MUP review is ongoing.

I don't believe we've had zoning plans examination yet.

The real substantive work is really just getting underway and this is targeted July 2023.

Okay, so next summer, maybe we will have early briefing.

Thank you for putting this timeline back up.

Okay, very good.

Thanks very much.

I appreciate it.

And really appreciate your questions, Chair Peterson.

I had some of the same questions around benefits.

And thank you for the reminder, Council Member Herbold, about the First Amendment protections.

Thanks for the presentation.

Thank you, Council Member.

And to Beverly Barnett at SDOT, as you start to put together a public benefit, a draft public benefit package, I'm sure you'll be consulting with various members of this committee as well as the district council member just to get additional input on those specifics before anything's finalized and put before us.

Yeah, so we're happy to do that.

Thank you.

Council Member, this is Michael Jenkins.

We also try as much as possible to make sure that the commission meetings where we look at the strength of the public benefit package, that council staff is invited to those.

Certainly we invite Lish and we're happy to send invites to any of the council members on the call or any of the council members in general.

Thank you very much, really appreciate the value add that the Design Commission provides for these projects.

All right, well, thanks everybody for being here on this item.

And we will go ahead and move on to agenda item three.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the third agenda item into the record?

Agenda item three, council bill 120384, an ordinance relating to the South Park Bridge Project, authorizing the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation to acquire, accept, record on behalf of the city of Seattle, a quick clean deed from King County, a political subdivision of the state of Washington for property situated in lots nine through 13, block 37 South Park for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Council Bill 120384 would accept from King County two parcels of property related to the South Park Bridge Project.

As I understand it, this is a pretty straightforward bill considering the acceptance of this property is necessary to comply with the interlocal agreement.

We've got SDOT here with us, but we also have Calvin Chow, our city council central staffer.

Did you wanna make any introductory remarks?

Councilmember, I think you covered it.

This is really ministerial legislation to close out the South Park Bridge project.

SDOT's got a good presentation on it.

I've looked at the legislation, have no concerns.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's very helpful to know.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Good morning, Gretchen.

Welcome.

Good morning.

I'm with SDOT and I'm here today.

Oh, there's the presentation.

That's okay.

Great.

Okay, I'm here today to request that the Seattle City Council approve the proposed legislation accepting a quick clean deed from King County conveying two parcels of property in connection with the South Park Bridge project.

This legislation also places the property under the jurisdiction of the Seattle Department of Transportation and lays it off as right of way.

Go to the slide, the next slide.

Okay.

Next slide, please.

The project was designed to improve traffic safety at the Five Lake intersection of 14th Avenue South, Dallas Avenue South, and South Sullivan Street by constructing a new seismically resilient bridge over the Duwamish Waterway.

Next slide.

As you can see in this slide, the intersection in South Park approaching the southern landing of the bridge.

Next slide.

In this picture, you'll see the original bridge.

It connected Seattle neighborhoods across the Duwamish Waterway.

It was listed on the National Historic Registry and is designated as a King County landmark.

Next slide.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Please go back.

The bridge was built in 1931 and closed in 2010 due to safety concerns.

King County subsequently implemented a capital improvement project, the South Park Bridge Project, to construct a new bridge to address these concerns.

Next slide.

At the public's request, the new bridge architecturally emulates and preserves aspects of the original historic bridge.

It opened on June 30th, 2014. Next slide.

Ordinance 123-101 passed in September 2009, authorizing the city to enter into an interlocal agreement with King County regarding property acquisition for this project.

In 2010, King County and the city entered into this agreement setting forth the conditions by which King County would transfer property it acquired for the project within the city of Seattle limits after project construction and upon mutual agreement.

King County and the city recently agreed upon two parcels of property totaling approximately 81,000 square feet that would be transferred to the city from the county.

Next slide, please.

Here you can see the two parcels at the intersection near the southern approach of this bridge.

Next slide.

Acceptance of this property is necessary to satisfy the provisions of the interlocal agreement.

Next slide.

This concludes my presentation.

Are there any questions?

Thank you.

And council members, committee members, we do intend to vote on this today.

As Calvin Chow mentioned, this is essentially a ministerial duty per the interlocal agreement.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you very much.

The ministerial, I think the transfer has some significant implications that I'd like to delve into a little bit.

This property is across the street from the South Park land banked site, park development area.

It's an area that and for the South Park Plaza.

And there's a, if we still have the Design Commission here, they will remember receiving a presentation back in November.

And so we'd love to hear more about the purpose with these parcels.

what the proposed use is, what sort of outreach has been done about the change in ownership of these parcels, and what will the impact be of the new ownership of the parcels.

There's been a lot of engagement and planning with the South Park community about the development of the South Park plaza across the street.

And I'm just wondering like how the discussion around the development of the plaza has been integrated into the discussion of the transfer of these parcels.

And if there's anything we should know about the decision transfer these properties to SDOT rather than parks.

Would love to hear that.

There has been some rethinking of prior decisions to transfer property to parks because of the limitations on what can be done with property transfer to parks, and so maybe that might be some of the thinking.

But just would love to learn a little bit more about

Well, do you want me to answer that?

Oh yeah, please go ahead.

Well, the property was acquired so that SDOT could operate and maintain the bridge itself with respect to outreach or any negotiations that was with the community.

I'm not aware of it because I wasn't a party to it, but I can definitely research that issue and get back to councilmembers.

Councilmember, I'm not familiar with the process necessarily, but I do know that oftentimes when these transportation projects acquire property, it's usually done with restricted transportation funds.

oftentimes gas tax, which limits how that property can be disposed, which may explain why it has to go to right-of-way and could potentially be transferred to another general government use if it could be deemed surplus and if it could be compensated because those resources are restricted that way.

I don't know that for a fact, that's just often what happens with these types of property conveyances, but that is something I can do some more research in and look into for you.

I appreciate that, Calvin.

So I understand what the original use of the parcels are.

I'm asking whether or not there are any planned future uses, and it sounds like we're saying there aren't any at this point.

Is that, am I hearing that correctly?

Future uses for these parcels?

Correct.

Not that I'm aware of.

I think these are likely parcels that were acquired earlier on in the process or identified early on the process to help support the construction of the bridge, and now it doesn't make sense for it to be part of King County's property.

We inherit it as right-of-way.

I think it's an ongoing question of what we might use it for or whether it might be surplused.

And what does the term mean, and maybe this gets to what you're saying, Calvin, what does the term mean, lays the property off as right away on slide three?

Without getting into technicalities that I'm sure to kind of not say correctly, that might be a better question for Gresham to answer.

right-of-way.

I don't know what that means.

right-of-way is property rights that are required for transportation or utility purposes.

like similar to a plotting term when we look at a piece of property and we identify where the rights of way are, we call that laying off.

We're just designating it as right of way.

Maybe another term.

Yeah, it's a legal term of art.

Thank you.

Hi, Bill.

Okay, thank you very much.

I appreciate the commitment to follow up on answers to these questions.

Appreciate that.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Yes, if SDOT and central staff can follow up with Council Member Herbold.

And it's my understanding that for King County to provide these to the city and we're designating SDOT as a recipient, that was the original agreement, but that doesn't preclude the city government from then doing something else with the parcels later, if that would be deemed appropriate.

this is just the handoff from the county back to the city as I understand it.

Okay.

Councilmember Herbold, are you prepared?

Is it okay if we move this out of committee today?

Absolutely.

Okay.

All right.

Any other comments or questions on this item?

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate that.

Council members, I'm gonna go ahead and move that the committee recommend passage of 120384, item three on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

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

Any final comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass council 120384. Council member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the September 6th city council meeting so that it's actually convenient that there's plenty of time between now and September 6th on this.

Thank you very much, Gretchen and Cal.

And will the clerk please read the full title of the next agenda item into the record.

Agenda item four, Seattle Transit Measure Annual Report for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Colleagues, as we know, the Seattle Transit Measure, also known as the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, is that 0.15% sales tax that 80% of voters approved in November 2020 for extra bus service and related projects over the next few years.

And while this presentation is, mainly a look back on 2021. The council will eventually need to approve a spend plan for 2023 and will likely have adjustments because the state government is now funding the free passes for youth 18 years of age and under.

And of course, we've got increasing infrastructure needs in the city as well.

I wanna have a special thank you to the Transit Advisory Board, which has an official oversight role for this important property tax measure.

So let's turn over to the great crew at SDOT and also we've got Calvin Chow on central staff as well.

Welcome SDOT, other SDOT team.

Thank you.

I think we're going to do a quick round of introductions since we have a bit of a crew here with us today.

My name is Nico Martinucci.

I'm the program manager for the Seattle Transit Measure and I'll hand it off to Candida.

Good morning, council members.

Candida Lorenzana, Director of Transit Mobility at SDOT.

Laura Lee.

Good morning.

I'm Laura Lee Sturm.

She, her pronouns, and I'm the Transportation Access Program Manager at SDOT.

I'll pass it to Art.

Hi, good morning.

I'm Art Kanuki.

I'm a Co-Vice Chair of the Transit Advisory Board, or TAB, and I'll be speaking after the presentation.

Thank you, Art.

And then we're joined by one I think just one colleague from Metro this morning.

Graydon, would you mind introducing yourself?

Hi, I'm Graydon Newman.

I'm the service planning supervisor at King County Metro.

Wonderful.

And then Bill, slides whenever you're ready.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you so much for having us here this morning.

We are excited to present to you the findings from our year one, as we're calling it year one annual report, in some senses, maybe the year seven annual report, since we are in the second iteration of this measure.

We'll get into that in a little bit.

Next slide, please.

Just a quick overview of today's presentation.

I wanted to provide a little bit of background and history since we often only come once a year to the committee.

So just to get us on the same footing about why we're here and what this program funds.

Give you an overview of those programs funded by the Seattle Transit Measure.

talk very briefly about what's next and some future spending opportunities, and then Art is here with us today to provide that report out from the Transit Advisory Board.

Next slide, please.

Great.

So just to take a step back from the program itself, we have seven transit agencies that operate within the City of Seattle.

Most of the bus service in the city is operated by King County Metro Transit.

We also have Sound Transit, which operates Link Light Rail and additional bus service as well as community transit for some additional commuter focused bus service from the north end.

Commuter rail also provided by Sound Transit, passenger and car ferry services operated by Washington State Ferries, and then of course we have the water taxi, monorail, streetcar, and more on top of that.

It's a very complex landscape.

The Seattle Transit Measure, or STM, as you may hear us refer to it throughout the presentation, primarily purchases additional bus trips on existing King County Metro routes.

So we take a look at the system and we identify places on the schedule to add more lines.

So buses coming more frequently or later into the evening or earlier in the morning.

This of course is not our only, the only transit program at SDOT.

This complements our other transit related activities such as the fare programming under the Seattle Transit Measure.

as well as some of our larger capital projects outside of the measure, such as the Transit Plus Multimodal Corridor Program or the Transit Spot Improvement Program.

Next slide, please.

The Seattle Transit measure itself was passed by Seattle voters in November 2020, as Chair Peterson mentioned.

It replaced a similar measure passed back in November of 2014, which expired at the end of 2020. And the new measure continues a lot of the same programming that was put into place from that first measure.

Just a quick note that original measure was funded by a 0.1% sales tax and a $60 vehicle license fee or car tab fee.

The renewed measure levies just a 0.15% sales and use tax, which is equivalent to about 15 cents on a $100 purchase began in April of 2021 and will continue through the end of March of 2027. On average, that 0.15% sales tax raises about $50 million a year.

for those transit service and access improvements that I mentioned briefly and sort of are the focus of this presentation.

And as Chair Peterson mentioned, oversight is provided by the Transit Advisory Board.

Next slide, please.

Just to stay at that high level for one more moment, these programs that we fund really take up most of the revenue that we collect.

So about 63 cents of every dollar that we collect goes directly towards funding those additional bus trips on King County Metro routes.

About 12 cents every dollar goes towards the emerging mobility needs program to talk about a little bit later in the presentation about 15 cents on the for the transportation access program about 6% 6 cents on the dollar for our capital projects and then about 4 cents for planning and analysis.

Next slide please alright so we're going to jump into transit service investments.

I can go to next slide I want to pause for a moment on this slide there's a lot of information here, which I will acknowledge, but I think provides a lot of really great important context for where we find ourselves today under the program.

Just to orient us this graph shows four years of revenue collected and expenditures on just transit service from the beginning of 2019 through the end of 2022 by quarter.

So this really covers the last two years of the previous measure and the first two years of the current measure.

Back in 2019, so that sort of second to last year of the previous measure, we thought we were in a very stable budgetary position.

We were spending less on service than we were bringing in revenue, and the gap between those two really was made up by our non-service programs, which are not reflected in this graph.

2019 was also the high watermark for those transit service investments that we were funding at that time we were funding about 350,000 annual service hours, which amounted to about 8% of King County metros network.

In November of 2019 statewide voters passed initiative 976 which many of us will remember limited a lot of the car related taxes and fees throughout the state.

including the $60 vehicle license fee that we were collecting at the time and that made up about half of the revenue that was funding all of the service and transit related programs through the measure.

We felt that limitation really beginning in Q4 of that year, but fully felt it as we moved into 2020 and had a full quarter in which we were not able to spend any of that $60 vehicle license fee revenue.

Of course, that first quarter of 2020 was also the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So we had two main impacts to the program just from that alone.

On the revenue side, we began to see the other half of our revenue, that 0.1% sales tax, began to decline quite steeply as folks stayed home and were spending less money.

And on the other side, we saw the cost of the service that we were buying increase quite suddenly.

So with these two opposing forces pulling in opposite directions, We had to make a very difficult decision to cut about half of those that those service hours that we were purchasing at the time in the September 2020 service change.

Fortunately, as we've discussed a replacement measure was placed on the November 2020 ballots and was approved by Seattle voters and levies now the that point one 5% sales tax that we have today.

But to do some limitations and how new sales tax revenue sales tax collection can be implemented that collection did not begin until April 1st of 2021. So we had a gap in revenue collection from the end of the previous program at the end of 2020 to the beginning of collection in April 1st of 2021. In the meantime we were continuing to support the other half of the transit service investments as well as our fair programs and our capital project commitments.

With this in mind and sort of looking towards a Starting off the program on a balanced foot, we needed to make one more additional cut to the transit service investments that we were purchasing as a part of the October 2021 service change.

So that was aligned temporally and spatially with the opening of the three new link light rail stations and the associated multi-agency bus restructure that happens to accommodate that.

We move now to what we are now in 2022 and as we're looking forward we find ourselves back in that stable budgetary position and able to identify places for for growth and look for those opportunities to begin to rebuild a lot of that programming, particularly in our transit service investment bucket.

Next slide please so to take us back for a moment to that September 2020 service change again that was the moment where given those budgetary impacts we need to make that difficult decision to cut about half of the service investments that we were funding.

We really tried to maintain service on the road that was supportive of the ridership patterns that we were seeing throughout the pandemic.

So what's reflected here are the service hours, the trips that we did not cut as a part of that reduction.

The map on the left were the hours that we were continuing to fund on those routes throughout the city.

And on the right in orange were those ridership patterns, where we were continuing to see ridership on routes throughout Seattle.

I'm sure many of us, if I can if I can sort of project us back to that moment when we were all being asked to stay at home and only go out for really essential trips.

At that time metro was still seeing at sometimes 150,000 rides per day and we knew at that time, these were folks that didn't have an option, they were either transit dependent.

or essential workers and or making essential trips, and so we were really trying to ensure that.

service investments that we were supporting we're continuing to support those really critical travel patterns, and this is a kind of data and point that excuse me data input that will continue to influence a lot of our service investments in the future.

Next slide please.

Today we fund about 3200 weekly trips on King county metro routes about 75% of those are on weekdays that percentage.

does take into account that there are five weekdays in a week.

So on a per weekday basis, we're funding about 500 trips compared to about 300 trips on Saturdays and 450 trips on Sundays.

Only about one in five of the trips that we fund are during those typical a.m.

and p.m.

commute periods, leaving about four out of five trips really helping to fill a lot of those gaps in our transit network that If filled help move us towards a transit system within the city that is functional for more trips than just sort of those typical commute periods and helps push towards our goals of sustainability and single occupancy vehicle trip reduction.

And, of course, equity for those those populations that continue to depend on transit as a primary mode of transportation.

Next slide please, I think, yes, and I will hand it off to Laura Lee to give us an overview of the transportation access program.

Great, thanks so much Nico and good morning Council.

So, as I said previously, my name is Laura Lee, I'm the Transportation Access Program Manager at SDOT.

Transportation Access, you may previously know us as the Low Income Access to Transit Program, we've renamed so that we can appear more accessible to folks who are in need of our services.

There's six primary programs in our portfolio that I'll be chatting with you all about.

And it really is broken down into two buckets.

So we have our fair subsidy programs that Nico mentioned, as well as community-centered education and engagement opportunities that particularly focus on improving writer confidence for youth and seniors.

Next slide, please.

So this is a high level overview of the ridership data from three of our key programs so you'll see youth and promise scholars are combined so that's previously the Orca cards that we provided to Seattle public school students was available for all middle and high school students.

As well as our Seattle promise scholars and so those are folks who graduated from a Seattle public high school.

And as part of the city's promise scholar program are able to attend their first two years at a Seattle college tuition free so in addition to that free tuition we offer them an orca card, so that they can access educational opportunities.

You also see our ridership data on our Seattle Housing Authority pilot so currently we offer about to that a little under 2000 cards to Seattle Housing Authority residents at about 24 Seattle.

property so it is a more restrictive program we only offer the cards to individuals aged 19 to 64 who live at or below 30% the area median income and that program began in 2019. Next slide please.

And then you'll see our recovery card program, which just launched in June of last year.

It is our most successful program to date, which is very exciting.

And it was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to distribute fully subsidized Orca cards to food service and convenience store workers in Chinatown International District and Pioneer Square.

Phase two of this program launched in June of this year, where we expanded to those same industries within Othello and Rainier Beach.

So again, it's been an incredibly successful program that we're very excited, has been helpful for the community and those essential workers.

Next slide, please.

Actually, we can go back.

Thanks, Bill.

So overall, our fare subsidy programs have been a huge success.

We were able to distribute over 21,000 cards to the populations that I mentioned.

And they've taken a little under 2 million trips in this first year of Seattle Transit Measure, which is just a great success and I think really speaks to the need of these programs continuing.

It also shows that users who benefited from these cards in total saved a little over $4 million.

I'm really glad that we have the opportunity to continue investing in these populations.

Next slide, please.

Thanks, Bill.

So then these are not our fair subsidy programs.

These are our education and engagement opportunities.

And so we work with local organizations to partner and better understand what their populations need to gain rider confidence.

So we have our senior program, we help them enroll in the regional reduced fare permit card, which is an ORCA card for seniors and individuals living with disabilities.

Last year, we were able to partner with our senior centers to take them on two field trips.

We helped people learn how to take the water taxi and have lunch at Marination.

It was really fun.

And then we have our youth ambassador program as well.

And so we partnered with two local nonprofits, who specifically work with BIPOC youth and Native youth, and they helped create media presentations on how their youth were accessing transit and how they want to take that back into their communities.

Thanks.

Next slide, please.

Great.

And I will talk about the two final pieces of the Seattle Transit Measure First Transit Capital Projects.

This was a category that was added to the to the previous STPD Proposition 1 back in 2018, which was carried over in spirit into the replacement measure.

We have up to $3 million annually to support transit capital projects, which in the capital world, we're talking pretty small scale improvements and pretty surgical improvements.

We have three bus lane projects that are underway right now.

These were locations and routes identified through the department's broader COVID recovery planning efforts.

and include Aurora Avenue North, which will see a northbound bus lane to complement existing southbound bus lane infrastructure.

Jumping around a minute, 15th Avenue West, Elliott Avenue West, which has existing infrastructure, but looking to expand some of those time restrictions to include more periods in the day when we're still seeing that spread and when people are commuting.

And then Rainier Avenue South, which I wanted to end on as one of our, the biggest of the three and potentially the most impactful.

Some early modeling on this project shows potential time savings measured in minutes, which in the transit capital and sort of speed and reliability world is notable.

If sort of we see these outcomes as planned, we could see as much as five minutes saved on some of those northbound trips, which it's not only something we will experience in terms of savings in terms of operational resources, but really approaches that threshold where riders feel a difference.

And that's a really important outcome.

Next slide please.

And our final category is the emerging needs category, this is the newest category new to the to the renewed measure and really came about in recognition.

That this measure was put in the ballot at a time when the city was experiencing some pretty major acute impacts to its mobility and the one that came to mind, and I know it was top of mind at the time was really the long term closure of the West Seattle bridge.

So with these funds available to us and this sort of spending authority available to us, we were able to deploy these resources to help mitigate some of those impacts for folks on and around the peninsula.

And we did that in two main ways.

The first was additional transit trips on all day routes in West Seattle.

So functionally very similar to our core purpose, those transit service frequency improvements, but with a really targeted focus of improving that mobility and improving frequency for folks in West Seattle.

This took the form of additional frequency on routes 50, 60, 120, and the RapidRide C line.

The 50 in particular, we were able to double frequency during the day, bringing it up to our 15-minute frequent transit network standard, and that is still operating today.

Really in function, these are temporary improvements to help accommodate that additional demand.

We tried to align them in terms of time of day with Those time periods with a low bridge was closed to general purpose traffic to help provide that additional capacity.

And then second we launched a mode shift incentives program flip your trip i'm sure many of you saw this out in the wild, and this was this was funded in part through the Seattle transit measure in partnership with King county metro.

The goal here was really to put some weight behind some significant mode shift targets that were identified during some of the early planning of how we will mitigate the bridge closure long term.

The Flipper Trip program includes travel incentives, travel option workshops, sorry, real quick, and personal trip planning assistance.

As of the beginning of this month, there were more than 10,000 enrollees in the program who redeemed over 28,000 trips to use transit and get out of their cars and test out other options.

Next slide, please.

So I was talking a little bit about what's next on the transit service side.

We have been working this year to finalize some equity focused investment prioritization criteria.

To help us direct some of our future direct our future service investments under the program as again we look towards that growth period over the next few years.

And we are coordinating as as we have, and as we do, and will continue to do coordinating very closely with our colleagues at King county metro on on what those future growth opportunities look like and our ability to grow our investment portfolio.

Under the Transportation Access Program, as Chair Peterson mentioned, we are also working with Metro and our regional transit agency partners on this region-wide shift to free youth fares, which is sort of making the youth portion of our Orca Opportunity Program obsolete for our funding, which frees up that funding for future uses.

Our focus right now, though, outside of those future uses, is ensuring as seamless a handoff as possible.

We have current participants in the Youth Work Opportunity Program that will move from that to receiving that benefit from the region more broadly.

And we're really keenly interested in making sure there's no interruption in their ability to continue to ride transit and not pay a dime for it.

And on the capital side, I mentioned we have those three projects underway.

Those are really our focus for the next couple years.

But we have capacity in our spend plan and in our delivery plan for additional projects of that scope and scale.

And we're really looking to continue to identify those and get those set up for future delivery.

Next slide, please.

And then I want to end quickly on our spend plan.

And so this is really that more longitudinal look over the life of the measure.

We find ourselves here in 2022, we are spending less on these programs than we are bringing in revenue.

That is a temporary condition.

Our current spend plan is balanced in the sense that as we are looking towards those growth opportunities and able to invest those resources in new transit service investments, as well as in additional programs and additional capital projects, we'll very quickly reach that point where we're able to use those unspent resources today, we're able to use them in the future to support higher and greater programming.

This is all I should mention very flexible as well.

We are sort of constantly responding to demand in terms of the services that we can actually purchase.

We're also responding to the sales tax revenue projections, which are can change on a sometimes seems like a near day to day basis so really making sure that we're building some flexibility into our plan and constantly adjusting assumptions about what we'll be able to accomplish as the measure matures.

And with that, I think I'm going to be handing it off to Art to give a report from the Transit Advisory Board.

Thank you, everyone, for a great presentation on the Seattle Transit Measures Annual Report.

My name is Art Kuniyuki, and I'm currently the co-vice chair of the Transit Advisory Board, or TAB.

One of the mandates of the TAB is to serve as the public oversight committee of the revenues collected under Seattle Transportation Benefit District Proposition 1, now known after 2020 as the Seattle Transit Measure, or STM, and submit an annual letter to the city council after reviewing their annual report.

The TAP submitted this letter to the Council in June of 2020, and I would like to highlight two of our comments this morning in the interest of time, but I'm happy to answer any questions or comments about the letter's contents.

My first highlight will be the Recovery Card Program, which distributed full-funded ORCA cards to workers and small businesses in June 2021 during the recent pandemic to assist them in their recovery, focusing on the Chinatown, International District, and Pioneer Square areas.

This transportation access program was an overwhelming success, and in its six-month pilot, it served 1,717 workers, making over 515,000 trips and collectively saving over $1.4 million.

The TAB fully supports this program and its focus on BIPOC and underserved communities as part of the ongoing social justice and racial equity policies in effect.

We look forward to next year's annual report and the results of the Recovery Card Program expansion into the recently added Rainier Beach and Othello areas.

The second item I'll discuss is the Emerging Needs Category, which was created in 2020 with the passage of the STM and allows for flexible funding for acute mobility needs.

When the West Seattle Bridge was closed for emergency repairs in March of 2020, later on, STEM funds were used To assist with temporary transit service investments on key West Seattle routes and promote the use of alternative modes of travel.

The tab appreciates having this category and funding available for unforeseen situations.

And when the bridge reopens next month, these investments will be available for their uses.

In terms of any improvements for the future with the STM, we closed our letter with two comments.

One was to make use of dashboards to keep the public informed on how monies are being allocated, and if possible, two, resume the issuance of the report in the first quarter of the year.

So on behalf of my fellow TAB members, I'd like to thank Nicol and his STM team on their great work, and we thank the City Council and King County Metro members here this morning for their attendance at this meeting.

If there are any questions or comments, I welcome them.

Thank you, Art.

Thank you again for your service, Art, and for all the volunteers on the Transit Advisory Board.

That's an important oversight role.

And thank you for your letter as well.

And if SDOT, I don't know, did you formally respond to their letter, or is there anything you wanted to say about some of the recommendations they made?

We have not formally responded.

I will say, I think we have yet to transmit it to you all.

I think that's going to come later this afternoon for your formal review.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, I've got some questions about the report and, and some of my colleagues may as well.

Um, so, uh, Nico, you had, um, frequently, um, mentioned cuts, uh, but with the, you know, that was comparing it to 2019, uh, the pinnacle of service pre pandemic.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

So we definitely appreciate you analyzing the data on which bus lines are still being used during the pandemic, essential workers, and keeping those bus lines going.

And of course, I know overall ridership was at some point down 70%.

So it was just sort of reconciling that with what you're calling cuts, just wanted for the viewing public to know that was based on the 2019 pinnacle.

We hope to get back to that at some point, although we know a lot of people now are working from home now that they've gotten the hang of that, although they still talk with their mute button on, as I do sometimes.

So Calvin, I saw your hand up.

Did you want to chime in before I keep going with my questions?

I think you've made the point just that I think we're still in uncertainty about exactly how transit ridership is going to come back and exactly sort of how it's going to be used.

So I think this report shows that SDOT's been flexible in trying to respond to those changes, but we don't know quite where this is going to go.

So I think we need to take the spending pattern, the spending plan with a little grain of salt that we don't know what the future holds.

And then the other thing I'd point out is because ridership has been down, it has increased the operating costs.

So we aren't getting quite as much transit service for our dollar as we were at the height of our spending.

So I think that's another consideration when you think about the use of revenue.

Okay.

And then on slide 21, where you were talking about the spending, there was a bar graph.

I just want to confirm that that does not include the reserves that you've been collecting over the last couple of years and will continue to collect.

So there won't be the cliff that you're showing in 2027, if you were to use the reserves at that point.

Yes, that's correct.

If we use our reserves for for that lower point in 2027, then there won't be that cliff.

Yeah, this is assumes we've we have used the reserves for the ramp down I guess would be the other way to say that.

Okay.

Calvin, did you want to add to that?

Yeah, just looking at this graph, I think it's important to note that this isn't like the rainy day fund where the sort of the excess revenue is sort of partitioned off in a separate fund.

It's kept in the same fund.

What they're showing is sort of the higher revenue collection in 2021 and 2022. And that's what they're using to fill the gap in the outer years.

There are some additional revenues that might help split the difference.

But in 2027, we do still expect to get some revenue.

If you recall, when the measure was put together, I believe it was Council Member Strauss pushed us to move this three months into 2027 to allow for that ramp down in case voters don't approve a potential renewal in 2026. So when we get closer to the end of this measure, we'll have to do some recalibration about what it would look like if a measure does pass and we continue that service, or if we do have to kind of ramp down if it is not continued.

There are some considerations with Metro's operations in terms of how quickly they can respond to our changes in service, so that's part of that thinking as well.

But the plan spending shown here does sort of show transit service increasing to 2026, and if we aren't, you know, we will have to talk about what funding mechanism we might put in place at that time.

Thank you, and I, you know, because this is a regressive source of revenue, I'm hopeful that we'll have other options at that point.

And one request I do have of SDOT, because the state will be paying for the youth, free youth passes, and will that save, what, $3 million a year approximately?

That's correct.

Yeah, we're hoping to reinvest that in our continuing programs within our budget scope.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so with that savings and then with ridership and flux, just to include the city council as you are brainstorming on ways to reallocate funding, just so it's not just announced and then we're reacting to it, but to collaborate with us upfront on that, that would be appreciated.

I know we've talked a lot about capital projects.

I know that there's a, the way it was structured, there was a $3 million cap on capital projects, but I know we'll want to talk about that more.

Go ahead, Calvin.

Just to confirm that while the administration does have the latitude to determine how that spending gets spent within those categories, the council does set the budget within those categories.

So within the bounds set by the voters, it will come to you in the budget about what the spending should be amongst those categories.

It's good to know that we have that, it's a good reminder that we have that authority.

I've seen, I guess in the past, in the previous administration where something was just announced and council was reacting to it.

So we'll wanna be brought in earlier in the process if there are any major changes.

So Council Member Herbold and then Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Really appreciate the presentation here today.

A few questions.

I want to highlight my appreciation for the additional trips in D1, the 50, the 60, the 120, and the C line, and appreciate that these additional trips have in part been made available.

as part of our investments through the Seattle for all transit measure for this category of emerging needs.

My first question is my recollection is that the council authorized a particular amount of funds for this category and I'm wondering how the authorization for emerging needs category compares to actual use.

I'm also.

Chair, if I had three questions that I could just get him out altogether.

Is that OK?

Yes, please.

Perfect.

Thank you.

In over the fall and winter, Estat funded additional water taxi trips, which again was very appreciated, appreciated and just wondering, is was that funding also through the Seattle Transit measure?

And can you just talk a little bit about how SDOT balances investments between water taxi and bus transit, given even though the water taxi is super popular, the operating cost is significantly higher.

And then lastly, on bus trip cancellations.

They continue to be really high, particularly it appears on specific routes.

I understand these cancellations are linked to staffing and everything that we do in public service and in private industry are Everybody's impacted by staffing constraints right now, but I'm just wondering how we will address this in the short term to keep on track and whether or not we have a process to make sure that individual routes don't take the brunt of the staffing capacity challenges when you have a shortage, whether or not that circulates or whether or not.

that shortage is felt by a particular route, and whether or not these cancellations are considered to be a metric for these annual reports.

It's one thing to report on projected numbers of trips and spending, but if those trips aren't actually able to be realized, I think we need to be transparent with that as well.

Thank you.

Yeah, great.

Thank you for those questions.

I furiously wrote them down as we're going.

So if I missed any part of it, please tell me and I will happily jump in for the third question real quick.

I'm going to we have our colleague from King County Metro here that I will pass that off to him at the end.

And I just wanted to give him the heads up there.

But taking him in order.

So in terms of emerging needs, spending and comparing to that authorization, we operate under sort of a cap system.

So we have these different categories under the measure.

Each one has sort of a maximum spending that we are able to do with the exception of transit service.

Transit service is sort of the everything else category and the maximum category.

So for example, like I mentioned, capital projects up to 3 million, our transportation access program spending is up to 10 million.

And then what's authorized in the enabling legislation for the program for emerging needs is up to 9 million.

We asked for 9 million in the 2022 budget process.

And obviously, we don't know exactly where we're going to end up, but it's going to be pretty close to that.

So we're really, we are maximizing the delivery of those resources to the extent that we can.

What that holds for future years, boy, it's anyone's guess, you know, that that flexibility remains there.

If we have a sort of another acute need that we need to help address and mitigate, We have some flexibility in that category for non-acute mobility needs as well.

So we can pilot things in conjunction with King County Metro, for example, if we want to try something new out or test an expansion of something.

And so that's always an element of flexibility to us if we're in a good potential future of not having to respond to acute mobility needs.

In terms of water taxi funding, yes, SDOT did fund sort of continuation of most of the summer sailing schedule through the winter of the end of 2021 beginning of 2022 winter that was funded by not by our program that was funded by the broader reconnect West Seattle program.

We did fund some water taxi shuttle service improvements which we were not able to get out the door at the beginning, due to a lot of those same staffing constraints that every.

transit operators experiencing right now.

But earlier this year, we were able to deploy those resources.

So that was fixed route rubber tire, which is kind of our bread and butter under the Seattle Transit Measure Program to support those additional sailings for the water taxi.

So in terms of just implied answer to your question about balancing investments between water taxi and bus, but in this case, it's we have not funded anything other than sort of that rubber tire transit service under STM specifically.

And in terms of cancellations, I'll say quickly before I hand it over to Graydon, we try not to get too in the weeds, but we are invoiced based on assumed operated service on a quarterly basis.

So at the beginning of the year, we have a sense of what it's going to look like, and we get a quarterly invoice based on that.

After the year is over, there is a reconciliation process.

So we actually look back at what service was actually operated during that time, and either a little bit extra if costs were higher than what we estimated, or we get a refund if less service was operated.

So putting aside the customer impacts of those cancellations for a moment, because I think that's important as well, just on the financial side and sort of ensuring good tracking of that from that perspective, we do kind of settle up in the long run.

With that, I'll hand it over to Graydon.

Thanks Nico and appreciate your question council member.

It's certainly an issue cancellations are certainly an issue that are very much on our mind.

And as, as was mentioned a few times, transit and transit agencies are no different than really any enterprise at this point that is having challenges on workforce and transit in particular has, has, has been nationally that has been an issue with transit agencies.

Locally, we actually have a unique context in that as we're also trying to recruit our workforce recruit and train our workforce to deliver the service and the bus network that we have on the street.

We're also working to recruit to support expanded light rail service in the region.

So we face this kind of dual constraint that places a little extra pressure on our region in particular, but For your specific questions around differences between routes, do some routes see more cancellations than others?

That's something that we have taken looks at.

We do have regular reporting that comes through about which routes are seeing significant cancellations.

And to be honest, it really does jump around with the route.

There's really not much pattern that's discernible.

Although that can happen on a day-to-day basis, there can be significantly more cancellations on one route versus another.

But the trends are really difficult to identify.

There's not really a clear trend there.

But what we are trying to do in the near term to support that is, one, we do work with our operations and vehicle maintenance divisions to provide guidance on which routes that we really need to prioritize delivering that service.

We're not always able to meet those.

That guidance, just based on the actual logistics of getting operators assigned to routes on a day-to-day basis, but that process is guided by both productivity, so ensuring that we're able to meet the demands of riders, as well as equity, so ensuring that we're not either disproportionately or even proportionately canceling routes who serve a high amount of priority populations by our policy.

So we're trying to prioritize that to the extent we can.

Looking forward to the fall service change, we are implementing some service adjustments that are intended to reduce the amount of cancellations.

That's really one of our main goals is to move forward in stabilizing our system and recovering our transit service in a sustainable way.

So that's something to look forward to in fall that we really are intending to reduce the incidence of unplanned cancellations there and recognizing that it is an issue that we are dealing with and a particularly challenging one given the workforce environment that we're in.

Thank you, Graydon.

If I could ask you to follow up with maybe a written narrative.

I have one constituent in particular who is challenged with repeat cancellations of the 21. Would like to both be able to explain to this constituent what you're doing now to center equity and productivity in managing those cancellations, asking drivers from other routes to take on routes that you might see a pattern in, as well as the long-term efforts.

I would really like to be able to provide a little bit of hope for this particular constituent.

Thank you.

Happy to do that.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Peterson.

Well, I just want to thank all of you.

First of all, for this presentation.

This is really helpful in trying to understand how those dollars are being used and really what you've learned from.

from the information that you've gathered.

It's good to know that the Transportation Access Program seems to be providing a profound service to our neighbors.

21,000 ORCA cards given to essential workers, to young people, to people with low income, taking two million trips.

These cards and saving neighbors $4 million.

That's huge.

And really, I think, you know, when you combine that with the fact that, as you said, 80% of these trips were not commuting downtown, but really to get around their neighborhood.

I think it's, it's just really clear evidence that people use transit to get to essential goods and services.

And if those things are not within reach of their walk shed, then it's really important that we have frequent, reliable bus service for people who count on it, do the things that they need to do.

So I want to thank you for the work you're doing and for providing us with this information.

I do have some questions about this, issue of, you know, 80% of trips being for people who are trying to move from neighborhood to neighborhood.

I guess the first thing is, do you know if that's sort of reflective of ridership trends overall?

But what I'm really interested in is whether, what this means for the department and for the partnership with Metro about looking at more crosstown bus service And whether there is, you know, reconsideration being given to this transportation system that seems now to really be built on moving people in and out, or even through downtown, rather than helping people stay in their neighborhood so that's kind of my first question.

Great, thank you Councilmember I want to clarify so the That 80% that I mentioned is not reflective of usage.

It's actually reflective of the supply of additional transit service that we are providing.

So of the 3,200 trips per week that, and when I say trips, I should clarify, these are like additional lines on the schedule.

So it's your route going from coming every 15 minutes to every 12 minutes or to every, even every 10 minutes.

And so each one of those we count as one trip from the supply side and of those 80% are in the middle of the day, in the evening, nighttime, or on weekends.

And so those are definitely intended to support exactly that type of travel.

We have a transit network, both in terms of who our operators are, right?

We have multiple commuter-focused bus service operators, right?

We have King County Metro whose policies have, you know, still in terms of kind of meeting demand, are putting those hours, those additional lines on the schedule towards those commute periods.

And really what we're trying to do is fill in some of those gaps of where we can get to that 15-minute service, not just during the peaks, but operating starting at six in the morning and going all the way into the evening to really support a lot of that travel.

In terms of ridership sort of trends, and I'm happy to let Graydon expand on this a little bit more, but we have definitely seen those peak periods drop down over the past couple years and seen a lot of those evening and weekend time periods drop down the less proportionately so that those are maintaining in some cases, a higher percentage their their ridership than than their their peak period counterparts.

Great.

And do you have anything you wanted to add on that.

No, I think what Nico's describing around a reduction in the peak period travel demand is something that we've seen across the county.

And it's one of those that, you know, I think going back to the presentation that Nico and the team provided around showing which routes retained more ridership, we definitely do see that it is those routes that are operating all day, in particular those routes that are frequent.

as well as routes that are serving areas where there may be low-income communities, and that is something that we're definitely centering a lot of our service decision-making around as well, but certainly have seen that trend play out countywide.

Then to your second question, Council Member, about some of those neighborhood-to-neighborhood, crosstown opportunities.

I know we on the SDOT side, we don't have any direct decision-making power over routing or creating new routes, right, we're really kind of stuck, stuck, I don't want to say stuck, we're focused on supporting routes that exist today.

The one thing I'll say on Metro's behalf is as these new light rail stations are opening, I'll tell you the tenure of those conversations among service planners in the room is exactly what you're saying.

It's how do we strengthen those connections, particularly east-west when you're looking in, you know, north or south Seattle.

But also if you're looking outside of downtown on either side, that might actually be a north-south connection, but you know, it's, it's parallel to downtown, not to and from downtown.

And really how can we build those out?

How can we get people to these high capacity services?

How can we meet some of those non-typical, non-traditional commute patterns that, you know, historically our transit service network has really supported.

So I think, I think that the opportunity I would say for, for a lot of that growth in terms of new connections will exist in those new light rail stations continuing to open.

That's really been the catalyst for all of our transit agency partners to rethink the service they're providing and what connections it's making.

Interesting.

Okay.

I have another little set of questions, but Calvin, I see your hands up.

Sorry, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that just to remind folks that when the transit measure was first, the first iteration of the transit measure a big driver at the time was also the overcapacity, just commute demand.

And one of the things that the transit measure really did interject was our ability to fund the base transit network, the 15-minute all-day, all-city routes, which is sort of what you're getting at, is what is the bedrock that we're trying to provide.

The changes with the pandemic have really changed what that calculus is, and I think there's, you know, generally there's been some, I'd say, hesitation to jump too quickly because we don't know where the path's going to lead.

The restructuring of the sound transit routes has forced that issue.

We have to make changes around those, so that's where we've seen the biggest change, but I think it is an open question about sort of where it's all going and something that Metro is going to have to be Dealing with throughout their service area.

So I just wanted to put that in some context that yeah, we're seeing those changes to Well, I appreciate that.

And this is also about the fact that we are, you know, beginning our comprehensive planning as well, right?

So how are we thinking about how we change our land use patterns, where more housing is going to go, where trying to develop neighborhood commercial districts more robustly, and then how do we connect all of those things together so that people can, if it is, as I said, outside their walkshed, they have an easy way to get to the next neighborhood for their doctor's appointment or childcare or whatever.

I have some questions about Rainier Avenue, if I might.

Yes, please.

Okay, so on page 15, which I've lost here now, but so we're talking about the addition to bus lanes and Yes, I just want to clarify if the plan is for bus lanes to run the length of Rainier, and if so, why we're doing it in phases.

Instead of just doing the whole thing with bus lanes, the entire length.

Yeah, good question.

I want to, we can confirm sort of exact extents and whether this represents uninterrupted, there may be pieces that where it is interrupted.

So I just I just to say, well, we can follow up with confirmation about those exact locations.

And in terms of phasing, I know that there were parts of the project that from a from a modeling standpoint, we're going to have less of an impact, less of an expected impact on some of the existing travel patterns.

It's something that our Transportation Operations Division is very concerned about when we sort of take a lane in this way for a new use.

What is it going to do?

What is it going to change in terms of general purpose traffic or turning movements or the like?

So that was sort of one.

Two was that a chunk of the improvements along Rainier require signal changes or signal upgrades in some cases.

And so it's actually going out and buying new mast arms and new signal heads and upgrading cabinets in order to support the different configuration of the right-of-way in those locations.

Decision was made to kind of get those early implementation opportunities on the road as soon as possible, and then still be working towards those phase two improvements that are a little bit more cost and capital intensive.

So it's sort of a capital issue, is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, there were pieces of this that could easily be kind of broken out and implemented as is, and there were pieces of this that required that longer term

I think the only other thing I might add is I think we are very intentionally trying to make sure we do an excellent outreach process out here when we're implementing this.

So that's also part of this.

That's something we're anticipating doing this fall in the second phase of this work.

And we did some in the beginning.

So that's the other piece of this, making sure that the community understands the change that we're working with them on additional concerns in the area.

That's also a pretty important component.

the time that it's taking, the time we're taking to do this.

Well I appreciate that and I know that SDOT has been talking about these rainier improvements for years and some people will still tell you that they've never heard of anything going on.

So one last question.

So these current sections where the bus lanes are running, there's still a general purpose lane in each direction and a sort of a near constant turn lane down the middle.

And so I'm wondering, you know, if we're really trying to speed up transit use and potentially provide incentive for people who don't drive to take other modes, is there any consideration of removing the turn lane and providing kind of safe, dedicated space for people who are biking or using mobility devices?

Yeah, it's a great question.

I will play traffic engineer for a moment if I can, but we can certainly get you a better answer if it's not satisfying.

I know that one of the critical concerns is business access along the corridor and especially coming, you know, reducing to one lane of general purpose traffic without that center turn lane.

And, you know, given just the sheer volume of traffic along this corridor today, you know, and of course, that's, we don't know how that's going to change as infrastructure comes online.

But given current patterns, a left turn across Rainier in a single lane can cause pretty major downstream impacts is the concern.

Of course, we don't know exactly how these things play out when implemented, but I know that's what we've heard from our traffic engineer colleagues as we've gotten into design and ideation for this particular project.

Okay, thank you.

I would like to understand that a little bit better.

And I think really what I what I want to do here is, as we're talking about this in the budget process is just signal my interest in increasing our capital investment.

Happiness is $3 million for an entire city seems really strange.

Retrospect, I'm not sure why we did that.

We really have, you know, we need to address the fact that there is a clear need for cross-town, cross-neighborhood service and improvements around safety and mobility and bus lanes that can provide easier ways for people to get through their neighborhoods.

So as we're moving forward, Chair, I'm just really interested in signaling my interest in that conversation as well.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

That's actually very helpful signaling because when we put this measure together back in the spring and summer of 2020, the main concern was really about transit rider hours and also the free youth passes and things that have changed so much in this amount of time and then the greater need now for these capital projects.

So I know that, going to meet with Calvin Chow and discuss about what reallocations might, what we might want to see.

And that dovetails with our budget process, right?

If we're hearing that there's not enough funding from the traditional fall budget process, then we need to be creative about these other sources.

And so if we want to expedite, bus capital projects, which help with safety as well, then that $3 million makes less sense.

So appreciate your stating that.

All right, well, thank you everybody for this discussion.

And I know we'll be, as we consider a spend plan in the future, we'll have another discussion.

Candida.

Just before you close this out Council Member, I want to take a moment to note that this will be the last time that Niko Martinucci will be joining us at this committee.

He is leaving SDOT in October, which is a pretty big loss for the department and this program, but I want to take a moment to recognize him, his service and amazing work on this in the prior measure.

This program wouldn't be what it is without him and without the team's stewardship and dedication.

I just want to take a moment to thank him publicly for that.

Thank you, Candida.

Thank you.

Well, we might have to have you back before then.

So just so we can see Nico one more time.

Nico, is there anything you wanted to say at this time?

Not one for the limelight, but I'll just say thank you.

It's always a pleasure coming to the committee.

You all ask such incredible questions.

You've been incredible stewards for this program.

I really appreciated the collaboration, the opportunity to kind of talk about the great work we do.

This is like our, this is our once annual push where we come out of our little sort of foxholes and talk about how we're getting this money out the door and all the benefits that we're having.

So yeah, it's been a it's been a total pleasure just be just over seven years, which is a crazy amount of time to think about.

I know some of you have been here longer.

So apologies, but for me anyway, so yeah, anyway, just thank you.

I'll miss the team in the city very much.

Thank you, Nico, that was really good on the fly there.

And the city is a better place thanks to your service, and we'll miss you.

All right, well, thank you for that presentation and discussion.

And again, we'll hear more as we try to zero in on a spend plan and look at those allocations that we've discussed a bit.

But we can go ahead and go to our last item on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the final agenda item into the record?

Agenda item five, council bill 120395, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, declaring certain real property rights as being surplused the city's municipal utility needs, granting easements to the city of Renton for public roadway, Renton owned utilities, storm drainage and devices for traffic control purposes for the improvement of Rainier Avenue South for public hearing, briefing, discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

As our committee clerk mentioned, we do have a public hearing today for this Council Bill 120395, and this Council Bill would enable Seattle Public Utilities to grant minor easements to the city of Renton to enable public roadway work focused on utilities, storm drainage, and installation of traffic control equipment.

The Cedar River pipeline, which is owned by Seattle Public Utilities, flows under Rainier Avenue South in the city of Renton.

Due to the minor nature of this proposal and the fact that it's impacting Renton, not the city of Seattle, I'm gonna propose that we suspend the rules to vote on this item today, the same day as the public hearing.

So we'll go ahead and open the public hearing first, and then we'll hear from our presenters, because these items were published online with our agenda last Friday.

And I'm seeing that we don't have any speakers for the public hearing.

So I'll go through the formality of opening and closing it.

For our public hearings, we use the same rules and procedures similar to our regular public comment period.

Again, looking online, I'm seeing no public speakers signed up and we're all by ourselves here in the council chambers.

So there are no public speakers present here either.

So I'm opening the public comment period.

and with no speakers online or present in chambers closing the public comment period, public hearing, excuse me, open the public hearing and close the public hearing.

So the public hearing on council 120395 was open and then closed due to lack of speakers.

So we'll go ahead and continue with the presentation.

We'll turn it over to Seattle Public Utilities, welcome.

Yes, good morning.

My name is Judith Cross.

I'm the manager for Real Property Services for Seattle Public Utilities.

I'm joined by Bill Wells, who actually leads the distribution, transmission, and storage planning, system planning for Seattle Public Utilities.

So Bill is here to answer any technical questions about the City of Renton project.

So let me get started.

So the purpose of this legislation is that the City of Seattle will grant easements, and there are actually two easements that we'll be granting to the City of Renton within the Cedar River Pipeline right-of-way, and the right-of-way is fee-owned.

It is located in the City of Renton.

There are two permanent easement areas that will be granted to the City of Renton for roadway and utility purposes.

So this is actually project work that is being done by the City of Renton Roadways Division.

And then there are two temporary construction easement areas within our Fionn right-of-way that we'll be granting to the City of Renton to use during construction timeframe.

And this involves our Cedar River water pipelines, 1, 2, and 3, and those particular pipelines actually supply the City of Seattle with a portion of our water to our retail customers and then also to several of our wholesale customers.

So, this just gives a general area of the location of the construction and so it's outside of the city of Seattle boundary.

I think it's more applicable to look at the actual easement locations that we have worked with the city of Renton to define.

So Rainier Avenue South actually runs perpendicular or at a 90-degree angle to our pipeline right-of-way, and our Cedar River pipeline right-of-way in the City of Renton is running along the South 2nd Street location.

And you can see in yellow that there are two temporary construction easement locations along our pipeline right-of-way adjacent to Rainier Avenue South that will be providing temporary construction areas that the City of Renton will be using.

And then just as important is the area that's in red and hatched and that's the permanent easement area that will be granting a non-exclusive easement area to the City of Renton for their transportation and roadway utilities.

So the areas are fairly equivalent, but what's important is that a temporary construction easement area only is for the duration of the project, whereas the permanent easement areas that are identified in red are actually for the, will be continual.

So the compensation for the two easement areas, the total is $454,600 for both the permanent and temporary construction easement areas.

The permanent construction easement rights are valued at a higher value.

And then the temporary construction easement rights that are adjacent are valued at a lower property value.

These easement areas were negotiated through a fairly extensive process over the last year with the city of Renton.

The value of the easements are actually based on an appraisal that the city of Renton conducted and was reviewed by staff in the real property services area, as well as a third party within the city of Seattle.

And what's important about the actual temporary construction easement areas is that our engineers and our planning groups have actually reviewed the construction drawings.

So the engineering group has approved the construction plans and the specifications that have been identified by the city of Renton.

And then the water fund actually receives the $454,600.

So I will open up to any questions you may have.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, any questions on this?

And remember, I do hope to have a suspended rule so we can vote on this the same day we have the public hearing due to its minor nature.

OK, so I'm not seeing any comments or questions.

And as we noted earlier, there are no speakers here or online for this item.

If there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow the committee to vote on a recommendation on Council Bill 120395 on the same day the public hearing was held.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and the committee will vote on the recommendation.

Council members, I'll now move that the committee recommend the passage of Council Bill 120395, item five on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the council bill, any comments?

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass council 1, 2, 0, 3, 9, 5.

Council member Herbold?

Yes.

Council member Morales?

Yes.

Council member Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee of recommendations that the bill pass will be sent to the September 6th city council meeting.

Well, colleagues, that's it for our agenda.

The time is 1140 AM.

This concludes the August 16th, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We anticipate our next meeting will be on Tuesday, September 6th, which is right after our recess has ended.

So I hope to see you all there.

Thank you and we are adjourned.