Transportation Committee 4162024

All right, good morning.

The April 16, 2024 meeting of the Transportation Committee will come to order.

It is 9.35 a.m.

I am Rob Sacca, chair of the Transportation Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Here.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

All right.

Colleagues, if there are no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

All right, welcome everyone to the sixth, this year's sixth meeting of the Transportation Committee.

A lot of exciting things on the agenda today.

First off, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair Saka, we have 13 speakers in chambers and 15 calling in.

All right, each speaker will have approximately one minute.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

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

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

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

We will call on speakers in the chamber first.

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

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

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list, Donna McBain Evans, followed by Alex Zimmerman.

Can I speak here?

There, it's fine, yeah.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

Yep.

Okay.

Good morning.

My name's Donna McBain-Evans, and I'm a Belltown resident for the past decade.

And I love my neighborhood, and I really want to help it become an even better place to live as the city grows.

The Pike Place Market is one of the places I love and I go there regularly.

But it has never made sense to me to have cars driving among the thousands of people that are wandering back and forth across the streets to shop and to buy fish or pastries or flowers.

Most of the cars that are driving there are really just gawking at the market scene.

They're taking photos and they're clogging the streets.

They're certainly not buying things.

And absolutely, I want to say the market vendors need to have their goods resupplied.

And absolutely, the PDA must be involved in discussions to improve the market.

But I have the feeling they've dug in their heels on this issue.

And I believe it's essential for you all on the council to appoint some voices to speak for the many thousands of residents like me who...

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Alex Zimmerman, followed by Doug McDonald.

Thank you.

Is it working?

Yes.

Yeah.

My name, Alex Zimmerman.

I'm president of Stand Up America.

For 10 years, I talk about red camera.

Right now, you have decisions so poor people can pay only 10 bucks.

My question right now, when we have 300 million debt, why the 50 percentage of $136, 70 bucks, sent to Arizona?

Can you explain to me?

It's approximately 100,000 ticket.

All over.

For the last 10 years, I spoke about this, and you don't listen to me.

You give me one minute for this.

Situation is idiotic.

Or put this money back to the city, or make $10 for everybody.

When you make $10 for everybody, this contract will be moved out.

Why?

Because they're not idiots working for $5.

You understand what I'm talking about?

When you start doing something like an idiot, you're working for me.

Next up, we have Doug McDonald, followed by Megan Cruz.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Doug McDonald.

I live in Greenwood.

I was looking at the Vision Zero presentation last night, and I noticed that there's something new.

And you'll see it on the slide at the end of the presentation, which is a new graph about the serious injuries.

If you look carefully, you'll see that the axes are different on the slide.

This is a huge problem, and it's all bad news.

I call this to your attention today because it also gives me an opportunity to bring here the report that I've submitted to SDOT that actually details the 28 actual circumstances of the fatal collisions in Seattle last year, all of which I developed through public disclosure requests, since this kind of data is not provided, has ever been provided by SDOT.

So this has been provided to SDOT.

I've also submitted it to the council.

And I'd like to draw it to your attention because it is possible to see how people actually die.

And when you see that, you can ask yourself the question, is the Vision Zero program solving the problem of fatalities and serious collisions?

Next up, we have Megan Cruz, followed by Terry Holm.

Good morning.

I'm Megan Cruz of District 7. First, I'd like to ask your support of Amendment 3 and the transportation plan.

Pike Place Market is a busy web of residents, visitors, businesses, and social services, and the PDA has balanced their needs successfully for decades, and they should be allowed to continue to do so.

Secondly, I'd like to call out a key omission in the STP.

It was tasked with integrating all modes, and yet goals and priorities for freight are missing.

In fact, in the new transportation levy, just 2% of the total funds are dedicated to trucks and deliveries.

And that includes repairing just 20% of all the truck streets that are in poor repair.

This is a low bar.

Freight follows people.

It supplies food and essential goods to homes and businesses.

Without vision and action, urban centers will experience problems in downtown.

We don't need business as usual.

Please adopt the amendment stating the need to plan for urban freight to support Seattle's growth.

Thank you.

Next up, Terry Holm, followed by Christine Vaughn.

Yes, my name is Terry Holm.

Thank you for hearing my testimony.

I'm with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and with Rainier Valley Greenways and Safe Streets.

This is in regard to Councilmember Hollingsworth's amendment proposed improving the safety of Lake Washington Boulevard.

For 35 years, I've walked the parkland paths along the Boulevard from Mount Baker Beach to Seward Park.

The park has become demonstrably less safe due to increasing motor vehicle speeds and volumes.

The roadway was designed 100 years ago for pleasure drives in the age of the Model T. In recent years, multiple cars have driven into Lake Washington and trees along the Boulevard are frequently subject to major injury or obliteration.

I know runners, walkers, rollers, bicycle riders, and drivers who avoid the Boulevard due to the safety concerns they have lost their park.

Please pass this amendment.

Thank you Council Member Hollingsworth for promoting the safety on the Boulevard.

Also, I want you all to know that members The sign-ins were not open at 8.30 as they should have been.

At least one woman I know did not testify today because she had to go take care of her kids.

So I would appreciate it if council would take care of that issue.

Thank you.

Next up, Christine Vaughn, followed by Lily Orth-Smith.

I'm Christine Vaughn.

I'm a 34-year craftsperson at Mike Bliss Market and the past chair of the PDA Council, past chair of the Market Historical Commission.

The PDA has been given the responsibility for the management of the market and the financial health of the market.

The PDA is on site to see the changing conditions of the market because the market on a Tuesday in February is not the same as the market on a Saturday in July.

If someone not on site makes a decision about the use of the street and there are unintended consequences that adversely impact the financial health of either the market or the small businesses therein, Who is going to make them whole?

How long will it take someone who's offsite to notice that things have gone awry?

And who will be willing to make up the shortfall?

In an ideal world, the PDA, the one with the fiscal responsibility for the market, would be given full authority over the management of the street.

Council Member Kettle's amendment to study the street recognizes the PDA's management importance to the market.

I urge you to adopt that amendment.

Thank you very much.

Next up, Lily Orth-Smith, followed by Heather Peel.

I just have a couple comments on Pike Place Market.

I've lived here for my whole life, and I just find it pretty difficult to shop at the market because of the number of people.

Last year, I sprained my ankle, and I tried to go, and there was just nowhere for me to walk.

I was trying to walk on the sidewalks.

The sidewalks were filled with vendor lines, and it was just so busy.

I was constantly getting knocked off balance, and then...

But if I'm walking the street, you know, I had limited mobility.

And so like having cars around, that was also scary because I couldn't get out of the way.

And even after my ankle healed, like if I go there, cars will honk aggressively at pedestrians and like tell them to get out of the way.

And that's, you know, quite concerning.

And with the number of pedestrians there, like I've actually wondered if you've considered like whether like a domestic terrorism, you know, attack could happen, right?

Like there's a ton of vulnerable pedestrians.

A ton of vehicles are like weapons, you know, people could just mow down a ton of pedestrians and that's, you know, quite concerning.

So that's what I have to say.

Heather Peel followed by Howard Anderson.

Hi, speaking in support of Council Member Kettle's amendment.

I wanna tell you the story that hasn't been told, not seeing it anywhere in the STP or in the news.

Pike Place is a significant feature and function of the Pike Place Market Historical District.

The Pike Place Market Historical District was created by voters initiative in 1971. That's not true of any other historic district in Seattle.

And it's very different from all the other historic districts in that the Market Historical Commission was created by the same initiative.

They are charged with making decisions over use and design changes in the district.

So use is regulated in addition to design.

It wasn't just a good idea to protect the market back then.

It's particularly important now.

The market may be the most authentic place business district left in Seattle because other neighborhoods have lost so much of their character.

The regulation and management isn't something you see.

Howard Anderson followed by Nick Steffen.

Thank you.

I'm here in support of the amendment 3 that Councilmember Kettle had proposed.

The Pike Place is at the center, Pike Place Street is at the center of the market, 24 hours.

And it is open, it needs to be open and easy access to the people that work and live down there and the small businesses it's really essential the pda is the overseer and manager of this unique complex there's nothing like it it's a community within our city and the pda should lead the pike place access review project as we move forward i encourage you to understand the merits of this hysteric district how we've resolved it in 71 It needs to be continued in the balance that it has now.

Thank you.

Nick Steffen, followed by Gordon Pedelford.

Good morning, everybody.

I want to thank Councilmember Kettle for his recent amendment regarding the Pike Place Market and to urge this committee to adopt that amendment.

As you've heard from a number of people today, the Market Preservation and Development Authority was created in 1973 to operate and assume fiscal responsibility for the market on behalf of Seattle.

and they have recently adopted a long-term master plan with an eye towards re-attracting our local audience.

We have seen how strongly many locals feel about how Pike Place, the street, is used, and the market community is simply asking for the opportunity to self-determine its own future, to study the implications of altering street use, and make sure that whatever solution ultimately prevails is one that both protects the community of 500 small business owners and 400 residents who call that place home and is of value to our local audience and to visitors to the neighborhood.

I work in the market, and I volunteer in the market, and I've learned that every issue in the market is nuanced and requires a diligent process.

That's what this outlines.

So thank you.

Please do it.

Do the thing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Gordon Pedelford, followed by Mary Baccarella.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Gordon Pedelford.

I'm the executive director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

I've got three quick points for you.

One is on the Pike Place amendment.

We just think it's not a needed amendment.

You know, SDOT already does a significant amount of process when it comes to these types of projects, especially when it comes to public space projects.

Their word is they like to co-design it with the community.

And then at the end of the process, they don't actually want to manage these spaces if they can get away with it.

They would love to have a place like the PDA manage the Pike Place street.

So I don't think that's necessarily a concern, and I don't think this amendment is needed, and you've heard from thousands of Seattleites who are very passionate about this issue.

Number two, on sidewalks, really grateful that this council is placing a large emphasis on pedestrian accessibility and safety.

Really needed.

I hope as the levy moves forward, we can fund more of that.

And lastly, on Vision Zero, which you're hearing a presentation about today, I would ask you to come back to you with clear needs for the levy so that we can fund Vision Zero and get it on track because that will need to be completed before the levy ends.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mary Baccarella, followed by Kevin Trout.

Good morning, I'm Mary Baccarella, I'm the Executive Director of the Pike Place Market PDA, and I'm here to support Council Member Kettle's amendment to add the Preservation Development Authority to the list of being part of this, leading this plan for the Pike Place Street.

And I want to thank you, Council Member Kettle, for making sure that we're part of that, because we didn't even know if we were before.

We know, we hear it all the time, there are locals that care about that street.

We know it, we're working on it.

We put together a master plan, 15 months to study the entire market.

That was part of it.

We also know how our community feels.

We did a survey during the master plan about how they feel, and they have a lot of ideas about it, and we need to start studying that.

If we don't study it and just make rash decisions that hurt the small businesses, it's been mentioned here, then who takes care of them if they hurt the small businesses who've been making money and then lose money?

This amendment allows all the critical parties And all the decisions can be made with the critical parties.

I thank Councilmember Kettle again, and I hope you vote for this amendment.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Kevin Trout.

So many microphones.

Hello, yeah, beautiful.

Hi there, my name's Kevin Trout.

I'm a member of Ballard Fremont Greenways.

I live in Ballard, but I come down to the waterfront and Pike Place Market actually quite a bit.

I've found some good bike routes.

It's beautiful, it's lovely, and yet when I get to Pike Place, it's pretty rough.

I mean, let's be honest.

And if we drove down there on a beautiful weekend day, it would be pretty bad.

And I want to be very clear, I'm all about the kind of flexibility where it's like, hey, let's do the thing that works really well.

And I think that's where some of the fear comes in is like, what if we do something that doesn't work?

And it does seem really hard for things to pivot quickly in this city.

So I've got a comment really just kind of about increasing our ability to be flexible in these processes, because I think it will make a huge difference.

And honestly, I'd love to learn more about what, you know, hear more about what people are really worried about so that we can work together on those issues.

rather than coming about things really sideways by just talking about one mode of transportation.

So let's talk about what we're worried about, deal with that.

Next up we have Reed Hampton.

Reed, I'm gonna unmute you and then please press star six.

Hi, folks.

My name is Reed Hampton, and I'm providing comment on an item within the purview of this committee, specifically the Route 40 Transit Plus Multimodal Corridor Project.

Firstly, I'd like to express my wholehearted support for this transformative project, which represents a prudent investment setting up our communities for success.

This project includes many pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements that will help us deliver on our Vision Zero commitment.

But equally importantly, this project, which I know has received nearly 1,300 emails and support from community members, will encourage Seattleites to choose the sustainable and more budget-friendly, from both the individual and the city's perspective, of public transit.

This project will save the over 7,500 daily riders nearly five minutes every day, which is over 625 hours every 24 hours, making this option more competitive, saving road space, and reducing the damage and the number of potholes to our roadways.

I look forward to seeing this project completed in the coming months and the many benefits that this project will bring to our communities.

Thank you for your time.

Next up, we have Ethan McHugh.

Hello.

My name is Ethan McHugh, and I'm a resident in Belltown.

I'm in support of Bob Kettle's amendment.

I'm just kidding.

But now that I have your attention, Councilmember, I read your amendment and justification.

Quite frankly, I feel disrespected and unheard.

The original text already gave room for deliveries and emergency vehicles.

Why even propose this?

I'll tell you, I've been there at a Tuesday in February.

And quite honestly, I don't like cars honking at me then either.

16,650 letters have been sent to your office in opposition of this amendment and in support of pedestrianization and yet no direct representation is given in your amendment.

The majority of high place market vendors are open to pedestrianization, but if the five businesses there started to be against it and get a seat at the table, then we should proportionally get 3,300 seats because having a market where the community is comfortable matters to us too.

Also, last comment.

Notice how all the comments in favor of the amendment are from the PDA, not the community.

Thank you.

Next, Ankur Dute.

Please press star six.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Ankur.

My name is Ankur and I live in District 7. I'd like to give public comment on Amendment 3 to the STP.

I encourage Council to vote no on this amendment.

Watering down the STP wording to not prioritize people walking or rolling is a step backwards.

A pedestrianized street can still maintain delivery of goods and emergency access.

Pike Place is the most pedestrian-dense few blocks in Seattle, and yet we dedicated a large portion of street space to moving private vehicles.

Amendment three moves us away from prioritizing people walking and rolling through Pike Place and I encourage the council to put no.

Thank you.

Next is Dustin Branham.

This has lots of potential.

My name is Dustin Branham.

I live in Ballard.

My comment concerns Councilmember Kettle's proposed amendment concerning Pike Place Market.

Pike Place has lots of potential to be one of the great American public spaces, but it's not living up to that potential.

And the reason is cars.

The safety and accessibility of a public street is not something the PDA should determine.

That's an SDOT issue.

I avoid going to Pike Place because the presence of cars makes the experience so hostile and disappointing.

Very few drivers are actually there to do business, and meanwhile, there's a sea of pedestrians who must dodge a few cars in order to be safe and enjoy the space.

Please let Pike Place achieve its potential by voting no.

Thank you.

Janet Chavez.

Hi, my name is Janet Chavez, and I'm a veterinarian living and working in Ballard.

Allowing cars in Pike Place is terrible for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers themselves.

Most drivers turn into Pike Place on accident, usually tourists looking for places to park and not realizing they will be stuck going two miles an hour while trying to avoid running over pedestrians that are trying to enjoy the market.

Pike Place is a good market, but it could be world-class, like Rue Claire and Rue de Flores in Brazil and Spoon in Denmark, to name a few.

Pike Place will never be taken seriously as a world-class destination until people are allowed to stroll leisurely and let their guard down.

This will never happen until guests to the market are no longer allowed to drive to the markets.

Thousands of markets thrive as pedestrian-only markets across the world.

It is very easy to allow vendors and not allow visitors of the markets driving the street.

Thank you for your time.

Devin McComb.

Good morning Chair Saka and council members.

I'm so grateful for this time with you and I only wish I could be there in person to speak on behalf and support of Councilman Kettle's amendment.

I want to take a moment to just thank him for giving the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority the opportunity to do its job.

I'm the current chair.

of the PDA Council, and I want to speak to how representative the Council is of the market community.

You know, we have members who are selected, of course, from our community.

We have members who are selected from the constituency comprising the sort of citizen group, and we have members that are appointed by the mayor's office.

And as a body, we have chosen to adopt a master plan that focuses the market on locals.

And one of the things I want to emphasize is that we are not saying we should close the street or we should open the street.

We are saying, please let the PDA and the Market Store Commission and the community lead this process.

And we ask your support.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Ben Serk.

I'm a resident of Capitol Hill.

I'm speaking against the proposal to have PDA have a voice in this.

What I'm not hearing is any ideas of why they need to have these streets open.

The majority of that traffic, 90% of it, is lost tourists making their way.

It's a lose-lose for both pedestrians like me and for the tourists who just took the wrong turn.

I think that vendors can operate outside of business hours and get special permits.

I would challenge those folks in the PDA to give a reason why that's not the policy they want to adopt.

Because frankly, I just don't see any reason for it.

We need to make a Seattle an enjoyable place and starting the way that we start with that is making Pike Place Market a place that people can walk freely.

So I'm just speaking today in full support of opening up those walkways and making this a walkable city.

Thank you.

Jonathan Gonzalez.

Hello.

My name is Jonathan Gonzalez.

I'm a resident of District 6. I'm calling to ask this committee to reject Amendment 3 and leave the Pike Place Adventure Project as it is written.

Walking along Pike Place, a market I have experienced frustrated drivers aggressively drive by me, nearly hitting me, and then continue down the street, nearly hitting other pedestrians.

This project is an opportunity to demonstrate place and prove that we can build spaces, prioritizing people over cars.

Making the mistake of driving through Pike Place Market doesn't need to be a rife passage in Seattle.

So please reject the ministry.

Thank you.

Shane Dombrowski.

Hi my name is Shane Dombrowski and I'm a resident of Seattle in District 6. I'm just phoning in today to oppose Amendment 3 and voice my support of a pedestrianized bike place.

I think it would be a great way to activate downtown and provide another public space for people first not cars.

Ever since the pandemic, demand is very clear that people in the city want more pedestrian first places where they feel safe to walk, bike, roll, and just move around under their own power end.

Markets throughout the world achieve this without detriment to business or people, residents.

So I just want to know why can't we do that as well?

I mean, Pike Place has such great potential and we squander it on non-essential trips and vehicles through it.

As other folks here have said, you can stand on the corner of Pike Place any day in the summer and watch as most vehicles just drive through the market.

I'm not trying to say we don't allow any traffic, but I think we have to reassess our priorities here and put people first.

So I appreciate your time and thank you.

Patrice Barentine.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Patrice Barentine, and I am vice chair of Pike Place Markets PDA Council.

I'm speaking in support of Amendment 3 to the transportation plan to allow Pike Place use to be evaluated by the PDA.

We have worked successfully with the City of Seattle on many issues in the past, including urging a transportation study of First Avenue, where the study actually showed the assumption of cars picking up and dropping off visitors was almost tenfold more than estimated.

We need to evaluate and study this further.

I appreciate your time and again support Amendment 3. Thank you so much.

Skip Knox.

Good morning, Council members.

I have had a lifelong association with the Pike Place market, and at one time I was chair of the constituency reference area that produces part of the PDA governing council.

I've heard a lot of comments which have come under the boogeyman scenario of cars in Pike Place.

Once in a while, there is an issue with some driver that's a little bit out of line.

Not anything near what happens on any other street in town.

There's a culture that just seems to be a natural thing that takes place when people enter a place driving.

They slow down and they recognize that people are walking and they're not in that big of a hurry.

I've watched the market for years.

The market is like an ecosystem, like the biggest plant in the world is something you can't see that lives underground.

If we mess with what we have there now, what the consequences are may not show up for a long time.

And by that time, it's too late to fix it.

We've got to move slow.

Hi, my name is Cecilia Black.

Hi, my name is Cecilia Black.

I am a wheelchair user and community organizer with Disability Rights Washington.

I want to first thank the Council for raising awareness on the state of Seattle sidewalks and especially want to thank and urge you to support Councilmember Saka and Councilmember Moore for their amendments to the STP calling for a once-in-a-generation investment in sidewalks and metrics requiring the construction of sidewalk and sidewalk alternatives on all missing sidewalks by 2044. This will transform the city and And it's such a massive step in addressing the status quo where people with disabilities have to wait 400 years to move in Seattle.

I also want to urge you to reject Amendment 3. As a wheelchair user, I want to say that Pike Place Market is a very stressful place to own a wheelchair from a car.

However, it has never been more accessible by car with the new waterfront elevators and connected parking garages that have numerous ADA parking.

Next up is Max Baker.

Hi there.

Hi there.

My name is Max Baker.

I'm a father of two small children here in West Seattle.

We're members of the Seattle Aquarium.

We're weekly visitors to downtown.

I've worked downtown for many years.

And in regards to Amendment 3, there have been a lot of things said objectively.

I want to use an anecdote in our personal experience that on our weekly visits to downtown with our children, we've decided to stop going to Pike Place We don't feel safe walking through that area with our children, especially the incident that involved three drivers getting into a road raid incident as they entered Pike Place, resulting in one woman being sent to the hospital.

It's just not an environment that we feel safe taking our children to.

We have family that visit out of town.

We've taken our nieces there, and they, you know, young children, that's good that they don't want to return because they don't feel safe.

We really need to be thinking about how we can make Pike Place itself safer for families all around and amendments.

All right.

Well, there are no additional registered speakers and we will now proceed to our items of business.

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

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Agenda item one, resolution 32131, a resolution approving the Seattle Transportation Plan and superseding the Transit, Bicycle, Freight and Pedestrian Master Plans.

All right, colleagues, this is, and procedurally, what we're about to do is Robert's Rules, intermediate to expert level.

This is not the standard type of procedure that we're normally accustomed to at this point.

I know Council Member Strauss is probably a seasoned expert on all the procedures, but bear with me.

And especially in light of the minor thing, That's going on.

But, yeah, so bear with me.

So I move to adopt resolution 32131. Is there a second?

A second?

Second.

All right.

There is a motion and a second.

We will now proceed with the discussion of the amendments that have been submitted.

Will our central staff member please join us at the table?

Thank you, Cal.

Beat me to the punch.

First up, amendment number seven, proposed by me, the committee chair, which is an omnibus amendment, including input from many committee members as well as members of the council.

It includes a statement of priorities for the levy and corrections to the original resolutions, including errata.

I would also like to make an oral amendment to section one to replace the word directed to the word requested.

Are there any questions or comments for me, the proposer?

Chair, I'm sorry.

I'm going to ask you these questions on the record.

Typically, I would do this beforehand, but I just want to confirm that this still requires SDOT to make these changes before the clerk stamps it for approval.

Is that correct?

Councilmember, there's no material effect to this.

It is a question of form.

Fantastic.

Job well done, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

It's an excellent question, and when I first learned of this, In my mind, this was a form over substance distinction.

And if the net effect is substantially the same, which I understand it will be in terms of SDOT, going back to the drawing boards and making these minor amendments to the Seattle Transportation Plan in light of the resolution that we adopt today, then, hey, that's great.

So, but excellent question.

And I also want to welcome our esteemed colleague, Council Member Moore.

Welcome, Council Member Moore.

All right, so we have that open.

Are there any other questions or comments on Amendment 7?

All right, hearing no further questions, I move that the committee adopt Amendment 7 to Resolution 32121, inclusive of the oral amendment, replacing the word directed with requested.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt the amendment number seven.

Are there any further comments?

Just one.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, for that clarification and getting the central staff second of that opinion as well.

I appreciate it.

May I make a comment?

Yeah, absolutely.

Go ahead, Council Member Moore.

Okay, thank you very much.

Yes, I just wanted to thank Chair Saka for working with me to incorporate the provisions relating to additional sidewalks.

And just to say that we are on the same page, and I really appreciate the cooperation, and I look forward to making sidewalks a reality.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Appreciate your thoughtful leadership on this issue.

It's an important one that impacts all of us.

All right.

So, hearing no further questions, I move that the committee adopt Amendment 7 to Resolution 32121. There's a second.

Pardon me.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 7. Any other final questions or comments?

All right, hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor.

All right.

Next, Vice Chair Hollingsworth has offered amendment number eight.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Yes, I would.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

So I want to thank the chair for the opportunity to speak and then also for our central staff.

I know you all work hard hard, hard, hard, hard, hard behind the scenes.

This amendment specifically is, we know that cars that have sped down Lake Washington have sped up to 70 miles an hour, even though it's 25 miles an hour for that street.

There are narrow right-of-ways.

I've talked to a number of business owners that are in Leschi community that are right on Lake Washington Boulevard that often feel like it's a speedway cutting right down through their small businesses.

And it's hard for people to walk across the street, even though there is a crosswalk there, but at times it's difficult as drivers have been on Lake Washington Boulevard going extremely fast.

And so this amendment is for us to take a look at that and figure out different ways in which we can make it a little bit more safer for everyone on Lake Washington Boulevard.

So I appreciate the committee's opportunity to present that and would it, ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Are there any other questions or comments for the proposer?

Chair Saka?

Yeah, go ahead.

I'd like to thank Council Member Hollingsworth for this amendment, and I recognize the issues that we have with Lake Washington Boulevard.

As chair of the Public Safety Committee, we're working a number of things to include to the points that Council Member Hollingsworth was just speaking to as part of our strategic framework.

We have an ordinance.

We're working these issues, building on the experience of working the Hellcat issue in Belltown, and it's a citywide issue.

And so we're working these issues as part of our strategic framework and generally within the public safety committee with, you know, traffic and pedestrian safety, the ideas of Vision Zero, safe streets of school and the like.

And so we will work on the Lake Washington Boulevard safety issues through those points that I just mentioned.

So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Chair Saka, I have a question, actually.

So I drive through there.

Thank you so much for putting forth this amendment.

I agree that it's a little bit of a sticky point in trying to walk across the street, trying to shop in that area.

When you say safety improvements, what do you mean, like, specifically?

Like, looking at certain...

Great question.

Visibility, so repaving some of the sidewalks.

There are sticker bushes that are on the west side, like greenscapes along the west side of Lake Washington Boulevard, ensuring that there's no parking signs along there, because sometimes people do park along there.

It creates a narrow pathway.

There are also some traffic calming ways in which, whether they're speed bumps, you know, different ways in which we can create a little bit safer traffic patterns for cars.

So it's those safety efforts.

Anything, and let me clarify as well, this is anything north of I-90.

So it's particularly in District 3.

Thank you.

All right.

Hearing no further questions, I move that the committee adopt amendment number eight to resolution 32121. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt amendment eight.

Are there any further comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Of course, yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor.

I think the of course yes is in the latest version of the Roberts rules.

Love it.

All right.

Next, Council Member Kettle has offered amendment number three.

Council Member Kettle, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Chair Saka, yes, I would.

Thank you very much.

And two weeks ago, I submitted an amendment to pull the Pike Place Event Street number 65 from the Seattle Transportation Plan as part of a two-step process as noted in my remarks.

I will note that in the last two weeks, I've learned that not everybody watches the Seattle Channel and seen the full remarks.

In those remarks, I noted I am supportive of greater uses of streets, but I also noted that each location needs to be cited on unique circumstances of each location.

And Pike Place has very many unique circumstances related to topography, geography, some of the historical impacts.

There's many unique circumstances.

So each location...

to include the Ballard Avenue Northwest, as we heard from the speakers, or Lake Boulevard, as we just spoke about.

Each location needs to be inclusive of all stakeholders, and in the case of Pike Place, that includes the many pieces of the Pike Place market, the organizations.

I recognize, though, it's better not to have a two-step process, and with the second part outside of the STP, as I was initially thinking, but instead, the amendment now matches my remarks and is included in the Seattle Transportation Plan.

This amendment has been vetted with SDOT, and they had two suggestions, and we accepted both suggestions, and they're included in the new language of the amendment.

I also spoke as well on the public safety side with SFD, Seattle Fire Department, and we have the notes about emergency access and public safety.

This is important, little things like when it was noted that fire engines and ladder trucks can't back up hills.

Little things like that are part of the process, and we really need to account for the public safety aspects of this, and specifically in this case, the requirements of the Seattle Fire Department.

In the end, though, this is about good governance, as it needs to have the business, the public safety, and the need to engage all stakeholders.

And this is especially the case for the Pike Place market organizations.

You know, in addition to my point about SDOT and fire, it's also important for us to take into account the fact that if you go to the Department of Neighborhoods website, they speak to the historical district.

And so I think from the good governance point of view, I think it's really important to engage all stakeholders to bring the PDA in because if you don't, It's going to go to the hearing examiner.

If you read the Department of Neighborhoods write-up of the historical district, we can see how that's going to go.

So much better to do the good governance piece up front.

And so with that, I really want to also take into account the new master plan.

So we really need to engage all stakeholders to include the District 7 neighborhood organizations in Belltown and downtown.

There are some that were part of this morning's public commons, plus citywide, like the Seattle Neighborhood Greenway.

So I specifically request that the Seattle Neighborhood Greenway is included in this review process.

It's really important that they are.

The Ballard Group, I didn't quite hear the name, but I specifically would like to invite them as part of this, you know, review of the Pike Place, you know, bring them in.

And I'm not sure where the speaker is, but definitely bring them into the into the discussion.

And I've met with Ms. Cecilia Black on the issue of sidewalks and other issues.

I definitely would request that Disability Rights Washington and Cecilia Black be part of this review as well.

Because if we get all these voices, particularly the PDA, due to its unique responsibilities for Pike Place, we'll get a better answer that will be good for Seattle moving forward.

So thank you everyone for, you know, support of this.

I recognize there's some that I've heard those voices.

But if we have this inclusive, good governance piece that takes into account all those points to include those that mentioned in the comments, both here in person and online, that will be will get to a better place.

So thank you very much, Chair Saka.

And with that, I turn it back to you or any other commenters.

Chair?

Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Councilmember Shaw.

Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember Kettle, I just want to thank you for your thoughtful amendment because what you've described is essentially the framework that we used for Ballard Avenue.

It's just written down and put into legislation.

It's not something that we have to make hard.

It's just something that we have to include everyone so that we all move forward together.

The fact that we're on April 16th, so that's three months, 16 days, and you've already met with all of those people, it demonstrates how committed you are to working with many different voices across our city.

So just want to appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Chair, Sokka, can I?

Yeah, yeah, please.

I, too, want to thank Council Member Kettle and everyone who submitted letters, phone calls.

I think...

The evolution of this amendment kind of has been moving around, and I think it's in a good place where it's bringing everybody together to the table.

We always think about what makes Pike Place Market Pike Place Market.

It's the small businesses, and it seems like we've heard from a lot of people except from the small businesses among flower farmers.

So we'll love to see what comes out of this review and what everyone at the table has to say before moving forward.

All right.

May I say something, Mr. Chair?

Please, Madam Vice Chair, go ahead.

Okay, thank you.

I don't want to...

I'm echoing the same thing as our colleagues, as Council Member Strauss and Council Member Wu.

I wanna definitely thank Council Member Kettle for a lot of hard work that you did behind the scenes and bringing everyone together and getting a viewpoint that I think is much needed, especially for Pike Place.

So just wanted to thank you for bringing the amendment together.

So thank you, sir.

Awesome.

All right, well, The same issue germane to the first amendment that we took up is applicable here as well, given the structure.

So you'll see how that kind of plays out in a moment.

But, so are there any final questions or comments for the proposer on this?

I think everyone's had a chance to speak.

So hearing no further objections, I would like to make an oral amendment to section one of Councilmember Kettle's amendment three to change the word directed to the word requested.

And I move that the committee adopt amendment three to resolution 32121 with that change I just stated.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, it has been moved and seconded to adopt the amendment number three.

Are there any further comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

No.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and one opposed.

All right.

I move that the committee recommend adoption of resolution 32131 as specifically amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution as amendment.

Are there any further comments?

I apologize.

I meant to say yes for your amendment.

I was confused about my apologies.

I know that threw you off.

I apologize.

I was voting yes for your amendment to this amendment.

The language, the language change.

That is my apologies.

Okay.

I don't know how we do that in Robert's roles.

I apologize.

I was...

So, no worries, no worries.

So we have...

On the floor, we have an amendment where we adopted all the amended amendments just now to the underlying resolution, to the base resolution.

And the amendment number three has been duly voted on, so it's off the table.

But right now, what we do have the opportunity is to vote on, again, the amended amendment to the base amendment.

Very confusing.

So you will have an opportunity to vote again.

Understood.

Thank you.

Chair, as a member of the prevailing side of the vote, I could request a recall of that vote.

Would you like me to do that?

I'm seeing no.

Let's keep moving.

Keep moving.

Yes.

All right.

Yeah, we'll keep it moving.

All right.

Well, the clerk...

So it has been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution as amendment.

Are there any further comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of resolution 32131.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor.

All right, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that council adopt resolution 32131 as amended will be sent to the April 23rd, 2024 city council meeting.

Congrats colleagues on getting that across the finish line at the committee level.

I learned a lot personally, sausage making process, the nitty gritty details that go...

that involved being a legislator a lot of close collaboration um with communities with you all and your staff behind the scenes with our central staff experts i appreciate calvin uh and and our transportation central staff experts and sdot the collaboration to um to you know keep keep this moving moving along uh so we will now move on to the second item of business will the clerk please read item two into the record

Agenda item two, State of Eston Assets Briefing.

All right.

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

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Good morning, I'm Greg Spotts, Director of Seattle Department of Transportation, and I'm joined by Bill Laborde, our Council Liaison, Elizabeth Sheldon, who's our Chief Infrastructure Engineer, and Elsa Tibbetts, who's our Pavement Engineering Manager.

And we're really excited to present to you a backgrounder on our efforts to manage the particular asset of the roadway in the city, and how that relates to our broader asset management strategy.

Are we going to start the...

So previously, we've come and presented on two of our seven major asset classes.

We presented on our bridge asset management program.

and we presented on sidewalks.

And today we're presenting on two additional asset classes, our arterial roadways and our non-arterial roadways.

And this is a great opportunity to share sort of some of the underlying principles of how asset management works.

Often in cities, The first asset that gets a sort of lifecycle asset management strategy with a database is the road surface.

And that's because at some point in the past, the federal government started requiring localities to pursue those strategies in order to compete for federal dollars.

uh for for repaving and so um uh in la i worked on this topic quite a bit uh the bureau of street services and when i joined sdot i was very pleased to find a robust pavement management system in place and some terrific experts like the two that i have here with me today next slide please these are our vision vision mission values and goals that we begin all of our presentations with So today we're gonna talk about asset management strategy in general and how that informs our pavement management system and principles.

We're going to give you an overview of the street network in Seattle, including the various pavement types.

We're gonna talk about the condition of the various types of pavement that we have in arterials and non-arterials, and the preservation strategies that we're employing.

And we'll also talk about how we go about implementing our pavement preservation activities, some of which are delivered by contractors and some of which are delivered by our own city crews.

Next slide, please.

So zooming out, our asset management strategy identifies seven key high-value assets, arterial pavement, non-arterial pavement, sidewalks, bridges, traffic signals, retaining walls, and areaways.

Areaways are those hollow areas under the sidewalk or street like we have in some places like Pioneer Square.

And as you can see, the two green colors are the two types of pavement.

So nearly 50% of the asset value of the public assets that SDOT manages are embedded within the road surface.

And so with that, I'm going to hand it to our chief infrastructure engineer, Elizabeth Sheldon.

Thank you.

So give a little general background on pavement management systems.

I'm sorry.

Yep, yep.

I thought we were sticking on that slide for just a moment.

May we go back?

Thank you.

Noticing on this slide that this is done in lane miles.

Question here is 24th Avenue Northwest was reduced from four lanes, two in each direction, to one lane each direction with the center turn lane and bike lanes.

Does this reduce that number?

Because in my mind, that doesn't reduce the amount of space on the street.

I can answer that.

Lane miles is a measurement of the area of the roadway in between the curbs, not how that is programmed.

Fantastic.

So that wouldn't change.

Thank you.

Thank you, and colleagues, I'll ask for these two presentations that we sort of table our, any remaining questions or comments we have until the very end.

Oh, sorry.

No, I didn't make that clear up front.

Now it is, thank you.

All right, so a little bit of background overall on pavement management systems.

What a pavement management system does is basically you can input all of the information about a street from the classification, the pavement type, and the area.

And then you input also what ideal treatments you would like to see over time.

And with that information, and then you can do a condition assessment of the street per a standard visual inspection.

And with all of that information, then what the pavement management system does is look at standard curves of how pavements deteriorate and are able to predict both the network condition in the future, and then also recommend the right treatment at the right time at a network level.

So it basically creates a pool of ideal candidates for you to use to determine what streets you would like to resurface or pave.

Seattle and SDOT implemented Street Saver around 2000, maybe a little bit before that, and has been doing continuous inspections on arterial streets over that time.

And so we have a good history of how the streets behave and what we've done and how the treatments impact them.

Less frequently, we've done non-arterial inspections.

I think we've done two rounds since 2000 to get a good idea of what the state of the streets are.

And then once we have the ideal candidates, we have kind of a large pool of candidates to draw from for our paving program.

And then, so then we look to other city policies to how to best pull the specific streets that we want to treat from that larger group of candidates.

So we look at things like if there are any transit changes or serving the most people with the heaviest transportation needs, or if there are good freight corridors that would benefit from additional paving.

To look at the pavement types, this is important because different pavement types require different treatments.

So we want to look at how many streets are asphalt versus concrete, and there are some pictures in the next slide that you can look at, versus chip steel, and looking at kind of our stone block or cobblestone streets.

And then we have a small percentage of gravel or dirt roads.

And also looking at whether they're arterial or non-arterial, because again, that will drive kind of the way we can treat the roads.

Let's go to the next slide.

Looking really quickly, so here are some examples.

So when we talk about asphalt streets, what do we mean?

It's usually kind of a darker color and continuous pavement versus a Portland cement concrete street or a PCC street that has individual concrete panels.

And looking at those, they have different treatment recommendations over time and different costs to implement.

So really want to be cognizant of the different types of streets.

Concrete streets are generally the ones where we can install and then the maintenance treatment is pretty minimal for those over time.

Whereas we look at some of the streets in the industrial areas that still are dirt or gravel and those require significant grading and work every year to just be functional.

Switching from the pavement types to the pavement conditions.

So one of the things we do is every three years or so, do a full inventory of our arterial streets to get a standard pavement condition index that will fall into several categories.

So looking at this, this gives you an idea of kind of what a street, if we're talking about a street in good condition, what it looks like versus a street in serious condition, what it looks like.

They're still functional, but they have different impacts and different treatment requirements.

So looking at Seattle's pavement condition in a map, one of the things I like to highlight here is looking at some of the streets that are kind of in the north end that were annexed or down in the south are in really good condition.

And that's because we've had a long, ongoing preventive maintenance program for those streets.

And they get pretty light traffic overall.

So they're streets that we can maintain in fairly good condition at minimal cost.

Again, looking at it in condition in a different way, looking at it by the overall percentage of the pavement network.

One of the things that I want to call out here is if you look at based on the overall area, we have over 50% and almost 60% of our pavement network in the good satisfactory and fair condition.

So overall, there's a huge percentage of our pavement network that's in good condition.

Switching.

So now we have kind of the pavement type and the pavement condition index.

So we'll look at kind of the different treatments that we can apply based on the different pavement condition indexes.

So looking at those streets that are in good condition, generally we do nothing.

They're in good shape.

Once you get into the satisfactory condition, again, for concrete streets, still likely do nothing.

But for asphalt streets, it's really important to start treating those either with a slurry seal or a crack seal to prevent water from getting in and weathering and kind of the sun and environmental impacts.

Once you look down to the fair and poor condition, we're looking at doing more serious treatments to be able to maintain those streets over time.

And then once you get into the very poor or serious condition, you're looking at reconstructing those streets.

A little bit on preservation strategy.

One of the things to note here is that over time, if you continue with preventive maintenance, you can extend the life of a street at a fraction of the cost of the overall treatment.

I think our last 2018 or so cost estimates and current cost estimates put a slurry seal at around $25 a square yard, whereas if you're looking at an overlay, it's in the $275 a square yard.

and rebuilding is upwards of around $700 a square yard or almost $800 a square yard.

So you're looking at a significant impact to the cost if you aren't maintaining the streets that you have in good condition.

So we're gonna switch up a little bit and look at a couple examples of what those types of...

treatments are, and Elsa's going to walk through the next couple of slides.

Yeah, thank you, Liz.

So over the next few slides, I'll walk you through some project examples that showcase the variety of pavement repairs we use when making repairs to our assets.

An example of preventative maintenance, as shown in the photo here in the slide set, is a slurry seal application.

Think of this as your sunscreen for some streets.

This work encompasses surface treatment with isolated structural repairs and then you seal it to keep the water out and ultimately preserving it.

We perform this work on a grid system and make our way through grids on an annual basis.

And on the next slide, we have an example of major maintenance, minor rehabilitation.

This covers larger corridor projects where you typically find that the appropriate repairs to grind down the existing fair to poor conditioned asphalt and repave it with new asphalt, ultimately restoring the surface condition.

So a good example of that would be Southwest Avalon Way or sort of in the Northeast, 35th Ave Northeast.

Some structural repairs are completed with this approach and you will typically see a life extension of five to ten years.

Let's see, as I was discussing in the prior slide where we're talking about asphalt repairs, here's an example of concrete repairs for major maintenance.

This is where several panels need to be reconstructed or rehabilitated.

This repair method is applicable to panels that need to be restored that are sort of in clusters, so like multiple panels.

You can think of it like Sandpoint Way where we've been chipping away at repairing several clusters of panels throughout the corridor.

Or it could be an individual isolated panel repair and we would consider that like a concrete spot repair.

Let's see, now we move into the major rehabilitation or reconstruction type project as Liz was talking about.

This is a project where streets are in need of full reconstruction and the unsuitable sub grades need to be restored.

Since this is a brand new road, it's like a blank canvas and we have full flexibility to envision its use.

These are typically streets that are in poor and serious condition.

The key to making this project successful and more cost effective is partnering with utility stakeholders to offer the opportunity to upgrade their utilities during construction.

This type of project restores the assets lifecycle back to its original value of 30 to 50 years.

Some other stopgap measures that we use are pothole repairs.

These are for streets that are in poor or serious condition.

Last year, we filled 25,000 potholes.

80% of the potholes within 72 hours have been our typical goal after receiving a request.

Temporary repairs, these are temporary repairs to make streets safe for the traveling vehicle until more permanent repair can be made.

And my final example before handing it back over to Liz is a surface overlay project.

Surface overlays are the medic one or the ambulance to perform pavement repairs to our network.

These are the streets that are in poor serious condition or have isolated defects.

The spot repairs are typically repaired by our asphalt and concrete crews since the pavement defects are typically larger than a pothole repair and the pothole larger than a pothole crew can make the repairs to.

Pavement repairs could be, you know, 10 foot by 22 foot section of road up to like a few blocks long.

They typically do not make pairs to the subgrade.

So Liz, I'll hand this back over to you.

So we talked a little bit about kind of the different treatment options and want to talk a little bit about the teams that deliver on those.

Starting with kind of the emergency and stopgap maintenance, we have our right-of-way maintenance and urban forestry crews.

These teams are geographically based, and so they're the first ones who respond to pothole repair, or if there's a call that comes in that needs urgent service, they'll come in and make it safe.

And it's It could be a pothole filling.

It could be a larger surface repair.

It could be something of adding warning signs to make the condition safe until we can get to making a larger-term repair.

The second group is our pavement signs and markings division.

This is also crew response, but it's project-based rather than looking at geographical area kind of as things come in.

And they're the second response to pavement issues.

So they look at repairing things in a longer-term basis, but still crew work so that it can be pretty flexible and responded to quickly.

And then the final is our capital projects.

And they're the ones who are delivering the larger overlay projects that are multi-block long or the reconstruction projects.

So it's project-based.

It's a long-term project to get from initial idea to construction and can be multiple years, both in the making and the delivery.

With that, a little bit of summary about what we deliver.

So crews deliver about six to eight lane miles and 60 spot improvements annually.

In addition, we have kind of a combination project where the crews will do the prep work and we'll have a contractor do slurry sealing of about 30 to 40 lane miles annually.

And then our arterial asphalt and concrete program delivers the large concrete preservation and reconstruction through capital projects.

Let's go to the last slide.

A little bit of history on kind of our paving dollars and lane miles.

One thing I want to call out here is this includes total investment.

So this is inclusive of both previous levies and grant funding and other local funding that comes in.

So it's a little different than what you might see in the future when we're talking about levies specifically.

And then looking at lane miles, we were able to deliver just under 300 through bridging the gap and the additional funds in that time period, and 250 from 2016 till now.

And so you'll see, you know, definitely call out that the difference in lane miles really happens when you get different treatment options, right?

So if you're looking at more reconstruction, you're delivering less miles, whereas if you're looking at more asphalt overlays, you can deliver more mileage.

With that, I think we can open it up for questions.

All right.

Thank you all very much.

Colleagues, are there any questions?

No?

Yes.

Oh, oh, sorry.

I'm looking straight at people, but there's hands raised on this virtual screen as well.

So yeah, go ahead, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

In terms of the preservation strategy slide on, I believe it was slide 11, How much is there coordination with SPU?

And the reason why I ask is that, for example, you know, we have neighborhood issues in Queen Anne.

where there's a water leak.

And, you know, somebody who may be sitting on this diocese also is a block watch captain and a snap captain, may put in a couple find it, fix it, or maybe call in regarding a water leak that needs to be repaired.

And it's also contributed to the, you know, the state of the road in that area.

So what is the coordination?

Because you can fix the top, but because it hasn't been fixed underneath, it's going to be a problem again.

I was just curious on the coordination with SPU.

Yeah, so the quick answer is there's a lot of coordination at all different stages.

So starting at the very beginning, when we just have an idea of what pavement we might want to look at as far as that big ideal candidate pool, right?

One of the conversations we have is with SDOT or with SPU City Light and the other utilities that are underground.

looking at coordinating if they happen to have a project that's also on our kind of ideal candidate list that will make it rise up a little bit in the prioritization.

And then we also start coordinating really at early stages where we are having a 0% design and are looking at how we want to what treatments we might want to put for that street and whether or not it makes more sense for utilities to come in first.

We obviously want to pave, well, stripe last if necessary, but, you know, pave second to last and start with the deepest work first and work our way up.

Thank you.

How about when a road looks good but isn't?

And I'll just give...

I'm speaking from a city hall perspective.

Cherry Street between 4th and 5th, it looks good, but something got spilt on the road, particularly on the northern side of the street.

And particularly if there's like a rain like yesterday and people are trying to come up the hill, you don't know how much rubber has been burnt on Cherry Street between 4th and 5th.

I just want to point that out.

I just bring it up as an example that it looks good to the eye.

but it isn't because something got spilt on that street and it's created a condition where it's not effective.

Just throw that out there.

Regarding major rehab, two questions here, and you probably answered it in terms of the coordination.

I really like the East Marginal Way corridor piece in terms of strengthening it.

And I was curious because I've been promoting the port and understanding what the port needs to be viable 100 years from now or at least in 2111 on its 200th anniversary.

Have you heard from the port in terms of what areas need that kind of treatment?

Have they said, hey, this is a map in terms of what we're looking at in terms of servicing the port, in terms of that specific things like the heavy load?

Have you gotten anything from the Port of Seattle regarding that point?

Go ahead.

Yes, we have.

There's a heavy haul corridor map that we collaborate with the port on, and we even have a program to co-invest with them in spot improvements and paving projects on that special subset of arterials.

Excellent.

And one last coordination, King County Metro.

I bring this up because there's many examples where they really need those concrete pads, and I think a lot of times they're put in place where there's bus stops but sometimes the bus routes have, you know, they're coming up to a stop sign.

And I can tell you from personal experience, if you go over that, it's like a wild ride, you know, going down the rapids because of the, you know, the road has been so deformed from the weight of the buses because it's just asphalt.

Is that kind of coordination piece?

Do you hear from the driver saying, you know, I almost broke my back on 6th Avenue West in Queen Anne?

We do, yeah.

And we have a separate program called Transit Spot Improvements that can be improvements to the pavement, the curbs, the sidewalk, anything that helps support transit to flow more smoothly.

Okay, great.

I'll talk to the drivers next time I see them.

I do.

All right, colleagues.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, thank you.

Councilmember Kettle.

Colleagues, any other questions, comments?

Chair, may I?

Yes, you may.

Thank you.

And if we're going to hold comments to the end, I'd request we don't drop the PowerPoint because you know me, I always like to go back to a slide.

So it was the good versus bad slide.

Trying to find it on my own screen here.

I believe it is slide eight.

Thank you for numbering your slides.

This was, I just really appreciate this because this is a very clear example, rather than trying to use words to share what you mean between good and serious, especially the difference between poor and serious.

I can tell you that there's a road, I will not name the road, but there's a road in my district that I thought was poor.

And after seeing this slide, I would determine that it is serious.

This has been, I've had constituents reach out to me about, so I've submitted a pothole, find it, fix it, but the pothole runs from one block to two blocks down, because it's like what you're showing on the Sirius, that trenching, and it's actually worse than what is on this screen.

So I've instructed these residents to fill out find it, fix it, and that that's the proper procedure, but we're now maybe a year plus after I gave these instructions, and the road's still in that condition.

I'm sure that, and I'll follow up with you after committee about the specific location, And so you can kind of give me more feedback.

I'm not trying to put you on the spot here.

But in these situations where we're instructed to tell residents to find it, fix it, Councilmember Saka, the king of filling potholes, it has been reported to him that most potholes are filled very quickly.

But here I have a road that's in serious condition for two years plus.

What do we do?

How can I help you?

How can you help me make sure that everyone's expectations are clear?

Go ahead.

So I think a couple things.

Looking at that street in serious condition, there are some streets that it is appropriate to fill potholes, and it's a, you know, it looks like a pothole.

And then there are other streets where a pothole fix just won't, it's either too big or too...

type of defect.

And so then we need to look at how to do more of a surface treatment that's a little bit more intensive.

And unfortunately that takes more time to deliver, right?

And so it would be good to look at what the specific street is and how we can treat it so that it will hold.

Well, let me just take it to the next step.

So it is 24th Avenue Northwest, second time in this committee that I've referenced this street.

And the trenching, so serious slide, bottom photo, you can see that there's trenching close to the yellow middle line.

I can tell you on 24th it's worse.

And it goes from 80th to 85th.

So when my residents have filled out the Find It Fix It, they say they receive a response that yes, it's been completed, but the problem still exists.

How do we, and I requested a statement of legislative intent a couple of years ago, requesting a better understanding of how do we communicate with Seattleites.

because for them to find it, fix it, it's returned that it's fixed.

We hear at committee that all the potholes are being fixed very quickly, yet here's a two block long trench.

How do we share information out in a more, that gives a very, because if the whole road needs to be ripped up to be repaved, that's a valid answer, but that's not what's being communicated through the FIFI reports.

One of the challenges in this field, in this type of work, is the small asphalt repairs are a request-driven service, whereas the larger projects are not actually customer request-driven.

They're driven by the pavement management system.

And so, sometimes, constituents get frustrated because they keep requesting that a small street gets major repairs, but the pavement management system may not identify that as the most cost-effective use of resources, and those are the most complicated conversations to have with the public.

Sure.

And yes, but what I'm asking is two years ago, I was instructed to tell a resident to fill out a FIFI report.

They did, they received a response.

We're now two years down the road.

The road is still in the same condition and it's actually worse than the worst picture that you show on this slide.

So I'll follow up with you after committee because we don't need to get on the spot.

We don't need to go back and forth.

What I'm trying to share with you is the importance of communicating with residents to set clear expectations so that the residents don't feel like there's a pothole problem and have you come to committee and tell us there's not a pothole problem when we just went around this barrel.

So I'm going to leave it there.

I think you all do great work.

That's where I'm going to leave this today.

Thank you.

And Elsa and her team are happy to talk to any constituents that you feel need some close communication.

Thanks.

No deal.

All right.

Well, thank you, Council Member Strauss.

And I will be honest, when the conversation around potholes came up, I was looking at some of my other notes and looking at other areas of the presentation, and then my interest sort of peaked up.

When you say potholes...

I get, yeah, really interested.

Council Member Strauss, you said I'm the king of potholes, but- Repair.

What's that?

King of pothole repair.

King of pothole repair.

But we learned, that may or may not be true, but we learned today, yeah, I aspire to be the king of pothole repair, but also king of pothole prevention.

And we do prevention through things like, you know, the structural, the major maintenance, and minor rehabilitation, also major rehabilitation, excuse me, and reconstruction of these surface streets.

So let us all be kings and queens in royalty of pothole repair and also pothole prevention.

because that's how we do it.

And to be honest, look, all these cool titles of made up royalty, king, queen of potholes, it's cool, it's kind of funny, but to be honest, sometimes Council Member Strauss, you're gonna need to be the king of potholes.

And sometimes Vice Chair Hollingsworth is gonna need to be the queen of potholes or pothole prevention.

And I'm gonna be relegated to just being the Earl or something, but my point is we can all win.

and we are a pothole royalty.

Having spent some time with the frontline crews that do this work every single time, every single day for our city and add value and have true impact for our city and have great, show taxpayers great bang for the buck, I'll tell you that they are the true kings and queens of potholes, and we're all essentially baronets and baronesses to the workers who do this work every day.

So thank you all.

Thank you, Director Spatz for this.

Understandably, the focus of this presentation on the state of assets was on the state of our roads and pavement, but would just be curious to better understand, and I know this is something in the works, but on our bridges, what's the status of the bridge strategic asset management plan, and when is that expected, roughly?

So, you know, all these asset management activities are ongoing.

There isn't actually, like, a sort of PDF document that means you've completed the process because you have to continually update condition information, run analyses, obtain funding from council, and make interventions.

We've completed all the recommendations of the bridge audit that we had, and we've now also, you know, we've got to, like, life cycle expectation for each of the bridges.

And the analysis derived from that is a significant input into what is in the mayor's proposed levy.

So I'm very pleased that there's much more richer asset management information that has informed this levy proposal than any of the previous ones.

And as we start to get into that in future hearings, we'll bring forth some of the data that supports that.

Yeah, no, thank you.

Thank you for that.

And glad to know that some of those inputs have informed the draft levy proposal.

I also don't think that's any substitute for creating and adopting a formalized official plan on record for, you know, a bridge strategic asset management plan.

And, you know, I'm definitely keen to see that and my sense is other other council members are as well.

We'll definitely invite you back later this year to get a more robust update solely on that really important topic.

But thank you for, and I look back, we got a State of the Bridges presentation.

There was a cursory mention about a month ago when we had it about the strategic asset management plan.

So like I said, we'll invite you back later this year and we'll have a more focused conversation about that and look forward to that.

Also, just curious, while we're on the issue of roads and pavement, is there a similar effort underway to look at strategic asset management plan for specifically for our roads and pavement, similar to bridges?

Because it looks like under this chart, there is what?

Double digit and billion dollars in road between arterial pavement and non-arterial pavement, $15.8 billion under this graph and over 4,000 lane miles of arterial and non-arterial streets.

That strikes me as something that warrants a more formalized plan as well, given the volume and scope of the asset class there.

Is there a similar plan in the works to create and document an asset management plan specifically for roads and pavement?

I would say that the SDOT's asset management for the pavement is the most mature and longstanding.

So I'm not sure there's a need to develop a plan per se because these activities have been going on for 20 years.

But when we start to talk about the paving parts of the levy, we'll bring forward different investment scenarios so you can see how we got to the amount of money that's suggested.

Basically, the levy proposal is sort of your eight-year investment plan on this asset, short of obtaining federal grants or other money.

All right.

Well, thank you again, Director Spatz, everyone.

Appreciate this presentation.

We will now move on to the third item of business.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Agenda item three, SDOT Vision Zero Briefing.

All right.

Will our presenters please play musical chairs?

Swap seats and join us at the table and share your presentation.

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Good morning, everyone.

Honorable Committee Chair Saka, Vice Chair Hollingsworth and esteemed committee members.

Thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Venu Nimani.

I'm the Chief Safety Officer and the City Traffic Engineer with Seattle Department of Transportation.

And today I'm here to present and give you all a briefing on our Vision Zero program.

Thank you.

Next slide.

Yeah.

Let me first start by reaffirming our vision, mission, values, and goals.

In our Vision Zero efforts, the primary focus is always on safety, but we also uplift other core values of equity, mobility, sustainability, livability, and excellence in all of our work as a department.

Next slide.

In today's presentation, I'm going to give you a brief overview of our Vision Zero, tell you about its origins as a movement, touch upon our top-to-bottom review, and give you kind of like a progress update on our momentum-building actions, introduce you to the Safe Systems approach, and highlight some of our past projects and systemic investments, and give you a brief overview into what's coming next with the Vision Zero.

Next slide.

Before we move on and dive into our presentation, let's all observe a moment of silence to recognize those people who have been impacted by deaths and serious injuries on our streets.

Thank you.

These are just not numbers.

Behind each one of these is a person who's a loving family member, who's a neighbor, a supporting friend, and these are kind of like collective loss.

Let's acknowledge the impact of deaths and serious injuries on our streets and remind our souls to humanize these losses.

Next slide.

So Vision Zero is our safety initiative to end threats and serious injuries on our streets by 2030. It's founded on six key principles.

The traffic deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable.

Humans make mistakes and are vulnerable and fragile.

Success hinges more on the design of a safe system than on individual behavior, and responsibility is shared, and safety is proactive and redundancy is crucial.

Next slide.

As a movement, Vision Zero has its origins in Sweden back in 1997. It's spread across Europe and North America, New York City being the first jurisdiction to adopt it in 2014. We have now over 50 jurisdictions across the country that have signed on to the Vision Zero policies and initiatives, and we ourselves have launched our program in 2015. Next slide.

In spite of these Vision Zero initiatives, in spite of these Vision Zero initiatives, as a country, we have fallen behind our peers today.

Traffic safety is a national issue, and the story is same across our state.

Despite our own challenges, Seattle as a city is doing slightly better compared to our other peer cities over the last five years.

Next slide.

Here is a snapshot of our traffic collisions since the start of our Vision Zero initiative.

Our traffic fatal collisions have peaked in 2021 and have seen a modest drop in the overall total number of fatal collisions on our streets over the last two years.

We have seen a much substantial drop in the number of people who are walking involved in traffic collisions on our streets.

But the story is slightly different on serious injury collisions.

Across all categories, our serious injury collisions are going up.

These trends will give us a hope, also kind of like indicate that we have a lot more work ahead of us, ahead of us.

So where are these crashes occurring?

As you may be familiar, that not all communities in Seattle share an equal burden associated with these traffic deaths and serious injuries.

Neighborhoods in South Seattle are most impacted by these traffic collisions, crashes, and serious injuries, with downtown and neighborhoods in the north end of Seattle falling.

Since the council undertook the redistricting in 24, we are seeing the highest concentration of fatal and serious injuries shift from District 2 to District 1. That's because Soto has a significant number of these collisions that occur on the streets within Soto.

Next slide.

With our crashes trending and moving in the upward direction, Director Spatz, as one of his first tasks upon appointment as the mayor, has commissioned a top-to-bottom review of our Vision Zero efforts in September 2022. The results of this review were published last year, last spring, and after public feedback have been finalized in summer of last year.

This review took an in-depth look at how SDOT is approaching safety and how we can better align our practices to achieve safer outcomes.

The forthcoming Vision Zero plan, which is the last task within the top-to-bottom review, will be another step towards operationalizing the various recommendations within the top-to-bottom review.

Next slide.

The top-to-bottom review has established 12 broad recommendations and over 100 suggestions on how to align Vision Zero work within the Department of Transportation.

These recommendations are broadly centered on adopting the safe systems approach, incorporating Vision Zero into every project and program, strengthening our internal processes and culture around Vision Zero, and addressing equity along with safety.

So this top-to-bottom review was not just a report and internal review, but we also launched momentum-building actions and given the immediate action that's needed around safety.

We have implemented a new policy around restricting right turns on right at signalized intersections and installed these restrictions at 73 new intersections last year, bringing our coverage to about 20% across the city.

We have also installed what we call leading pedestrian interval, or LPI, but what's collectively called as a pedestrian head start signal at over 100 locations last year, bringing the coverage across the city to about 70%.

We have also embarked on a partnership with Sound Transit and completed several priority safety improvements along the MLK corridor and continue to do so more every year.

And we have also partnered with BIPOC communities, community-focused organizations, to conduct engagement and better understand automated safety cameras and also responded to a statement of legislative intent on expanding this tool across newer school zones.

I myself have taken on additional responsibility as chief safety officer to align responsibility, authority, and accountability with respect to all safety decisions within the department.

So as I've introduced the idea of adopting safe systems approach in top to bottom review, let me take a moment to expand on what safe systems approaches.

This is a historical move for the US Department of Transportation to adopt a safe systems approach as they did in January of 2022. It's a paradigm shift in how we approach safety.

The principles of safe systems approach are very similar to the principles of Vision Zero, but it has five essential elements on how all safety efforts are to be organized.

And safer streets and safer speeds are two key elements that we, as an SDOT, have significant influence on how we shape our streets and shape our safety outcomes in the coming times.

Next slide, please.

The Federal Highway Administration, in addition to publishing and adopting the safe systems approach, has also published a number of proven safety countermeasures.

This is basically a database of what safety countermeasures work best to improve safety, and it's backed by national research.

So we have kind of like taken those safety countermeasures, and we are trying to kind of like incorporate those more into our daily practices, and also thinking about how to deploy them at scale citywide.

Next slide.

So to operationalize our Vision Zero approach, we basically take a very data-informed approach to prioritization.

We do have certain data layers or data elements, like where the collisions are occurring, where are high injury networks that are reactive to what safety problems that we see on our streets.

But we have also, over time, developed our bike pedestrian safety analysis expands that particular data element and incorporates the various geometric factors, various land use factors, and gives us a more predictive way of identifying our potential locations where safety improvements are much needed.

So we use all these data elements and combine it with our equity considerations, community engagement, and what opportunities exist within various capital projects to identify our list of Vision Zero investments as we move forward.

Next slide.

So let me take a moment to highlight some of our past projects and the safety outcomes.

Here is kind of like Rainier Avenue, phase one, where it stretches between South Alaska Street and South Kinney Street.

On this particular street segment, we have implemented a road reconfiguration.

We have reduced the speed limits and improved transit efficiency and signal enhancements.

And the results were very clear in terms of the safety outcomes.

We were able to reduce all crashes by 15 percent, injury crashes by 30 percent, and speeding by about 50 percent on the corridor.

We continue to pursue additional treatments on Rainier Avenue because it's an important corridor for us in the south end.

Next slide.

And here is kind of like another example that I'd like to highlight.

This is Northeast 60th Street between, it's the west segment between Ravenna and 20th Ave Northeast.

Similarly, we have implemented, reconfigured the roadway, implemented a new center turn lane, implemented protected bike lanes, reduced lane widths, and provided better transit amenities.

And the East segment, too, has similar safety improvements.

And when we conducted a before-after study, it was clear that there were a significant reduction in crashes by about 60%.

And we were able to also influence speeding.

And interestingly, kind of like when we provide that kind of infrastructure, then they get used.

It's true that they say that build and they will come.

And yes, they did come here.

Pedestrian volumes increased, biking volumes increased along the corridor, which was kind of like a good safety outcome for everybody involved.

Next slide.

We not only invest in individual projects and identify locations on where we should make our safety improvements, the way we also think about is systemic.

And how can we identify systemic safety improvements and scale them across the city?

One such mature strategy that we have is what we call the leading pedestrian controls or the pedestrian head start signals.

Basically, these give pedestrians a three to seven head start at locations before turning traffic gets a green, thereby making pedestrians more visible to turning traffic and reducing the potential for crashes.

We now have about 70% of our signals have this feature, and we continue to work to spread this across our entire network.

And the results kind of like at our local level are just as good as the national level.

We have seen that about 48% reduction in turning crashes involving pedestrians and 34% reduction in serious and fatal collisions at locations where we have employed the strategy.

Another systemic treatment that we have implemented is the reduction in speed limits.

The chart on the right very clearly connects the severity of a collision with the survivability of a vulnerable user in a collision.

What we have done is we have reduced speed limits through a policy to 25 miles an hour across our arterials in the city.

And an evaluation done by an independent organization, Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, concluded that this just policy change and posting speed limit signs at more frequent intervals had resulted in 11 to 20 percent reduction probability of being involved in a crash.

Speeds, safer speeds, continue to be an important element within the safe systems approach, and speed limit reduction is a part of that larger strategy to tackle speeding on our roadways.

We continue to pursue a lot more arterial traffic calming projects to influence speeding and reduce the severity of any collisions on our streets.

Next slide.

So what's next?

We are working very diligently to complete our last and final step within the top-to-bottom review, which is to prepare kind of like a Vision Zero action plan.

This plan is going to be a three-year action plan.

It builds on the foundations of the top-to-bottom review review and the recommendations.

And it establishes an aggressive strategy and very specific measurable actions for not just the Vision Zero program, but for the entire department.

Vision Zero, as a movement, not just resides in one program or within one division within SDOT.

It is an entire, it's a department-wide effort when an when one of our crews goes and trims trees that improves sight lines that results in safer outcomes, or when our signal engineers retime signals to help pedestrians cross more safely across the street.

These are all Vision Zero efforts.

And this Vision Zero Action Plan, while identifying very specific actions within the Vision Zero program, also identifies and pulls together all the actions that are being undertaken across the department and puts together Vision Zero as one program that's endorsed by the entire department and the safety culture that we are trying to build within the department.

With that, that's the end of my presentation and I'll take any questions.

All right.

Thank you, Chief Safety Officer.

That's your title, right?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, awesome.

Thank you.

Colleagues, do we have any?

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the presentation.

I had just a couple questions.

Why do we think a lot of people are getting, I saw 20% and alarming, over 20 plus percent in D1 of people being hit.

Why do we think that?

I know that I'll be like Councilmember Strauss and wanting to go back to the slides.

There we go, 20 and 22%.

Is that like not having sidewalks?

Is that Rainier?

Is that MLK?

We definitely have a lot of challenges in District 1. There is an infrastructure, and the philosophy behind developing that infrastructure was, in the past decades, was more oriented towards one mode.

So right now, we are taking a safe systems approach, and one of the key things in there is to consider the needs of all road users.

So we have a lot of challenges, and we have several projects that are looking to improve the infrastructure and conditions for all road users in D1 and D2 and Soto and various other places where some of these arterial streets were...

designed with a philosophy that comes from a different time.

Yeah, understood.

Got it.

Thank you for that.

And then my last question, this might sound kind of stupid, and I'm sure people have asked you this before, but I have seen a ton of streets where the paint is just like peeling and you might paint something, you know, one year and the following year, it looks like it hadn't been painted in years.

Is there a certain type of paint, like a better paint that we can use or something where it's like less, where less peels comes up just so that, intersection continues to look fresh and the sidewalks?

Yeah.

We have different kinds of what you can colloquially call paint.

One is like it's actually a paint.

That's the variety that peels off really quick.

But all important, like, stop bars, like crosswalks, are all marked with what we call thermoplastic, which is much more durable.

And awfully, kind of like we have been doing a lot of our pavement markings with what we call a product called MMA, stands for methyl methacrylate, which is a lot more durable than thermoplastic.

So depending on the situation, we try to choose a product that gives us the best service life on our streets.

I understand.

Thank you.

So Vice Chair Hollingsworth, excellent question.

I had the same ones when, you know, I kind of began my journey to better understand Vision Zero, the federal safe systems approach and its impacts on our city here.

And why are certain districts more impacted than others?

And one thing that I learned is, you know, throughout this process is that SOTO which used to be in District 2, so our colleague Councilmember Morales' district, who up until redistricting recently had the highest proportion of, you know, traffic accidents or traffic fatalities.

And my theory was that because I picked up SOTO that, you know, that would mean my district now.

And I was right.

But it's unfortunate.

And, you know, I think...

Regardless of and I'm glad this visual depiction is there.

I'm glad you all included that But I think it's clear at least from my perspective that this is a shared challenge I don't I don't care if people's districts are 10% one one death is too many We're 22% like mine.

And so, you know, I think we have an opportunity as a council to better make progress on achieving our Vision Zero goals.

And so that's why I would be very curious to understand the current status of that action plan and talked a lot about it.

As the name implies, 2024 to 26, presumably it'll be released sometime later this year.

So we'd love to better understand sort of one, where you're at and the drafting of that and two, when roughly approximately can we expect to see that release?

So our action plan is really kind of like in the final stages.

We are going through our mayor's office review right now.

So I'd say kind of like within about a month from now is when we are anticipating publishing it.

Thank you.

All right.

Chair?

Yes, but before I get to you, I want to acknowledge Councilmember Kettle, who had his hand up first.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you, Chair Saka, and thank you, Chief Safety Officer, for joining us, along with Francesca and Bill.

I appreciate it.

Clearly, Vision Zero is a priority for this council.

It's a priority for us, at least for myself, coming from the Queen Anne community, working these issues.

And so I really appreciate your work that you're doing.

And as I make my way around District 7, I'VE BEEN NOTING THE CHANGES.

YOU KNOW, THE POINT ABOUT THE TIME DELAY ON THE WALK SIGNAL VERSUS THE TURN SIGNAL, FOR EXAMPLE, OR THE NO TURN ON RED SIGNS, I THINK ALL OF THOSE MAKE A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE, AND I'VE NOTED WHERE THEY'RE BEING PLACED, AND IT MAKES SENSE, AND THERE'S PROBABLY MORE AREAS TO BE DONE AS WELL.

AND SO I APPRECIATE THOSE THINGS.

AND, YOU KNOW, NOT MENTIONED HERE TOO, AND I'M GOING TO BUT MY COMMUNITY CHAIR HEAD ON TOO, IS I ALSO APPRECIATE, BECAUSE I'VE BEEN NOTICING for whatever reason, on the Queen Anne Boulevard, there's a police officer that will be in a certain place, no doubt because people were speeding as they come around one bend of the Queen Anne Boulevard.

And, you know, this is...

You know, a side effect, you know, again, the loss of officers that we don't have, you know, the Traffic Enforcement Division, you know, at full staff.

And so a byproduct of our efforts on the public safety side will hopefully help on the traffic pedestrian safety side once we get our staffing numbers up and Traffic Enforcement Division is able to do its piece too.

Going to the briefing, I noticed, you know, very interesting, like, with bikes seem to be trending positive.

You know, I note, like, 2nd Avenue, talk about signals.

I mean, that's a great system.

I see right here on 4th, you know, improvements in that same line, and then there's always the east-west connectors and so forth, and I can't really speak to the other districts, but I've been noting these changes within District 7. And then there's the other areas, like motorcycles and mopeds.

So I have to ask, because I've had so many constituents concerned about e-scooters, how are they classed?

Are they considered, quote-unquote, a moped, or is that something different?

So they're all kind of like under the RCW, called as electronic personal mobility assistive devices.

In the current traffic collision report, that's the format that's prescribed by the Washington State Patrol, they don't have kind of like a special place to identify that kind of device that's involved in a collision, but we are doing some extra scrutiny and trying to develop an understanding on e-scooter collisions and how and what we can do to encourage more safer behaviors on their youth.

That's good, and we should, you know, be encouraging the state to follow our city's lead, because that is a big issue.

You know, when they're going down, again, 2nd Avenue, just like the bikes, everything's great, but as you noted, not everybody's behavior is the same, and that's a big concern to the pedestrians, particularly in downtown and Belltown.

I see it more there than other parts of District 7, so, again, can't speak to the rest of the city.

I also noted, too, and you kind of answered it, but it was quite stark, you know, the difference between D3 and D6 on either side of D7 in terms of that same slide, and all of a sudden, 17, that's quite a jump up, particularly when, you know, the northern part of D7 is quite like, you know, Magnolia and other parts of District 6, and then downtown has some shared with D3, but then there's this, you know, stark difference between, you know, the 10% areas around, except for to the south, and...

Is there anything that you could speak to that in terms of District 7, and particularly in contrast to Districts 3 and 6?

What we are seeing kind of like is that most of our high-engineering network and high-collision networks are more in the south end.

And even though kind of like we have fewer percentage points than kind of like other districts, that does not mean that we don't have kind of like issues and challenges within those areas.

We try to kind of like, when we are trying to prioritize, we try to take a look at the entire city as a whole and use a data-driven approach to invest in all districts.

There are some districts, typically kind of like these align with more affluent and advantaged communities where we are seeing fewer crashes and serious injury collisions.

And most of the impacted people are on the communities where people with disadvantages live, which is the South End.

So yes, kind of like some of our districts have fewer collisions, but our focus is more citywide and trying to prioritize our investments across the city.

Okay.

Thank you, everyone.

Also, thank you to Director Spatz, who just walked out.

I was going to say thank you for his point about the find it, Councilmember Strauss's question regarding, you know, the find it, fix it piece, and then there's the larger class in terms of the roads, which also plays into Vision Zero as well.

So we can engage in a two-step process, one on the lower level in terms of the, you know, residents in terms of find it, fix it, and then, you know, understanding where that line is, and we can engage with SDOT on the bigger issues.

So thank you.

to Director Spatz, who's left on that.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Kittle.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, seniors.

We're three minutes over.

I'm going to be quick.

If we could go to slide 20. I'm gonna just run us through a point where I'm gonna share bad news, couch it with good news, share bad news at the end.

So I was hit by a driver driving 35 miles an hour plus accelerating.

So on this slide I had doing back of the envelope math, three out of 10 chance to survive.

We'll get to the end of the slides to understand why that's significant.

If we could go up to, and I have gone at length about this in previous council meetings, so I'm not gonna bore you all even though you haven't heard the story.

Moving up to slide unnumbered 12. Director Spatz has left, so he doesn't get to hear the good news, but elevating your position from the city traffic engineer to chief transportation safety officer has made an incredible impact.

We've already seen your work at play.

It's really important.

It's critical.

I have not seen this much Vision Zero and pedestrian safety and just people safety done.

I feel like in the last decade, that's been done since you were elevated.

And I know a lot of that was in the works, but just elevating that has really made an incredible improvement.

I won't go down my two page list of where people want crosswalks and roundabouts in my district.

You know that it's two pages, I've told you before.

Thank you for all you're doing.

And my urgency to you is, actually, if we could go to slide, also a number looks like nine.

But I'm gonna give you the charge of let's do more, let's go faster.

Something that's similar to SOTO and to District 6 is the industrial district that does not have good crosswalks, not good stop signs.

I'll come and ask you about stop signs after the committee.

That is a real problem.

If we could go up to slide eight.

This is my final point, which is why I'm asking you to go further and harder.

Your data goes back to 2015. I was hit in 2004. I still have chronic pain.

I have note cards on the dais here to write people note cards, but I have a limited amount of time that I can write because of the chronic pain that I still have from being hit by this driver.

Serious injuries.

are not highlighted in slide nine, where you're only looking at fatalities.

The charge that I'm giving you today is that there are twice as many people as your data shows that are living with serious and chronic pain from being hit on our roadways.

And we cannot wait for lives to be lost We can't even wait for serious injuries.

I had a rollover collision in the district at an intersection that has been on this two-page list of requested roundabouts.

The neighbors have been requesting this for over two years, and there was a rollover, and that data is not on your sheet.

That's my point.

let's go harder, let's go faster.

I don't want to have to wait for a life to be lost or a serious injury to occur for an intervention because as chair says, we need prevention.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your kind words.

And I'll also want to thank you for your support and support from all of the council members.

Safety is really important and getting a lot of support from our mayor's office, our director spots, deputy director Stefan here has set a really important tone when it comes to safety within the entire department, not just the Vision Zero program.

And I'm confident that we are going to see better and more safer outcomes for our city.

Yeah, so thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I particularly appreciate your comments and your willingness to be vulnerable for a bit and share your unique perspective on this really important issue that impacts all of us and the whole city and all of our constituents and very profound.

Yeah, so this is obviously a very important, urgent issue, and as evidenced by the fact that this body, this committee specifically adopted a resolution as amended prioritizing and up-leveling better, faster, more urgent progress on our Vision Zero goals as part of the Seattle Transportation Plan.

And we expect that to see, we expect to be able to fund specific improvements and have projects that do exactly that.

And I'm glad to hear that the Vision Zero Action Plan is nearly finalized and CAN BE EXPECTED TO BE RELEASED IN ABOUT A MONTH AND I'M SURE THAT'S ALREADY INFORMING THE MAYOR'S PENDING FINAL PROPOSAL TO BE RELEASED LIKELY IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS BECAUSE I KNOW IT WILL DEFINITELY INFORM THE FINAL PROPOSAL WILL DEFINITELY INFORM OUR OWN deliberations at the at the council level but definitely see strong alignment between the executive and the legislative body on this issue and you know we we have this urgent opportunity to do more and I think you know the strong and shared commitment to doing that I I have a couple of quick questions comments myself what So there's this notion of shared responsibility that's baked into, you kind of captured a couple areas in your presentation, one in the safe systems approach, and then one kind of up-leveling, bottom-lining, like a few key highlights of what Vision Zero is exactly.

Can you expound upon a little bit what is specifically meant by shared responsibility, or responsibility shared?

Absolutely.

So one of the key principles within the safe systems approach is that shared responsibility.

If you look at kind of like our collisions, our fatal collisions, right, about 20% of them are the result of driving under influence or driving with some kind of alcohol or drugs in the system.

That is 20% of the overall number of collisions on our streets.

And that is what I mean by shared responsibility.

Yes, safe systems principles say that responsibility is shared, and we as a DOT have a huge influence on how we design our system.

and how we operate and maintain our system, but that responsibility cannot be completely on one our department or the city government in itself.

There is a little bit of responsibility on individual behavior, too.

We are very poised, and we fully understand how to make streets safer, and we are doing more and more every day to make our streets safer and using the safe assistance principles.

But it's also just as true that that responsibility is shared, And I want to kind of like take inspiration from our Mears vision of One Seattle.

It'll take the entire kind of like One Seattle for us to achieve our Vision Zero goals with SDOT playing a very primary and significant role, but it'll take all of us to get there.

Yeah, thank you for that.

And so, as I understand it, this notion of responsibility is shared as it's not just the responsibility of governments or agencies, policymakers and planners like yourselves.

It's yes and it's, it goes down to the individual level for various modes as well, which thank you for that explanation.

And also great to see on one of the slides there that sort of where we stack as a city relative to other major metropolitan areas across the nation that have Vision Zero goals as well.

Yeah, that's good to see, but it's also very clear that we have much more progress needs to be made.

And so this one captures fatalities, who knows where we stack relative to serious injuries, but yeah, much more progress to be made.

So, and then I will say what specific type of policy options and design features are available to advance In the case of the safe systems approach, each of the five sort of broad individual safe system categories like safer people, safer roads, et cetera, what are some of the specific policy options and levers that we can pull and more specific granular level design features that we could potentially implement to advance each of these or pick a few?

I'll give you a few examples because we kind of like elaborate, we will be kind of like elaborating that in our Vision Zero action plan.

But for example, under safer roads, right, when we kind of like design or redesign our street network and our roadway network to accommodate all road users, to accommodate people walking, biking, taking transit, whatever road they choose to get from point A to point B, we kind of like, we get two safer outcomes.

This could mean redesigning our streets, having sidewalks on segments, giving good transit and bicycle connections between neighborhoods, between points of origin and destination.

And trying to kind of like embed that within our Complete Streets Policy and applying kind of like our Complete Streets Policy to all of those projects is at a policy level that we could pursue.

We kind of like, when it comes to safer speeds, we have implemented a policy to reduce speed limits on most of our arterials citywide several years ago.

And we have seen some safer outcomes as a result of that, but we have kind of like a lot more work to do to now reconfigure or bring the design so that the design of the roadway itself is self-enforcing and we tackle speeding in a number of ways.

When it comes to, say, for example, safer vehicles, And now policy, this is where kind of like we don't have direct influence or those safety elements, but pursuing or advocating for safety features within vehicles, truck side guards, for example, and trying to incorporate them into the larger fleet will result in safer outcomes.

So there are policy level tasks that we could perform under each of those five safe systems elements that we could pursue as an organization and as a city to achieve safer outcomes.

Thank you, Chief Safety Officer Amani.

And I personally be keen to better understand what are some of those specific policy levers in that pending forthcoming Vision Zero Action Plan document that we can pull and consider for purposes of this levy, obviously, but also on a continuing ongoing basis for annual funding of the department.

So more to come, I guess, colleagues on that as well.

What is, in your view, what is the single, so you mentioned some proven safety countermeasures, PSC, and you also mentioned in the slide that SDOT is working to deploy these PSCs at scale citywide.

So whether it's implementing those PSCs or implementing the federal safe systems approach more broadly, what are some of the biggest impediments to implementation that you're seeing and biggest barriers, biggest blockers to faithful, fast execution and implementation of the PSEs and the safe systems approach?

I wouldn't necessarily kind of term it as an impediment, but what I want to bring attention to is that we have a massive system and we need, one of the things that we, the, a new way of thinking about how we are going about is to look at these proven safety countermeasures and always think about it at scale and how we can implement them citywide.

And that seems to be kind of like one of the challenge that we are tackling within the department.

We have seen where we have implemented those kinds of systemic improvements, as you saw with the reduction in speed limits or putting more pedestrian head start signals, we have seen safer outcomes.

So we are developing that strategy on how to deploy these proven safety countermeasures more at scale and how to kind of like get them as the challenge that we are focused on.

Got it.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll continue the conversation.

Thank you for this.

Really helpful.

And thank you, colleagues.

Any other comments, questions?

No?

All right.

Well, we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

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

All right.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

It is 1148 a.m.