Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities Committee 3/7/23

Good morning.

Welcome to the March 7, 2023 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We'll come to order now.

The time is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Sawant?

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Peterson.

Present.

Represent.

Thank you and I'll announce other Council Members as they arrive.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

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

First on our agenda, we have a presentation on the recently released top-to-bottom review of the city's Vision Zero traffic safety program.

Second on the agenda, we have the Seattle Public Utilities solid waste plan update back to committee, this time for a vote.

And finally, we have an early briefing on a requested alley vacation in South Lake Union for a future research facility.

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

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

We have about 10 individuals signed up online and about four individuals signed up in person here.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

I'll start with the speakers who have signed up here in the council chambers, and then we'll go to those who have registered online.

The public comment period for this meeting is normally up to 20 minutes but I'll go ahead and extend it now to 30 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak per our council rules.

I will call on two speakers at a time and in the order in which they're registered on the council's website and on the sign-in sheet here in council chambers.

If you've not yet registered to sign up or to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website or by using the sign-in sheet near the public comment microphone toward the front of this council chamber.

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

for all public commenters.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you're addressing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll begin with the first speaker on the sign-in sheet.

So if you've signed in, get ready, and you're here physically, get ready to speak.

First, it'll be Kathleen Dunn, followed by Rachel Schaefer.

And be sure to pull that microphone really close to your mouth so we can hear you loud and clear.

Hi, I'm Kathleen Dunn.

I live in West Seattle.

I'm here to talk about street safety.

I'm part of the old G, I guess you call it, in the community of people who walk and bike to get around in the whole city.

And I've seen a lot over the years.

I have since 1996. We have gone out and crowdsourced safety projects.

We've had the Neighborhood Street Fund and Your Voice, Your Choice.

Thousands and thousands of people have submitted safety recommendations in those programs.

And yet those programs seem to be dead.

There's a lot of loaf hanging fruit in those programs.

One of them is putting in four-way stops on the steep streets where people speed up and don't even see that there's this pedestrian at the other side of the intersection.

We also have freeways in West Seattle.

One is 35th Avenue Southwest, which was partially road dited and due to what I don't know delays, lack of funding or fear of feedback pushback from the driving community.

we stopped and didn't do the other side of it.

People live on both sides, parks are on both sides of that street and it's a freeway and people speed.

The other is Admiral Way, I live on Admiral Way, the east side of Admiral Way, I go up in my car or on my bike and people are going 60 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone.

At the top, they crash into people's houses and people live up there, they need to cross the street.

I think we're afraid of road diets.

We're afraid of pushback.

There's been a fear throughout SDOT and a lot of what they call public process and engagement.

But people scream and yell.

And at the end, when they finally put in a project, it all dies away and nobody talks about it anymore.

They just accept it.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Rachel Schaefer, followed by Kevin Trout.

Welcome, Rachel.

Good morning.

My name is Rachel Schaefer.

I work for Cascade Bicycle Club and I get around by biking, walking and taking transit because I do not own a car.

I want to thank you for requesting a briefing on the Vision Zero top to bottom report today.

This may be the report that the Department of Transportation needs, but I'm not sure that it's the report that the public needs to see and know that action is being taken today and every day to make sure that our streets where we live, play, shop, and more are safe for us to get around.

You'll probably hear from many people today and have heard from before.

So many people for whom getting around Seattle without a car is a struggle and a constant worry.

S dot reports that there are 28 deaths on our streets last year.

And while this is unacceptable and devastating.

It does not even count the ways the traffic violence shows up elsewhere, like through chain life changing and chronic injury from being hit by a car.

or the fear and anxiety of crossing a street that you know is dangerous, but it's the only place you can cross, or the struggle of trying to focus at work when just this morning you had to yank your kid out of the way on the way to the bus stop from them being hit as well.

And I'm a bicycle advocate myself, and I don't even ride by myself that much anymore because I'm constantly on high alert, witnessing dangerous driving behaviors happening all around me and trying to anticipate which one's gonna come towards me next.

Really no one wants to be a statistic just for leaving their house.

So I'm asking you all today to hold the department accountable to the safe streets improvements that they've laid out in this report, and to make sure that they act swiftly.

There are really a good number of recommendations in there, but they have to be turned into actions.

They must be backed up by funding, proper staffing, and most importantly, the political support from the administration to make these important decisions, like ultimately slowing down vehicles.

for people getting around safely.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Next we have Kevin Trout, followed by Gordon Padelford.

Hello and good morning everybody that is both here as well as watching online.

My name is Kevin Trout.

I live in Ballard.

I'm a member of the Seattle Neighborhood Grain Waste Group and I'm just really a concerned citizen here to speak about Vision Zero and just street planning more generally.

It's pretty wildly unacceptable in my opinion that we have a city that was built around streetcars and transit that is now completely dominated by cars and people and children dying on the street here.

is is by choice, frankly, and I've got a speech here but apparently I'm just going to wing it because I feel passionate about this, which is, this is a series of choices that have been made and are continuing to be made by members of the administration both the mayor as well as some members of this council, right, to not fund and not support due to, I don't know, is it just political will that you don't see, that you don't hear?

I'm here to try to convince you elsewise that the voices of the people driving cars don't need to be the only voices of the people that are actually speaking right now because there are people dealing with unsafe conditions all the time on these streets.

And I just think it's completely unacceptable.

And it's one thing if we think that, you know, it's just, this is the way it is, but this is a series of choices that continue to be made.

And that's completely unacceptable because we have the ability to make different choices.

And so part of what I'm inspired by is a city that had a similar plan, to make the streets safer and then actually did something and that city is Amsterdam in the Netherlands, who actually took this very seriously and decided to make different choices by redesigning streets resurfacing getting different right of ways for different modes of transit.

And they've made remarkable strides.

And they didn't mean to set themselves out as this like by capital.

They meant to make themselves safer.

I think that's exactly what we have the opportunity to do here.

And I highly encourage everyone to do so.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Gordon Penelford, and then we'll go to our online speakers.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Gordon Padelford.

I'm with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

And I guess, you know, this is a report, and if I had to give the report a grade, I would have to grade it incomplete.

Unfortunately, while it has many good internal reform recommendations, it doesn't have the action plan that's going to get Vision Zero back on track, which is what everyone is really hungry for, including you all, I'm sure.

You know, and there's the 8020 rule I'm sure you've heard but I think there's an 89 rule here in Seattle, which is that 80% of pedestrian fatalities are happening on just 9% of our streets, those multi lane arterials that are so busy and divide our communities, whether it's 15th and Ballard.

Whether it's 35th Ave Southwest like Kathy mentioned, Rainier Ave or MLK in Southeast Seattle where we see so many crashes.

These are the dangerous streets that we need to be fixing, and this plan when it comes back to you in a final form needs to contain bold recommendations for how to do that.

And as Council, I know the executive has a lot more authority over this sort of thing, but holding the executive accountable to fixing those 80% of pedestrian fatalities on the 9% of our streets is really, really key if we're going to reach Vision Zero and keep everyone safe.

A few other things that Council could act on, looking at a no right on red policy citywide.

thinking about can we reinvest all of the automated enforcement camera money?

Currently the red light camera fund goes to the general fund.

Can we put that money back into street safety, like daylighting intersections, crosswalks, that sort of thing?

And then third, do we need some sort of new complete streets policy to hold SDOT accountable to reforming their internal priorities and incentive structure around safety, right?

We have an outdated complete streets policy.

clearly not working for us, otherwise we wouldn't be here this morning.

And so are there policy levers that council can implement that would help get Vision Zero back on track and support the department in this work?

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're going to move to our online speakers.

So get ready if you're listening online.

First, we're going to hear from Ankur Doot, followed by Jordan VanVost.

Go ahead, Ankur.

Good morning.

My name is Ankur.

I live in District 7, and I'd like to give a public comment on Vision Zero.

Our city does not make it easy to get around without a car.

Last year, over 70% of all traffic fatalities in the city were people walking or biking.

Since the Vision Zero review was initiated, 13 of our neighbors have died while walking or biking.

We must ensure all capital projects have safety as a top-level success metric.

In the upcoming repaving of the Ballard Bridge and 15th Avenue Northwest, a six-lane arterial SDOT is spending $16 million to turn the most dangerous road in Ballard into an even better racetrack.

15th Ave is a type of street where over 90% of Seattle's pedestrian fatalities occur.

This failure shows that our complete streets ordinance needs to be stronger.

15th Ave running through Ballard is classified as an urban village name, which means that, quote, the design of these streets encourages slower speeds.

Anybody who's traveled along 15th knows that this is not true.

The SDOT team acknowledges high speeds and high collision rates along the corridor.

Such data should surely mean the repaving project is required to implement traffic calming measures, right?

Wrong.

Instead, the recommendation is to actually remove pedestrian crossings deemed too unsafe.

Any re-channelization of the roadways dismissed due to throughput concerns.

As the Vision Zero report states, we must be willing to reduce vehicle travel speeds to improve safety.

We should take this further, not just be willing to, but mandated to reduce vehicle travel speeds to improve safety.

Vision Zero is not a compromise.

It is our commitment to having zero serious traffic injuries or fatalities.

Seattle is in a pedestrian safety crisis, and we need our elected officials to lead the effort on reshaping our streets.

It's time to reverse the half century of auto-oriented design and make streets as places for people once again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I do want to note that Councilmembers Herbold and Sawant joined us prior to the start of public comment.

Councilmembers Herbold and Sawant are here.

Next, we've got Jordan Van Vost, followed by Catherine Wells.

Go ahead, Jordan.

Good morning.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

My name is Jordan van Vost and I'm calling in support of the recommendations made by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways to improve SDOT's Vision Zero review, which can be found in the November 4th issue of the Urbanist.

I live on 31st Avenue South in Seattle, which is posted at 25 miles per hour, but in the 11 years I've lived here, based on daily observation, The average vehicle speed is 35 and every week I see cars doing 45 and sometimes 60 like the woman who spoke about Admiral Way earlier.

There is no stop sign or traffic light for nearly a mile.

It attracts speeders.

I organized a petition to bring attention to the problem which over 100 of my neighbors signed but it fell on deaf ears at SDOT.

Eventually, my street will join Rainier Avenue South, MLK, Junior Way, Ballard Avenue Northwest, and others as another death statistic if something does not change.

The question we need to ask ourselves is when will SDOT stop clinging to a vision of urban living where the whims of people driving cars is prioritized over neighborhood, pedestrian, and bicycle safety, reduced vehicle exhaust, and the climate?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Catherine Wells, followed by Wendy Weicker.

Go ahead, Catherine.

Good morning, Council Member Peterson.

My name is Catherine Wells.

I'm a member of West Seattle Bike Connections, and I'm here to speak about SDOT's Vision Zero report.

I ride my bike everywhere I can but it's frankly scary when I see people driving dangerously.

It happens regularly.

I've been tailgated and honked at on stay healthy streets that are supposed to be mostly closed to cars.

A speeding driver killed Rob Mason near Harbor Island last summer and at his memorial car after car flew past at far above the speed limit.

I want our streets to be safer than this.

The Vision Zero report outlines many of the steps we need to take to accomplish it, like rechanneling multi-lane arterials, banning turns on red, and prioritizing safety in every project.

We just need committed leadership and adequate funding.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next, we have Travis Close, followed by Brittany Brost.

Go ahead, Travis.

Or, excuse me, I think we have Wendy next.

Wendy Weicker next, followed by Travis.

Go ahead, Wendy.

Great, thank you.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Wendy Weicker.

I'm the Community Relations Manager for Public Services and Vice Chair of Seattle Solid Waste Advisory Committee.

I'm here today regarding the 2022 Comprehensive Solid Waste Plan update.

And by way of background, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, also known as SWAC, is a standing committee that represents local community and stakeholder interests and assistment development of the city's Solid Waste Management Plan policies and programs.

I would like to emphasize the committee's continual and significant involvement in the 22 plan update and express support of the adoption of the plan before you today.

Since 2018, SWAC has received regular updates on the plan development process and reviewed, discussed, and provided comment on many key elements contained within.

In addition, SWAC members contributed to STU's public comment outreach campaign through the use of their own social media platforms, as well as their individual community and professional networks.

SWAC recognizes the 2022 plan update as a comprehensive, modern, and valuable update to the city's guiding solid waste plan.

As a leader in solid waste management, Seattle's advanced a zero waste division of environmentally progressive programs and planning.

To move upstream towards zero waste, SPU is looking at the whole life cycle of how products and packaging are made so it can eliminate waste and toxic materials, prevent pollution, reduce carbon emissions, and conserve natural resources.

Key highlights of this 2022 plan update include emphasizing racial equity, aligning with zero waste policies in FDU's approved strategic business plan, explaining FDU's lifecycle philosophy of solid waste management that focuses on upstream and minimizing waste as a source to reduce harmful impacts and accelerate transition to a circular economy, and outlining the limitations of the recycling rate as a measure of waste prevention.

The members of SLAC are grateful for all the hard work by SPU staff, in particular Stephanie Schwanger, Quina Puzu, and Jeff Fowler on the development of this plan over the last four years.

And again, urge your support for this adoption.

Thank you very much for your time this morning.

Thank you.

Next, we have Travis Close followed by Brittany Brost.

Go ahead, Travis.

Hey, can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah, my name is Travis Close, Seattle resident.

District six, Council Member Strassel's district.

I am calling to encourage, urge really the city to do more for Vision Zero.

We're heading in the wrong direction.

More people are dying now than they were before on our streets.

I don't have a car here.

I get around walking, biking, taking transit, and it really is anarchy out there on the streets.

Cars are going too fast.

We need to elevate this session really to doing so much more.

This is a crisis.

We've heard a lot of good recommendations so far today, banning right turns on red.

They weren't legal until the 1970s anyways.

We need to just place the safety of our residents over the convenience of a few.

And I think that's one of the principles behind Vision Zero.

We really want to make our streets safer.

I urge the city to do more and to focus on implementing the methods that we already know work, slowing the cars down, focusing on arterial roads, narrowing lanes, doing things to to protect the people out there on the streets.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next, Brittany Brost followed by Flora Temple.

Go ahead, Brittany.

Good morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Brittany Brost.

I live in District 7 and I'm a permanent pedestrian in your city.

I live in Belltown and I work downtown and I walk to work and home every day if I don't bike.

The problem is, Downtown and Belltown were designed to get cars in and out of the office space faster, fast as possible to not inconvenience people that live in other parts of the city or traveling in and out from the suburbs.

This has caused big issues when I try to get around because I have to watch out for cars because they don't watch out for me.

They're in a hurry.

Not that I'm not in a hurry, but I will die if I get hit by a car.

The car and the driver and any passengers they may have on a rare occasion will survive and be fine.

This is an issue that's not being addressed because we continue to see that downtown, even with a ban, right turn on red, is continuing to focus on getting cars in and out as people return to the offices.

We need to make sure that the residents of downtown, over 100,000 of us, feel safe to get out in our backyard, explore, go to the wonderful places we have, restaurants, local shops, the market, the waterfront, and our parks.

To do this, we need to not only focus on implementing stuff in Vision Zero, but we also have to work on getting SDOT on board to change their culture and the way that they view traffic and how people get around.

Cars were not here when the city was originally built.

If you look at Pioneer Square, we can go back to a model where cars have a limited role in our city and make the city a vibrant place to live, work, and play for all who can enjoy this area.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next, we have Flora Temple followed by Eli Andrew.

Go ahead, Flora.

Hello, my name is Flora Temple.

I work for the Business Association that serves the intersection of MLK and Rainier.

I have three points I'd like to make today about the Vision Zero report.

First, I was very surprised that the report did not include significant data on the effects of Vision Zero projects that have been implemented.

Without data showing that Vision Zero projects work, how will we continue to advocate for these changes?

How will we convince drivers that these changes are worth it?

And how will SDOT continue to secure funding?

Second, I was shocked by how incomplete the report looked.

I'm not advocating for spending significant time or money on graphic design, but using the default Microsoft Word style made this report feel like it wasn't taken seriously, that it was an afterthought, and that SDOT didn't care enough to make it readable and finished for public consumption.

Finally, and most importantly, Vision Zero claimed that it would prioritize safety over speed, yet in places where speeding is the worst, we're not seeing changes.

On Rainier, we frequently see people speeding over 40 miles an hour and making dangerous turns, but the speed limit is 25 miles an hour.

I receive multiple notifications of serious crashes every week, usually involving pedestrians, and I am tired of hearing those.

I'm all for permanent design changes, but it seems like actually implementing the speed limit would be a simpler, quicker, and less controversial action that Vision Zero could undertake.

By implementing, I mean driver education, more signage, and enforcement aligned with recommendations made by Whose Streets Are Streets.

So I encourage SDOT to please reach out to organizations like mine that serve these arterials that Gordon mentioned and work with us to help make driver education real to help reduce these changes and to help reduce these crashes in a simpler, quicker, and cheaper method.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Eli Andrew followed by Brie.

Go ahead, Eli.

Hi, my name is Eli Andrew and I'm a resident of Seattle in the Central District, District 3. I'm giving public comment on the Vision Zero top to bottom review.

As someone who does not rely on a car to get around the city, this issue is very important to me.

While I think that the top to bottom review for Vision Zero was a good initiative, I believe it failed to propose an action plan to create safe streets for all.

Moving around safely in our city is a basic right of all people in Seattle, and enabling everyone to be able to do so should be our number one priority in street design.

Furthermore, By doing so, we'll be creating a more equitable city because less affluent citizens in Seattle are the ones who are forced to face the consequences, more so than others, of our unsafe and unwelcoming streets.

I believe our streets need to be designed from the bottom up with our most vulnerable and least damaging street users, pedestrians, considered first, and our least vulnerable and most damaging users, personal vehicles, after every other user.

When we trade human safety for vehicle speed, we do so in a very inefficient manner that trades large amounts of safety for small gains, if any, in vehicle speed.

On the flip side, when we prioritize human safety over vehicle speed, we are able to do so very impactfully by trading small decreases in vehicle speed and throughput for huge gains in human safety.

Furthermore, Street designs that prioritize people's safety naturally create more human-scaled environments that people want to live, shop, and work in, which makes our city a better place to be rather than just a place to drive through.

I urge SDOT to work closely with the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Group to refine our vision, zero review, to focus more on actionable and proven solutions to make our streets safer and more livable places.

Thank you.

Thank you, and our last online speaker is Brie Geinkeld.

I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing that, but go ahead, Brie.

That's okay, thanks.

I'm Brie Geinkeld, and I'm commenting on Division Zero as well.

I live in District Three.

Our neighborhoods are some of the most walkable in the city.

In fact, I have a walk score of 100, which you can't beat.

But even here, people walking risk their lives just trying to cross Olive Way or Boron.

These streets supposedly have 25 mile per hour, speed limits, but in fact, they're designed to move private vehicles quickly through the neighborhood instead of supporting the people who live and work there and need to be able to walk, bike, use transit, and just live their lives in the vicinity of these streets.

There are streets like that in every area of our city, as we've heard today from other commenters.

Despite the city's stated goals for Vision Zero, the hazardous conditions persist.

I've been advocating for safe streets for more than 10 years.

And I know that there are many planners and other SDOT staff who know how to make streets safe and who want to do that.

But over and over again, I've seen them stymied by elected officials and by an internal engineering culture that continues to value vehicle throughput over the health and safety of vulnerable people.

And by vulnerable people, let's be clear.

I mean, anyone who isn't surrounded by a metal box.

This city has laudable goals for safety, climate, and equity, and we talk about them a lot, but we're never going to reach those goals if our actions don't match our rhetoric.

To achieve Vision Zero, we need elected officials to lead, to provide the direction and the political support that lets the people who know how to do it do their job, and we need to hold SDOT accountable to the engineers and anyone else at SDOT who hasn't gotten the message.

as the metrics and incentives that ensure that safety is increased with every project, not sacrificed.

Every SDOT project needs to be accountable to advance safety, equity, and climate goals.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes our list of online speakers, and I don't think we have any additional speakers in the chamber here.

So I want to thank everybody for taking the time to come here to speak and also those who called.

We did receive, City Council received many emails as well focused on increasing Vision Zero and I want to thank people for taking the time to send those e-mails in.

We do read those e-mails.

They're very important to us, and we make sure that SDOT gets them as well.

So let's go ahead and move into the first item, which is Vision Zero.

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

Agenda item one, Vision Zero Traffic Safety Review for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

As most everybody here knows, Vision Zero is Seattle's goal to end traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. Shortly after his confirmation as the new director of our Seattle Department of Transportation last September, Greg Spatz initiated a top-to-bottom review of Vision Zero and the safety elements, and I know that it was supported by everybody here on the City Council as well, and the number of traffic-related fatalities in Seattle and across the state have remained at an unacceptably high number with each death a tragedy.

In 2022, those killed in traffic-related incidents, 16 pedestrians, eight people driving, four people biking or on a scooter, These percentages are similar to the previous eight years with pedestrians on average comprising more than 50% of traffic-related fatalities.

In 2022, the total number of traffic fatalities was 28 as compared to 30 in 2021, 25 in 2020, 26 in 2029, or 2019, only 14 in 2018, and 24 in 2017. The average over the past eight years is 24 fatalities.

The number of fatalities among people experiencing homelessness has more than doubled for 2022 and 2021 as compared to earlier years.

Last month, the city received some good news, asked out one a $25 million federal grant to help make our streets safer.

And the executive, I know they wanted additional time to incorporate that new funding into their initial safety strategies.

I appreciate them doing that.

The Vision Zero Safety Report was made public back on February 23rd, and Director Spatz is here today with his team to present the findings and recommendations from their review.

So, good morning, Director Spatz.

Good morning.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Great.

Thank you, Chair Peterson, and good morning, council members.

I'm Greg Spatz, Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Six months ago today was my first day on the job at SDOT.

And on that day, I commissioned a top to bottom review of our Vision Zero safety program.

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the review with you today, fulfilling commitments that I made last year to the mayor, to the council, and to the public.

The review was conducted by two SDOT staffers who are not assigned to the core Vision Zero team.

Jonathan Lazor and Becky Edmonds, both of whom are joining this hearing.

Back in September, I asked them to develop findings and recommendations to help strengthen our street safety work.

It is now my responsibility as director to decide which of these recommendations to implement and to identify future actions, some of which may be in addition to those identified in the review.

I see the review as a starting point for continuous improvement.

With the goal of reducing crashes in which people are killed or severely injured, our entire department welcomes stakeholder input on how to make our safety programs more effective.

In that spirit, we will be presenting this review at each of our advisory commissions this month and receiving feedback.

My top priority as SDOT director is to incorporate safety into all of our projects and programs.

To accomplish this goal, We will create an organizational structure that enables timely and effective decision-making.

During this presentation, you will meet the leaders of our safety team, hear a summary of the review's findings, and learn about five early momentum actions that we intend to launch this year.

My deputy, Francisca Stephan, will now begin our presentation.

Good morning, council members.

I'm happy to be here with you today.

I want to begin by introducing the staff that are here with me for presenting.

We have Jim Curtin, the Director of Project Development, and Vinu Namani, the City Traffic Engineer.

Both of these professionals are key leaders in my team and are within my portfolio directly within SDOT.

I also want to introduce John Laser, a professional with many years of experience at SDOT, the current Director of Interagency Programs and a SDOT staff person who provided the outside agency perspective in authoring the review findings.

We have many other really talented staff joining us here today throughout the agency because this is such a key issue and we wanted to be here to present and hear the discussion and provide response to questions.

Vision Zero is at the heart of SDOT's work to make our streets safer and it aligns with our core values.

The work we do on safety is inextricably linked to our other values of equity, mobility, and sustainability.

When we advance safety, we also advance those values.

The purpose of our meeting today is to provide you with an overview of the recently published top to bottom report.

We will include setting a little bit of context about street safety, both nationally and locally, noting the important turn that we as an agency are making to a safe systems approach to guide all of our work.

And we will conclude with highlighting our five momentum building actions that are outlined in the report.

As Greg mentioned, this expedited review was commissioned to help understand why serious injuries and deaths on Seattle streets are on the rise and to identify areas for improvement.

The report provides an initial set of findings to inform policies, practices, decision-making, and funding.

The review, it's not an action plan, so that's why we're following it up immediately with an update to our Vision Zero action plan, which SDOT will be completing this year.

The action plan will incorporate the findings of the review.

It will reflect what we're hearing from the community and provide the much-desired specific actions and strategies that folks and we are asking for to help move the needle on safety.

This report, importantly, is also being shared broadly with the public and will be part of discussions with boards and commissions as we co-consider and reflect on its findings and hear specifically from community members, as Greg mentioned.

As this is happening, I want to reassure everyone SDOT will not slow down on any of our continuing work to act on improving safety now.

We will continue to pursue the many specific projects in our work plan and see them to implementation.

And we will continue to advance the important policy work through the Seattle Transportation Plan and our work on putting together a future funding package for SDOT.

Since the days since the report was released, we've already heard valuable feedback from the community.

We're hearing an interest in evaluating the impacts of the systemic reduction in speed limits.

And we agree, it's a really important idea to evaluate, to understand what is happening on our streets, and to particularly look at arterials where so many of our fatal and severe crashes are occurring.

We will also be happy to share that information out as we consider the ways in which that before and after information can influence future projects, design changes, and operations.

Second, we've heard a desire to see transformational proposals on our north-south arterials.

And while this report in and of itself is not a plan, we are aware that those are key pieces that we need to be incorporating into other planning and policy documents, including the STP and the Vision Zero Action Plan and look forward to having those more detailed conversations with the public as we move forward into those efforts.

And as I noted, we know that folks are very eager to understand how this information will be used.

And so we will be moving quickly into the Vision Zero Action Plan update in 2023. We'll be happy to share out more detail on timing in the coming month.

So thank you for letting me kick us off today.

I want to pass it off to Jim Curtin.

Thank you, Francisca.

Good morning, council members and members of the public who are here today.

On these next couple of slides here, I'll set some context around Vision Zero.

So around the country, cities have been struggling with transportation safety.

Fatalities hit a 16-year high nationally in 2021, and pedestrian deaths have been on the rise for many, many years.

In Seattle, trends are similarly headed in the wrong direction.

There are more than 10,000 crashes every year in Seattle.

That's about 30 crashes that occur every single day.

And annually, we see an average of around 28 deaths and 180 serious injuries.

And unfortunately, pedestrians are most commonly hit and killed on our streets.

These national trends reflect years of policy and priorities favoring vehicles.

to reach Vision Zero, we must redesign our streets to ensure that we accommodate people walking, biking, rolling, or using mobility devices, as well as we accommodate the movement of cars and trucks.

Next slide, please.

As has been stated many times here already today, the overwhelming majority of serious crashes occur on arterial streets, and most often on multi-lane arterials like Aurora Avenue North, Rainier Avenue South, Martin Luther King Junior Way South, Lake City Way, and 4th Avenue South to name a few.

Arterials tend to have multiple lanes and higher speeds, which means pedestrians have longer distances to navigate between the curb ramps, and drivers have more inputs to process as well.

Ninety-three percent of pedestrian deaths occur on these arterial streets, and speeding and failure to yield to pedestrians continue to be the top contributing factors to these crashes.

Larger vehicles are influencing the severity of incidents when crashes do occur.

From 2015 to mid-2022, 14 people were killed biking.

Eighty percent of those deaths occurred where no bike facility exists.

The map on the right side of this slide shows serious collisions in Seattle from 2015 to 2021 plotted over the citywide equity map.

This demonstrates very clearly the fact that people are more likely to be killed in disadvantaged areas of the city.

To reach Vision Zero, we've got work to do with communities in the Rainier Valley, Soto, downtown, Bitter Lake, Lake City, and other neighborhoods.

Next slide, please.

SDOT programs and projects originate from many different sources, the Pedestrian Master Plan, Bicycle Master Plan, Freight Master Plan, our Safe Routes to School Program, our Transit Master Plan, Vision Zero Program, the Levy to Move Seattle, and other sources.

And the Vision Zero program has delivered projects throughout the city on streets like Rainier Avenue South and 12th Avenue.

Vision Zero funds also provide support for projects like the Martin Luther King Jr.

Way South protected bike lane project, which will build not just bike lanes, but also traffic calming and pedestrian safety elements starting this spring.

Thanks to recent budget increases, the Vision Zero program will be delivering more safety projects than ever, including five levy projects in 2023. These projects aim to implement the safe systems approach and enhance safety for transit users, people walking, people biking, and everyone that use the roadway.

Safety treatments often include redesigns or re-channelizations of arterial streets to create safer speeds and narrow crossing distances for pedestrians, leading pedestrian intervals to give people crossing at signalized intersections a head start, implementing no turn on red restrictions at traffic signals, enhancing pedestrian crossings with marked crosswalk signs, flashing beacons and refuge islands, increasing visibility at intersections by installing curb bulbs, no parking signs, or traffic delineators, building and repairing sidewalks and pedestrian paths, building protected bike lanes, and adding speed hubs, to name a few.

With that, I will pass it over to our city traffic engineer, Anu Namani.

Thanks, Jim.

Good morning, everyone.

I want to briefly touch upon what a safe systems approach.

Endorsed by the U.S.

Department of Transportation, the safe systems approach is based on six basic principles shown on the outside of the circle in the graphic to the right.

The safe systems approach starts with the mindset that it's unacceptable to allow deaths and serious injuries to occur on our streets.

It also acknowledges that road users are human and humans will inevitably make mistakes.

On those streets, those mistakes may lead to crashes, but of those crashes, the goal is zero to eliminate those that result in serious and fatal injuries.

The safe systems approach considers five elements of a safe transpiration system.

Safer people, safer vehicles, safer speeds, safer roads, and post-crash care in an integrated and holistic manner.

SDOT has significant influence over two of these five elements, namely safer speeds and safer streets.

Next slide.

Before the top-to-bottom review, we at SDOT worked on a grant application for Safe Streets for All.

This team was different from those conducting the top-to-bottom review.

Both paths led us to adopting and implementing safe systems approach more broadly.

Locations for spots and corridor projects in our grant application were primarily selected from within underserved communities and prioritized within existing action plans.

These projects focus on safe pedestrian access, building sidewalks, accessible pedestrian signals, ADA ramps, safer pedestrian crossings, implementing leading pedestrian controls, curb extensions, pedestrian refuge islands, rectangular rapid flashing beacons, safe bicycling access, providing protected bike lanes, and vehicular speed management, especially on arterial for traffic calming.

Through state funding, we have another opportunity with our Aurora Safety Improvement Project, a significant safety corridor for us to incorporate safe systems elements into all aspects of this upcoming project.

With that, I'll turn to my colleague Jonathan Lazor.

John, we cannot hear you, I'm sorry.

If we can't hear john can someone else take over his part.

yeah we still can't hear john so if anybody else can.

assist.

um I could I can do my best to approximate john having read the reports thoroughly and doing the work I need to do to digest them, so we make sure we implement them so.

While John is doing that, I will begin.

So one of the key findings of the report is to look at the way in which Vision Zero and the safe systems approach can spread into every project and program that SDOT does.

I think we have come, we have done a lot of work to make sure that we have established a program and staffing, but we could do more in the area of making sure that the programs such as maintenance and that we are in the design process and in the maintenance efforts that we do, that we are considering how Vision Zero can be incorporated as we implement the projects.

John and Becky identified that there's a need for facility design guidance I'm sorry.

John and Becky's review identified the need for clear and stronger guidance on facility design.

There are many complex decisions that go into a project design.

That includes state and local regulations, local policies and procedures, and certainly decision-making.

With stronger guidance, we can make faster moves and faster decision-making towards safer project designs.

That leads me to clarifying and streamlining internal decision pathways.

SDOT is a large agency that does a lot of good work to make sure that we are considering complete streets in each of our projects.

And we also are trying to do innovative work.

And that can make decision making more complex.

We want to make sure that we're considering all the different modal users on a project as we're making decisions for complete streets.

And we also want to make sure that we are using the best practices that we are aware of for engineering and for operations.

But all of that newness introduces some complexity in decision-making.

And the more efficiently we can make design decisions and implementation decisions, the faster we can proceed with Vision Zero work and improving safety on our streets.

Thank you.

Oh, there's John.

Francisca, can you hear me now?

We can hear you.

Thank you for jumping in and apologize for the delay.

Thank you, Francisca.

I want to highlight the last, the number four on this slide, which is really important.

We also, we highlighted the changes that reduce vehicle speed and convenience are challenging for us as a city, and we really need leadership support to consistently put safety first.

Bill, next slide.

Thanks.

The next few categories focus on expanding our use of smaller scale proven interventions.

Funding can be a significant barrier for us, and we need better information about what it will cost to implement changes more broadly or citywide.

We also need to plan and budget accordingly for maintenance, replacement, or upgrading of shorter life assets like paint and posts.

Number eight, automated enforcement, earned its own category because we have new opportunities to expand proven interventions in automated enforcement.

But at the same time, we're working hard to understand and address equity impacts of expanding the automated enforcement system that we have.

Next slide, please.

These last four categories really focus on strengthening our culture and organization for this work.

We identified, in particular, we identified numerous ways that we can work with other city departments, partner agencies, as well as the communities that we serve and other organizations and institutions to leverage and build on their work.

And so while within the safe systems framework, We have the most direct control over safer streets and safer speeds.

We can work with many of our partners to affect other elements of the safe systems approach.

Many of the recommendations in the report, there are 100. Many of them will require additional work to develop or implement, but I'm going to turn it back to Jim at this point to talk about some of the areas where we have enough information and resources and we're planning to move forward.

Jim?

Yeah, thanks, John, I think, as most of, you know, there are 5 momentum building actions coming out of the top to bottom report that are intended as early actions.

We can roll out relatively quick quickly without needing additional funds and.

Roll those out while we're working with the community to develop a new and more robust vision 0 action plan.

The 1st is implementing no turn on red where pedestrian vehicle collisions happen most frequently in the center city.

Until I believe 1959, the city of Seattle prohibited right turns on red entirely.

Then in 1975, the Federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act required all states to permit right turns on red to reduce fuel consumption and provide an estimated travel time savings of one to five seconds for vehicles that are turning at signals.

Restricting turns on red can reduce pedestrian vehicle conflicts by 92 percent.

And in Seattle right turn on red crashes account for 9% of all collisions with people walking at signals and we'll get started this month with the installation of no turn on red in downtown at dozens of intersections in the center city and consultation with stakeholders.

Next slide please.

In addition.

We'll be moving forward with accelerating the installation of leading pedestrian intervals.

This proven safety improvement gives people crossing the street a head start before drivers get the green light.

This is a small change to our signals that increases visibility and reduces collisions and injuries, which is important because about 40 percent of serious and fatal pedestrian collisions occur at signalized intersections.

As many of, you know, we've already installed this safety upgraded about half of our traffic signals in the city of Seattle, and that has led to a 48% reduction in the number of people being hit by turning cars while crossing the street in these locations.

I will pass it back to the new to talk about a couple other of our momentum building actions.

Thanks, Jim.

The next action is to partner with Sound Transit and with Input From Community to implement a series of projects on Martin Luther King Jr.

Way that include but are not limited to increasing train warning bell volume, evaluating traffic signals, refreshing pavement markings, launching a safety campaign, and making it easier and more convenient to cross the street at stations.

Next slide.

Over the past two decades, there have been a 20% reduction in crashes at intersections with red light cameras and a 50% reduction in crashes near school zones with speed cameras.

Our next action is to engage the public on automated enforcement to address equity concerns about future expansion in neighborhoods with many fatalities and serious injuries.

We continue to have conversations with our transportation equity work group about enforcement.

We acknowledge the recent op-eds, including the one in South Seattle, Maryland, and the statement of legislative intent on this topic.

We are already developing a draft racial equity toolkit on this topic and look forward to more broadly engaging all stakeholders.

With that, I'll turn it to Greg.

Thank you, Vinu, and I'm about to talk about you.

Something that was clear to me in reading the review is the need to align authority, responsibility, and accountability at the highest level for safety.

The city traffic engineer is a crucial role at SDOT, unique in its authority and responsibility for transportation engineering and operations.

I'm going to clarify the focus of the work to be on safety of our street system by giving the city traffic engineer the departmental role of chief safety officer.

I'm lifting up the role to directly report to Deputy Director Stephan, who will be providing the Chief Safety Officer with the necessary resources and staffing to embed the safe systems approach in all SDOT projects, programs, and decisions.

I plan to be vigorously and personally engaged in this work, providing leadership and support.

And that concludes our presentation for today.

We're looking forward to additional public meetings later this week and later this month, circulating the review findings with our advisory boards and in other public forums.

We encourage the public to provide feedback at these public meetings or through our online link, and public input will help inform the update to our Vision Zero action plan and development of the Seattle Transportation Plan.

And we look forward to implementing the five momentum building actions to promote safety as we concurrently work on these other work streams.

And with that, we're ready for your questions.

Thank you, Director Spatz and to your team.

Thank you for being proactive once you were confirmed to make this a priority to improve traffic safety.

And I know, I appreciate the patience of committee members.

I know we've got lots of comments and questions.

I'll go first here.

First, we did receive dozens of emails.

While it was a form email, it had some important points and requests.

So I wanna read those into the record just so people who took time to send those in know that they were heard and then I'll go into some of my comments and I know some of those are similar but the it said to request a timeline of the plan to ban right turns on red and increase leading pedestrian intervals including where these interventions will be located, and why the plan is only for downtown when the city's own data shows this safety measure would be of benefit citywide.

And I know you'll have a response to that later.

Request a timeline for the release of the Vision Zero Action Plan, and please demand aggressive action.

How will the results of the department's internal process improvements to, quote, lead with safety, be demonstrated to the public?

And request a progress report on the department's internal process changes.

So that's from emails that all the council members received.

So hopefully we can address some of those.

I wanted to To note in reading the review, I'm definitely looking forward to more quickly increasing the automated enforcement and more quickly bringing people inside because people experiencing homelessness have been a larger percentage of traffic fatalities the last couple of years.

I know we'll address more of that.

In terms of funding, I do want to note that we do have a funding option that we hope to be exploring later this year in terms of transportation impact fees.

That could generate tens of millions of dollars each year, which we can use for transportation projects, which would free up money for additional Vision Zero projects.

So I just wanna put that out there about transportation impact fees.

I hope people are open to those as we explore them in the future.

I know that colleagues will have some comments or questions here.

Let me just look here at the screen.

Go ahead.

We've got Councilor Morales and Councilor Strauss.

Go ahead, Councilor Morales.

Council Member Strauss had his hand up first.

No, you can go first.

Okay.

Thank you.

I have several questions.

Should I just go through them all and then we'll Thanks.

Okay, good afternoon or morning, everybody director spots nice to see you.

I do want to start by acknowledging some things that has gotten right.

Two great examples of what I think community members are looking for when we talk about rapid response are the changes that were made to Fourth Avenue to address safety and the temporary bike lane that was installed at Soto after the Spokane Street Bridge closed.

I think it's just a demonstration that we can do things quickly.

in order to adjust safety, but clearly we need to do a lot more and better and faster.

But I think it reflects on the priority that our new director has.

And I know, Director Spatz, in many of the conversations we've had in the last six months, it's been clear to me that this is a priority for you.

So I just want to acknowledge that and thank you for the shift that you are starting to make.

I also need to express my extreme disappointment that the review begins with a priority to phase in the no right turn and the pedestrian intervals downtown in time for tourist season and the MLB playoff games.

You know, 56% of traffic fatalities were in the South End last year.

And so the fact that there's no mention of that and that there is rather a focus on a baseball game is really tone deaf and hope to continue working with the department to address the needs that we have in parts of the city that have been most acutely impacted by our lack of safety infrastructure.

Um, so I do have a few questions.

Some of them were already answered as you went through the presentation.

I wanted to start on slide 10 one of the key takeaways is that, you know, you really need to be incorporating Vision Zero into every project.

So I'm wondering if you can talk about how project design, the way I read this, and I will say I'm not a traffic engineer, but the way I read this, project design can be considered complete, even if it doesn't have safety measures in it.

So I'm trying to understand how a project can proceed without safety measures and be considered complete.

And I feel like what I got from the report is that it's because of cost very often.

And so if that is the case, then cost is our priority and not safety.

So I'm wondering if you can just talk a little bit about some of the elements that go into considering a project design complete.

Sure, I mean, this issue has a lot of moving parts that I'm trying to address in with the whole team.

I'm often talk about bringing the whole of SDOT to important places and problems and opportunities.

And I think at times in the past, there's lots of different programs that have lots of different funding sources and different outcomes that they're driving.

For example, there's a program to pay for arterials.

And in the past, that program has kind of operated just on a pure asset management kind of basis, what street needs to be paved at this time without thinking, well, paving it gives you an opportunity to rethink how your channelization, rethink your pedestrian crossings, rethink your bicycle use on that street.

And so, we're going to be making a series of reforms and improvements internally to make sure that like all of our projects and programs are really ending up with a safer outcome as one of the project outcomes without sort of thinking, well, if somebody can bring some additional money to that project, then maybe we can do something.

And I am finding that it can't even be challenging in the projects I'm interacting with halfway into design to bring those safety improvements, even if I can find other money for those improvements.

So part of the idea of elevating the city traffic engineer to be our chief safety officer is that most of our designs end up running through that shop for review.

And if that group is reviewing it from a safety lens, that can really help lift up, you know, this outcome.

But there's a whole lot we're going to be working on to improve that.

Okay, thank you.

So my next question is, you know, I know in on the on Rainier and it sounds like based on some comments that we heard this morning in West Seattle to, we have implemented road diets partway on some streets, certainly in Columbia City on Rainier, it has dramatically impacted the number of crashes that are happening, which has been great, but it wasn't completed.

It's only a few blocks.

The caller mentioned a similar situation in West Seattle.

So if we know that a road diet works to slow down traffic, why are we only doing something like that halfway?

You know, I spend a lot of time on those couple blocks in Columbia City, and I think it's one of the most wonderful little urban villages in the whole city.

it's not only safer, it's activated, it's fun, there's streeteries, there's lots of pedestrian activity, there's a whole bunch of really vibrant local businesses.

It says a lot about what we can accomplish when the streets are for people, rather than just, streets are a place to go to, rather than just pass through.

And I'd like to do that in many more places.

Often we have to apply for competitive grants to implement those type of projects.

I'm very excited we have $50 million from the state to start doing a project like that along a portion of Aurora.

But yeah, I mean, that's the vision is to work with communities to find more opportunities to make these multi-lane arterials not only safer, but wonderful places that draw community rather than divide our communities.

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of this is about funding.

So we'll be having that conversation a lot, I'm sure.

Can you talk about what safety improvements we've tried that ended up being ineffective?

And I'm particularly interested, as you indicated in the presentation, how we move from administrative controls to engineering controls, which would seem to be more impactful in getting us to the outcomes for safety that we're looking for.

A critique of the top-to-bottom review, which I wanted to acknowledge by adding that slide about what we're hearing early, was it didn't have a comprehensive, and maybe this has to do with how much time we had, but it didn't have a comprehensive analysis of each type of intervention that's taken place in Seattle.

I do think it's pretty clear to everybody those type of interventions like the narrowing in Columbia City have really worked.

A very particular analysis people want is, hey, you reduced the speed limit on all these arterials, but did it actually change driver behavior?

And if so, did that actually cause a reduction in crashes?

And so we're gonna go do that analysis.

The report isn't a be-all and end-all.

We submit it with humility and openness to taking input.

So we're gonna go do that analysis and try to figure out where those reduced speed limits actually changed driver behavior and where they didn't.

And perhaps where they didn't are places we should consider utilizing the increased authority for automated enforcement that's been made available by the state.

Looks like John wants to.

Thanks, Councilmember Greg, I just wanted to add that one of the things that we found was that educational programs or are we don't have good measures of the effectiveness of education programs.

And in fact, some agencies are moving away from education programs as an emphasis altogether.

I personally have a gut instinct that our work with schools and school children in elementary school and middle school.

potentially have some long-lasting results, but one of the recommendations of the report is to work with the University of Washington or other institutions of higher learning to help evaluate some of our educational efforts to figure out what is effective so we can put our dollars where they make the most difference.

Thanks.

Thanks.

I just have one more question, Chair.

That's right.

Okay, thank you.

Um, well thank you for that john I think my, my next question is sort of related which is around the automated traffic enforcement, because driver behavior is certainly part of the issue here as one of many.

And I appreciate the conversation that you're having with Whose Streets Are Streets and with the equity team in the department around the issue of automated traffic enforcement.

I don't think any of us want police involved in traffic stops, certainly not in communities of color.

We don't want communities of color to be overly surveilled.

And I know that there is a lot of tension around that issue.

And it is people of color being killed by inequitable impacts of our street design and our, you know, lack of safety infrastructure.

And so, so I'm interested in pursuing the automated traffic enforcement and figuring out how we mitigate the impact on low income families.

I know there's conversation happening right now about having a sliding scale fine or having, you know, a first warning.

Um, but I do think that, uh, uh, this is something we really need to consider.

Um, I also want to restate my interest in having any revenue from citations that are issued, reinvested in the neighborhoods where the need for safety infrastructure is greatest.

Um, but I, you know, as the person representing the South end where most of our traffic fatalities happen, I gotta say like, I'm over it, this question of how we enforce speed limits, how we enforce driver behavior.

The bottom line is that, you know, no matter your race or your income, you need to be a safe driver so that you don't kill your neighbor or your neighbor's kids.

So I want to continue having the conversation with you about how we do this, but I think it is going to be important that we do this soon.

Thank you, and I look forward to partnering with you on finding a path forward through these complex issues, and I really appreciate your thoughtful leadership on this topic.

Yeah, thank you.

That's all my questions, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Next we've got Councilmember Strauss followed by Councilmember Herbold.

Go ahead, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

Thank you, Director Spatz.

John, always great to see you, the new Francesca.

I'm taking a moment because this, this presentation is pretty emotional for me, especially in adding to emotions.

Yesterday, I visited a public servant from a neighboring municipality who was injured in the line of duty.

They are currently at Harborview hospital.

This was the second time I visited Harborview hospital since I was hit by a driver while I was riding my bike.

The first time I went to Harborview, I went for a meeting, so I didn't go to a hospital room.

Yesterday was the first time I visited a hospital room at Harborview since I was in that hospital bed.

Director Spatz, when I met with you in your office, I pointed to the front of Harborview and shared this story because walking out of those doors of Harborview Hospital 18 years ago was not guaranteed for me.

When I look at that front patio between the hospital and the helipad, I see where I took my first steps in my new life.

I'm not sure that sharing my story and colleagues you hearing my story will create the gravity of life and death.

I'm not sure who else is listening here knows what it feels like to not know.

If I would ever leave the building, I was in not knowing if I would ever step foot out the door because statistically speaking, I should not be alive.

Because I was hit by somebody driving their car at approximately 35 miles an hour with their foot on the gas.

If I had personally not reinflated my punctured lung, the medics would have arrived to find a deceased dam.

So let me pause.

For all of my colleagues who wonder why I'm happy every day or approach life with a positive demeanor, even when I'm mad or even when you've offended me, it is not because I'm not offended or upset.

Let me be clear.

I'm regularly pissed off and I keep a positive demeanor because every day is a bonus day for me.

Because my presence with you was not guaranteed.

I'm still a little activated right now because being in that hospital room yesterday brought back some really serious emotions for me about the fact that I didn't know if I would leave that hospital.

If you could pull up slide six, I'm gonna first start by thanking you for having slide six and share that this is an incomplete map.

Sorry, on the, yep, there you go.

My serious injury is not on this map.

And that serious injury impacts me every day.

These data points are not dots on a map or numbers in Excel sheets.

These are lives.

These are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children.

When public commenters spoke of people living with chronic pain from injuries sustained on our streets, I am that physical representation.

These are not anecdotal stories of advocates.

This is me.

I live with chronic pain that could have been avoided by completing the missing link with the infrastructure that has been built today.

The list of four-way stops at residential intersections that have steep slopes The list of those requests from my district alone doesn't fit on one page.

The same is true with crosswalk requests, or even my connectivity plan for the brewery district in Ballard that is functionally cut off from the rest of the community by high speed streets market and Leary 15th and eight.

And my district doesn't have the highest level of collisions and deaths Aurora Lake City way Rainier Avenue Martin Luther King.

These are the places that need our attention right now.

And lastly, before I get to my questions, we often wait for deaths to happen for the data to show us we need to change the streets, or at least that's what I've been told, that we can't make an intervention or a change because the data doesn't support it.

This must stop.

We need preventative change.

Also, I've seen decisions made based on data that view injuries, not significantly as deaths, that a serious injury is not enough data to make changes.

This must stop.

This type of approach says to me, your district six council member, that my chronic pain and my brush with death is not enough data to make a change to our streets.

And my story is repeated across our city as the dots on your map indicate.

And I'll just say again, stepping out, when I view Harborview Hospital's front porch between the helipad and the hospital, those were where I took my first steps of my new life.

Because statistically and physically speaking, I shouldn't be with you today.

So thank you.

You can stop sharing screen if you'd like.

Thank you for listening to my part of this presentation.

Let me get to my questions.

I know that colleagues, others of you may have questions too, but how will we fix these dangerous corridors that are causing majority of pedestrian deaths?

I mean, we've got MLK, Rainier, Lake City, Aurora.

What's our first step?

Well, thank you, first of all, council member for sharing your personal story.

I'm so sorry that happened to you, but I'm very happy that you recovered, and I very much enjoy collaborating with you.

And when we work together on this issue, I'll be informed by what you shared.

You know, one of the things that really impresses me about the man who will be our Chief Safety Officer, Bhanu Namani, is he's systematically going through our policies to revise them.

so that we can make interventions in more places.

He's going through each of the policies and finding ways to make these techniques more actionable in more places and get away from that very old school way of looking at it that you described.

There's a whole lot of different reforms that we're going to make internally and a whole lot of new types of projects and programs we're going to launch.

to make these multi-lane arterials safer, and also to build the capacity to respond to community concerns like you raised in Ballard.

And I think, you know, one of the differences between LA and Seattle that I've noticed is there's not really a sort of discretionary pot of funds, even a small one, know, make a quick response to a community safety related request.

And I think that's something this committee and our department could collaborate on in future budget cycles, because there should be a way, you know, to get some people out on overtime on the weekend and get something put up that the community wants.

And right now, it's actually quite hard, because most of our, you know, programs are kind of data driven and the elements are set long time in advance.

And I'd like to build that capacity.

So we'll be collaborating with you very closely on all these issues.

Thank you, Director.

And my questions are not coming from a combative place.

And I realize that the emotion that is contained within me at this moment It's intense.

And so that intensity is not, it is not at you because what I do see and what does give me hope is that we are changing how we approach Vision Zero.

We are changing how we approach our city streets and how we create safety.

And so I know that the department, and so I see you as a partner and I want to thank you.

I want to thank you, Vanu, as well.

John, thank you for your work.

Francisca, your work as well.

So within the department's internal process improvements leading with safety, is there a way that you're going to be able to share this work with the public?

Is it something where you may want to return to the committee in six months?

And then kind of a separate and secondary question is, does the city council need to strengthen the complete streets ordinance or should we wait for your leadership?

This is really just a question about how do we partner together.

So I definitely think we should return in six months and every six months thereafter.

Um, you know, in my job interview with mayor Harrell, I wasn't, I was reflecting on the presentation that was given on vision zero to this committee last May.

And I felt it could have been stronger.

I hope this one was a little bit stronger and more robust with the, you know, you're seeing the top leadership take ownership of this issue today.

and you will going forward.

So I think regular presentations here are important.

I intend to have a robust communication strategy as we roll out changes, projects, programs, and report back on these five early momentum actions.

And I'm looking forward to future dialogue and collaboration about whether there are policy changes that could help our efforts.

Thank you, Director and when you when you answer when it comes to our analysis questions you talked about get coming on board making this directional change and projects already being underway.

And how do we address that and so in my neighborhood 15th Avenue is being repaid repaid and it's taken efforts of Seattle neighborhood green waste right I believe it was a 16 page memo.

That was fantastic.

And.

Some of it was doable, some of it wasn't, right?

I mean, like, and a lot of it was just, a lot of it was stuff that I had been asking for for a long time.

So how would a project, and specifically at Crossing at 51st, across 15th, and then the southeast corner of the Ballard Bridge, how would a project like this be different under this new prioritization?

I think it certainly would have been different if we were scoping it today.

Our challenge now is it was scoped and budgeted and largely designed a long time ago.

And the community outreach was based on the kind of plain vanilla paving project.

But we really want to collaborate with your office on trying to enrich it at this late stage, or even create additional enrichments to it that could be delivered by city forces after a contractor does the paving.

And we're looking at other funding sources that could contribute to those elements.

I really do appreciate the community effort that occurred around that.

And that's what caused me to invite the whole staff to take a walk with me across the Ballard Bridge on a rainy morning.

And we took a lot of notes, and I tried to issue a call to action.

And I'm hoping that will result in some enhancements.

That's wonderful.

Thank you, Director.

Last two questions.

I know, Chair, I've taken up too much of your committee time here.

What are the barriers in Seattle for passing a no right on red policy?

Is it?

Oh, you know, a very interesting thing we've been hearing, right, is, you know, we said, how about we start no right turn on red and a highly pedestrian heavy downtown, and if you look at a map of pedestrian crashes.

They're clustered in downtown and there's also a big cluster in the U district.

There's also many of them along like linear boulevards, but there's almost every intersection in downtown has had a pedestrian crash or two.

And so we're hearing, well, what about no right turn on red in my urban village?

Or what about no right turn on red on my section of Aurora?

And our answer is, yeah, what about it?

Let's get into it.

Let's talk, let's meet, let's look at it.

So if starting to roll this out creates a demand for lots more of it, we'll keep doing it and we'll continue growing it.

I think that would be wonderful.

Great response.

I guess I was getting a little technical here.

Is it a director's executive policy decision or do you need legislation?

What is the mechanism in which we use to create this policy?

I don't think we would need legislation, but I can get back to you with a more specific answer.

But, you know, it takes time to put up signs and manufacture signs.

So we're going to begin with this cluster in downtown, but we're really eager to work with each of the council members on finding other clusters, you know, walk up high pedestrian clusters or corridors where this would be a good idea.

And we'll just keep going.

And I see our transportation expert Calvin Chow might have an answer here.

Thank you, Council Member.

I just wanted to note that the state bill that focused on no turn on rights did not make it through session, so it is not currently being discussed at the state level.

My understanding is that that's the type of legislation that would be necessary to have that be a de facto policy where that would be how all traffic would work.

So without that authority, the only way to really do this is administratively by signing the intersections to make that movement not allowable.

Thank you.

Last question, Chair.

Thank you for your patience with me.

I have also heard requests across my district for automated enforcement from Seaview to Leary to Third.

How do we expand automated enforcement?

Do we have to go back to the legislature for more permission or is this something that we can do today?

So there's various types of automated enforcement that are allowable and that got significantly liberalized last summer.

Each of these requires a legislative action at the city level, and we're going to be bringing forward authorizing legislation to this committee later this year along each of these new lines of authority.

When we do that, we'll have to make findings about how certain locations qualify under the conditions in the state law.

And then after that, we would have the authority to roll these things out.

So that's an area of of great collaboration for us in this committee going forward.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you to your whole SDOT team.

Colleagues, I'll just end with where I started, which is for me, I didn't know if I would leave the hospital bed.

I didn't know if I'd ever step foot out of Harborview Hospital again.

I am a different person today than I was before I was hit by that driver.

And that's why I have a positive demeanor, even when we might not be happy with each other.

So Director Spatz, the new Francisca, John, you've given me renewed hope.

I think we're in a new direction and I just, as always, want to go faster.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Herbold?

Thank you.

Tough act to follow.

Council Member Strauss, I'm grateful for your positive demeanor.

I'm saddened how you came to have it.

I want to actually return to a couple of the questions that Council Member Strauss asked because I don't know if my question's different than the one that Council Member Strauss asked, but I did not hear answer to the question that I wanted here as related to two issues.

One, the no right on red policy.

I think the question I have, and I thought was the question I was hearing from Council Member Strauss, was rather than doing the piecemeal project, the piecemeal approach where people come forward and say we want this area to have this restriction.

Why not just do a city wide know right on read policy via an ordinance a legislative change.

That's one question as it relates to.

to red light cameras, or sorry to say automated cameras, there is the issue that you raised and that I've been asking I think a question about for a while, which is yes, the state granted additional authority to expand the types of automated camera enforcement to different types of locations, and that will require new authorizing legislation.

But what does state law say for our existing authority?

So for our existing authority around red light cameras and school speed zones, is there a fixed number that We are authorized a fixed number of locations for the things that were already authorized to do, or can we can we expand that and then my follow up on that question is, you know, we talk a lot about.

the cost of prioritizing safety in our transportation projects and how, in order to fully embrace designs that truly prioritize safety, that there are additional costs with doing so.

We have a certain percentage of the revenue associated with our automated cameras being devoted to traffic safety projects.

And I think that is one way that we look to address concerns that people have stated about disproportionate impacts of traffic.

automated traffic enforcement is by making sure that if we're doing enforcement, the cameras that the revenue that we generate is put back into those communities.

So they're seeing the benefits.

And so I'm wondering, I think it's, I think the dollar amount right now, I mean, the percentage is about 20% of the revenue generated.

Is that another issue that we should return to?

I know that will have an impact on things that are available for general city purposes if we devote more to a larger percentage of the revenue from automated traffic enforcement to traffic projects but I'm wondering if that is something that we should return to.

I think two other sort of So a lot of words, just two questions.

Then I have one other question to ask and then I'll take a pause if I could and I have just a couple district specific.

questions about the timelines for sort of next stages.

We know that one of those steps is internal project development processes at SDOT.

I appreciate that you agree that coming back to this committee every six months to report out on recommendations would be useful, but I'm wondering as it relates specifically to that item, reporting on internal project development processes, and then the other item, which is of course related, which is the broader Vision Zero Action Plan, when can the public expect to see those two particular deliverables?

We need to, I should say, should we expect, wait for six months or are there deliverables?

Do we have a schedule of deliverables that will hopefully allow us to hear about a lot of things being done when you come and talk to us again in six months?

Okay, well, let me try to work through those and see if I remember them all.

I should have been writing them down.

I think we started with blanket no right turn on red versus neighborhood by neighborhood.

I'm intrigued by the interest on this committee and the possibility of a citywide no right turn on red and we can look into that and explore that with you.

We were starting from a more sort of cautious and incremental approach of like starting at where we have very high concentrations of pedestrians.

I walk to work every day from South Lake Union to the Municipal Tower.

And I often find that the crosswalk is blocked the entire time by somebody who's positioning themselves to try to make a right turn on red.

And they're blocking the pedestrian phase.

Well, even though there's tons of traffic coming and they can't even turn anyway.

And I'd love to see that reduced so that people could actually cross the street safely instead of walk outside the crosswalk.

But we're actually, We welcome the dialogue on looking at that in a citywide manner as well.

You know, there's a sly outstanding that we have to report back to you on, on the automated enforcement.

And we'd like to make a comprehensive report back to you at that time about what additional, what's the scale and locations of additional enforcement we can install under current authorities, what new legislation is needed, Are there some equity mitigations or policies that we should adopt?

And then I think this issue of where the money goes from those fines is important because it may produce more public support and confidence in automated enforcement.

if there's a feeling that that money, all of it or a lot of it is directly putting back into the safety outcome.

We have seen in London, there are policies where, you know, money they make from congestion pricing goes right back into bike, pedestrian and transit infrastructure.

And that's very popular in London.

I think that, you know, there's going to be a rolling set of improvements both internally and externally that we will be announcing to the public and reporting back to this committee on.

I think we can schedule additional briefings on special topics like the automated enforcement that can come before this six-month update.

I think the update to the Vision Zero overall plan will take a little bit longer because we have to complete a full funding grant agreement with the U.S.

DOT.

And as we select which of the $37 million in projects we're actually going to do with the federal money, that will inform some of the locations in the plan.

So we haven't yet set a date on when that Vision Zero plan will be updated, plan will be ready, but it has to align with those federal timelines.

which do take some time.

I personally am hopeful to try to go identify additional funding and build every one of the projects in that original grant application, every one of the $37 million in projects.

And that's an area we can collaborate on in the future as well.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I would very much like to request that SDOT consider, again, it's a place for us to throw the dart.

I understand that there are no guarantees when you put together a schedule with benchmarks and often we have to make changes, but I just think it doesn't feel sufficient to me to say, oh yes, we're gonna have, it's great, I appreciate you saying you come back every six months, but come back every six months on presenting on a set of deliverables that we agree that the timelines are reasonable, that way we can work with you and the public and just kind of watching the ball.

I think it's just really important to keep all of our feet to the fire.

is just to be really transparent between us as departments, but also with the public on what the expectation should be for next step, with the understanding that we need to be flexible.

Absolutely, I agree.

Yes, the concepts are easy.

the execution can be complex, particularly if the foundation is a schedule on a timeline that we fundamentally collaborate and agree on.

So, I totally get that.

Specifically on District 1, I have One specific question and then sort of a broader question.

Folks have recently been getting back, looping back around on the channelization of 35th.

And I had reason to go back and refresh my memory on what happened on 35th.

And phase one was a full re-channelization.

Phase two became something other than re-channelization for that portion of 35th.

It became more focused on making some signal changes, which is great.

And SDOT was always really clear with the public that completing channelization was not off the table.

And so if members of the public want to revive the conversation about an intervention, an investment that Esther has always said is not off the table, how would they do that?

How would they be able to sort of get SDOT to revisit the conversations around 35th.

That's one question.

And then just in general, we heard in public comment, a critique that projects like 25th Ave Southwest because the second phase did not include channelization, storage way, admiral way, safety five years ago.

The critiques that we heard were, you know, even though some of these were referred to as safety projects, they didn't fully prioritize safety.

And so Maybe this is too general of a question to ask about specific projects, but can you give us sort of a sense of how this new prioritization approach that we're discussing here might result in those projects being different?

Sure.

I mean, first of all, I invite you know, any of the council members to contact, you know, my council liaison Bill Laborde with, you know, community meetings you'd like to arrange, where we can take input on community interest in specific locations, and we'd love to get those conversations going.

More broadly, you know, I'm trying to make safety the number one priority in the department, and that's consistent with the mayor's priorities.

The mayor has a very strong view that his number one job is to keep Seattleites safe and all of different meanings of that word.

And it's clear, it's been made clear to me that, you know, that's where I'm supposed to begin.

And I have completely aligned with that and that's where my values are.

I think that you will see, you know, projects coming forward that more fully realize, you know, complete streets concepts where we're building all ages infrastructure for all users and all abilities.

And that is why I moved to Seattle and left behind a lot of loved ones in LA is because I'm passionate about those types of projects.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

So, wrapping this up here then, just want to summarize a couple of things.

We obviously heard a lot of interest in automated enforcement.

Council doubled the automated enforcement in school zones recently, but we're hearing interest outside of school zones.

And so, would love to, as you offered Director Spouts, to get the legislation needed to enact that additional authority locally here, outside of school zones, prior to your six-month return to us.

And perhaps we could also, during that consideration of the automated enforcement legislation, get an update, just a brief update on where you are with your Vision Zero Action Plan.

And then in terms of the Vision Zero Action Plan, what I'm hearing is that we could get that within six months.

So that would be in September.

The reason that would be important for us, I mean, that's the latest we would want to get it is because We know that the mayor will be submitting his budget to us at the end of September.

In addition to the five momentum building actions, all the other projects that you're working on throughout the city now, we would want to see the budget submitted to us reflect the action plan so that the things are being funded that you're proposing.

Does that sound right to you?

So I'm not ready to commit to when the action plan will be done, because some of that depends on the public input that we're going to receive over the course of the next few weeks to help inform what's in it.

And some of that depends on the timeline of making a full grant agreement, because a big chunk of our work will be that federally funded activities, because that will double the size of our annual work program from about $8 million to $15 million.

for multiple years.

Absolutely, our discussions around the budget will center on safety as the 2024 budget discussions come into focus.

I'm not 100% sure that I can commit today that the entire Vision Zero action plan will be done as those discussions are happening, but what's happening with that plan will be informing those discussions for sure.

But I do think very soon we can begin to promulgate a calendar of the various deliverables in the way that Councilmember Herbold was asking for.

Thank you.

We'll look forward to that list of deliverables and timelines for that.

We'll also continue to encourage you to have the action plan ready prior to the budget so that we can see the integration to the extent possible.

Looking forward to the automated enforcement sooner.

And then whatever you can do with right turns on red, we know that's part of your momentum building action.

It says downtown and beyond in your PowerPoint.

We appreciate that.

If there are specific locations in Councilmember Morales' district, for example, that can be done now.

I understand we do have some authority with our traffic engineer slash safety engineer who could help make that happen.

if I can help facilitate that, please let me know.

But really wanna thank you for recognizing this even before you were confirmed as a priority and then making this top to bottom review happen and then getting the federal dollars, having some initial actions that you could take and then following it up with the action plan that we'll look forward to.

Thank you to you and your team.

Thank you very much.

And I also do see the U district as a very exciting opportunity for no turn on red as well, because I've walked around there a lot and the pedestrian density is very high.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, well, let's go ahead.

Thank you, Estad.

And we'll go ahead and move to our Seattle Public Utilities item, which is item two on our agenda.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the second agenda item?

Agenda item two, a resolution adopting Seattle's 2022 solid waste plan update, moving upstream to zero waste.

For briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you, colleagues.

We first heard this item at our February 21st committee meeting and it's back today for a vote.

We have presenters from last week here with us in case there are any last minute questions.

As you know, Brian Goodnight from our Council Central staff wrote an excellent memo analyzing the proposed solid waste plan update.

So I do want to give him a chance.

Brian, if you have any opening comments or important findings you'd like to share with us on the outset.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Peterson, morning Council Members, Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Yes, if you don't mind, I'll just speak for a couple minutes with some highlights of the plan.

Thank you.

So, as you mentioned, this item was at the February 21st committee meeting.

Resolution 32082 would adopt the plan, which is attached to the resolution as attachment one, as the city's solid waste management plan.

So state law requires that local governments review and revise their solid waste management plans every five years.

And the most recent action by the council to adopt the plan was occurred in 2013 with the adoption of a plan that's known as the 2011 solid waste plan revision.

In 2016, Seattle Public Utilities, or SPU, in consultation with the city's Solid Waste Advisory Committee, initiated a review of the plan and started drafting an amendment, but the amendment process was never concluded and was ultimately impacted by the pandemic.

Following those delays, the Department of Ecology updated its guidance and requested that SPU submit a revision to the solid waste plan rather than an amendment.

And that revision is the plan that the executive has proposed for adoption via resolution before you today.

So in addition to the presentation, as you mentioned, there is a staff memo that's attached to the agenda and was distributed last week.

Very broadly speaking, the 2022 plan update describes how Seattle will manage and finance solid waste services and facilities in the near term and also projects system management needs over a 20 year planning horizon.

The plan prioritizes waste prevention and presents a vision of a zero waste future where all materials are reused or recycled and nothing is wasted.

And that vision for zero waste is consistent with SPU's 2021 to 2026 strategic business plan, which the council adopted in May of 2021. The 2022 plan identifies seven goal areas to guide the city's solid waste management and recommends 39 actions.

34 of those actions are seen as being able to implement within the next five years.

The plan also projects the revenue and rate impacts through the year 2040 for both a status quo scenario and a scenario where SPU is able to implement the actions that are recommended in the plan.

And the main takeaway of those is that SPU believes that customer rates will increase more slowly over time if they're able to implement the recommendations.

So although the recommendations do have implementation costs over time, they're expected to reduce the amount of garbage moving through the system, which in turn leads to cost savings for the system overall.

And one other thing that I'd like to highlight is approval of the resolution would also supersede the recycling goals established in July of 2007 via resolution 30990. Those goals, as they were later amended, were for the city to recycle 70% of construction and demolition waste by the year 2020 and to recycle 70% of municipal solid waste by the year 2022. As was discussed at last committee's meeting, there are a number of reasons why these recycling goals have never been met, which include things like the shift to lighter weight materials and the changing composition of the waste stream.

So the resolution and the 2022 plan update do acknowledge a shift toward minimizing waste further upstream in the life cycle of materials, rather than focusing solely on the end of life management of waste.

And that shifting focus is consistent with the actions of other industry leaders, such as the US EPA, the Department of Ecology in Washington, and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

So moving forward, SPU will continue to track recycling rates for each waste sector, but the recycling rate will no longer be the primary data point for program related decision making.

Section two of the resolution notes that SPU will use metrics such as waste generation and capture rates to measure its work and track citywide waste trends.

And section three of the resolution requires SPU to report to the council by October 1st of each year on the previous year's progress, preventing, reducing, and diverting waste.

So lastly, in terms of next steps, if the committee recommends passage of the legislation today, then the full council could take final action on the resolution on March 14th.

Assuming Council does adopt the plan, SPU will submit the plan to the Department of Ecology for its final approval.

And if the Council or the Committee chose to make substantive changes to the plan prior to adoption, then the City's Solid Waste Advisory Committee would need to hold a meeting to review the changes prior to SPU submitting the plan to Ecology for approval.

Although the Advisory Committee is required to hold a meeting to review the changes, the group is not required to approve of the changes that Council makes.

And that concludes my remarks, so happy to turn it over to SPU if they have comments or respond to any questions.

Thank you, Brian, and thanks for noting the consistency with the strategic plan of Seattle Public Utilities, as well as the better metrics that we have now, consistent with the Department of Ecology and other environmental experts.

Council Member Herbold.

I'll probably have more questions for SPU, but just to clarify from Brian's overview, we had a good conversation last committee meeting.

I understand why it is that we are no longer including a 70% recycling goal.

And although there'll still be reports on recycling rights, that will no longer be a goal that we strive to, and develop policies that make it more likely that we get to that rate, et cetera, et cetera.

But we are...

taking out one goal with the promise of some addition, some future goal that is more related to waste reduction.

And am I correct, Brian, we don't have Those goals yet before us in this in this plan.

That's correct.

Thank you.

So I think, and I'm happy to let SP respond if they have additional information but the way I read the plan is they are working on it and they think it's the plan sites actually a two to three year period of planning to like work through metrics and decide what is kind of the most appropriate rates to focus on or sorry metrics to focus on and targets.

So I believe they've already started that work.

But you're correct that the resolution doesn't specify kind of any individual goal or specific action.

You're right.

Yeah.

And I just want to say I do feel I recognize the need to replace the 70% recycling rate with something else.

I am very uncomfortable removing it at this stage without having that something else to replace.

Does Seattle Public Utilities want to respond?

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

Excuse me.

Yeah, we have a waste prevention strategic plan in works as we speak.

That's part of this larger plan where we have some timelines where we have to get this comp plan update into ecology.

But in the meantime, we have been building and, and, and working towards setting new goals, uh, specifically around waste prevention.

So we, we currently have a process in place now, uh, to develop a prevention, uh, strategic plan, and we should have that completed, uh, I believe, uh, by next year, 2024. which will lay out the goals and be very comprehensive towards what we're trying to move towards with waste prevention.

Will you be coming back to the council to review those goals with you or at least to inform what those are?

We'd be happy to do that once that plan is completed.

We're going out and getting a lot of public input, industry input and other governmental agency input on where we need to be and what we need to strive for on the waste prevention side.

A lot of that work has already begun and we plan to have that plan by next year.

Will you still be tracking the recycling for informational purposes?

Yeah, we still have, we will still be reporting on our recycling rate.

Uh, correct Stephanie, do you mind jumping in?

Uh, yes, so we'll, we'll continue to track that because, um.

Uh, it is a metric that, um.

Is is, uh, still useful in some ways to us.

And we have in the plan, we talk about some different ways that we're looking to propose that we're looking at for measuring our success.

And so some of those are around.

Standardizing our measurements of of residential and non generation and non residential waste generation and disposal.

Developing new targets or limits on reductions in overall waste generation and disposal to a landfill.

Figuring out how to measure reductions in food waste.

These are all metrics that we're in the process of researching and evaluating what might be appropriate measures for uh, measuring our progress on, uh, curtailing waste, uh, the, the creation of waste in the first place and, uh, waste reduction generally.

Um, and this is, we've had measures like those in the past and, um, we just want to kind of true them up for, um, our, um, redoubled, um, emphasis on waste prevention.

And so that work is already well underway.

And I would just add that effectively measuring waste prevention is sort of is like its new frontier for the entire industry.

So as a leader in that industry, Seattle, along with, you know, our partners, Department of Ecology, Department of Environmental Quality in Oregon, and others who are sort of at the forefront of this field are just starting to wrangle with how we measure waste from being prevented in the first place.

So I think we have some really good leads on how we want to approach that.

We're just really nailing down the specifics of how we do that measurement.

And Council Member Herbold, I could just share the presentation screen real quick of last time.

So this is one of the slides of possible proposed metrics and targets that we were thinking about.

And we already are tracking generation per household, and it's been on a significant decline.

I think we mentioned that last week.

But to really understand if that is the best measurement, if that is what's going to get us where we want to be at the end of the day, that's where we're really trying to refine that through the strategic plan process.

So is there a downside to, just for now, leave that 70% number in until we have new goals for waste reduction?

Well, I don't know about a downside, but we're looking at, with this plan, we're looking at the next six years, possibly 20. It's certainly, and our recommendation wouldn't be something we would want to carry through that type of timeline.

So the way production goals aren't going to be part of a longer timeline plan?

Is that what I hear you saying?

No, sorry.

They will be.

But we don't necessarily want the 70% one driving our work.

Right, but we could update the 70%, right?

When you have new goals.

Like I said, I'm uncomfortable approving a plan for the utility that does not have either recycling or waste production goals in it?

Well, maybe that's an overstatement a little bit.

In our SPU strategic plan, we do track and measure this generation per household.

Both what sent to landfill and what is total waste generated.

Continually trying to decrease that number.

So we do track that it's in our, it's in our, it's in the overall SPU strategic plan.

Again, we're just trying to work towards, with this waste prevention strategic plan that we're working on, we're really trying to refine those.

And those will absolutely have goals in place that will drive our work in the waste prevention field, waste prevention area.

Councilmember Herbold, I hear what you're saying.

And for me, it was the validation from the State Department of Ecology and from the advisory, the group advising Seattle Public Utilities on this.

Though, I'd like to hear what the time constraints are.

For SPU, what are your time constraints?

Can you remind us for getting this plan?

endorsed by the council because there may be a way to have you either come back to committee in the future.

I don't think we've got any room for you in March, but have you come back in April to committee or we could potentially amend it on its way to the full council to keep in place a goal until the next goal is ready to go.

I'm sorry.

So what is your deadline for getting this, for council approving this?

Is there a hard deadline that we have to adhere to?

Stephanie, I don't believe there's a hard deadline.

We've let ecology know what our process is going forward to get it back to them.

But I don't believe that's a hard deadline.

Well, that's fine.

We can see you back in April on our committee and try to work out some of these issues between now and then.

Okay.

Council Member Herbold, hi, this is Bob.

Bob's here to manage Herbold.

You know partially why I'm asking this question is because of the, right?

One of the findings in the report referred To 23 adopt collection infrastructure incentives or requirements and multifamily construction to ensure that tenants have sufficient solid way services and convenient access.

So, again, I think it was probably 2019 started conversations with both STCI and SPU to look at how to amend the land use code to ensure that tenants who live or owners who live in multifamily buildings have their recycling and composting located in a single location.

For any of us living in a single family home, ask yourself, do you have to go to three different places, maybe three different floors to dispose of your garbage, recycling, and compost?

So we were working on legislation to require builders to have equal access.

Multifamily properties, the last date I have, the last year I have numbers for were 37% rates for residents of multi-family properties as compared to 54% which was the target.

And that 37% is likely bringing down our ability to hit 70% from when that was a goal.

So I'm just not convinced that we've done enough.

to try to hit that goal.

And I'm, like I said, really reluctant to remove it without another set of goals.

I know that SGCI and SPU worked together to develop legislation.

There was a SEPA review on it.

There was an appeal to the legislation.

That appeal was dismissed by the hearing examiner, happily.

My knowledge, the legislation was never brought forward.

So, sorry, Herbold is in her last year of wanting to get things done that she started a few years ago.

And this is definitely one of those items that's really important to me to move forward.

We got, SPU's partnership has been in the past, had been really good on this.

Again, STCI had moved forward.

It's just the status of the legislation itself that I'm very interested in because again, I'm just not 100% convinced that we've done everything that we can to improve our recycling rates and don't really wanna let go of those goals in exchange for new ones until I'm convinced that we have new ones and that we've tried everything.

So I'm here.

Well, what I think we absolutely provide you an update on the status of the on floor storage requirements we can provide you that in terms of the legislation at hand before us.

I'm thinking.

just brainstorming here that we could probably wordsmith the resolution before the committee without having to change the plan.

Is that Jeff and Stephanie?

Would that be acceptable to you, Council Member Herbold, if we modified the resolution to satisfy your concerns while not changing the plan?

It would satisfy me as long as the chair doesn't have procedural concerns.

other concerns.

I think it's a reasonable request and so we'll, rather than doing it on the fly here, we'll have SPU workshop that and come back to us in April.

Okay, let's move on to the next item.

Thank you, Councilor Herbold, appreciate your sticking to that.

agenda item 3 will the clerk please read the short title of the third agenda item agenda item 3 clerk file 314 512 petition of Denny and Eastlake limited partnership and Denny and Stewart limited partnership for the vacation of the alley lying within block 24 for briefing and discussion

Thank you.

Colleagues, today we have in front of us an early initial briefing on a request to have the city vacate an alley that runs, I believe, north-south.

It's directly west of I-5 and bordered by Denny Way and Stewart Street in District 7. It's officially part of the Southlake Union Urban Center.

And I understand representatives from the developer team are here with us today.

As I understand it, they're requesting the city vacate the public alley to facilitate the development of a proposed 15 story research facility.

And I discussed this a bit during council briefing yesterday.

Again, this is very early in the process.

I understand that this is where we've got a couple of buildings currently there would be demolished.

They are, currently house a tattoo shop, hookah lounge, El Corazon and Funhouse music clubs, an auto repair shop, and you're proposing to build this research facility.

So a key issue here we'll be discussing are what are the public benefits?

What does the public get in exchange potentially for granting a vacation of this public alley to the private sector to facilitate the proposed development?

I want to thank you all for being here today.

I really appreciate having our top-notch street and alley vacation team here from SDOT and I want to thank Lish

Yes, thank you.

So the purpose of this briefing is to provide Council members with an opportunity to comment on the proposal before City Departments and the Seattle Design Commission really undertake their detailed review of the proposal.

So this is an opportunity for you to highlight any issues that you would like to see resolved when it comes back to Council.

or identify any concerns you may have with the vacation as proposed.

And with that I'll hand it over to Beverly Barnett.

Thank you, Lish.

Good morning, committee.

Thank you for having us here.

Thank you, Hannah, for getting this on the agenda.

We see the items that you had before you today.

We know getting these agendas together is pretty tight.

So as Lish indicated, this is a great opportunity for us because we get to hear guidance and input from members of the committee or members of the public before we begin our formal review.

I'm only going to take a couple minutes and then we're going to go to Michael Jenkins, the Executive Director of the Design Commission, and then Mark Brands who will introduce the development team.

What we want to focus on today is the PowerPoint presentation because the goal is for you to see the proposal and ask the questions that you want us to work on during the review and provide us any guidance that you might have or anything you've heard from.

The community member.

So, even though this is the ribbon cutting for this project, the street vacation policies do provide that there's some preliminary work that a developer does before they come in so this has been seen by the design commission in early review that Michael will talk about.

It's gone through early design guidance and they've met with SDCI and SDOT subject matter experts on access and things like that.

So what we'll be focusing on now that we begin the formal review is all of the technical questions that when Mark shows us the project, you'll see this is a triangular shaped block.

They always raise questions about access and services.

We also look really deeply at the community engagement plan and what the community and neighborhood have to say about the project.

And we work very closely with the Seattle Design Commission, the community and other city staff on defining a really appropriate and usable public benefit for that neighborhood in that project.

So I think that's all I wanna say so that we can spend our time on the project.

And now we'd ask Michael and then we'll go to Mark who'll introduce the development team.

Thanks, Beverly.

Good morning, Council Members.

Michael Jenkins, Director of the Seattle Design Commission.

Just a brief comment or two.

The Commission did have an opportunity in a subcommittee to look at and provide some initial input to the development team as well as to SDOT in advance of the submittal of their petition.

This is one of the more challenging intersections.

This project is located at one of the more challenging intersections in the City for Safety and Security.

Uh, the pedestrians and audible, audible, auto automobiles.

The commission, I don't think, and as you'll see in the presentation, I'll throw to Mark here in just a second.

I don't know that the commission is particularly concerned about the loss of the alley in some ways as a remnant of.

uh, alley that, um, has been divided both by Stewart Street and the- and the capacity that that carries, as well as a significant structure that holds up a portion of Denny Way to the south.

So I don't know that the commission raised too many concerns about the concept of the vacation, rather, uh, and in Mark's presentation, he'll show you, I think, some of the concerns about, uh, some of the solutions and who they're actually benefiting, uh, With that, I will toss it to Mark.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank you, Chair Peterson and Liz Beverly for getting us on the agenda.

Really appreciate it.

I know that was a packed day and it was interesting to listen to Vision Zero.

I'm going to build on a little bit of that when we talk about this parcel, because as Michael mentioned, There's some significant pedestrian things we can do here.

But I'll introduce our team.

So I'll let Ben say something.

Ben Rosenfeld from PMB.

He's our client and the owner.

And then also joined by Katie Kendall, our land use attorney on the project.

And she's here available for questions should they come up.

But Ben, why don't you go ahead and tell us about PMB?

Yeah, thank you so much, Mark.

And thank you, everyone, for your time today.

PMB, we are a healthcare real estate development company across the continuum of care.

We're based out of San Diego and predominantly focus kind of Texas, Colorado, and West.

Being a continuum of care healthcare developers, we're extremely excited about this project and just building on the momentum of the life sciences investment.

in South Lake Union and specifically at this site's location.

A little bit about us, we're a privately owned business, we're long-term owners.

This is not going to be our only investment in downtown Seattle.

We really take pride in long-term relationships and through the outreach that we've done, are really trying to become members and partners in a community.

And we think we have a fantastic opportunity to do that here.

And the alley vacation will help precipitate the sort of maximum benefit that we can provide.

So I just want to thank everybody for your time.

And I'll turn it back over to Mark and Katie.

Thank you, Ben.

I'm going to share my screen now, and we've got about a dozen slides.

Oops, did I do that right?

Yeah, there we go.

Anybody see that?

Okay, so it is one of those leftover triangles of property.

It's a collection of parcels.

As Chair Peterson mentioned, it's one-story buildings.

and there's an alley that bisects it.

It is at the gateway to our city.

It's really important here that we think about that.

A lot of folks get off of Stewart Street exit and pass REI, which is a bit of a landmark, and pass this particular site.

So we've, to date, this is a quick look at our process.

We started mid last year with PMB.

and started with an outreach plan.

Been meeting with FSTOT with Jackson, Keenan, Cook, Beverly, Michael, and design commission members have joined the conversations of the subcommittee.

So briefings, we've got some early guidance from them.

I'll share that with you.

We've been through our EDG meeting, got an approval last November from design review board and submitted a petition and our MUP.

So that's where we sit.

We've also been meeting with the community.

This is an emerging community here.

It's at this nexus of Denny Triangle East, South Lake Union, Cap Hill comes down via the bridge deck.

So it's emerging.

And our community meetings were not well attended.

But we did get a good meeting in with the South Lake Union Community Council.

And just yesterday had a really good meeting with youth care.

We're very excited about that.

So we're going to continue to try to find other community members as outreach that can provide meaningful input really inform where we're going here with our public benefit package.

So the next step is going to be in late April, early May, working with Michael to get a date on for our public trust urban design merit meeting as a first step.

And then we will be going back to the design review board with the design recommendation meeting, go back to design commission sometime in the third quarter with a public benefit package proposal and hopefully get a recommendation before your budget cycle.

And then we would love to be in front of you at the first quarter next year, one of the first things on your agenda with a full proposal and a subcommittee meeting.

Oops.

Okay.

So again, outreach, it's been multi-pronged.

I mentioned that the main thing we're focusing on here, won't spend a lot of time on this, but is we're really, it's the outreach I think that's going to find the community.

And so youth care was a, was a really excellent opportunity.

And the outcome of that, I'll just frame it really quickly is just initial meeting introduction.

And I think if you know, youth, youth care, they are really focused in on the unhoused, the homeless population, young adults, teens, and provide them with stability.

And they have some new facilities going on very excitingly up in Capitol Hill.

They've got one right across the street from us on Denny Way and Stewart.

And I think just some real opportunities to engage their population in our project.

And specifically, we're looking at artwork and working with urban artwork as a means of process.

So the vacation, as Michael said, this is an alley that doesn't serve anybody but this block, it tees into the Denny Way bridge deck and then it comes out on a heavy arterial on Stewart.

And it really only services the parcels that are owned by PMB.

So it doesn't really have a lot of utility.

And so we're, but you know, we need to go through this exercise of proving public trust and that's the first step that we're on here.

So we're going to focus very much on pedestrian safety.

So it's very interesting listening to Vision Zero.

And the city's focus, council's focus, SDOT's, I think we're very much fitting into that focus on pedestrian safety and making significant improvements to this block.

We've got a significant amount of

Well said.

Now it looks like your audio cut off.

So can your partner step in?

Ben?

Yeah, I definitely can.

I don't have this presentation on my desktop to share.

Hold on one second.

Hopefully Mark can come back in, but I'll.

OK.

Mark, if you can hear us, your audio cut out and your screen froze.

Ben, if you're not able to get that presentation, we do have it online and can probably pull it up.

Yeah, I got it.

OK.

So I'm going to share my screen.

And Katie, we can tag team this one.

Can everybody see my screen?

Yes, great.

And if you just go to slide three, I think.

Okay, so I think Mark was just kind of wrapping up that we've done the outreach that we can.

We've had a very promising meeting with youth care, and the next steps for that, they wanted to just chew on our current plan and design, and then we were gonna huddle up on ways that we could work together in terms of implementing the ultimate programming partnerships.

And we'll continue to do outreach throughout the process.

Ben, do you want me to take this?

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay, great.

So as Mark was starting to discuss, and I think Beverly and Michael touched on this as well, you know, one of the things we're looking at when we're looking at an alley vacation is how well does the alley work now?

And what are the things that we can do to, you know, improve the situation?

And the intersection at Stewart and Denny in particular is not particularly safe right now, it does not create a good pedestrian condition, and one of the elements of the alley vacation would allow us to really improve this and create a welcoming plaza at this gateway at Stewart and Denny.

And when Mark's able to get back on, he can talk in a little bit more detail about this.

But the alley itself is about mid-block on this kind of half block here.

So it's really awkward.

And to allow the vacation would create a great public space and entries.

along with the public improvements, the public realm improvements along Stewart and lower Denny as well, which can get dark and not particularly welcoming.

Ben, is there anything you want to add there?

No.

This was just another site context map.

I think we hit it on the first slide here.

you know, reminding everyone that it's located at the intersection of two grids where the South Lake Union and Denny Triangle neighborhoods meet at the I-5.

And as you can just see, it sort of creates this awkward triangular block fragment.

And then this slide here is just, sort of discusses, you know, the existing alley network and it, you know, it sort of stands alone and it's in terms of serving actually as a thoroughfare as you can see here in the pink here, you know, near the REI campus.

This was already a vacated alley and ours was an extension.

Then when the Denny over-crossing came on, it developed this alley that really doesn't serve any function, especially when you compare it to existing alleys that connect through streets here, that condition does not exist at this site.

And I'm back, I apologize.

We lost Internet in our building.

And so I'll retake the screen there again with apologies.

OK, yeah, let's please keep going.

OK, so I think.

Then you might have covered again the the alley position stuff I'm going to Still on the plan here.

So what you're seeing on the screen here is the proposed plan with the vacation.

And we've got a ground floor that is activating Stewart Street with retail lobby space.

There's a bike entry on the south end.

One of the big things here with pedestrian safety, we're consolidating all of the vehicular entries and pushing it all onto East Lake, sort of the working side of the building.

That's trash, recycle, loading, and parking.

Everything goes into one driveway.

So we're really cleaning all of that up.

You see comments on here from design commission and we met with subcommittee with Michael and a select subcommittee really focusing on a pedestrian safety.

So I wanted to know how does the building height bulk scale the mass really inform the open space and provide and how public can it feel?

Beverly's been very clear about this about public private.

Do you really feel like you're invited into a space?

Are you going to be othered out of it?

So.

We've got a deck that's set up, or a deck, I say it's an outdoor area for the retail space to spill out onto.

It is publicly accessible, but we're always very focused on the sidewalk space too.

The landscape, the width of the sidewalk, the places to pause, what is it doing as people use it as a connection.

So we're really trying to strengthen that pedestrian network.

Cleaning up the corner, Stuart and Denny, where the bridge deck comes down.

And the key part of that is relocating the driveway, which you see on screen, and creating just that, a driveway.

It's not a curb return as a street.

And this is off the advice and guidance of SDOT when we're meeting with them.

They would like us to close this down to just emergency vehicles, maintenance for SDOT, and building maintenance for the building.

So PMB wouldn't even get access for cars, for a ride share or anything.

That would all get pushed over to Eastlake.

So it's very much focusing on the pedestrian.

And so Design Commission had asked us to really clarify what its role in the neighborhood is, and that's what we're working on right now.

You can see a significant amount of landscape.

And what we're building here is a stormwater concept off the swale on Yale and really focusing on the health of Lake Union and the water quality.

And so we're thinking of things even like how much street water can we take and push into these large stormwater quality facilities that also provide beautification of this entrance into the city.

And then lastly, and this is an active, very active conversation with SDOT is our bicycle facilities.

And there's going to be some sort of protected by a claim on East Lake.

And that's what we're trying to understand our participation in that.

There's a project by King County that is happening just north, just off the screen, north of John Street.

And that's about that whole intersection with I-5 along East Lake.

And that They're building that out as part of another mitigation for another project, and it also connects into the Thomas street greenway.

Part of this process is comparing and the 1st step in the petition and and also in the public trust is to compare vacation vacation.

So, on the left is the no vacation scheme.

It shows you can just see the hint of the alley behind that parcel a.

Parcel A is heavily restricted because the size has no open space requirements.

Parcel B does.

It's pretty minimal.

It's likely that we would put that onto East Lake, and it would become some sort of drop-off space as well.

On the right is the vacation scheme.

You get a significant more of landscape that is visually and physically connected to the public realm.

We are providing more like 10,000 square feet.

The minimum requirement there is just a little bit less than six.

We're almost doubling that.

with the amount of open space that'd be publicly accessible.

In plan view, again, no vacation scheme is on the left.

You can see the distribution of the open space.

The alley really, though it's public, really is a service corridor.

And in this case, it would serve as both loading and parking access points for both building.

And it's fairly constrained.

It would really be a one-way loop using that lower Denny.

And then plan on the right is vacation scheme again, you can see the significant landscape open space available to the public when we're able to actually shape that building and pull it back from Stuart and really focus in on the pedestrian realm.

And these are kind of tough to see, but they're ghosted in.

And it's really the top ones are from the corner looking back up Capitol Hill and Stewart.

So you get an idea of the no vacation scheme on the left and the vacation scheme on the right.

And then the bottom, it is looking on Denny from east.

So looking down from Capitol Hill.

It's a little bit tough because there's some Maybe some great change that is picked up as well here, but you do get the idea of the hypo scale of the buildings.

And then it's a public benefit package, and I kept this pretty high level because we're early days and it's hard to get into a lot of detail on this, but.

Again, a lot of these are focusing on pedestrian safety.

The Lower Denny Way urban curbless street, which is now within our manual, our Streets Illustrated allows us to do this, but restricting cars to just emergency vehicles and maintenance and really focusing it on people.

Cleaning up that nose, that crossing.

at Stewart and Denny is again part and parcel with that lower Denny way, but moving that driveway and restricting access again is really important to that.

The middle one is about artwork and on the bridge and on the actual podium of the building.

So we're thinking about it in many and all these vertical surfaces where we can really animate a space, realize that maybe people don't want to hang out in lower Denny, let's make it the best space possible.

And there is discussion too about how we maybe affect the underside of the bridge.

And then the last two, East Lake Avenue, the bike improvements that I mentioned, so we're going to extend those.

And our frontage, they're not required, but we're thinking about how we could extend those to meet other improvements that the SDOT is identifying.

And the last one is contributing to our seamless Seattle wayfinding package.

We think there's some some signs in here that deserve merit and could be placed at key locations here for pedestrians.

And I'm going to stop there.

I think that's the end of our presentation and open up for questions.

Thank you, Mark.

Could you go back to the public benefits slide?

Yeah, sure.

Thank you.

And I know we're going to end this shortly.

People have a, I know everybody has noon appointments here, but real quick.

So this is what we'll be focusing in on, I think, as public officials, seeing what the public benefits are.

And so I know I'll be checking with Council Member Andrew Lewis as well.

This is in his council district in District 7. Really appreciate your I'll be interested in hearing I don't know if there's anything else that we can see about but with perhaps this would be a good time to note doesn't this project.

Have to pay into a mandatory housing affordability.

And if so, do we have an estimated calculation

It was probably a question for Katie Kendall, who I'm not sure is on the line anymore.

I still am.

This project will pay into MHA and I will get you a number here in a second.

Okay, and then while you're doing an estimate of that, just so we have some sense of the scale, and I know that's separate than the traditional public benefits, it's a requirement that you pay MHA, but it's just good for us to hear that context.

Is the research facility is how this is labeled?

Do we have any thoughts on what will be researched or who will be your tenants, your commercial tenants?

Yeah, so this will serve as a speculative building that will be for tenants that are expanding through the existing research institutions in the area.

So it'll be an R&D facility, likely 60%, 40% split between lab and office.

but we do not have any specific tenants lined up.

Our business plan is to take advantage of the kind of the current ecosystem and the commercialization of various therapeutics coming out of those institutions.

And is there any ability to, do we know what's gonna happen to those small business tenants that are gonna be displaced?

Are they still operating today?

And if so, do we know what will happen to them?

Yeah, so we are working with both of the owners.

And I don't know what the future holds for the auto shop.

I do know that in working with El Corazon ownership, that they are very interested and actively looking for a future home.

for their venue.

We are not planning to start construction until, you know, at the earliest end of next year.

So, you know, there's nothing immediately pressing in terms of our relocation will kind of be business as usual for those folks, but we're actively communicating.

And I know in at least one instance, there's a plan to relocate.

Great.

We really appreciate that.

I know we're so focused on what's going to be there, but I want to just give some time for, you know, who might be displaced.

And we've in the university district where there's a lot of development, I know the business improvement area, um, is pretty active in helping, uh, those who are displaced find new space.

Um, there are lots of empty storefronts throughout the city.

Uh, so there, there can be a good, um, of the need there with the small business being displaced with empty storefronts elsewhere who are looking for tenants.

So the BIAs can often provide a resource there.

Colleagues, any, and did we get the MHA estimate is about $4 million?

It's around 4 million.

It's a little less.

It's a little over three and a half.

And then there's also childcare payments in this zone as well, which are about a half million.

Okay, thank you.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on this early briefing?

Okay, well, really appreciate you all coming here to explain this project, and it's always great to have Beverly Barnett, Michael Jenkins, and others here.

Lish, thank you very much for your memo.

Colleagues, that was our last item on the agenda.

Appreciate you staying late today, and there's no further comments or questions.

This meeting is adjourned.

So this concludes the March 7, 2020 meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

The next committee meeting will be on Tuesday, March 21st.

Thank you.

We are doubly adjourned.

All right, bye.