Transportation Committee 3/19/2024

You're fine.

All right.

Good morning.

The March 19th, 2024 meeting of the Transportation Committee will come to order.

It is 9.31 a.m.

I am Rob Saka, Chair of the Transportation Committee.

Will the Committee Clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Present.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

All right.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

All right.

Well, welcome members and guests to this year's fourth meeting of the Transportation Committee.

Really excited.

A lot of a stacked agenda today, but a lot of really important content.

I would like to first off extend a very special welcome to Gary Poore of the Port of Seattle and Kevin Werner.

Today, they're representing the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee and will share the committee's thoughts on the existing levy and the upcoming levy renewal.

As we get closer to the mayor releasing and then transmitting the proposed new transportation levy, I hope we are all starting to focus on what we like the new levy to accomplish for us collectively, just as we reflect on what the current levy has done.

Next, we will hear from our central staff member and colleague, Calvin Chow, who will give us additional insight into the resolution to adopt the Seattle Transportation Plan.

And for clarity, colleagues, we are not voting on that today, the Transportation Plan today.

The earliest we'll do that, the earliest we'll do that is next meeting.

Finally, I want to welcome members of the Seattle Department of Transportation who are here to lend some important insights into how new sidewalks are specifically funded and prioritized for construction.

Sidewalks, really important nitty gritty detail that help drive accessibility, equity, and access to transit, help us achieve climate goals amongst other policy goals and priorities of the city of Seattle.

So really excited to learn more about adding new, specifically new sidewalks, the opportunity we have to do that here in Seattle.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Mr. Chair, currently we have two speakers in chambers and four remote speakers.

All right, thank you.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes and we will start with the end speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

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

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

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

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

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

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

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Mr. Chair, first we'll hear from Megan Cruz.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

I'm Megan Cruz, a District 7 resident, and I'm here to speak on the Seattle Transportation Plan, and specifically, the need to add a freight delivery policy as the comp plan creates new, dense urban centers in up-zone residential neighborhoods.

Downtown was Seattle's first urban village, and after 40 years, we've seen what's happened with no plan.

As curb space was converted for buses and bikes over the years, there was no requirement for new buildings to provide off-street loading space and the freight that it generated.

Today, a UW study shows that downtown, trucks circle the blocks for 12 to 18 minutes just trying to find a place to offload.

And that means there's more congestion, emissions, and unnecessary interactions with pedestrians.

The good news is that the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections has recently released this report talking about residential loading berth delivery standards.

Now that we have it, what it means is we just need the political will to make a policy.

Before we increase density citywide, let's learn from downtown.

Let's now coordinate this unique time to coordinate the land use and transportation policies and make residential loading standards a part of this report and the comp plan.

And I want to thank Representative Council Member Kettle for championing this issue through his campaign and even today.

And I'll leave you with a copy of this report.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry, Committee Chair, next we will hear from Amy Nichols.

Good morning.

My name is Amy Nichols, and I am a member of the Barrett family of the Samish Nation.

I formerly worked in cultural resources consultation for the air quality section at the Washington State Department of Ecology, in particular with transportation projects to improve air quality.

As a Coast Salish person, I support and recognize the Duwamish Nation and their historic and ongoing cultural heritage and ask that they continue to be consulted on the Fauntleroy project and on all future transportation projects within the city.

Second, I would also like to respond to Councilwoman Marietta's recent remarks about the transportation plan last committee meeting.

I live in District 4. Last week, I met with my neighbors at the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association who all expressed being very happy with the direction of transportation in our area noting improvements in walking safety, including a raised bus platform that has nearly stopped drag racing down Roosevelt.

We've really appreciated the protected bike lanes and having increased connectivity to transit.

These have been great investments in our community, and we would like more, including better enforcement in cleaner bike lanes, loading zones for delivery vehicles to connect better with Maple Leaf, and overall to have a more transportation-oriented community.

This can include working to have more multifamily housing near transit hubs, more bike storage, and EV charging.

We're really excited about the Seattle Transportation Plan, and we would love it across more of the cities so we don't feel like we're in a bubble in Roosevelt, but instead can be well-connected throughout all communities.

Thank you very much.

Committee chair, next we'll hear from Robin Briggs who's calling in.

Good morning council members.

My name is Robin Briggs.

I live on Capitol Hill and I'm here representing the 43rd Environmental Caucus to speak about the transportation plan.

We are very concerned about the climate and are particularly concerned that the city meet its goal of 82% reduction in transportation emissions by 2030. Seattle has done some planning for this and not just in the transportation plan.

There's a climate change response plan, a curbside climate change, and a transit performance plan.

And these are all good plans for how to reduce emissions.

I am just beginning to wonder if anyone is actually reading them.

Please pass this plan, but read it first.

Understand it.

and use it to shape the transportation levy.

Emissions have been flat for years in spite of all of our plans.

We need implementation of these good ideas.

As part of the outreach, I was asked whether I wanted no change, incremental change, or rapid change.

And like the majority of respondents, I said I wanted rapid change.

I hope when the levy comes out that it will follow through on the promises in the plan.

Our world depends on it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we will hear from Jim Costains.

Jim, you might need to press star six.

Jim, if you can hear me, star six might unmute you.

Good morning, everyone.

Sorry about that.

I was pressing the wrong number on it.

This is Jim Kasanis.

and I am a citizen downtown and I have an architectural firm that was located at the terminal sales building at the corner of 1st and Virginia for close to 40 years.

And so I know 1st Avenue quite well and all the properties that join that particular avenue.

I've also looked at the Parsons report that was dated 2023 for the city center.

connector.

And after reading that and following you all in terms of the connector that's going to be running along First Avenue, I'm just here to say that I am totally against it.

And the reasons are first on the infrastructure and how it's going to impact the infrastructure for all the businesses on First Avenue.

Second is the cost of it, which I see in the Parsons report that they're It's around $300 million, but it's going to go up because there's a lot of things that haven't been addressed.

And in order to address it, it's going to take another year and a half for Parsons to do their work.

And also, more importantly, the idea of the trolley on First Avenue when, you know, the societies are going towards autonomous vehicles and moving forward with different, you know, modes of transportation.

And so I think about the trolley car, and if you spend this kind of money to alter all the infrastructure that it takes to place this trolley car on First Avenue, that once that work is done, if it was ever done, it would lock up First Avenue in terms of other ideas and autonomous vehicles.

So for that reason, I am against it.

Thank you for your time, and I'll...

I'll be in touch.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Ruth Danner.

Ruth, please press star six.

Chair Saka, council members, staff and fellow citizens.

Good morning.

I'm Ruth Danner, president of Save the Market Entrance, speaking on behalf of 91,000 voices raised in concern over Seattle's future, particularly at the entrance to Pike Place Market and surrounding neighborhoods.

I am here today to speak about the Seattle Transportation Plan.

I have two related requests.

First, that you drop the First Avenue streetcar, the city center connector, from any future consideration because its cost and tradeoffs far outweigh its benefits.

And second, to embrace Seattle's desperate need for an urban freight policy with the power to impact future master use permit requirements.

The Market Neighborhood is A dense, thriving area with little curb space and lots of small businesses, hotels, and mixed-use residential towers.

Keeping this neighborhood safe and inviting for tourists and locals means having a place for trucks to make their deliveries away from the crowds.

A new SDCI report acknowledges the lack of curb space downtown and recommends new requirements for off-street parking.

The benefits of a First Avenue streetcar can be met more efficiently by existing transit systems.

A streetcar on First Avenue will serve a limited number of stakeholders and take away space from all other users.

Please drop the First Avenue streetcar and listen to the experts on the SDCI report.

Make urban freight planning part of the step.

If it's not in the plan, it won't be part of the solution.

Thank you all for your consideration and thank you for our community.

Next up, we have David Haynes.

David, please press star six.

Hi, David Haynes.

Is there any way council can consider putting like one of those trolley trains on the waterfront and let it go out the golden gardens?

I remember when they said we couldn't have any more buses on first Avenue because they were worried that the tunnel underneath would leave the infrastructure and the foundation vulnerable.

And there seems to be a lot of accommodation to the laziness, but when you try to get the first and Pike and all those people are road raging over those brick It's really annoying.

And it's like, when are you going to stop people from driving through there?

It's like you were supposed to redevelop it as a 21st century first world quality market instead of keeping it iconically modern third world from the 20th century deregulated dilapidated building codes.

But as far as the move levy, You know, maybe some of that money needs to go towards fixing the potholes because the bus drivers are driving over all these potholes and jolting the heck out of your back on the bus and making a living hell.

And all these people that are public transportation experts, they're driving their car.

They don't realize how unsafe and unhealthy it is to go anywhere near Third Avenue.

And quite frankly, the Port of Seattle is treading on the residents of Seattle.

and toxifying and denying the fresh air anywhere around the stadiums.

And, you know, they need to be kept in check.

They shouldn't be given the carte blanche.

And hopefully y'all will realize that the infrastructure has to be resident and pedestrian friendly.

Stop accommodating the laziness of the modern wheel, whether it's a public transportation issue or people wanting to drive through every block in the neighborhood.

And quite frankly, you have to still deal with all these evil, low-level drug pushers that the mayor and the police chief are still running interference for, are still refusing to properly train their cops to trespass these junkie thieves that are hanging out around 3rd Avenue, making it completely sketchy.

All right, there are no additional registered speakers.

All right, well, thank you, clerk.

If there are no additional registered speakers, we'll now proceed to our items of business substantively.

Let's see, also I wanna flag that members of the public are also encouraged to either submit written comments on the sign-up card, and there's many, many ways that people can comment and submit feedback.

Showing up virtually or in person during one of our committee meetings is one of many forms of sharing your feedback, so it's greatly encouraged and appreciated.

Now we will move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee Report.

All right, thank you.

Will our presenters please join us at the table?

Looks like one of them has already.

Thank you and share your presentation.

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Testing.

Good morning, Chair Saka and council members of the Transportation Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to present the report of the Levee Oversight Committee today.

I am Geri Poore, co-chair of the Transportation Committee and online from Washington DC is the co-chair Kevin Werner also.

We are a 16 member oversight committee, including council member Saka on our board.

And we're ready to begin the presentation.

For first, I will introduce you to the oversight committee's purpose and the oversight committee's requirements to have a recommendation on the potential for a new levy.

And then we will go over the recommendations.

And at that point, I'll turn it over to co-chair Werner.

And our next slide is bottom line up front.

We all like to cut to the chase.

The levy oversight committee recommends that voters approve a new levy after the current one expires next year.

And we will be submitting final recommendations to the mayor and council as outlined in the ordinance.

So I'll go give you a little bit of background on the oversight committee.

This slide shows the members of the committee.

There are 16 members.

By public application, the mayor appoints five people, the council appoints five people, and there are four representatives from each of the modal boards.

In addition, we are pleased to have Council Member Saka and a representative from the city budget office.

In this case, it's Saroja Reddy.

And moving on about, so all that is defined in the original ordinance that was passed by the council.

The ordinance goes on to talk about the purpose of the committee, which is primarily for accountability on how the levy revenues are spent.

It's an advisory body monitoring the revenues, expenditures, program, and project implementation, advising you, the city council, as well as the mayor and SDOT on cost savings and overruns that come up.

reviewing the SDOT's program and project priorities and making recommendations to the mayor and city council regarding spending of levy proceeds.

And then we publish an annual report to the mayor, city council and the people of Seattle.

And that's available in the annual reports over the years.

You may be aware that in 2018, there was a levy reset and some of the goals of the original, of the original levy were amended and we will be reporting on both the 2015 goals and the 2018 goals.

The next slide speaks specifically to the recommendations that we're here talking to you about today.

There's a specifics, the same section of the ordinance reflects in a separate paragraph about our current assignment saying that between now and the end of April, the oversight committees requested to make a recommendation on the advisability of another levy.

authorizing additional property tax.

And then there are these three specifics, and the rest of the presentation will get into those specifics in our recommendation.

And I'm trying to keep it moving so we can get to the recommendations themselves.

The work of the committee has been done in three monthly meetings with significant staff, SDOT staff presentations to us.

And in the context of SDOT revenues, we learned that the levy provides approximately one third of the funding, especially in 2024 for SDOT.

And we find that's a critical and important contribution.

So next I'm going to share with you how the committee did our nitty gritty work to make our recommendations.

Between spring of 22 and summer of 23, the staff provided overviews of each of the levy programs that are in the ordinance.

We also reviewed other sources, and SDOT provided us with transportation-linked revenue sources and their assessment of what else could be provided, which was part of our mandate from the ordinance.

My third point is that we also, yes, we make a recommendation as I already shared that there be an additional levy for the voters to vote on.

And we believe it's important to collaborate to link STP and the future funding sources.

So I know your next presentation is on the Seattle transportation plan.

And then we also provide reflections on how the oversight function has worked and what we can do to improve the process, what we would recommend you do to improve the process.

So we will be transmitting that letter by next month in April, as it says here.

So again, continuing how we went going about our recommendations.

These are the program presentations that we received on the 30 presentations.

We reviewed nearly all of the presentations.

It was about one to three in each of the monthly meetings that we had.

Significant staff work, we wanna express our appreciation to SDOT staff and it gave us the opportunity to ask good questions and delve in on items.

And as we move into the outcomes of the committees, I'm going to hand it over to my co-chair, Kevin Warner.

So we'll do a little test here with Kevin.

Thanks, Jerry.

And thanks, chair, soccer and council members.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

Yep.

Awesome.

Great.

Thanks, Jerry.

That was great.

Just as an introduction, as Jerry said, my name is Kevin Warner.

I am in Washington, D.C.

on a work visit, but I'm a Seattle resident.

I'm at a facility where I can't use my camera.

So apologies that you're hearing a discombobulated voice, but that's where I'm in today.

I just wanted to put a finer point on a couple of things Jerry said and then jump into the recommendations.

We have been at this for quite some time.

This letter is the sort of ultimate charge to the committee to look at the life of the entire levy, the nine-year levy that we're coming out of now.

looking forward to making recommendations to you all about where we think the city should be investing this time and energy and its resources going forward.

So that's what we're going to be talking about with respect to the levy recommendations itself.

Before we jump into that, this slide I just wanted to talk about, we have had this chance that Jerry just talked about to dive into each of the 30 programs that comprise the three major components of the current levy.

over the last few years and and we've been overall really impressed with the work that sdot and and the city has has gotten from from the levy as the first bullet says 27 of the 30 programs have exceeded um or met their their their goals as outlined in the 2015 levy I'm just in spite of that, there are a few that have come a little bit short.

The bike program is one.

The multimodal goals is another.

The Graham Street light rail connection is another one.

And that one is worth pointing out that these transportation projects are, in a lot of cases, More complicated and that they involve other agencies and in this particular case involves sound transit.

And so there's things that happen that are sort of outside the control of.

Of or the lobby that the impact of the lobby spending vision 0 is another 1 that's been a priority for the committee and I know our priority for the city as well.

And while we're meeting the project goals there, we wanted to note the city is still experiencing traffic-related deaths and injuries at rates that are unacceptable.

And we, along with us, Dot, and I'm sure you, are wanting to see a better path forward there in terms of how we can reduce traffic-related deaths in the next levy.

Bridges, the last bullet, has also been a major point of focus for the committee, the Levy Oversight Committee.

um we've worked been working with sdot just to understand the complexity behind what was outlined in the original levy ordinance and versus what actually happened um this is about updating our bridges in some cases replacing our bridges to to meet the seismic standards that we have today um and that's obviously important for the the region that we live in and the future of the city next slide As I said, there's been a number of successes.

These are just some hand-picked successes that we identified as a committee.

The Northgate Bridge is obviously a real nice milestone for the levy and for the city.

Lander Street Bridge, Fairview Bridge.

We have done bridge works, obviously, as part of the levy.

Neighborhood Street Fund is one that the committee's been pretty involved in with SDOT in terms of looking at the composition of how those funds are spent.

tree planting has been something that one of our members has been really interested in and we've been working on understanding what the tree planting um component of the levy looks like and then as i said there's complexities with other agencies seattle public utilities is another one that there's been partnerships within the levy where we've been able to do things that neither agency might be able to do on their own next slide So the recommendations, this is our main, Russ, as Jerry said, these are in our letter, which we approved at our last meeting.

I'm sure Soccer was there and seen the letter.

The letter is going to be transmitted next month, as Jerry said.

But the gist of it is these eight recommendations we're going to walk through right now.

So the first one and the most important one and the one I really want to emphasize most strongly is the committee unanimously feels that we need a future transportation package that includes a bold levy, meaning a bigger levy.

um that includes increased funding over the current levy um and we identify five major reasons and we go into some details on this but first and foremost is safety and we talked about vision zero a couple slides ago this is this is a major point of emphasis for the committee um and i think uh for the city as well equity is another thing that the committee has been stressing in our annual letters to the council for the last few years um and this is a point of emphasis we would want to see in a future levy Climate, we don't talk about as much, but it's obviously something that's really important for us as a city in terms of how we can adapt to and navigate climate change as it presents itself in the years to come.

Accessibility and affordability.

So those are the major rationales that we have.

But again, if I could make this a blink, and I already made it bold, this is our first recommendation.

It's first for a reason.

This is the one that we, I think, have unanimity and pretty strong sentiment behind.

Next slide.

Our second recommendation is that we want to encourage the city and you all, you know, to consider a broader array of funding packages, revenue sources.

So, yes, we need to focus on the levy.

That's what's before us this year.

But beyond that, we want to look to other revenue sources to help address what is still, you know, what we're observing, the deterioration of our roadways, our bridges, our sidewalks, our stairs, our transportation assets in the city.

um the the third point um we we identified you'll see an appendix b when we see our letter we identified several of those revenue sources um that we encourage the city to look look at as they think about these these future transportation packages i will know that the committee has not done a thorough legal analysis or really any other analysis that this these are just options that we're suggesting the city look into and do some more analysis on um the fourth recommendation is just um to ask dot to be prepared if if we get a bigger levy that passes we're going to want to start moving quickly on that next slide i already talked about equity so both racial social equity these are these are high priorities for us as a committee and i know they have been for sdot and for the city as well um the sixth point on here we recommend the levy not over promise um the levy oversight committee has noted over the years that there's there's been some um challenges with the sort of leveraged funds that are pretty common in the transportation world.

And we don't want to assume that the leveraged funds are going to come through in the way that they might be assumed.

So that's just an encouragement to not overpromise and to think realistically about what the size and scope of a levy can actually deliver.

The seventh one, this one I want to camp out on for just a bit because this is something we as the Levee Oversight Committee are sort of uniquely positioned to opine on, right?

And this is the oversight function.

Jerry mentioned this earlier.

We feel that this committee of 16 members who are almost all volunteers is really not up to the level it should be to oversee a nearly $1 billion investment.

And we want to encourage the the next levy to include, we call it an audit function, but something that we can direct a small amount of resources within the overall levy to look at questions that we have as a committee.

And ultimately, the goal is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how the larger levy is spent.

But we feel that having the oversight committee, the future oversight committee armed with this kind of capability would be an important game changer for the committee's ability to more effectively contribute to the success of the levy.

And then the last one is we want to emphasize, as Jerry showed with a nice bar graph that we got from SDOT, that the current levy or that any levy, the next levy should be additive to the transportation funding within the city.

It shouldn't It should not supplement general funds.

The point of this is that general funds that you all as a council appropriate to SDOT are really important and that they need to continue and probably expand.

So next slide.

And I think this is probably where I pass it back to you, Jerry.

Thanks.

Thanks, Kevin.

Fabulous to hear from you.

So as in our closing slide, we will be transmitting the letter to the council and to the mayor in April.

And we continue to meet through the end of this levy.

And we wanted to extend further that as you are developing a levy proposal, we are available to advise and support should there be any input that you need.

That completes our presentation.

We're available if you have questions for us.

All right, well, thank you co-chairs Poor and Warner and Kevin, thank you especially for joining in remotely via DC and East Coast time.

I appreciate your commitment to service to the city and doing the hard work of integrating this important civic duty and function with your sort of work life, personal life, et cetera.

both of you, but in any event.

So thank you, really insightful presentation.

Colleagues, I'll just flag from my perspective, one sort of nuance of something that was just presented in this very insightful presentation.

One of the calls to action is for the city to consider new funding sources to better plan and invest and fund our various rapidly increasing transportation needs.

And I think the report that the council will receive will explicitly include and incorporate by reference the purported revenue stabilization report that, or otherwise known as, formerly known as Progressive Revenue Task Force report that included a number of ideas and options, sadly, many of which aren't, we've learned through some initial conversations with our staff and the budget folks that aren't actually implementable.

or doable here in Seattle, like, for example, the CEO tax, vacancy tax.

Reason why is because there is, you know, there may be and are likely statutory state preemption issues.

And so I think you'll see, if you dive deep into this pending report that the committee will share, you'll see appropriate disclaimers in there, but I want to verbally emphasize the disclaimers Any new revenue would have to be, there are some ideas in that, again, cross-references, incorporates by reference, the revenue stabilization report, but any new ideas, as I think Kevin aptly pointed out, would have to be fully vetted, vetted by staff, vetted by lawyers to understand whether they're actually Sadly, it sounds like a few of them are not.

But in any event, thank you again for this presentation.

Can I ask, in general, how would you characterize the overall performance, end to end, of the current levy at a very high level?

Similarly, what is the singular greatest high-level opportunity for improvement?

I saw your great slide that you called out a few different high-level priorities for improving.

And then I also saw, And my related question is, what are some things that the city has done and has done particularly well?

And I saw that slide with like the top eight successes, but if you could boil that down to one or two things.

So overall, so three kind of questions there.

Overall, how would you characterize the performance of this existing levy?

Before we go back to taxpayers and ask for more to fund future investments, they need to have and deserve, frankly, adequate assurances that we've substantially lived up to our commitments in the current levy.

So how would you characterize the overall performance?

What have we done particularly well, high level?

What is a high-level opportunity for improvement?

Thank you.

Kevin, would you like me to give my off-the-cuff and then perhaps you can chime in second now, right?

Sounds good.

I think...

When we look back over the last nine years, there are a lot of things that happened that we are incredibly, that no one forecasted, such as the pandemic and various issues that got in the way of a very smooth delivery of the levy.

But my answer to your first question about the overall performance is that staff SDOT was able to work with what they were given and move forward to complete the levy promises for the most part with the caveats that we presented today.

So I would, overall, I think it's a success.

And I'll come back to that in the third question you asked.

The most important thing as we think about improvement, the most important thing I learned from being on the committee is the need for both flexibility and accountability as the promises are made to the voting public, because you don't know what life's throwing at you, what the circumstances will be.

And so there needs to be accountability about what outputs the levy will generate, but also some flexibility so that when things change, if Sound Transit's not going to develop a station at Graham Street, then the SDOT can move those funds to another place where it will be valid.

And the third question, I believe, was opportunities?

Yeah, like high-level opportunities for improvement.

I think you hit the nail on the head with that last question, but like high-level successes, I guess.

Oh, successes, yeah.

Like boiling down that slide of eight, of eight or however many items were in the success slide.

What is the theme there?

I think the theme is delivery on important projects that do make a difference in how the city operates.

how the transportation system operates in the regional level.

In addition, the importance of these smaller projects is have some flexibility.

Our slide highlighted the neighborhood street funds, safe routes to school, tree planning.

It is important that money be in addition to the major projects, the maintenance and long-term benefits that are spread around the whole city are important also.

And if I can turn it to Kevin now.

Yeah, I 100% agree with you, Jerry.

I guess I'd add a couple things in terms of overall, I think the levy is very successful for exactly the reasons Jerry talked about.

I think SDOT's done a really great job in terms of execution of the levy.

A couple things I would flag.

One, bridges.

I talked about that a little bit in my remarks.

They're incredibly expensive, as the committee probably knows.

in my view, me speaking personally, they run the risk of overshadowing or taking resources or directing attention away from everything else if we're not careful.

So I think, one, yes, bridges are important.

They need to be resourced.

But two, so does everything else.

So thinking about how to make both of those things true is going to be a challenge for the city, I think, going forward.

Two, in terms of the flexibilities, we didn't put it in our presentation, but I want to know that the current ordinance does have opportunities for sort of redirecting or readjusting um the the resources um within it as you know there's to a certain level there's discretion within sdot and the administration and then beyond that there's there's um discretion for the council to take action to to to change the composition of the levy and as i said i think we use those um in the 2018 reset that jerry mentioned um but that there is flexibility within the current levy that could have been and that's something I'd flag for the council going forward.

I think those knobs are good to have in the levy and it's probably good for the council to be aware of those knobs and for the future levy oversight committee to be aware of those as well.

I don't know.

I think we answered your questions, Chair Stocker.

Yeah, you did very well.

Thank you both.

And, you know, for me, this highlights the importance of some things you all specifically called out, like the importance of preserving flexibility, the ability to operate, be nimble, agile, and also have stronger accountability.

And, you know, like I also like the notion of to a certain extent, under promising and over delivering and not being as prescriptive and arguably over leveraged with reliance on certain funds.

But let us go after those funds too.

Make no mistake, these are strategic opportunities to amplify our work and our impact in building and expanding our transportation infrastructure throughout the city.

Yeah, so love this, really appreciate it.

Can I just, my final question, then I'll turn it over to any of my colleagues if they have any.

But how many, members have been on the Levy Oversight Committee over the course of this past, was it nine years?

And how long have each of you been on the committee?

How have you managed like continuity challenges?

Because I imagine, I know, and we talked a little bit about the performance of this levy wasn't as always as good and rosy as it is today, now that we're closing it out.

So how have you managed continuity challenges?

Kevin, would you like to go first on this one?

Sure, I can take it.

I think I've been on the committee a little longer than Jerry.

It's a good question.

The ordinance itself does have pretty well-defined parameters for committee membership.

So I'll say it for myself, I've been on the committee since 2020. My first meeting was in, I think, February or January of 2020, just before the pandemic, and then we went virtual.

So that was a challenge and continuity for the committee.

I think...

I'm pretty sure that there's effectively a sort of two term limit for committee members that we were allowed sort of two, three year term.

Somebody can fact check me on that.

Um, so we, I don't think we've had any members of the committee that have been on it throughout the entire life of the committee.

We've had a couple that have come and gone and some people that were involved in the creation of the levy in the 1st place.

So, in terms of your question about continuity, we have been writing an annual letter to the council and to the mayor that you'll shortly be in receipt of and that we always look back to the previous year's letter as a starting point.

And so that that gives us some continuity.

And we also have, you know, standard terms, which gives us some continuity.

So not everybody's leaving or coming at the same time.

And I think, you know, my own perspective is if you're looking to the next levy, I think that part of how the committee is put together has actually worked pretty well.

So I guess I'd advocate for something, you know, pretty similar to or if not identical to how the current committee is set up.

I would add just one additional item that when you get into the text of the letter, you'll see in addition to the concept of an audit, funds for an audit, we also recommend ensuring that there are certain subject matter experts.

So the current board membership requires one engineer, one licensed engineer, but you heard the discussion.

We believe there would be benefit to having other subject matter experts.

on the committee, thanks.

Yeah, excellent.

Well, thank you again, Chair Poor and Warner.

I will now turn the floor over to my colleagues.

If they have any questions, it looks like Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

Thank you very much for the Levee Oversight Committee to join us today.

I know Chair is on this committee and represents us well, but I just thought I'd make a few comments towards the committee and maybe a question.

First, I appreciate, you know, I just want to make a comment.

I appreciate the challenges that we've faced over the course of this levy and in the last five plus years.

And I think it's important to note that, you know, these challenges were very big challenges that we face.

And, you know, we can't really use them to explain away because I look at these challenges as revealing challenges.

And so the pandemic, you know, the protests of 2020 and so forth, they reveal.

And it's the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And as you noted, there's been ups and downs.

And I will just say generally, transportation would get a, facing, you know, this reveal, if you will, is a thumbs up.

on public safety, probably a thumbs down.

And so that's how I look when we talk about these challenges, when people mention the pandemic and so forth.

It's like, it reveals how an organization, how individuals react and how they proceed.

And so at the end of the day, I would say the transportation has moved quite well forward despite those challenges.

So a positive reveal.

I just wanted to have that point to the committee as part of the oversight process.

I also wanted to note, I really like how pedestrian plan, freight plan, bringing these things all together, the bike plan, we need a mobility plan as we move forward with e-scooters and the like.

Bringing these plans together to have one comprehensive plan, I think that's very good.

And I also like the references about working with other elements of city government.

And I just wanted to take an opportunity to plug, because it comes out a little bit here and there, like with the freight plan, and with our public comment that started this, is the idea of SDOT and SDCI working together, because it's all about logistics.

And as I joke all the time, it comes down to two words, loading docks.

And if SDCI, and we just happened to have the vice chair, former chair, now vice chair of SDCI here at one end, and there's a couple other members of SDCI here, I mean, the Land Use Committee here.

And that's really important because if we don't do this right, it's gonna push everything onto the streets.

And we can have a great plan, but you know, if logistics are thrown onto the street instead of being done in alleys with proper planning, again, loading, commercial, residential, and the like, we're going to have problems down the road.

And if that's not accounted for, that's going to be a big problem.

And I just put that out there as an oversight piece, you know, in terms of the levy and plus how SDOT's working and how SDOT is working with SDCI, because that is so important.

And I just point out, since the vice chair is at the other end of this dais, that, you know, Ballard, with the big up zone that's, you know, with the comp plan, as we move forward on that side of the house, if this piece is not sorted, Transportation in Ballard and D6 and other areas north is going to be horrendous.

And so we need to think about this moving forward.

So I'm just putting a big plug out again, and I thank the public comments on this front.

And it's always good to note, too, to the committee, and the chairs probably put this out, too, the idea of old council, new council.

The new council, drawing a line under the old and starting with the new.

The new council, I keep saying nuts and bolts.

My colleague here says basics.

normally sits here, says fundamentals.

These are the kinds of things that we're looking at, whether it's bridges, roads with Vision Zero, the public safety aspects of roads and sidewalks, but sidewalks, the equity pieces, basics, sidewalks.

These are the things that we're looking to do.

And I really appreciate...

the input that we've been receiving, like from Disability Rights Washington, Seattle Greenways, the Cascade Bike Club, also community organizations like Queen Anne and Magnolia Community Council and the like, because it really gives some good input in terms of these fundamental, basic, nuts and bolts pieces of the transportation plans, whether it's bridges, roads, king of potholes, and sidewalks, and really an equity piece to that.

So I just want to say thank you for coming, and just to highlight those points, I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I mean, thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

I will pile on and say, first off, Maybe one day I'm going to need to be or will be anointed, maybe self-anointed king of potholes.

But look, this is a form of royalty where we can all win.

We can all be kings and queens.

And look, there's many titles associated with royalty.

I'll be the duke, and one of y'all can be the king or queen.

It doesn't matter to me.

Let's just share in this commitment to do the work and get it done.

And I don't like credit...

is a secondary factor from my perspective, but also emphasize cargo and freight mobility is important to me too, because it underpins the economic vitality or lack thereof of our whole region, not just the city.

So super duper important.

And also make no mistake, I also wanna emphasize another comment you made Council Member Kettle, and about where we're at with this levy and how far we've come.

So I think SDOT has done a terrific job overall and getting to the place where we're at in terms of substantially achieving all of our metrics and intending goals.

The ones where we fell a bit short or today are falling a bit short is because of some dependencies that we don't directly control like at Sound Transit.

amongst other things.

And so I know and acknowledge that hasn't always been the case throughout the performance of this levy.

And there has been some ramp up, some non-trivial challenges with ramping up, getting up to speed.

And so I applaud SDOT for how it's been able to overcome some of those challenges.

and really start performing and implementing this levy and living up to, substantially, all these promises.

As a former marathoner, as a has-been marathoner, you know, it's not how you start a race that matters.

It's how you finish.

And the effort and the kick that you put in at the end to finish strong.

And I think, you know, that is important.

Anyways, thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Chair, may I?

And thank you, Council Member Kettle, for the flag about freight and delivery here downtown, SDCI and STI.

When I used to work for District 7, it was within my staffing portfolio.

And I can tell you that the UW Freight Lab has some very smart recommendations because downtown is already built out.

Whereas in Ballard, we get to make those decisions before a lot of those buildings are built.

At the end of the day, you've heard me say it a number of times.

I'll say it again today.

If we don't have the ability to get freight in and out of the neighborhoods and deliver it into the buildings, we can't have 15-minute cities because 15-minute cities rely on people to walk to everything that they need within 15 minutes.

That's dependent upon freight getting to their door.

If we could go back to slide 13, 14, Chair, I'll try to be brief here.

I will say, Councilmember Kettle, I agree with you.

Transportation has been something thumbs up throughout the last few years.

The old council, Councilmember Peterson always did a very good job of updating during council briefing what the oversight levy committee was up to discussing.

And that feedback loop at council briefing was always really helpful, which is why I don't feel like I need to come up to speed because Councilmember Peterson was always doing that for us.

As well, the Levee Oversight Committee has played a really critical role in the life of this levee.

I think it was 2018, 2019, quietly blowing the whistle, maybe that's the wrong term, but that we were behind some of our deliverables.

And it wasn't done in a mean-spirited or a gotcha moment.

It was an accountability method that allowed us to recognize the fact that we needed to move a little bit faster.

out the gate.

And if that had not happened 2018, 2019, we would not have been prepared for the pandemic because that slowed us down even further.

The reason, I mean, quite the, in your last committee meeting with all of those green squares over levy deliverables, how we're doing in a couple orange ones, that wouldn't have been the case without the levy site over levy oversight committee.

Excuse me there.

Looking at these recommendations, There's lots to talk about here.

I think I'll focus in on number four.

I understand right now to make sure, to catch up after the pandemic, we've brought on city staff from other departments to make sure that we're able to meet our levy deliverables.

I think that this is really smart.

And if we are preparing to increase staff for the levy moving forward, I think some of those conversations can start now about are these positions that we need to fill permanently?

Granted, I know you don't want to fill those positions until after we know if it passes, but this is, as we're thinking, if we're ramping up temporary staff now to make sure that we're executing our goals from the last levy, how does that carry forward into the next one?

Moving on to slide 14. Number six, this was something that we fell a bit victim to in the last levy, and I really appreciate this recommendation coming up.

It is better to under-promise and over-deliver than over-promise and under-deliver.

There was nothing that was done incorrectly necessarily other than the voters expected a lot.

SDOT did a good job moving forward, but again, it was the oversight committee that kind of flagged us that we needed to move faster, so thank you for that.

Looking at number seven, I also agree here where we should be looking at what is the role of the oversight committee.

They were very critical in making sure that we're meeting our objectives today.

And so how can we support them to do that better?

Thank you, chair.

No question.

Jerry, I really appreciate everything you do for the port and for making sure that we can get our goods and services around is one last call out for council member kettle here.

The port is, you know, Right down here in downtown Seattle is the mile between the port and I-90 that touches America's heartland and East Coast.

Getting goods and services across America starts here at the Port of Seattle.

Thank you.

We are a port city, indeed.

Yeah, yeah.

So thank you again, co-chairs Poore and Werner.

This is awesome.

And I'm excited to call each of you colleagues on this Levee Oversight Committee as a de facto member.

And I've learned a lot in the two meetings that I've attended.

But you all know I'm a fan of benchmarking and not reinventing the wheel and adopting best practices.

My commitment to you all, I love that.

What my predecessor, Chair Peterson, did is servicing key insights from the Oversight Committee, and I understand he was very actively involved and regularly attended those meetings, and servicing those to you all during council briefings.

So I will look for opportunities to do exactly that on a going forward basis, because I have...

Fingers pointed and expectations at all of us to understand what's going on around us and adopt best practices and three fingers pointing back on myself to do the same exact thing.

So thank you, that was very insightful.

And thank you again for this presentation.

We will now move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read into or read item two into the record.

A resolution approving the Seattle Transportation Plan and superseding the Transit, Bicycle, Freight and Pedestrian Master Plans.

All right, thank you.

And will the presenters please join us at the table and share your presentation?

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Before we get there, I wanna highlight this for the viewers at home, members of the public.

What I have in my hand here is a binder full of the new proposed Seattle Transportation Plan.

And this is a 600 page document.

This is a very, this doesn't do it justice because what I have here in my hand is the same thing I had in the hand the last committee meeting, but this is duplex printed front and back and two pages per sheet.

So we crammed a lot in here.

I spent this past weekend on a couple of things.

as a dad of three young kids, all of them in sports, on youth recreation sports, including baseball and soccer.

And yes, I dove deeper into this document here and earmarked and add some sticky notes and made more annotations and just...

I have a very exciting life.

I hope it's clear.

But this is a really important document.

And now we're going to hear a little bit more about it from our staff perspective.

So, Calvin, go ahead.

Mr. Chair, I'll borrow that next weekend so you can.

You bet.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Calvin Chow with council central staff.

I'm here to help continue discussion on the Seattle transportation plan.

At the last committee meeting, SDOT did a very detailed presentation.

They are actually in the audience and would be able to come up to the table if we want to go into more details.

Again, I'm not planning to go into as much detail on the plan itself, but I do plan to go through my memo that is attached to the agenda that I sent to you all last week, highlight a few sort of key staff observations, and then go through the...

the resolution, the legislation that's actually in front of you today and help you in that discussion as well.

So the first point I wanted to make is that the Seattle Transportation Plan is a 20-year vision document, but it is really built on the back of a lot of existing planning work that's been done over the years.

What it does do is it surfaces a lot of internal planning policy, It integrates a lot of different planning reports and initiatives within the department and surfaces them all for discussion with you and with the last two years with the public.

And so that is a very big achievement, but it's also largely restating and reaffirming a lot of de facto existing policy, and I think that's an important distinction.

The other thing that it does is it provides a framework for trying to help resolve conflicts between different modes.

And previously we did have a lot of the transit modes sort of speaking to their own audience and not necessarily talking across one another.

This plan provides a framework for having those discussions.

It does not resolve conflicts between bikes and buses or freight and cars, but it does acknowledge that those exist and it provides a framework for how the department would start to look at those, resolving those issues when it comes to implementation.

It also identifies in its future plans in terms of large projects that would be recommended to fulfill this vision.

It highlights that they do serve multiple modes, so it tries to put those conflicts up front and make it part of the project scoping exercise and early design work so that we have a better chance of resolving them before we get to construction.

The third point I wanted to make is that the Seattle Transportation Plan is not a funding plan.

It is a resource unconstrained plan.

It is looking at the 20 years of growth in the city.

But the decisions of how we implement are going to be dependent on future budgets, future funding sources.

The biggest one, of course, is the potential to renew the levy this year.

and that will largely set up what an implementation plan will look like, just given how key levy funding has been to SDOT's finances.

So while the STP highlights 81 candidate projects, it doesn't fund any one of those, and those will be decisions that you will have to make separately through the levy discussion and in budgets.

And the last point I wanted to make is that this does serve, this exercise was happening at the same time as the comprehensive plan was being put forward.

So the comprehensive plan, a draft of that was released, I believe, March 5th.

There is a transportation element on there, which is consistent with what's in the Seattle Transportation Plan.

It is a higher level plan.

It's really talking about the 20-year growth targets in the region and how do we, satisfied growth management.

So the Seattle Transportation Plan is sort of another step down, a little more detailed about what the specific policies are, but they are consistent.

The main takeaway I take from the Comprehensive Plan is that they are using access to transit as a key a delineator in determining some of the future residential zones, the way that they decide the future places.

And they do use a lot of the Seattle transportation plan maps and data to support the comprehensive plan work in the transportation element.

The resolution that was transmitted and is in front of committee today has eight different sections.

This is sort of the legislative request for you is to approve the STP, that is section one of the resolution.

The resolution goes further to section two talks about funding decisions being made in the budget process, how those things would be implemented.

Section 3 highlights the STP prioritization framework, which is the approach to help clarify how future projects and programs sort of resolve some of the conflicts that are inherent to all these different policies.

Section 4 talks about the development of the STP implementation plan and calls for that to be done by September 2025, and that is the sort of...

more real roadmap of what activities and projects SDOT would actually be working on to pursue this vision.

Section 5 specifies biannual reporting of progress and performance measures.

Section 6 specifies major updates to the STP every 10 years.

Section 7 allows SDOT to make changes to the maps to recognize when completion of projects have been done and update that for public information.

And finally, Section 8 supersedes the pre-existing master plans since this document includes them all.

Councilmembers, I don't have too much else to talk about.

I wanted to be responsive to where you want to ask, where you want to bring this discussion.

I'm happy to bring other SDOT staff to the table.

We have the presentation from last year available, or excuse me, from last meeting available as well if we need to, but I'm looking to you to help guide where you would like to take this conversation.

Yeah.

So thank you, Calvin.

Really, really appreciate this.

And thank you for a really thoughtful memo.

I dove deep into that over the weekend myself.

And I appreciate your partnership in helping to empower me and our colleagues here at the dais and throughout the second floor that don't happen to be members of this specific committee to better understand this proposed Seattle transportation plan.

So I guess, first off, do any of my colleagues have any Questions?

Go ahead.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

Just wanted to follow up on my comments from last week.

I know that we've got SDOT staff here in the room.

I have to give you a huge compliment.

I was very concerned that we wouldn't be able to do this by April 2nd.

And what I've found is that you've done your homework, you've done your work very well.

I'll flag for you, I may still bring a few small changes, tweaks, through the amendment process.

And Calvin would love to work with you on that to improve this.

And overall, I would be comfortable voting on it on April 2nd or the following meeting, just depending on how much time, Chair, you want to daylight amendments.

Overall, I have to say asking us to pass it in 28 days was a large ask.

And for me, I'm comfortable in accomplishing that task because of the amount of good work that SDOT has done.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Kittle.

Thank you, Chair Saka, and thank you very much, Mr. Chao, for coming in.

I really appreciate it, and your memo, and the backgrounders, and your counsel to my staff, and to me, either directly or indirectly.

I appreciate it, and it's great insight.

I find it very interesting.

I am not able to digest the same way as Chair Saka, which highlights kind of what Councilmember Strauss said in terms of trying to look at each piece.

And I think it's important to note that there's a piece here that there's this conflict or there's push and pull, if you will, between the neighborhoods and then also the citywide kind of approaches to transportation.

There's a lot of groups that have a position.

I've met with a number of them.

But then there's also the neighborhood groups.

And this tension or this push and pull is something that we need to look at, which is very important.

And so as we look at some of these elements, we should be mindful of the local aspect that has the insight on some of these issues that are within the STP and that may reflect a need for some tweaking or is either as, COUNCILMEMBER STRAUSS MENTIONED, OR THROUGH THE BUDGET PROCESS, BECAUSE ESSENTIALLY SECTION TWO, WHETHER YOU FUND OR NOT, THAT IS A DECISION AS WELL THAT WILL, YOU KNOW, ADJUST THE STP AS NECESSARY.

AND SO I JUST WANT TO MAKE THAT POINT VERY CLEAR, BECAUSE I KNOW THERE'S A LOT OF GROUPS OUT THERE LISTENING, A LOT OF NEIGHBORHOODS LISTENING, And so, you know, finding that balance between, you know, the neighborhood piece, which may have some very, you know, insightful, you know, pieces of why they're for or against a certain piece of this STP, and then obviously the citywide groups as well, you know, trying to find that balance.

And I'm just stating this out loud because this is going to be part of the process as we move forward to, you know, get to the final, final, you know, the combination of the STP itself and as we go through the budget process.

So thank you.

I think it is important to see this for the policy document that it is.

It has a lot of different policies that do conflict with one another, and it doesn't necessarily say that one shall always override another.

It tries to do a framework for how you would make those decisions.

I think one thing it does do is it highlights a lot of other considerations that hadn't necessarily had the same profile as say the bike master plan or the freight master plan.

One of the elements is curbside management.

That's loading zones.

That's talking about how we deal with curb space and parking and all these other issues that are a key part of what the department does, but haven't always had the same level of highlighting the policies that the department has had to make sure that that's part of the broad policy conversation.

I think the reality is that any interest, transportation interest, you will find policies that support it.

That means that you also find other policies that conflict with it.

And the issue is going to be how does the department implement these things?

And that's really going to come down to fundamental decisions we make about specific streets, about specific projects.

This is sort of a planning framework.

This is not going to make those decisions itself.

Thank you.

And you do bring up a very important point, curbside management.

That's going to be key, you know, and tied to that too is, you know, the ability to make a left-hand turn or in some other cases a right-hand turn, which have cascading effects.

And so, yeah, so curbside management, key words moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.

Any other comments, questions, feedback from any of you all, colleagues?

No?

No?

Okay, a couple quick thoughts from my perspective on this Seattle transportation plan as proposed.

Overall, I think it's a good starting point.

And it is a 20-year, as we learned, it's a 20-year visionary project.

document framework that provides a framework.

There is approximately $0 attached to this document, but it is also, as we learned, is intended to influence future resource allocation decisions, future funding decisions, and the like.

So in any event, I think there are a couple opportunities to potentially enhance and clarify and up-level a few things.

I'll say I've been listening very closely to you all colleagues.

I've had the pleasure of hearing your thoughtful comments and engagement, during the past month and a half at our various committee meetings.

Had also the pleasure of sitting with each of you individually one-on-one to better understand and hear your various transportation priorities and objectives and vision for what success looks like in the city of Seattle.

I've also listened attentively to the various public commenters.

Thank you, every last one of you who show up to these meetings, who share your email comments and feedback.

Write letters.

People write letters still.

It's great.

I have been attentively listening and reviewing all of the transportation stuff because this is important, important information.

And I've also appreciated hearing directly from many impacted communities and transportation advocacy organizations, including Disability Rights Washington, and there's so many orgs.

Pardon my mental lapse right now, but but been meeting with a lot of them and hearing their, and more to come, and hearing their perspectives.

And also, you know, the benefit of everyone here is we are all fresh off the campaign trail are from, in my view, I think from a democracy standpoint, our connectedness to our constituents and understanding their specific wants, needs and desires is at its peak, it's at its maximum.

Three months, four months after the election results have just freshly been certified from the King County Department of Elections.

So, all that together, I think we all have a good view and as chair, of this committee.

I feel confident, I have a good view, more evolution to come, but of sort of where we're at and what are the specific needs and opportunities for not only this Seattle transportation plan, but on a going forward basis to better supporting and truly prioritizing transportation across our city.

I do think in this specific transportation plan, You know, there is an opportunity to identify some council priorities for the new levy, renewal levy.

Everything I'm about to say, by the way, is intended to be very high level, principle level only.

This is a 600 page document.

I don't intend to get, you know, like dive deep and like redline or wordsmith it.

But, you know, like there is, I think, an opportunity to, identify at a very, very high level, not being super duper prescriptive or having the prolixity of what I think the levy process will look like, but there is a opportunity to identify what are some council priorities for the levy, what that might potentially look like at a high level, kind of classify that into three buckets, maintenance and preservation and modernization, it's focusing heavily on bridge maintenance and modernization.

safety and mobility, including a once-in-a-generation investment in new sidewalks, new sidewalk infrastructure, and climate action and livability, including EV charging infrastructure for personal vehicles, and also improving the public transit safety experience.

Also, there might be an opportunity to better acknowledge that the ongoing the ongoing engagement of various advisory boards, whether it's the pedestrian, freight, bicycle, although they are subsumed or superseded or whatever SDOT's preferred term is, my preferred term is subsumed by this plan that That doesn't mean their work isn't intended to carry forward, which, yes, it is.

So it might be an opportunity to clarify as much.

New sidewalks, huge.

I mean, I just called it out.

There is an opportunity to highlight the opportunity, I think explicitly through one of the recitals, specifically 27% or 24%, depending, we're gonna learn more about the opportunity here in a moment, but 27%, 24%, depending if you count an actual block or a traditional square block of sidewalks, but we have 27% missing sidewalks in Seattle.

At the current clip, the current pace of investment in new sidewalk construction, it would take us 400 plus years to close that 27% gap.

Unacceptable, unacceptable.

Can and must do better from a policy prioritization standpoint perspective.

Let us call that out as an opportunity and clarify as much through the main body, a statement in the main body of the of the amendment as well.

And also look, we've talked a lot about a lot of this, but importance of improving the transit safety experience.

Transit safety experience, qualitative data matters, so does quantitative data.

And I think the current and opportunity for further adjustments in the current plan is it measures how it measures success and how it defines what success looks like for transit and I think, yes, expanding transit service frequency and reliability is one important dimension, but let us also measure and hold ourselves to account for the public safety experience as well.

We need butts in chairs.

We need butts in seats.

And I want to get the city out of the business of creating shiny new things that not a lot of people are excited or energized to take.

Qualitative data in this case matters So let us better measure and understand, you know, the cleanliness and safety aspect of the transit experience for riders and measure and hold ourselves to account to that.

Another thing is, you know, this is a minor nit, but I think an important one, the current, and that relates to downtown downtown.

a revitalization imperative that we have.

One of the recitals calls out some trends in our transportation needs, including the fact that as a result of COVID, commute trips are down, more people working remotely, trips to downtown are down.

And for a 20-year visionary document, I think it's a bit myopic to think that that is, and to leave in place that as the facts of today.

Yes, it's the facts of today, but I think we should also acknowledge that we intend to at least restore some of those things to pre-COVID levels, because folks, the success of our revitalization efforts of downtown hinge hinge on increasing trips downtown.

So yes, there are challenges, but our longer term goal is to increase traffic trends, trips downtown.

Bridge asset management plan might be good to specifically call out here as an opportunity for whether we bake that into part of the reporting or or something.

I think there is an opportunity.

It's really important to me, my constituents, and I think a lot of people in the city, and especially when we're talking about, I know there's a lot going on with respect to this transportation, proposed transportation plan, the levy renewal, so many other priorities.

There's a pending implementation plan for this very document.

So many other things coming and SDOT is hard at work, but...

We still do need that bridge asset management plan.

I'd also like to see enhanced reporting on large capital projects at a very high level.

And there's a list there, but I think we could clarify a couple minor things.

And to beat a dead horse, everyone knows I'm a fan and strong advocate of policy benchmarking.

And I think that SDOT and a lot of city agencies and departments already do this as part of understanding the research and understanding what goes on, what other jurisdictions across the region, across the state, across the country, and sometimes the world, what they have done to found success in a particular area, but might be...

an opportunity to up-level that in existing practice and enshrine it into an amendment of some sort.

And for example, Vision Zero, hugely important.

And we need to, I don't know, like what has worked so well in Hoboken, New Jersey that we could potentially replicate here?

It's not always gonna, it's never actually, to be honest.

So a direct one-for-one comparison, apples to apples, but Hoboken, New Jersey has found remarkable success.

So I'm sure there are certain elements that we can better incorporate and include here because these Vision Zero deaths, it's totally out of hand.

So we can and must do better.

In any event, all that is to say, Kelvin.

I would like my office to work with you to draft an amendment that will raise up and clarify some priorities and how I believe STP should be used to craft the new transportation levy proposal.

Call that a little bit what that kind of looks like.

And colleagues, I encourage All of you with amendments, please surface them to me, me and my staff in advance of our next committee meeting on April 2nd.

Please surface your, any amendments that you might have.

To them, me, please.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, who should we send those amendments to?

Oh, Madam Vice Chair, for the avoidance of doubt, me.

Chair.

Please work with me so that we can actually get them in the right form and get them set up first.

Well, the nitty gritty, but yeah.

They'll help massage and yes, but surface your ideas.

Chair, point of order.

I'm very glad then that I told you about the amendments yesterday.

Yes, yes, thank you.

All right, well, we will now move on to our third item of business.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

The new sidewalk prioritization and funding briefing from SDOT.

Good morning, council members.

Good morning.

Thank you for that wonderful and lively conversation.

It was really fantastic, so thank you all.

I'm Francisca Steffen, senior deputy director at SDOT.

I am pleased to be here today to speak with you about new sidewalks.

I'm joined by my colleagues.

You know, the bill of the board needs no introduction.

We've got Jim Curtin, who is the division director for our project development and our policy and planning divisions.

And we have Brian Dougherty who is the lead on this topic.

So just to say a few words, as you noted Chair Saka, a quarter of our city is missing sidewalks.

Expanding the sidewalk network is a huge priority for our communities and a huge priority for us.

Pedestrians are our most vulnerable travelers and providing a sidewalk is an important way to make sure that people can travel safely to work, school and their daily destinations.

SDOT is committed to increasing the number of sidewalks in the city.

The move C out of levy, which we talked about earlier, helps to fund new sidewalk projects.

It's been a really important part of our funding profile and how we have advanced work on new sidewalks.

In addition to local funds, we also look to leverage for state and federal funds to build more sidewalks.

And this presentation will discuss a variety of ways that we deliver new sidewalks.

Some of the traditional curb gutter drainage that you're used to, as well as some of the innovations we've developed to be able to expand new sidewalks to further areas of our city, because we know the need is great.

We'll also talk a little bit more about the extent of missing sidewalks and how we prioritize them.

And Brian will talk a little bit about the delivery within the Move Seattle levy and what that profile has looked like.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Jim.

Thank you, Francisca.

Thank you for having us here today, council members.

As Francisca mentioned, we're gonna talk briefly about how sidewalks get built in the city of Seattle, the extent of missing sidewalks in the city, how we prioritize new sidewalks, the different design choices that we make when we go out to build new walkways and pedestrian facilities, and talk about some recent accomplishments as well.

So sidewalks get built through a number of different mechanisms in the city of Seattle.

First and foremost is a private development.

Developers typically deliver about 400 different Well, there's 400 permits issued annually for new or replaced sidewalks, I should say.

That can be a number of new blocks of sidewalks in many cases.

These are happening in our urban villages and our urban centers where the most development is occurring in the city.

Other private agencies like Washed Out and Sound Transit, Seattle Parks and Rec, and SPU also deliver sidewalks as well.

And we just partnered with SPU on new sidewalks and natural drainage.

in South Park and in the Delridge neighborhood as well.

And then there's several SDOT programs that deliver new sidewalks like our Safe Routes to School program.

We have a program that's solely dedicated to new sidewalks and our Transit Plus Multimodal Corridors have a long history of developing new and improved sidewalks as well as our paving projects as well.

The Seattle Municipal Code requires private developers to build new sidewalks whenever they're building in urban villages and urban centers.

New sidewalks are also required to be built outside of those areas when 10 or more units are being constructed in residential zones, former single-family residential areas, or when six or more units are being constructed in all other zones except for one notable exception, which is new sidewalks are not required in maritime manufacturing and logistics zones.

There are still frontage improvements that are required, but they're not as rigid around sidewalks.

So as Councilmember Saka hit on several times here, we are missing sidewalks on 27% of our streets in the City of Seattle.

Most of those missing segments are north of 85th Street in north Seattle and south of I-90 in southeast and southwest Seattle as well.

You know, sidewalks were built historically when land was subdivided and residents were built over the years.

But north of 85th and in parts of extreme southwest and southeast Seattle are missing sidewalks because they were areas that were annexed into the city after development.

These are former county lands where sidewalks were not required as part of a development.

Last week, Council Member Saca, you had requested a map of the extent of missing sidewalks in the city of Seattle.

So I'm gonna bring these up to you right here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jim.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

And this is the broken out by district.

That's correct.

And I recognize the font is a little small on our pie chart here, but I can go through those statistics for you really quickly.

Awesome.

Thank you.

This is terrific.

Right, and so what this shows is the number of missing sidewalks by tier in the Seattle Transportation Plan.

And what you'll see here is that the majority of Council District 5, unfortunately, is missing sidewalks.

36.3% of streets are missing sidewalks.

In Council District 1, that's 22.1% of streets are missing sidewalks.

For Council District 2, that number goes to 17.5% of blocks.

And Council District 6 is 8.4%.

Council District 4, 7%.

Council District 7, 4.7%.

And Council District 3, 4%.

And as Brian pointed out to me this morning as we were looking over this data, I think one of the big takeaways here is that 75% of these missing sidewalks are in council districts five, one, and two.

And I'm gonna pass it over to Brian now.

Great, thanks, Jim.

I'm Brian Dougherty, and I'm gonna be going over how we prioritize sidewalks and give us some examples of sidewalks that we've built recently.

Until this year, we used the Pedestrian Master Plan as our primary planning document to prioritize where we build sidewalks.

And the plan prioritizes investments near schools, K-12 public schools specifically, and frequent transit routes like light rail and rapid ride.

These maps show the priority investment network and the pedestrian.

Can I interrupt you for just a moment?

I just want to circle back to this.

And I was reviewing it in parallel with your, your explanatory comments, which were helpful.

Am I reading this?

And I had to like squint down like Lilliputian typing here.

But, but I think I got the gist of it.

Am I reading this correct?

Is that district, district, Five has the greatest need, 38.3%, followed by District 1, my district, 22.1, followed by District 2, 17.5%.

That's correct.

Okay, so my theory, I had a theory at the beginning of this thing, because all the analysis before redistricting said that Districts 2 and Districts 5 were the greatest in need, and there are still clearly great needs in both of those districts, including District 2, but I think because we picked up SOTO, District 1 is now second in terms of the greatest need of sidewalks.

But as we know, colleagues, the need is...

clearly great throughout the city, and this is a critical equity issue as well.

But I'm sorry, Councilmember Strauss, I'm going to take questions at the very end.

I just took chair liberty with asking that one question.

Go ahead, please.

All right.

So the pedestrian master plan priority investment network contains 3,000 street segments.

So we have to dig in even a little bit deeper to get a prioritized list of projects.

So we use some additional criteria.

Next slide.

We layer on safety, health, urban villages, and an age-friendly factor.

So on the left, Safety, the streets generally in orange and red, are the ones that are the top priority.

Those are the ones with the highest number of collisions, the highest street classification, the widest roadway width, the highest speeds.

Health and equity, the darker purple areas, are the areas that score higher, and those are areas where we measure income, disabled population, communities of color, physical activity rates, obesity rates, And then urban villages get a boost in the prioritization along with communities where there's a large adult older adult population senior centers and health care facilities.

Next slide.

And after the adoption of the Seattle transportation plan we will use that document moving forward to prioritize our investment and the criteria the framework in the Seattle Transportation Plan in the pedestrian element is actually quite similar to the Pedestrian Master Plan with the addition of parks.

And then any changes that occur in the comprehensive plan process will have to be reflected in our prioritization.

So if any urban villages are expanded or added, those will have to go into our prioritization factor as well.

And these three maps here show very similar to the map that Jim just handed out, the missing sidewalk segments in districts one, two, and five, which as we just discussed are the ones that have the most missing sidewalk segments.

So we will be focusing on Our investments primarily in those areas that are shown in dark blue and purple.

Those are the tier one.

Those are the tier one and two streets in the Seattle Transportation Plan.

Those are the ones that score the highest in the prioritization framework.

And those are the ones we're most likely to direct funding for new sidewalks moving forward.

So a number of different approaches we use to to sidewalks, starting off with traditional curb gutter type sidewalks.

The examples shown here are 24th Avenue Southwest and Southwest Kenyon Street.

These are the projects that we partnered specifically with Seattle Public Utilities to include natural drainage systems to improve water quality in Longfellow Creek.

The total SDOT cost was approximately $3 million for, and we got about seven and a half blocks of sidewalk We also got pedestrian scale lighting and a new bridge across Longfellow Creek.

So this project just wrapped up, it just wrapped up construction within the past month.

And this was also one where we leveraged, we knew a community need, We had heard from people, especially the ones on 24th Avenue Southwest.

They had been really begging for sidewalks on their street for many years.

And we sat down with SPU and said, we know this is a priority for us.

And then SPU said, well, that happens to be a priority for us as well.

So this was a great leveraging opportunity where our priorities overlapped in SPU and SDOT.

And another recent one that we just completed is Greenwood Avenue North between 117th and 125th.

11 blocks of new sidewalk.

It included hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drainage improvements.

as part of the project.

It's on a frequent transit route, multifamily housing adjacent, retaining walls had to be built as part of the project.

Residents had put their fences out in the right of way and they had to be moved, which is always makes us very popular.

And we had some pavement repairs that were included with the project as well.

So then moving on to some lower cost alternatives.

This one on 110th Street that I'm showing here, this was a temporary painted walkway.

So this was identified as a need.

It's adjacent to a high school and a middle school.

And we wanted to do something immediately because we had small kids walking directly adjacent to fast moving traffic.

So we said, okay, we identify this as a need and we're gonna get the funding to build this sidewalk.

It's on an arterial.

but we wanna do something immediately.

So we did a painted walkway with wheel stops and we're able to do that super quick.

And in the meantime, it took two or three years for us to design and get the money to actually build the concrete sidewalk, which I should have shown here as the final example.

But if you can use your imagination, there's now a traditional concrete curb and gutter sidewalk at this location.

So we can also use asphalt, which is cheaper than concrete.

This example is an asphalt walkway with a planting strip in half of it, and then in the other half of it, we weren't able to get the planting strip, so we used just wheel stops as the separation between cars and pedestrians.

And then this one is really interesting because you probably might not be able to see it, but the photo on the left, there actually is a concrete at-grade walkway, but people were walking on it.

This is adjacent to the Boren STEM K through eight school.

And so functionally, it was not a sidewalk because people were parking on it all the time.

If you can't walk on it, it's not a sidewalk, right?

It's just a shoulder.

we left the existing concrete walkway, did some minor repairs to it, but then did some deep paving, which is where we remove gravel and hard pan or asphalt and put in a planting strip with street trees and then wheel stops.

So now we've got a functional sidewalk that people aren't parking on anymore.

So again, sort of quick build version of putting in new dedicated pedestrian space.

So traditional sidewalks, we want to generally do those on arterial streets where we want to provide the separation between fast-moving cars and pedestrians.

They have some disadvantages.

They are a lot more expensive than the alternative design approaches at about $400,000 to $800,000 per block face.

And that cost difference depends on a lot of different things, including what drainage requirements are triggered, retaining walls, And sometimes it's just not feasible based on the topography.

We have a lot of hills in the city that make it a lot more difficult than in places where it's flat.

They are more durable.

They require less maintenance than the alternative walkways.

When we do them on busy arterials, they require a lot of traffic control, which is expensive.

And they typically are delivered with contractors, which if we do alternative walkways, we can often do them with S.Crews, which we can do more quickly and makes them less expensive.

They do require a little bit more maintenance.

Painted walkway.

will need to be repainted in five or 10 years.

An asphalt walkway can probably last 25 years if it's not damaged by tree roots or people aren't parking on it.

A concrete curb gutter sidewalk can last 100 years, again, if people aren't parking on it or if it's not damaged by tree roots.

So how do we decide when to do a traditional sidewalk and when do we use the alternative lower cost design approach?

Again, as I mentioned on busy arterials, think of Aurora, Greenwood, Rainier, 35th Avenue Southwest.

We want to install traditional sidewalks with the planting strip, street trees curb to provide the separation that people expect from busy traffic.

On non-arterial neighborhood streets will often turn to alternative walkways.

There's a couple of exceptions.

Again, as I mentioned with 110th Street, We can sometimes do the low cost design alternative on busy streets if it's gonna be temporary.

If we know we're gonna be able to get the money to put in the traditional sidewalk, eventually we'll put in a painted walkway.

And then conversely on neighborhood streets or non arterial streets, we will sometimes use the traditional design approach when we're filling a gap between existing concrete curb and gutter so that it matches what's existing.

So the levy to move Seattle provided us the funding to build 250 blocks of sidewalk using the traditional approach and the alternative walkway approach.

And we're on track to meet that goal as soon as next month, we expect to reach 250 blocks completed or in construction.

And again, that's the mix of traditional and alternative design to meet that goal.

Pedestrian facilities get built by many different programs at SDOT.

Jim mentioned a few of them.

The funding shown here is just for the new sidewalks capital improvement program.

But for example, our ADA program builds many pedestrian facilities like curb ramps and accessible pedestrian signals.

And over the past 10 years, funding for new sidewalks has averaged approximately 10 million per year.

And of that 10 million, it's typically roughly 9 million in local funds with the remaining being a mix of grants and reimbursables.

And thank you for the opportunity to talk about new sidewalks.

Awesome.

Well, thank you all really do appreciate this, this wonderful presentation that highlights the important work you all do every day, uh, with respect to sidewalks.

And, um, you know, these are members of the public colleagues.

These are the sidewalk experts in SDOT and, uh, You know, I geek out about the work that you all do.

Super cool.

And thank you, thank you, thank you.

And look, I'll say I sense, from my perspective at least, I sense a very bright future ahead for you all, this team in particular.

but it is critically important work.

And thank you also for sharing this one pager, this slide that kind of highlights, well, it shows a visual depiction of the opportunity sort of broken down by district.

And I wanted you all to see it, one, so you can see that what the opportunity is like in your respective districts, but so you can see sort of as a baseline, but we know it's counterproductive to compare scars and, and who's worse off than, than anyone else.

This, the lack of sidewalks, the 27% opportunity we have in the city is, is not a district five problem.

It's not a district two, one problem.

This is a citywide challenge and citywide opportunity that we have to do better, um, for the residents of this city, a hundred percent of, uh, transit riders and cyclists and drivers and cargo freight operators and drivers are pedestrians as well.

So it's a really important, frankly, urgent opportunity.

And it's good to hear that there's a range of options.

Cause as we learned in part sidewalks, especially traditional sidewalks are fairly expensive.

It requires a non-trivial investment.

Again, especially for traditional sidewalks, which includes the curb, the planting strips, the full concrete drainage kit with the SPU drainage, the sort of curb and gutter, but they're also a nice range of options.

And so, I want to actually ask, before I open it up to questions from colleagues present here, colleagues, our colleague, Council Member Moore, she thoughtfully provided some written questions, eight of them here, and I'm gonna assume they're in priority order.

I'm gonna go ahead and ask a few of them and then give you all the opportunity to weigh in and share your feedback as well.

But first, from Council Member Moore, who wanted to be here but has a conflict, unfortunately, and did the work in sharing her questions in advance.

The 2017 Pedestrian Master Plan included metrics for construction of new sidewalks, a baseline for gaps in the sidewalk network, and a target for filling the gaps.

It also included charts showing the number of arterial and non-arterial blocks with and without sidewalks.

It doesn't appear this is included in the pedestrian section of this new plan or the pedestrian section of the performance measures listed in Appendix C, for example, page 10. Why isn't any of that included in the proposed plan?

So a STP question as well.

Yeah, I think that's a great question.

I think the STP is a 20-year document, right?

It is a long-term document.

vision for how we want transportation to look in the future here.

And the SDP is really focused on the outcomes that we want to see.

And not so much as we have done previously on, you know, counting the things that we're going to build over the next 20 years, because a lot of that is depending on the funding source that we have.

And right now, that's quite frankly up in the air, right?

We're going to be going for a new levy in November.

And we'll have a lot more clarity about what we're able to do once we get to that point.

So the STP is really focused on the outcomes.

We want more people walking.

We want more kids walking to school, right?

And we want more people being able to walk to frequent transit service.

So we're really kind of shifting the mentality away from those outputs and really thinking about those outcomes with the STP.

And I think, quite frankly, as we move into the levy, will probably be a little bit more flavor of the widgets or the things that we're actually trying to do or trying to accomplish with the funding source that we have available.

Yeah.

So thank you.

I will add that from my perspective, you know, I think the outputs and the outcomes are both really important, especially on something like new sidewalk investments, considering the need, 27% missing sidewalk, alarming, alarming stat that we have in the city.

And so, and I'll also flag from my perspective that on the relevant portions of the proposed transportation plan, I noticed there isn't a, like part two specifically, I noticed in some of the performance metrics, there isn't a baseline set or a specific target set for missing sidewalks, similar to how some of the other pedestrian performance metrics are included in earlier pages and sections, and so, Yeah, outcomes are important, but we need to track and monitor this, the complex data associated with this, because how on earth are we ever gonna hold ourselves to account for?

So, but that might be an opportunity for clarification and setting expectations in an amendment of some sort.

The next question from my colleague is, my colleague Council Member Moore on slide nine.

Do transit stops and routes include Aurora, Lake City, 105th to Holman Road, and Greenwood Avenue?

Yes.

Perfect.

Next question.

People feel safer on a sidewalk rather than flat asphalt.

Is it possible to create a higher barrier than a curb stops pictures in slide 14?

So we're talking about slide 14. Something like a retaining wall that creates a physical separation between pedestrians and cars.

You know, I think each site we evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

I think, you know, certainly we want to provide a buffer between fast-moving vehicles and high volumes of vehicles.

And so if that's something that we're interested in pursuing, I think we're game for that.

We are currently right now on 4th Avenue, right outside the door here, right outside the building.

We are putting in more robust barriers for the Fourth Avenue protected bike lane.

Our contractor's been out there since this morning, just starting the project out.

So we are currently exploring the use of more of these barriers throughout the city.

And if there are locations that Council Member Moore is interested in exploring, I think we're game.

All right.

Next question from Council Member Moore.

What is the cost to implement a sidewalk on one side of the street and a Remind me the name, like, how is it pronounced?

Swale.

Swale.

And a swale on the other side of the street for all the streets without any sidewalks.

So the cost can vary.

It depends, again, on a lot of different factors, whether there's retaining walls involved, whether it's a non-arterial or an arterial street.

I think at the low end of the spectrum, if we're talking just a low-cost walkway on one side and then a a non highly engineered uh swale on the other side it could be very cost effective uh you know maybe in the range of two hundred thousand dollars a block and if we're talking a highly engineered swale which um it includes like an under drain so in case if the swale ever fills with water and then it needs to go someplace else uh that makes the cost a lot higher so it could It could be on the low end, or it could, depending on the design approach that we take, it could be on the high end of that $800,000.

I'll say a sidewalk on one side of the street is better than zero sidewalks on that same street.

And final question I'll ask.

There's a couple more, but I'll open it up to my colleagues.

From Council Member Moore, what are the cost ranges for alternative sidewalks?

On the low end, that painted walkway that I showed you, that's like $50,000 to $100,000 a block.

And then if we've got a deep paving, so we're removing asphalt and putting in a planting strip with street trees and a new asphalt walkway, it could be like $400,000 a block.

So somewhere between $100,000 and $400,000.

All right, thank you all.

I will pause here and open it up to my colleagues for questions.

Council Member Strauss, I know you had your hand raised earlier, but I wanna, Council Member Wu, you have not previously asked a question, so I wanna give you the first opportunity to share your question, comments, feedback.

Thank you.

So I'm really appreciative of this map.

It really helps visualize everything.

But my question is, when it comes to new sidewalks and developments, I think that was one of your first slides, what triggers having to build that sidewalk when it comes to new developments and who pays for that?

Yeah, so I think that's a great question.

Typically, it depends on where the development is occurring.

So if you're in, you know, close into the center city in our urban villages, urban centers, you are 100% required to build, replace or build a new sidewalk when you go in to develop the property.

Once you move out, once you move into, like, more single-family residential zones, that depends on the number of units that are being built.

So if there are, you know, 10 or more units being built in our single-family residential zones, then they would be required to build sidewalks.

If not, there is no requirement for street improvements in those locations.

And the cost is assumed by the developer.

So the city does not contribute to those new sidewalks except for in the review of the design and the issuance of permits.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple questions.

Thank you all for this presentation.

The first question I had, just doing a walk about just Capitol Hill and different areas, I've experienced a lot of sidewalks that have become uprooted because of trees and the maintenance.

And if you have a stroller, it's hard if you...

are in a wheelchair, it's accessibility issues.

How do you all identify those and prioritize like maintaining and maintenance of those sidewalks that have been uprooted and damaged because of tree roots?

I can start and then my colleagues can chip in.

So starting from the top, it's a separate funding source and a separate work group.

They're closer allied with our maintenance teams.

And while I'm mentioning it, I want to just say thank you for acknowledging the great work of this team.

We also have amazing folks at SDOT that develop these.

We have traffic engineers, civil engineers, concrete folks, asphalt folks, signs and markings folks that are all part of developing these creative solutions.

And so the folks that are doing the maintenance and repair are coming out of the asphalt and concrete crews and also urban forestry as you acknowledge, right?

A lot of the beauty and the curse of Seattle is we have wonderful tree canopy and it really does a number on our sidewalks.

And so they maintain, they do a, obviously customer service response is a key part of how they intake.

They also over the years have done various moments where they've done citywide evaluations and monitoring.

And there is actually a nice online resource now based on the sidewalk audit.

That's a sort of, I think it's called a story map online resource when you go to our website and go to the maintenance section.

There's an online resource describing how we approach sidewalk maintenance and some of the shim and bevel and some of the panel repair that we do.

So the prioritization is informed by customer service requests, by periodic assessments of the overall condition, and then they go out and they'll do high-volume, pedestrian zones first if they can.

And then I want to acknowledge that sometimes these are more tricky solutions, right?

When we have a very mature tree with very large roots or a species that does a lot of sort of high level root growth, then they have to sort of take that on as a larger project.

Those tend to cost more and those tend to take a longer time to implement.

I wanna acknowledge too that technically within the city of Seattle, property owners are required to do their sidewalk maintenance, but we do participate in a very significant shim and bevel process so that we can make sure that the sidewalks are passable to the greatest extent feasible.

No, thank you.

That's great.

And then another question, Council, or not Council, Chair Saka and I sit on the Regional Transportation Committee, and one of the things that we were learning and discovering was how buses are now trying to feed into the spine of Sound Transit, and that's kind of like their goal, you know, holistically with Metro.

What do you think is the North Star for sidewalks in our city?

I think I've heard like, hey, we really want to get our kids, like we're prioritizing sidewalks around kids, schools, you know, is that one of the North Star for sidewalks when looking at this map where it's significantly a lot of missing sidewalks in our districts?

Yeah, that is the tough question, right?

So as Brian discussed, we have many layers we bring into an analysis.

We obviously have the baseline assessment of where the sidewalks are missing, whether it's one side or two sides.

We also then have layered lots of different pieces of information, transit access, equity, health scores, things like that.

So we do our best to use a multivariate analysis that uses data and also values, right?

Because we also know that we have a historic under investment in our north and south parts of the city.

how are we directing funds there so that there's an equivalent level of service?

I think we are right now, and I'm sure we'll be talking about this more as part of the levy renewal, trying to figure, trying to work through what is our next eight years work plan of prioritization?

What can we afford and how do we wanna talk about that?

It will always be a multivariate thing, right?

There's no one answer, but I think we are looking very closely at how do we get people to our transit stops and how do we get people to their local neighborhood destinations And most importantly, how do we how do we prioritize building sidewalks along the routes that get there, right?

The number is enormous and sometimes quite daunting.

And what we're trying to refocus on is how do we create those core pathways, right?

How do we get the most people to a backbone pathway in areas where the need is so great?

So I'm sure we can talk more about this in upcoming hearings and different discussions, but that's what we're trying to balance as we think about this and definitely be influenced by That's new dynamics, right?

New dynamics of Sound Transit and transit service.

And then my last question, Mr. Chair, if I may.

Absolutely.

So looking at when we're, when we are constructing new sidewalks in neighborhoods where people have probably been there for a long time without sidewalks.

And so they probably know the neighborhood best.

How do you go about connecting with them and asking them what their needs are?

Are you talking about, are you prioritizing safety?

Is it aesthetics?

Is it usability?

Is it like, how do you engage with them to make sure it's accessible for them as well because they are in these communities?

Yeah, I'll say a few words and then pass it to Brian and Jim since they are in the day-to-day on it.

But absolutely, like, we are excited about some of the work implementing our transportation equity framework and also some of the language and intention in the STP about how do we partner more deeply with community How do we be more embedded and be a longer listening ear as opposed to only being present when we have a project that needs to get done and then being gone?

How do we be more in a continual conversation so we can help work through some of those issues?

But I'll pass it to these guys about how we do that.

I would say that we follow a bunch of different models.

So on the far end, is examples where we look at the map, right, and we think that the map is showing us roughly where we want to be, but then we go and engage with community and say, what streets are really the routes that you use?

Where should we really focus the investments?

and then really do a thorough engagement about what routes we're actually going to select for new walkways or sidewalks.

On the other hand, there's other streets, like I'll give you an example of Aurora, where we're not gonna have a discussion, you're getting sidewalks.

Like we're putting sidewalks on Aurora someday, might not be tomorrow, but you're getting sidewalks.

We're not putting it on some other street.

Like we have people walking on this street today that need sidewalks.

So it varies.

But sometimes we do do that real deep engagement where we want to identify what are the routes?

Because, you know, people in the neighborhood know better than we do.

But then there's others like we just we need to put sidewalks here.

No, that makes sense.

I was only curious because I know that.

Like, in my neighborhood, there's a ton of development, and a lot of the developers, they're able to afford to keep up with sidewalks and to maintain them.

I'm looking in these districts, District 2 specifically, where, you know, the average household income is a lot different than other neighborhoods, and how they would be able to keep up if they've never had a sidewalk before, right?

And they probably don't even know that they're responsible for that.

How, like, through an equity lens, them being responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of a sidewalk if they've never had one before, and just that education piece and ensuring that we have safe pathways.

But I know it can be a lot of challenging for people, especially in different districts, with the increase of costs and housing, and now that's a new expense that someone might have in these districts.

Just wondering, you know, just that communication piece.

And for...

For clarity, help.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Those are all my questions.

No, no.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Really appreciate that.

For clarity, help me understand or validate my understanding of the, so yes, joining property owners are responsible for maintaining the sidewalks directly on their property and that sort of easement portion where the sidewalk sits.

And that is the legal obligation.

But as I understand it as well, That is not at all enforced.

Today, or even historically, is that correct?

We have a nuance to your first statement is that we do have a shared responsibility as it relates to providing a passable pedestrian path of travel.

So it has been a complicated question about how to make sure that happens.

And so it is something that has, we do regularly provide notice.

We do have some processes and actions around notifying property owners of the need to repair, um, but less established punitive measures.

Thank you.

So clarifying, it is a shared responsibility between the city and the, with, it sounds like primary responsibility does rest with the property owner.

We, we have some, um, enforcement mechanisms in place that don't rise, that have somewhat limited utility in terms of their ability to compel compliance, is what I'm hearing.

But, okay, let me ask, and Vice Chair Hollingsworth brought up some great, great points, especially your last two questions.

I will highlight and flag just from our perspective, from my perspective, there is a great framework for how SDOT currently approaches.

And they talked a little bit about this in their answer to your great question in the earlier presentation.

at a high level, but they have a great framework for determining how they address the need.

And there's, you know, three core function or factors.

It's proximity to high pedestrian trip areas.

So schools is one.

Parks, transit stops, routes, which makes a lot of sense.

Safety is the next factor.

And then finally, equity.

And so I support those principles.

I think SDOT needs to have some execution flexibility to implement those, that decision-making framework as it sees fits with, this is where my color commentary is, I think appropriate oversight and directional feedback from all of us on sort of what that looks like sometimes.

And so one critical, you know, like key deed and example, Bill, you know, I sent you one of these emails last week, I think on, in my district in Delridge, there's a disabled American veterans.

And so DAV, Outposts, it's a nonprofit service provider that advises, helps, as the name implies, veterans navigate the whole claims and help connect them with the various benefits that they deserve.

These are war heroes in many cases.

And right outside...

at their facility in between Delridge and 25th.

There's a narrow half block area along Hudson, which is right next to the facility.

You know, there's no sidewalks.

And, you know, I've spoken to the post commander about it and who wants a sidewalk there, but you know, like, I think that would be an instance where the equity factor is triggered.

But in any event, there's an existing framework and with appropriate directional oversight and guidance from us, we can help all of us achieve more.

And I'll stop there and take further questions from Council Member Strauss.

I think Council Member Kettle was ahead of me.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Saka, really quick.

I really appreciate the presentation.

Sidewalks are so important, and I will admit all this talk about barriers has thrown me back 20 years when I lived in Baghdad, Iraq, where we had Jersey barriers, we had Texas barriers, and then we had Alaska barriers.

And fortunately, we don't have to have those types of barriers here in Seattle.

But it does highlight to me, you know, to pivot off that, How important is the aesthetic?

Like, I really like the example of the SPU working to create safety issues without having to do it in Alaska, Texas, or Jersey Bear, but then also have those benefits.

So thank you for that example and for that kind of work and that kind of collaboration.

For me, obviously, public safety is number one, traffic and pedestrian safety.

is really driving this, and the safe streets to school, the Vision Zero pieces are very important, and sidewalks are so key to this.

But also to the point, and I really appreciate the two questions from my colleague here to my right, is the neighborhood engagement piece.

And in my former life, I did a lot of this.

And so I wanted to highlight, I'm not sure the neighborhood street fund, I don't think that's come up.

And in pre-pandemic, we had small sparks and we had these different funds that would allow for nice sidewalk, road improvements, curb bulbs, whatever it may be.

And that was a way for the neighborhoods to really give you that input in terms of, hey, this is what's important to us.

And so I just wanted to highlight, you know, how we can kind of bring back that engagement.

to this process.

And speaking of engagement, by the way, we have such interactive engagement here on the dais.

I'm watching the briefing, listening to you, but I also get these pop-ups.

And normally I ignore them, but it said sidewalks on it, so I'm going to ask this question as a direct interface from the viewing public on Seattle Channel.

Thank you, Seattle Channel.

And there is a constituent out of District 3 from my colleague here's district, and she says that she's watching today's meeting, and I partly answer this because we have a consent decree in the public safety space, but she's highlighting that the city's under an ADA consent decree to produce a specific number of sidewalks each year.

SDOT does not appear to be meeting the requirements of that order.

Can or will you ask SDOT for the current status of this issue?

And so is this interactive that just came in?

I'd like to ask this on behalf of my District 3 neighbor.

I won't say her name out of courtesy on that.

Yeah, I think that's a fantastic question, and that's something that we're really pushing to advance at SDOT every day.

We're looking for new ways to ensure that our right of ways are accessible to everyone, regardless of how they get around.

We are currently under a Department of Justice consent decree around ADA curb ramps, so those inclined planes that take you from the street up to the sidewalk level.

and we are required to build 1,250 curb ramps every single year.

And we have been under the consent decree since 2017, and we have indeed met our commitments for the consent decree each year, even when we had a concrete strike a few years ago that put some of those...

some of those metrics in jeopardy, some of those goals in jeopardy as well.

We also strive to make sure that our, as Francisca was mentioning, that our sidewalks that exist remain accessible and our sidewalk safety repair program is, you know, taking feedback from the public, going out to look at sites where there might be some root heaving that lift, you know, the sidewalk up and make it a challenge for folks that, you know, might be rolling down our streets instead of walking down our streets, right?

And, you know, without question, we want to continue to build and grow on what we're doing under the consent decree right now.

And, you know, we're constantly looking for ways to make our program more efficient and expedite the delivery of ramps and pedestrian facilities in as timely manner as we possibly can.

Thank you.

And with my D7 hat on, and I should add, I spent the better part of nine months driving my wife downtown, avoiding potholes when she was pregnant.

And then when she was born, when our daughter was born, I had to buy a Bob stroller, because in Queen Anne, the sidewalks are in such a condition that a normal pram or stroller would not work, and I had to use a Bob stroller, and not just because of my name, but because of the need to navigate the sidewalks.

That piggybacks on the question.

I just wanted to add really quick, you know, generally from the equity point of view, obviously D7 is generally better than the other districts.

So districts one, two, and five definitely need to be the priority, particularly with the schools pieces of that.

But I do want to note, and this kind of goes, follows up my question about the neighborhood perspective, just to highlight really quickly, you know, in terms of Queen Anne, we do have areas of Queen Anne, North Queen Anne, is an area where it's growing.

Like with Nickerson, you know, from Fremont to Ballard, there's changes in that area.

So that's an area that I bring to your attention from Queen Anne.

I also like to bring up the Queen Anne Boulevard, which is a park, which is not just a Queen Anne Park or a D7 Park.

This is a park and a walkway, runway, you know, area for the whole city.

And that's an area where there's definitely areas of a lack of a sidewalk.

And then that pushes some people onto the street.

Some cases that might be okay, but if you have a disability and so forth, then it's not okay.

And so I just wanted to highlight that for Queen Anne.

For Interbay, You know, Interbay is primarily, you know, light industrial, and it should be, liquefaction, public safety hat on.

It's not an area to be developing.

But we do have an area around Dravis that's been developed.

And I just highlight, you know, we have a new Seattle storm facility going up.

There's gonna be a lot of kids going to these programs that the storm is gonna be producing.

So connecting Dravis and the storm facility with proper sidewalks, this is not something that would come up normally.

in terms of, like, your reviews, because it's kind of, quote, unquote, light industrial, that area.

But that's an example where neighborhood input would highlight, hey, we have a change in the neighborhood, and this would be a great area to, you know, bring in some better sidewalk connectors.

And then, lastly, just to highlight Magnolia, too, The D7 part of Magnolia with my colleague here on the other end of the dais, there's definitely areas where there's shortfalls on sidewalks, particularly on the lower slopes, and we do have some parks in that area that could probably be better.

And that generally goes to the point in terms of damaged sidewalks as well.

So thank you very much again, and thank you, Chair Sacco.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

And thank you to the viewing public, in particular the member who sent in that terrific question.

I've been trying to emphasize throughout that the critical need and opportunity, the imperative that we have to add, specifically add new sidewalk infrastructure across the city.

By doing that, it drives safety, accessibility, significant progress towards our climate goals, Equity, ADA compliance, amongst other things.

So it really does, it's arguably a nitty gritty last mile detail, sometimes overlooked by some, but it matters.

It matters to the lives of everyday people in the city and people visiting the city.

We can and must do better and I'm here to ensure as much as chair of this committee.

In any event, I am a little disheartened.

I was not previously aware of that consent decree with the ADA.

I am disheartened to hear that.

And as part of these new investments with this levy and just on a continuing ongoing basis, we need to not meet the bare-men qualifications and requirements.

We need to accelerate our efforts and do better.

So I'm looking forward to working with you all, alongside you all, folks at SDOT, alongside my colleagues, to better support SDOT in this important work.

Thank you again, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

I'll be brief, Chair.

Thank you for this map outlining the districts in which we have sidewalks missing.

I now understand why I was redistricted.

If you look at this map, all of the areas in dark red in Greenwood used to be in my district.

and they took it from me.

And I say this because I've been on a quest for a number of years and I'm really excited about the enthusiasm of this new council to address the sidewalk problem because that's why I've had statements of legislative intent two years in a row building upon the reports that you've been providing.

I really appreciate that because when I look at Arts QFC on Holman Road to the Western edge of the John Lewis Memorial Bridge, as was highlighted earlier in the presentation at the beginning of this committee meeting, that's 1.3 miles.

Add the quarter mile across I-5, that's one and a half miles from Arts QFC to the light rail station on a direct route, and it's got mismatched sidewalks.

At one point, there's a sidewalk alternative on the north side of the street that dead ends into...

no uh an actually created sidewalk on the south side of the street i'm sharing this not as pointing fingers rather how can we collaborate to the solutions and so chair that's why last year's report that i requested called out giving alternative designs and costing framework for district 5 two, and one.

And so that's why we called out those districts in particular so that the council members at that time leading into today had the ability to call out specific places that they'd like to have costed out.

To answer Council Member Moore's question regarding can asphalt be used at a higher height to create separation from the street, I have seen it done.

It's on the edge of our district.

It's at 87th and I believe...

It's just east of Greenwood, so I can get back to her on that.

But I've seen it done.

It does require SDOT and SPU to coordinate as well.

The use of asphalt there is dyed and printed, so it actually looks like sidewalk and you can't tell the difference.

I'm going to bring us back to slide nine.

I'm going to ask some questions.

I don't need the answer.

I'm going to ask...

ask a question on nine, and then make some comments on 16. And then I'll be complete because I am already late for another meeting.

Thank you for letting me keep talking.

Looking at slide number nine, looking at the slide in the criteria of when to create priority investment, I don't see gaps here.

And I don't need to know why necessarily today, but having that gap, it should create a priority.

I know we're going back and forth and I see director spots out here and I'm waiting for a conversation regarding 87th and Palatine, because it's a one block stretch that would connect third to Greenwood, except for that one block.

And that's a really, it's important to bridge that gap.

So I don't necessarily need an answer today, but I would like to come back to that.

If we could move to slide 16, just in the interest of time.

I will note here, I appreciate your transparency with the pros and cons.

I would say in a con regarding alternatives, triggering more ADA upgrades may be hard for the department financially, but that should not be listed as a con.

Having more ADA Accessibility throughout our city is a positive and cannot be seen as a negative here, as well as Adjacent residents prefer traditional sidewalks.

Many of the photos that you have contained within this presentation were streets that I kicked rocks on and caught the bus on without separation between arterials and where I was catching the bus and walking.

What you have created is net positive, even if it's not perfect.

And so that's why I also share Everyone prefers the gold standard.

I'd prefer to drive, you know, a Ferrari.

I drive a Subaru.

We have to be able to provide our residents safer alternatives to what's out there today.

So those are my comments.

Chair, I appreciate your time.

Love it.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I learned a lot there from your insights.

Thank you for sharing those.

You know, one thing I learned is something is better than nothing.

And we need to do something and add that sort of once-in-a-generation investment in new sidewalks which is gonna include a number of sidewalk alternatives.

Not every community in their area is going to get that full concrete SPU drainage kit deal.

But something is better than nothing, starting with that proposition.

And another proposition is we need to add something for future Councils to build upon.

And with that, I also wanna, don't leave just yet.

Let me specifically acknowledge and highlight and express my gratitude and appreciation to you, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Morales as well.

I acknowledge, thank you for your prior leadership on sidewalks.

done a lot of great work, and I've been monitoring that and tracking the sort of lineage of all of our sort of policy-wide efforts and initiatives throughout the city, and I know you and Councilmember Morales and others were centrally involved in that, so I thank you for your leadership.

I look forward to building upon that work with this group right here.

It's not intended to replace or, like, I look forward to building upon that work to make it even better And I think we all win when we do that.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Amen.

But yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the great work that's already been done at, you know, respect to a few of my colleagues in particular and colleagues now now they threw us the ball what are we going to do with it um so here we are thank you again for this this uh i love all these transportation committee meetings like every last one of them seems to one up the last one so who knows what's coming next i'm excited for that next one but So thank you all, Estat, Kelvin, the chairs of the Levee Oversight Committee as well, and colleagues again, and public speakers live as well, sharing your feedback.

We're listening and we appreciate it.

So we've reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

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

All right, hearing none.

Colleagues, friendly reminder that, you know, please do surface any proposed amendments you might have to the Seattle Transportation Plan in advance to yours truly and my staff in advance of the next committee meeting.

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

It is 1156 a.m.