Transportation Committee 6/17/2025

All right, good morning.

The June 17th, 2025 meeting of the transportation committee will come to order.

It is 9 31 AM.

I'm Rob Saka, chair of the transportation committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Rink.

Okay.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Vice chair Hollingsworth.

Here.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

All right.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is hereby adopted.

So thank you colleagues, members of the public for joining us today in person and tuning in on TV land or streaming land.

As always, we have a full and impactful agenda before us today.

Today's agenda's topics focus on building out and maintaining our city's infrastructure, a significant priority for me, my office, and most importantly, our residents and visitors to our city.

On that note, our first topic today is ST3, the Transit Way Agreement.

This council bill and companion resolution are an important step to build up to West Seattle and beyond.

So thank you to Sound Transit, our representatives from the city and central staff for being here today.

I'm delighted, I'm particularly delighted that we have some expertise at this dais as well, because our one of two Sound Transit board representatives in the city, Council Member Strauss is joining us.

So appreciate, always appreciate his leadership and his expertise and any insights that he can lend to these conversations.

Our second topic today will be on revive I-5, specifically the upcoming closures to the Ship Canal Bridge set to begin Monday.

Infrastructure maintenance of our roads and bridges are the types of crucial nuts and bolts projects that residents expect.

Nonetheless, this washed out project will cause significant disruptions and potential delays And today's presentation is to help ensure that the public has all available information to avoid any disruptions, especially related to upcoming disruptions starting this weekend.

But we still do want you to come out and experience the benefit and joys many that Seattle has to offer.

Just plan accordingly.

So thank you WSDOT and SDOT for being here today to share updates on Revive I-5.

Also thank you to Commute Seattle and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce for being here today and speaking about this project from a local governing partner and community members perspective.

Whether there are adverse impacts related to the upcoming bridge work this coming weekend or the project as a whole, it is vital that we hear from our civic partners to understand and hopefully mitigate any impacts.

Before we begin, two other quick notes.

First, At my request, during our last budget cycle, SDOT is producing a report based on a council statement of legislative intent related to its pothole repair program.

Has that report been delivered, Ian?

I know yesterday was a big day.

It is not yet.

Oh, TIS, TIS, TIS department.

Look forward to, we're a day late, but I do look forward to seeing that report because I will be inviting you all back at our next regular transportation committee to discuss that report.

And the second item, repairs of our streets.

Well, no, the second item is 14th in Hennessy in South Park.

As we know, there's a second pedestrian fatality there just last month.

And this comes on the heels of a similar pedestrian fatality.

These two killed individuals actually lived in the same complex in South Park.

The earlier fatality happened six months earlier in December.

And I wanna thank the department Director Emory for some of their initial steps to make necessary long needed safety investments in that particular neighborhood 14th, all along 14th, but we know the problem areas.

So, but there's clearly more work to do But I want the community in South Park to know that my office remains firm and resolute in doing what we can to finally to work with the department, to finally bring about the changes needed for that area.

Because safety is my highest priority, whether on our roads, in our streets, in our communities, in our neighborhoods.

All right, 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?

Currently we have two in-person speakers signed up and there is one remote speaker.

All right, each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with the in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

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

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they 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.

That is Dan French.

Greetings.

My name is Dan French.

I live in North Seattle at 130th.

I have continually had to fight this unsafe project that SDOT is implementing.

I am requesting that you stop all progress going towards SDOT because they have proven time again that they are grossly incompetent and negligent.

I have requested information on this project, providing alternatives that are safe.

King TV has been out there and shown that it is unsafe.

SDOT has implemented bad designs here in downtown that injured a bicyclist, and we are so complacent in their negligence that we reward them for saying, oh, you fixed a problem that should never have existed in the first place.

There is no viable oversight to go through and escalate and say, this is a bad idea.

These are the reasons why we need to stop this and get something that's safe and sane.

I am trying to get it safe.

That's all.

Nobody will listen to me.

Nobody at SDOT will return a phone call.

The best they've done is provide me with information that proves beyond reasonable doubt that they have implemented traffic signals that are designed to induce speeding.

In this one, they are rerouting.

They don't tell you in the report that they are rerouting traffic in front of schools.

They don't tell you they are rerouting traffic in front of churches.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, our last of the in-person speaker's slate is Aaron Goodman.

Good morning, I'm Erin Goodman, the Executive Director of the Soto Business Improvement Area.

As you know, the Soto BIA represents over 1,200 businesses which provide tens of thousands of living wage jobs and keep Seattle's economy moving.

However, this industrial ecosystem is at risk.

Soto is facing a convergence of major infrastructure projects unlike anything seen in decades.

Without proactive and coordinated construction mitigation, the impacts will be devastating to businesses, workers, and the movement of goods throughout Seattle.

Since 2017, Soto BIA has been actively engaged in West Seattle and Ballard Link extension planning.

We've hosted tours, co-led community sessions, submitted letters, and advocated directly with the Sound Transit Board.

From the start, we have called for a comprehensive construction mitigation strategy.

While we support the long-term benefits of expanded light rail, the construction phase poses an urgent threat to Soto's day-to-day operations and long-term viability.

These impacts go far beyond the footprint of light rail facilities.

Virtually every business in Soto will be affected and many could be pushed to the very brink.

What's more, multiple high impact infrastructure projects are scheduled to overlap.

By 2034, nearly every major ulterior on SOTO will be under construction.

If not managed properly, our freight and transit systems will grind to a halt, disrupting the flow of goods and workers and destabilizing Seattle's critical industrial base.

This is not a distant or theoretical concern.

It is pressing and cumulative risk that requires coordinated action.

As you consider today's legislation, we urge you to hold Sound Transit and city staff accountable for developing and implementing a robust and district-specific mitigation plan.

Thank you, and I invite you to meet with us to discuss specific risks and collaborate on solutions to keep SOTO moving.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Goodman.

Okay, as our last in-person speaker, we'll now move on to our one remote speaker who is present, David Haynes.

David, remember when you're allowed to speak to hit that star six, thank you.

All right, thank you, David Haynes.

I wish council would realize that the concerns about mitigating all the construction that's going to delay progress, if you could just make a law that says, if you wanted to do a public private partnership, that the companies who have all these middlemen getting rich off these projects, they have to have two full shifts.

You have to have a robust work force where you start a project and instead of having like one barely shift being overworked and underpaid, purposely slowing down just so they can make them meet, you can have, do full shifts, and make it a law that says, hey, if you want to do business in Seattle, we want you to create a bunch more jobs and pay the prevailing wage to expedite the projects.

And that said, I want to address the Linklight Rail and the King County Metro failures to improve the transfers and the delivery of the riders.

A perfect example of what is wrong and needs to be addressed right away is 145th.

If you go to the South Shoreline 148 Sound Link Light Rail and then catch the 65 to go one bus stop, the amount of skimmed potholes that shimmy, shake, and earthquake take the foundation of the ground and make you feel like you're riding in the back of a metal dump truck that is destroying every single bus that drives through there, you would realize that you have to make the construction company that ruined that intersection on 145th, that they have to do like a skin patch for the potholes.

If you could realize how unsafe the sidewalk is on 145th, where it just dumps you into the ground.

Like my elder friend, he got injured.

Just come back from the grocery store.

Thank you, David.

Chair, that is all the speakers we have signed up.

All right, thank you.

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

First two items of business.

They're related.

Will the clerk please read item one and two into the record?

Agenda item one, Council Bill 121003, an ordinance relating to the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority, Sound Transit, authorizing the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation to execute an amendment to the agreement between the City of Seattle and Sound Transit for grant of non-exclusive use of a light rail transit way as related to the Link Light Rail Transit Project to reflect the approved alignment and light rail transit facilities for the Link Light Rail Transit Project, including addition of the West Seattle Link Extension and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Agenda item two, resolution 32172, a resolution approving the alignment station locations and maintenance base locations for sound transients link light rail lines in the city of Seattle, including the West Seattle link extension and superseding the alignment station locations and maintenance base location approved in resolution 31784.

All right, thank you.

And it looks like our presenters have already joined us at the table.

actually welcome our presenters from the Chamber and Commute Seattle as well, if you'd like to join us at the table for this conversation.

And presenters, in a moment, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation in a moment.

But first, a few other follow-up thoughts from my perspective.

Today is about infrastructure expansion locally.

That's the focus of agenda items one and two at its core.

It's also about accountability and oversight.

Major infrastructure expansion and rehabilitation can be disruptive.

We need to always be actively ensuring that we are communicating and mitigating any disruptions, especially material disruptions related to these kind of large scale infrastructure projects.

Let me be crystal clear as well.

I support light rail expansion and the connectivity it will bring to district one and the rest of the city.

Hey, not just our city, but our entire region.

That said, I have made clear to Sound Transit's leadership and staff numerous times that transparency and all available mitigation efforts must be made with all impacted residents, business owners, tenants, all of which should be made whole to the full extent possible permitted by applicable law.

In fact, during the legislative session, most recently in Olympia, I strongly supported and advocated for the passage of HB 1733, which would increase funding support for small businesses and nonprofits impacted by large scale projects it would increase the statutory compensatory cap from 50,000 to $200,000.

My support for this project is conditioned on the expectation that that engagement and help with mitigation efforts as I described.

And while this is a sound transit project and not a Seattle led project, our city departments, play a vital role in facilitating and supporting and helping to bring to life from a local perspective, the broader initiative at the sound transit level, and also supporting communication efforts as this project gets underway.

All right, presenters.

Now, please go ahead and introduce yourselves, begin your presentations.

Calvin Chow with council central staff.

Saranya, I'm the project manager for West Seattle Link Extension with the Office of Waterfront Civic Projects and Sound Transit.

Sarah Maxana, I'm the Sound Transit Program Director at the Office of the Waterfront Civic Projects and Sound Transit.

Bill Lepore-Destat.

Lita Shaheem, Sound Transit.

And Jason Hampton, Sound Transit.

I'm leading the project development for the West Seattle Link Extension.

And council members, before I turn to Sound Transit, the executive, at your request, you asked for a little bit of context setting in terms of the legislation that the state has passed.

You already started your comments on it, so I won't belabor the point.

But in addition to the agency displacement limits, there was some additional language in the transportation budget that clarifies that local jurisdictions can't can't preclude the siting of light rail facilities and requires that the costs and the permit conditions have to be reasonably necessary to mitigate the direct impacts of the light rail facilities.

This is all pretty consistent with the city's partnership agreement with Sound Transit.

I don't think it really necessarily changes the way that we interact with Sound Transit.

but it certainly provides a reasonable standard out there to make sure that our actions don't run afoul of the state law.

And then, in addition, if you could...

Next slide, please.

In terms of the...

Local jurisdiction.

Recently, last week, the City Council passed permit streamlining legislation that's in that same sort of vein of improving and streamlining our processes to help the project move faster.

And in addition, we do expect that there will be some city legislation, some budget legislation related to staffing and allocating the fiscal reserves that we had put in place for ST3 to help move this project forward and fund the city's portion of the project development.

So unless there are questions on legislation, I'll turn it over to the executive.

Know quickly on that last slide or the first slide rather on with respect to the state budget, state legislation, just wanna highlight from my perspective, the second bullet there restates that local jurisdictions cannot preclude the siting of light rail facilities.

So, which means, in my view, in my read, we can't erect any barriers that would impede siting decisions that were already duly made at the Sound Transit Board level.

We have a role locally in facilitating these kind of expansion projects, but siting decisions are made, in this case, at the Sound Transit Board level, We can't control that, so we must help implement.

And I'll just point to the last bullet on there as well, that really it's saying that we have to have a process to be able to handle the project and make sure that we're dealing with the impacts of the project.

We have to handle it responsibly in a timely manner, and the permittee has to provide the information to make that possible for us to respond and to actually do the permitting.

So all the legislation that you're going to hear about today is really about kicking off the permitting process.

We still have a lot of permit process, a logic project development to go, a lot of issues that are currently unresolved that will have to get resolved in the permitting process.

So this action is really about moving, it's largely, I'll let the executive speak to it more, but it's largely about opening the door and letting the permit start to come in so we can start getting into the details of the work.

Thank you.

And on that last bullet, that's why I ask for this legislation to be expedited a few weeks, by a few weeks or a few months, depending on where it was originally.

So I want to thank the mayor's office and the department for expediting this legislation so we can hear it today.

It's really, really important because I take my responsibility seriously, and this is an important project.

All right, go ahead.

All right, I'm gonna kick things off.

Committee chair, council members, thank you so much for having us.

Expedited presentation today on this legislation.

As noted, very important legislation to allow us to kick off the permit process for West Seattle Link Extension.

We have a brief presentation today.

We are going to kick things off on the exec side by talking about the transitway agreement and the legislation in front of you today and then hand things over to our colleagues at Sound Transit to give an overview of the project and wrap things up very briefly with some next steps.

Our intro slide is always the same.

ST3, largest infrastructure project in the city's history.

Tremendous opportunity to rethink how people are moving and accessing their homes, jobs, destinations, but will also have tremendous impact as it's developed through existing neighborhoods.

Our ST3 city team is an interdepartmental effort with contributions from over 20 city departments in one way or another, and we are partners to Sound Transit, the regional agency that is delivering the projects.

We were in front of your committee back in March and gave an overview of the legislation that is forthcoming in 2025 and 2026. And this is one of the slides that we used then.

We are here following the land use code amendments that, as Calvin noted, was adopted by full council last week.

Today, we are here for the adoption of the West Seattle Link Extension Project while those code amendments put in place.

the development standards and the code that will apply to all light rail projects.

Today's legislation is really about advancing the particular project of the West Seattle Link Extension project.

And then, as noted, we'll be back in front of you later this year for the staffing and resource plan to help us have the manpower in place to advance those permits.

Later on in 2026 and 27, we'll be back numerous times to advance similar legislation for South Graham Street infill station, Ballard Link extension, as well as the wide variety of agreements that will need to be in place for various property right-of-way, joint development, and other partnerships to put the project in place.

So adopting the West Seattle Link Extension project, as the committee chair noted, this is one step in a multi-agency at multi-level, multi-levels of government to put in place the parameters necessary for the city to be able to issue permits.

So first started with the Sound Transit Board taking action on the project to be built back in October of 2024. The Federal Transit Administration published a record of decision on that project in April of this year.

And the final step in that three agency process is Seattle City Council appending the project into the transitway agreement by ordinance and adopting the project alignment and stations by resolution.

Once those three steps are in place, then the city can start processing and issuing permits.

So what is the transitway agreement?

The transitway agreement is essentially the agreement under which the city grants sound transit the non-exclusive use of light rail transitway within the city's right of way.

So just as SDOT governs our streets and our roads as city right of way, the transitway is essentially where the alignment and stations exist and the city is granting sound transit access to manage and operate the light rail system in that transit way.

It's defined by attachments that describe each project that are, and provide maps and drawings of each project that are added to the transit way agreement.

And the agreement has been amended four times since its original adoption in 2000 for the initial link light rail and then the addition of each subsequent project has been added over the year.

The most recent amendment was in 2022 for the Northeast 130th Infill Station, now the Pinehurst Station as part of the Linwood Link Extension.

There's two pieces of legislation, companion pieces of legislation in front of you.

There's a resolution that formally approves the West Seattle Link Extension project that includes the alignment for the guideways and the station sites as adopted by the Sound Transit Board.

That resolution adds this new West Seattle Link alignment and approves the project, essentially.

The ordinance is authorizing the SDOT director to amend the transitway agreement to include the project.

So it just adds the West Seattle Link extension to the existing transitway agreement.

And then when those two pieces are in place, we can start processing permits.

With that, just of note, if there are future changes to the project, major changes to either the alignment or the stations, that would necessitate a follow-up action to that transitway agreement.

That has happened in the past, and so that little call-out box on the right just describes that process, that we would bring back additional future legislation should that happen.

With that, I'm going to hand things over to my colleagues at Sound Transit to walk through the project.

Thanks, Sarah.

Thanks, Chair, members of the committee.

Again, Jason Hampton with Sound Transit.

I'm going to walk through the alignment as it's described in the transitway agreement.

But first, I just want to remind folks the project benefits, a couple of them.

Just to note that the project, when connected to the regional system, as Chair Saka mentioned it would be, would reduce travel time from Alaska Junction to Soto in downtown by half.

So taking a trip that currently takes about 30 minutes down to about 15 minutes.

It'll also improve transit service frequency, reliability, and capacity, provide a travel alternative when the West Seattle Bridge may be closed for repairs or congested, and then ultimately it will provide opportunity for future expansion further south on the peninsula.

This map here shows the entire alignment, which includes 4.1 miles of new light rail from Soto to West Seattle's Alaska Junction.

It includes four stations at Soto, Delridge, Avalon, and Alaska Junction.

Looking at a start as scheduled for 2032. And the project also includes a new connection to the operations and maintenance facility central.

I'll describe each segment in a little bit more detail on the next slides.

So here we have a, and for each we'll have a plan view showing the location of the station and guideway.

and also a profile below that shows the elevation where it's elevated or at grade.

So in Soto, we have an at grade guideway from South Walker Street to South Forest Street.

We have a new at grade station directly to the west of the existing Soto Station, north of Lander Street that facilitates transfers between the existing one line and the future three line, which will be the West Seattle to Everett Line.

Next slide, please.

So continuing south from the Soto segment through the Soto neighborhood and across the Duwamish, we would be on a mix of elevated guideway, mostly elevated guideway with some retained cut and at grade around the north edge of Pigeon Point.

Again, we have that new connection to the operations maintenance facility central between Forest Street and Spokane Street.

And then a new high-level fixed rail-only bridge over the Duwamish Waterway that would meet the clearance of the West Seattle High Bridge, providing for the navigation needs in the Duwamish Waterway.

And then again, the route crosses the north edge of Pigeon Point, transitioning to an elevated guideway that crosses Delridge Way as it approaches the Delridge Station.

Next slide.

Thanks.

So here we have an elevated station at Delridge that's north of Southwest Andover Street on the west side of Delridge Way.

From there, the tracks transition from an elevated guideway along the north side of Yancey Street to an at-grade and then retain cut along the east side of the West Seattle Bridge connection to Fauntleray into a lidded, retained-cut station south of Genesee Street, straddling 35th Avenue Southwest.

For context, that station is similar to the Spring District station out in Bellevue.

And then it transitions from the retain cut station continuing west into a tunnel before curving south with a station under 41st Avenue Southwest, straddling Southwest Alaska Street with entrances both north and south of Alaska Street.

So just want to hit on a couple of things that we've done.

We've been doing community engagement on this project since 2017 with really the kickoff of the ST3 programming that led to the draft EIS being published in early 2021. Up to that point, we had held stakeholder and community advisory groups.

We'd had numerous public meetings.

We partnered with the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods community liaisons to reach people in the neighborhoods that this project would serve.

And then leading up to and through the environmental phase, we conducted door to door outreach to businesses and residences to talk more about the project.

And this schedule here really picks up some of the engagement themes that we went out to community with the draft published in early 2021. And I like to use this slide to illustrate that we weren't only doing engagement on the environmental review.

But at the same time, we were engaging with potentially affected property owners, business owners and tenants in the community, all while partnering with the city of Seattle on the station area planning to help inform the design for the project as it moved forward to the final EIS and now into the design phase.

So this slide is a slide you may have seen before.

And this, again, picks up around the time of the draft EIS publication.

And again, we did engagement leading up to this.

But prior to the release of the draft EIS, in addition to the engagement described before, we sent about 1,300 letters to potentially affected properties who were identified as potentially affected by the broad range of alternatives in the draft EIS.

At the top end of the range, we were seeing about 650 potential residential displacements for the highest alternatives in the draft EIS, and for the same, about 150 potentially impacted businesses.

Following publication of the final EIS, the board adopted project substantially reduced the number of residential displacements to about 150, and business displacements are about 130. I will note, during final design, which is kicking off here very soon, we're gonna continue to look to reduce those numbers and to reduce the project impacts as the design progresses from a conceptual or preliminary engineering level into what is built.

For property owners and tenants, who will be required to be relocated.

Sound Transit will leverage an experienced team of relocation agents to help those property owners, residents, and businesses consistent with federal, state, and local laws.

So Chair Saka talked a bit about the legislation, and that's something that will provide additional flexibility to our experienced agents when helping people find new locations.

And I'll close this out.

Just of note, we are looking forward to next steps for this legislation, hoping for a transportation committee and full council consideration and vote in July.

And that really then opens the door for our staff team to start the work with Sound Transit on the permit process.

The council adopted the code amendments for light rail transit facilities last week.

Those code amendments include an opportunity to be working with community on the tree and vegetation management plan, on the preliminary construction management plan, all of that good work that's gonna go into making sure that this project not only brings the tremendous benefit for mobility and connectivity that we know it will bring, but does so in a way that honors and respects the priorities of the city and the needs of our community members and businesses.

And I think with that, thank you so much for having us.

All right, excellent.

Thank you for this presentation.

Colleagues, what questions do you all have?

What questions, comments do you have?

Starting first with one of two Seattle representatives on the Sound Transit Board, the mayor and council member Strauss, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

If we could go back to slide five.

Chair Saka alluded to this.

which is that we at the city council don't have the ability to amend this because it is in a multi-step process.

This is based off of the record of decision which we've received from the federal transit authority.

This is actually, this list is almost numerical in the sense that it is one action leads to the next.

Is that a correct understanding here?

It's an order, certainly, yes.

Yeah, which is why we can't go back and why we also need to keep moving forward In our conversation yesterday, and Califf, please expand on this layperson's understanding of what we're doing here if you'd like.

This bill today is simply transferring jurisdiction of our right of ways and in some cases private property to a different city so that they may apply for permits from our city.

How close or far did I get from there?

Two separate things.

So the council bill that's before you amends the transitway agreement, which is what you're talking about.

We're not transferring the right of way.

We are giving them permission to use the right of way.

It's sort of an alternate to our term permits or other uses right away, but a much more structured one has maintenance and operation coordination.

It's a very long and involved agreement that is really the biggest use of it is on MLK, where it really governs all of our signals and all the crossings and assigns responsibility for who's covering what.

So that's the council bill.

The resolution is very specifically council's approval of the project, and that's what authorizes the permit processes to move forward.

So they're essentially doing the same thing, but there are two sort of legislative vehicles.

Two actions and one presentation.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Chair.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Kettle, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Asaka.

Thank you, everyone, for coming.

Mr. Hampton and Ms. Shaheen from Sound Transit, welcome.

along with Ms. Maxana and Rajan Kounarjouro from our own Sound Transit team.

Hopefully I did that fairly good pronunciation.

And of course, Mr. Laborde, and then from our own central staff, Mr. Chao.

Really interesting to get this, and as I sit here going through the briefing, actually all the related briefings that we've gotten, I just think about other cities and how they've transited through this process, because every city's done it.

I went to school in Boston.

At some point, Boston was single-family neighborhoods, and then it became more up-zoned.

And then they filled in Back Bay, just like we filled in Soto and the like.

And they went through this process.

London, I was stationed in Germany, U-bans and S-bans and the like.

And I think the difference is, back then, governments, whatever type it was, could really drive.

Made decisions like Napoleon.

We're going to clear out these boulevards in Paris.

Here we go.

We're in a different world now.

And they had it lucky in terms of trying to make this work.

I can imagine everybody at that table is like, yep, they had it lucky back compared to today's world.

And that's a transition for me to say, hey, of course, supporting this project, we need to, I mean, it's a shame we didn't do this back in the 70s and the LAMAs got it instead and so forth, but we really need to engage because we do need to be engaged in pieces.

As Ms. Goodman from Soto came and spoke about, It's really important and it's not just important, you know, for Soto.

I'm thinking about like an uptown when the BLE project goes through, you know, Republican.

I mean, and I've got in two different areas and those two projects, you know, the South Lake Union and the uptown, they have to be mitigated against each other, nevermind the other more local mitigations.

I mean, these things are massive.

So, um, you mentioned outreach, but can you speak to the specific point about mitigation and how, that compared to projects of decades and centuries ago that mitigation's gonna be a little bit bigger challenge today?

Yeah, I can, excuse me, I can speak to that.

Thanks for the question.

So I think one of the great things about where we're at in the project is we've gone through the environmental review phase, we've identified the impacts in the EIS and identified potential mitigations, but now that we're advancing from a conceptual or preliminary engineering level, into final design, it's really time to partner with the Soto BIA and other community organizations, members of the public to understand what the project will ultimately be, how we're going to build this, and then how we're going to work with the community to minimize and mitigate impacts as we advance the design and into construction.

So this is really the time where we're able to start that robust work.

We'll know what what the impacts are.

We're gonna have contractors coming on early for some of the segments, and they'll be able to help inform their means and methods to help us understand what the specific impacts would be to a community, and then be able to solve those challenges as we go.

If I can just augment what Jason said, I mean, I think exactly during the final design phase, we have this opportunity to really advance our understanding and get more specific about what mitigation could be and partner with communities.

We do have the advantage of having done all of the engagement during the environmental review process to hear about priorities and concerns from community.

So we can take that as our starting place into the final design process and build from there.

And if I could add just one more thing, the federal record decision does include the mitigation requirements for the project.

So, I mean, it's a higher level.

A lot of the details are still to be determined as they go through the final design, but the project commitments are laid out in the record decision.

So there is, that is a starting point coming out of the environmental process.

That's a good backstop.

I just think it's important.

As you know, Seattle's a city of neighborhoods and each neighborhood has its organizations and Soto has the BIA with Ms. Goodman being the key player.

If you've not met her already, please do so.

And since we have the Seattle Mental Chamber and DSA represented in the audience behind you as well, definitely recommend meeting up with them at some point.

We are good friends.

Yeah, good friends.

And I suspect Mr. Packard behind them is good friends of you too.

And of course, Mr. French here.

Don't want to leave anybody out.

Sorry, I don't know your name.

Absolutely.

But yeah, it's really important on the mitigation piece.

And I do have a reputation on the Council of looking out for our Seattle maritime interests.

So I'll just put a plug in for the Port of Seattle too, I suspect.

So yeah, that's my main piece is the mitigation.

And I noted in the briefing too, the sequencing, and obviously this decision was made long ago in terms of the sequencing between the West Seattle extension and then the Ballard Link extension.

And I know this is not the topic of today.

I know this is probably, you know, this will be executive Constantine and others.

But like I said in the last meeting, you know, Puget Sound Regional Council, all the requirements coming down the state regarding a comprehensive plan.

On land use, we're doing this.

On transportation, we have to equally be doing this because land use and transportation, if not in sync, is a major problem.

So we're putting a regional center into Ballard.

And the idea of pressing forward and then stopping on the Ballard Link extension at Smith Cove is problematic.

And so I'm just going to take advantage of the opportunity to say that again.

And if you're going to stop anywhere, at least stop at a neighborhood center like Dravis.

Thank you.

You don't have to respond.

Mr. Tao, if you want to, you can.

All right.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Rank.

Thank you chair and thank you all for today's presentation.

As a former light rail commuter myself, I just have to state at the top how incredibly exciting this is.

Again, ST3 is the largest infrastructure project for the city.

This work is exciting and certainly there is a lot of also pressure to deliver.

And so I wanna thank you all for your work and voice my support for this work and also making sure that we're delivering for voters.

We know there's likely a long history of how we've landed to the record of decision here, and I'm sure Council Member Strauss could fill us in on all those exciting sound transit board meetings on how we arrived at this point.

But without spending time in committee on that point today, I want to ask just some questions about any potential vulnerabilities about delivering on timeline.

Understanding that council is going to be taking up a number of pieces of legislation to support delivering on time.

I'm wondering from your assessment, you know, beyond that, what are other measures we can be taking to support making sure we're delivering on time or what do you see as potential vulnerabilities?

in the SG3 project that could prevent us from being able to keep things on timeline.

We know getting off timeline would be a huge driver of cost, which would ultimately impact our ability in fully delivering on the vision of SG3.

But I'm wondering, based on your assessment, what are other weaknesses or vulnerabilities in keeping on timeline?

Yeah, thank you.

And I do wanna appreciate the partnership with the city and the work that's been done so far on trying to amend codes, to look at all of our opportunities for trying to streamline the process.

The team has been working, the agency Sound Transit has been working to keep the project moving forward.

I will acknowledge that we do have some substantial cost pressures right now on all of our capital projects at the agency.

We are working on an enterprise-wide initiative to look at various different ways that from a programmatic level and a project level, and even looking at other aspects of, like, our financial capacity and tools and service delivery.

How can we address these cost pressures in a really proactive way?

I do see that as an area of risk, and so we'll continue to partner to look at what we can do to address those.

Beyond that, we will definitely elevate if there's anything else that comes up, but I...

Jason, do you want to add anything?

I think you said it well, but I would offer Sarah a chance to...

Yeah, thank you.

I just want to note that the code amendments adopted by this council last week were probably the single greatest action that the city could take to expedite delivery of these projects, and did so in a way that also front-loaded the very important mitigation work that needs to happen to ensure that project impacts are mitigated.

So we cut permit time in half by those code amendments.

So that's one of the biggest things we could do.

While Lita and Jason speak about some of the challenges in front of Sound Transit as an agency in these projects, our team's efforts have been centered in the idea that there might be challenges to these projects.

We don't want the city of Seattle or our code or our team to be to add to that.

We want to be doing everything that we can to be delivering on these projects.

So the code amendments was a very important piece of that.

I will also put in a plug that the other very important piece for the team is the staffing capacity that we need in order to be able to deliver on the volume of permits that we're expecting later this year.

That's part of the funds that you set aside in the budget action last year and that we'll be bringing forward legislation for your consideration in a couple weeks.

And if I could add just one more thing, the folks you have in front of here are really focused on the project, and so it really is about making sure that, you know, the West Seattle project itself is moving forward and to the project schedule as much as possible.

The agency, Sound Transit, has a separate enterprise initiative that really has to look at the entire ST3 program, and that is a much...

So you should probably view those as two separate bodies of work.

Thank you for clarifying that point, Cal.

And hearing in that understanding that you all are taking some initiative to understand potential risks as they arise, I would kindly ask you all, as well as our representatives of the sound board and transportation chair, I think just having some conversation, us having clarity as those things come up, I think will be really important for us to know as the transportation committee.

With that, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Chair.

All right.

Thank you.

And, and great question, uh, actually preempted my question.

I was going to ask about what, what more supports do you need from the city to make sure we deliver these projects on time and on budget.

So, uh, because that directly speaks to good governance and we have less direct for what I heard from your response, which was consistent with our prior discussions offline and my understanding of the situation writ large, uh, is that as a city we have less, not none, direct control of costs.

There are costs, pressures involving and implicating numerous factors, macro and micro in scale.

But the number one thing we can do, we have a involvement indirectly on the costs by ensuring we make sure these projects are delivered on time.

Again, multi-factors at play, but a universal truth in the economy perspective is a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

So that means the quicker and more expedient we can review and amend as needed the enabling legislation like this to enable the projects locally that will help.

So thank you for your commitment, your shared commitment to doing what we can as a city, as a sound transit governing partner to help make sure that these projects are delivered on time.

and on budget and noting we didn't really even getting to, but I do note that there are some substantial scoping decisions and revisions that will likely need to be made as a direct result of some of these macro and microeconomic circumstances pertaining to the project.

Just so we're all clear, when, if scoping decisions need to be made to the project, when would those likely arise in terms of a timeline and a schedule?

And when will those be curated and teed up to the Sound Transit Board for potential decision?

what's currently anticipated in that regard.

Thank you for that question.

We are actually working towards a timeline for this overall initiative again.

So as Calvin mentioned, beyond this project, looking at our whole capital program, our service delivery, our finances and so forth.

at our June board meeting.

But we do expect, and this was shared at our retreat, that this is a longer term process.

So we are not looking at anything near, near term and we'll certainly be involving obviously guidance from our board members, engaging community, engaging our partners at the city and at the council as those ideas emerge.

Thank you.

And Final question I have is, and thank you again for including some of the specific data that I requested about the impacted residents, property owners, small businesses, tenants and the like in your presentation.

Because at the end of the day, these projects are about people and it's not just the people we anticipate on serving with respect to new transit service.

It's about people that are impacted today as a direct result of like this huge massive public benefit.

that we're all going to achieve and realize.

So can you restate just for the record that the data that you recited earlier about the impacted individuals, I heard 130 business displacements, but can you just restate all that?

Yeah, you want me to take it from the start, thinking about the draft EIS and potentially...

No, no, no, just restate, I think it was on slides 12 through 13 or whatever, or 12 through 14, but were you just...

included, and I don't think it's reflected on the slides, but where you just stated and quantified the impacted individuals in communities.

Yeah, so based on the alignment adopted by the board, we'd be potentially relocating about 150 residences and about 130 businesses.

Again, we've been engaging with these folks since before the draft GIS was publishing and have continued since 2021 when those potentially affected properties were identified in the draft and we'll continue to engage with them and try to reduce impacts as we advance design further.

Great, great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate your work, everyone at the table and your partnership on this important strategic initiative, not just for the city of Seattle, for our entire city or entire region rather and state.

So this is some of the most impactful and profound work that we can help enable at a local level that we're undertaking at this committee.

So to be continued.

Thank you again.

We will now move on to our second or I guess technically our third item of business.

Will the clerk please read item number three.

into the record.

Agenda item three, revive I-5 project update.

All right.

Thank you.

Will our presenters please join us at the table and share your presentations?

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

And thank you, Lars, Alex.

I appreciate your patience and grace, mea culpa earlier.

I got confused, a lot going on today.

Got confused about which portion of the presentation you all were gonna be joining.

But again, appreciate your patience and grace.

And thank you for being here.

So please introduce yourselves, but it just, Quickly in a moment, point of personal privilege.

I noticed that my colleague, Councilmember Kettle, is wearing a baseball tie.

And presumably it's because he's throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at tonight's Mariners game in honor of Irish heritage.

So congrats, that's excellent.

You, sir, are very formal and like, I don't know, can you wear a shirt, a Mariners shirt, jersey, some swag of some sort?

The way you loosen up after work is you loosen the tie, but come on.

Can you throw in some Mariners swag for tonight's game?

Don't worry, I'll drop the blue blazer.

Okay, okay, okay.

Very formal, very formal.

Council member Kettle goes to bed in a suit pajama.

All right.

Thank you, welcome again.

Can you please introduce yourselves?

Sure, will do.

Good morning, committee chair Saka and council members.

I'm Liz Sheldon, the chief infrastructure engineer at SDOT, and I'm here with partners at both WSDOT and SDOT to give you an informational overview of the RE5 project.

Good morning.

I am Brian Nielsen with the Washington Department of Transportation.

I'm Ghan Lingham, Estart Interagency Programs in Denver.

Good morning.

Lars Erickson with the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce.

And I'm Alex Hudson with Commute Seattle.

We'll kick it off with Brian to start.

Thank you.

Hello again.

I am Brian Nielsen.

I'm WSDOT's Northwest Region Administrator.

I oversee WSDOT's operations in King County.

North to the Canadian border.

I'm here to provide information on the Revive I-5 Ship Canal Bridge preservation project that is starting this summer.

Today's briefing will include our focus on the Ship Canal Bridge and the scope of the work, what is planned for this year, traffic management, and external engagement and communications for the project.

For the next three years, our work to revive I-5 will be focused on the Ship Canal Bridge.

The bridge is about 60 years old and it's been about 40 years since we've done a major preservation project on it.

Work will begin this summer and is expected to last through 2027. It is vital that we focus on the Ship Canal Bridge now as the need is critical.

In fact, the bridge has seen over 200 emergency repairs in the past five years.

While the full scope of work and scheduled details are still under negotiations with our contractor, we do know that work will begin this summer and is expected to last through 2027, as I mentioned.

The focus each year will be to replace expansion joints, repair and resurface different areas of the Ship Canal Bridge, starting with the northbound side in 2025 and 2026, and then switching to the southbound in 2027. Work will primarily happen using two lane reductions.

These lane reductions are bookended with directional full closures to set up and pick up the work zones.

Work is occurring this year to mitigate schedule risk because next year in 2026, we'll be taking about a month off and have all lanes open during the FIFA World Cup events in Seattle.

Work this summer begins with a weekend-long two-lane reduction of northbound I-5 across the Ship Canal Bridge, and that work starts this Friday night.

That will be followed by a four-week northbound I-5 two-lane reduction across the Ship Canal Bridge starting on July 21st.

The four-week reduction is bookended by weekend-long full closures of northbound I-5 extending from I-90 in the south up to Northeast 45th Street.

Those weekends are July 18th to 21st and August 15th to 18th.

And those full weekends are available to set up the work zones for the two-lane reduction and then pick things up at the end of the four weeks.

In addition, we do plan to have several southbound two-lane reductions across the Ship Canal Bridge this fall and winter.

We expect to be able to share the dates of those closures later this summer.

Dates for this work were chosen based off a number of things, including event schedules around the community, historic weather averages, and other work being performed throughout the region.

We acknowledge that there is never a good time to do this work.

That being said, the dates were chosen for the work and where closures occur where we feel and have worked with our partners to determine are the best options both for WSDOT and our partners.

They're based on data and alternatives available.

As you can see from the example slide snapshot calendar we have here, there is a lot going on, again, both on the roads and in the community.

As I mentioned earlier, we have two distinct northbound two-lane reductions planned this summer.

The first will be this weekend and is necessary to prepare for the four-week lane reduction starting July 21st.

The length of the two-lane reductions will be between the SR520 interchange and Northeast 45th Street.

Here we show on the slide where we reduced down to the two lanes.

You may notice a one-lane pinch point in this graphic after the off-ramp SR520.

Our intent is to stripe a second lane through this area in the shoulder of the highway that will require a brief two-lane full closure of northbound I-5 to do that striping.

The closures are planned to begin between midnight and 1 a.m.

and will occur early Saturday morning and Monday morning.

Striping, I should mention, is a weather-dependent activity, unlike the rest of the work we have planned for the weekend.

What this means is that if it is raining Friday night We will not be able to complete the restriping, and there will only be the one through lane through that pinch point and through the weekend.

Switching to the weekend-long closures in July and August, these closures will extend from I-90 to Northeast 45th Street.

In the event a driver reaches Seattle on a northbound full closure weekend, alternate routes available to them will, for those traveling through downtown, they can stay to the left on northbound I-5, exit into the express lanes, which will be running northbound only during periods of work this summer, or they can exit to I-90 and use 405. For those destined to downtown, they can use the Edgar Martinez Drive, Dearborn, James, and Madison Street exits.

Again, the express lanes will run northbound throughout the duration of these high-impact work windows.

Finally, the four-week lane reduction starts in the early hours of July 21st.

Again, the length of the two-lane reduction will be from about the 520 interchange to Northeast 45th.

Switching to our outreach and engagement efforts, This didn't come out very well in the PDF format, so you'll have to use your imagination on the graphics, I guess.

We're conducting an intensive and inclusive community engagement effort centered around overburden and vulnerable populations throughout the region, while still understanding that the largest impact will be those neighborhoods around the Ship Canal Bridge.

Our partner engagement is centered around an interagency work group.

The structure is shown in there.

If you can make it out in the green boxes with an executive working group, there's a senior staff working group, and then there are subgroups for communications and TDM and operations and performance monitoring.

In addition to those partners who participate in these groups, We have also engaged a number of organizations that are impacted by our work, such as large event venues.

We've leveraged many of those partnerships to assist with business engagement from King County Metro's ORCAS Business Program to communications through business associations, such as the Downtown Seattle Association and the Chamber of Commerce.

We're also partnered with a local organization, The Intentionalist, This organization is engaged to specifically focus on driving the public to diverse business opportunities during the construction.

Our final slide before I turn it over to Ganth is to highlight our project communications.

It's highlighted by a strong visual identity and simplified copy that were able to be translated into seven languages.

Languages were chosen based on data collected from our community outreach and research efforts.

Our project materials are shared throughout the robust channels WSDOT operates from its creative social media presence to themed WSDOT blog posts and project web pages.

WSDOT also has strong media connections to ensure the project has Revive I-5 Media Moments.

And the project will also have use of electronic message boards along the freeway in the state system to inform drivers near the time of and during the closures and lane reductions.

And somebody mentioned to me that on their way here this morning, they saw that we had started using our variable message signs on the freeway for that.

WSDOT, however, isn't the only one sharing Revive i5 communications.

We've provided a toolkit of graphics, materials, and messages to our partners and community-based organizations to share with their audience.

And oh, you got it up there.

Excellent.

You can see an example here from the SDOT blog on the right side of the slide.

And with that, I will hand it over to Garth to present some additional information about our coordination efforts.

Thank you, Brian.

We have recognized the importance of this project.

And also we have recognized the mitigation measures that are necessary to mitigate the traffic impact created by this project.

And further, this project is happening in the core of the Seattle, and we have identified there's other critical project need to be happening at the same time.

So it is essential for us to step up and coordinate with all the agencies in and around us and work closely to mitigate the impact that specifically created by this project.

and also coordinated in a way that we can reduce the impact the other project creating on the public as well as created to this project.

What you see in the screen are some of the projects that S.N.O.T. have identified along the Ship Canal Bridge and that potentially can be a conflict to this project and can be coordinated.

And we have S.T.A.T. wanted to approach this project, approaches mitigation in five-pillar ways.

We recognize this five-pillar system, and we implemented this really successfully during the wider closure.

And we want to advance that five pillars and try to mitigate the project impact that created by this project as well as coordinate with other project that's happening in the similar timeline.

We wanted to approach this project by monitoring closely and operating the transportation system in a way that we can active proactively and also react to any sort of traffic impact that created in certain areas.

So we have installed 14 brand new cameras as the mitigation to this project and eight new transportation traffic communication system so we can actively monitor the arterials and make the mitigation measures as lively as possible.

Then we wanted to promote the transit and reduce the drive alone trips to Seattle.

So that we find the major cause for this traffic congestion is most of the drive alone trips.

If you could reduce the drive alone trips and increase the focus on transit, we could reduce the traffic impact that we potentially going to see through this project.

So we are working with various agencies, including Commute Seattle, to promote the transit and promote other modes of travel rather than encouraging people to use the driver on trips.

Then we are collaboratively working with regional transportation partners, such as Washtar and King County Metro, Sound Transit, and other partners like Commute Seattle, Downtown Business Association, to make sure We come up with mitigation measures that helps this project.

One example I would like to provide is we work closely with WASHDOT and try to implement, and the implementation is already, I think we have already implemented, it's active right now.

We have created a bus lane along the SR-99.

Now we have a dedicated bus lane that carries people from south to north or north to south.

So we have a dedicated bus lane that can help us reduce the traffic congestion we would see during the construction.

Then we want to maintain the public right-of-way effectively as possible.

So one of the things that we are going to do during the July 18th major closure, we are going to limit any closures in the primary arterial and astral right-of-way so that way that we would have other regional routes, other local streets available for commuters to use during the northbound full closure.

And the last but not least, we wanted to highlight the importance of communication and we want to communicate to the public.

We believe that is the only way we can make the public aware of this project and also letting them know about the alternative option they have in order to get to Seattle.

Our core message is Seattle is going to live.

Seattle is going to encourage people to come, everybody, and enjoy Seattle.

And we are going to say that the Seattle is business as usual.

So we want people to come to Seattle, and we want people to use the mode of travel and encourage people to understand the project impact and choose their transportation choices based on that.

I think that is our last of slides.

And we are happy to take any questions if you have any.

All right, before we get there, we'd love to open up the floor to our guests from Commute Seattle and the Chamber.

Lars and Alex, would you like to share?

We'd love to hear your feedback and your insights into this project and the impacts and any perspective that you might wanna provide.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Saka.

I'm Alex Hudson.

I am Executive Director of Commute Seattle, and we represent the employers, destinations, workers, and people of the city of Seattle who are trying to get to the important places in their lives.

Revive I-5 is a vitally important project.

I think you just heard Brian and Ganth talk extensively about how important the I-5 Ship Canal Bridge is, carries nearly a quarter million people every day, making it one of the busiest and most important roadways anywhere on the west coast or frankly anywhere in the Pacific Rim.

As was mentioned in the last five years, a tennis court's worth of emergency repairs have had to be done on our bridge and it was last resurfaced in 1989. So we are long overdue to make sure that this project and this vital infrastructure is as safe and reliable as it needs to be to keep our people and economy moving.

Revive I-5 has been a long planned project.

I first heard about this project in 2018. And since then, it has been delayed and value engineered several times, which does not mean that the road magically got repaired.

It just means that we've continued to wait a little bit.

So now is the time and the time is now to invest in this project.

However, we know that there are impacts.

Capacity reduction, very significant.

Our calculations show.

It's the order of magnitude of losing a viaduct's worth of travel capacity every single day.

That means the travel times will increase across the network and we will see overspill into the side streets of Boren Avenue, East Lake, 23rd, and some of our already most dangerous roadways for pedestrians.

So we're very mindful of the safety concerns on the surface streets.

as well as most importantly, or very importantly, is the impacts to transit reliability.

More and more people are coming to downtown, they're working in downtown, and in order to achieve the city's own goals, around nine out of 10 trips being made in a multimodal and sustainable way, we need to keep transit very reliable for the tens of thousands of people who choose that every single day.

And as was mentioned, this is compounded by other projects.

So Commute Seattle was very happy to bring together a large coalition of the agencies and the business community to go to Olympia to request and receive the mitigation money that is allowing for some of these projects that you've heard about.

And we really encourage the city and the agencies to use this as a learning opportunity.

This project really launches in full.

And so this summer, now is the time to learn how we prepare how we monitor, how we keep our people moving.

And we also wanna encourage you to invest in the long-term improvements so that we can absorb projects like this in the future.

You'll have upcoming opportunities to invest in service through the Seattle Transit Measure Renewal, and as well as reliability through the spending of the Seattle Transportation Levy.

We encourage you'd be thinking about safety and reliability as the core of all those.

So I just want to thank you for paying attention to this important issue and offer our support to help people in our city keep moving safely and reliably.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Saka and members of the committee.

And as I mentioned, my name is Lars Erickson.

I'm the Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

I'm speaking today on behalf of the region's large and small employers who are deeply invested in a transportation system that supports the movement of people, goods and services.

I also bring a unique perspective as someone who previously served as WSDOT's Senior Director of External Relations.

I understand both the challenges and the necessity of major preservation work like Revive I-5.

The Chamber supports the Revive I-5 project because it is maintaining and extending the life of critical transportation corridor.

Interstate 5 is the spine of our regional economy.

Millions of trips each day or each week depend on it.

There will never be a perfect time to do this work.

However, deferring will only lead to greater disruption and higher costs in the future.

We appreciate the City of Seattle and WSDOT's working and WSDOT working together to coordinate outreach and mitigation plans.

Effective coordination across agencies is key to minimizing disruption to commuters, residents, and businesses.

We've seen real examples of feedback being incorporated into final plans, such as changing the scope and schedule for the first year of work, prioritized transit on Aurora Avenue, and proactive communication and outreach to the public, including employers and their employees.

This is not a one-time disruption.

Future phases of Revive I-5 are coming, as is the construction for Ballard Link Extension and the city's eight-year transportation levy program.

We encourage the city to work with WSDOT, Sound Transit, Metro, and stakeholders, including employers, to create a long-term strategy for coordinating mitigation, access, and mobility to and through downtown Seattle during this decade of infrastructure construction.

This type of coordination was a critical foundation for managing the West Seattle bridge closure and the successful opening of the SR-99 tunnel and demolition of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Planning ahead will protect our economy and build public confidence in government's ability to deliver transformative infrastructure.

On behalf of the chamber and the employers we represent, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

your collective work to keep Seattle moving and for your collaboration on this important preservation project.

All right, thank you, Ms. Hudson, Mr. Erickson, appreciate your insights and perspectives here and your partnership.

Colleagues, I welcome your comments, questions at this time.

Starting first with Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you to the WSDOT and the SDOT team and Metro Chamber and for Ms. Hudson also for Commute Seattle.

I said DSA earlier.

Many hats.

So welcome to Commute Seattle as well.

I guess the first thing is I recognize the need.

It needs to be done.

You know what else I recognize is that this is also a reflection of that there was no work done 20, 30 years ago.

And that's unfortunate.

And I've seen this in water wastewater world.

I'm seeing it in Seattle in the city light world.

And they're all coming together in a relatively short period of time.

And then we have ST3 as well.

But these infrastructure projects are massively important.

And it's unfortunate that some of these weren't done a decade or two decades ago.

But to the point that the chair made earlier about good governance, we got to do it.

Because what we can't do is push another 10 years or another 20 years.

And it's gonna be painful.

I think we should all acknowledge that up front, but we just have to work through it.

And I think the coordination and the like, similar to what we were talking with ST3 about mitigation, is gonna be crucial.

And I should add too, Chair and I had many conversations about bridges ahead of the transportation plan and the transportation levy.

So this is falling on at least probably for everybody, particularly for us two, as a major need, because it's not the thing to talk about.

There's always these kind of more bright light kind of transportation projects, but bridges are key.

Whether, like in my district, it's basically a peninsula, because you have the six bridges across Inner Bay, Magnolia Bridge, And for what's germane here, Ballard, Fremont, the I-5 Bridge, the I-5 Bridge is going down across the pike as you come down into the city.

And so it's really important to work on all these bridges, which kind of is a bit of a transition for me too in the sense that we've recently been doing a lot of work on the Ballard Bridge, which I've noticed, which is great, another area of great need along with Fremont Bridge.

But one question I had with this is, when we're doing this work, are we looking to do other little things as well since you have the opportunity?

And I always say this, and I think what's happening on Ballard, not just at the Ballard Bridge, but also going into Ballard towards market is great.

But as I was at LA Fitness this weekend, and I'm looking at it, I'm like looking at all the weeds and the graffiti and all these other things, and I'm like, couldn't we have taken care of that at the same time?

And so that's one side.

And then the other thing is, and I'm sure this is part of the retrofit, like the seismic pieces, the things that we've learned over the last 40 years related to the big one and the like.

So my question is, what kind of thought or is there any of that kind of included, like taking advantage of the opportunity to do X, Y, and Z?

Is there anything along those lines X, Y, and Z?

Yeah, thank you for the question.

During the weekend full closures, we are coordinating with both wash dot and a stop maintenance to take advantage of the areas that are closed to traffic for those weekends and try to get some of those things done.

And I don't have the details with me today on what those plans are, but I know that coordination is happening.

Excellent.

And I've been seeing some things coming out of Olympia related to like WSDOT properties in terms of like encampments, but then also graffiti.

And it seems like less and less money, but at the same time, the need is very much there.

So anything that we can do to prioritize and to take advantage of this opportunity is just good governance, as we like to say.

I do appreciate that and know that we are well connected with SDOT and working on the, trying to work together as much as the process allows us to work on the graffiti issue in particular and the encampments as well.

All right, thank you.

The other question I had was, this kind of goes, I think some of this has been done, like, you know, taking advantage of Aurora, you know, with the S-dot, you know, with the bus lane and the like, the de-confliction point.

And one question I had is that, you know, there's 24 hours in the day.

Is there any encouragement in terms of de-conflicting major, maybe major truck traffic, particularly the through traffic to, you know, to go at...

4, 5, 6 o'clock in the morning versus rush hour, day or night rush hour, for example.

Is there any, like, trying to work with the trucking industry to trying to de-conflict types, particularly the trucks, because the trucks, small vehicles together is always a bit of a challenge, and de-conflicting that would probably help.

I was just curious.

Yeah, we are working closely with Port of Seattle and trying to create a communication channel so that we can communicate with truckers and specifically helping them with the alternative route and the time so that they can get to their sites early as possible and avoid all the congestion that's going to happen due to this project.

So we are working closely with Port of Seattle as well as some of the heavy hold network leaders and trying to resolve that communication.

You went into my next question, so you hit two at the same time.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

And then I guess my last question too is, part of this that happens a lot of times is like you have traffic slowing and then you got fast traffic and then you have the accordion effect and the like.

Does it make sense to basically create you know, lower speed limits in terms of, and telegraphing this early so then once they come into Seattle, you're not gonna get the fast traffic all of a sudden jumping on slower traffic and kind of easing into the city, you know, to help that avoid the accordion kind of process.

The infrastructure we have in place to work with that is we do have a fairly extensive system of our variable message signs, the changeable message signs you see on the permanent structures over the freeway.

So those will be utilized whenever there's not a higher priority like an emergency or a crash to warn folks.

And as I'm sure you're aware, coming northbound on I-5, we do have the variable message infrastructure in place.

to the extent that people follow those regulatory speed directions.

I recognize that point.

I recognize that point.

But with the messaging, with this being a special case, they might actually listen.

Yeah, I think our goal is to make sure that everybody is informed.

We can't make them happy, but we don't want them to be surprised.

You actually raised an interesting point too, because it's not just WASHDOT and SDOT, it's also Washington State Police and SPD in terms of they can be influencing these kinds of things too, but particularly given the unique circumstances.

So with that chair, good, thank you.

All right, thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Just wanna, before we pass it along, just wanna make a few other quick observations.

So we know that the potential impacts of this much needed project could be significantly disruptive.

But the headline is also clear.

We still want you to come to Seattle, visit Seattle.

Experience, come to work in Seattle.

Experience our vibrant neighborhoods, shops, arts scene, restaurants, et cetera.

But plan ahead, plan ahead.

It means taking transit, finding alternate routes, carpooling, Again, finding alternate modes and routes, departing earlier than anticipated, but do, do, do, do.

Continue to come to Seattle, just plan ahead.

All right, gonna pass it off to, we all have questions and I note that council member Rink has the next hand, but I also note that council member Hollingsworth has not yet had an opportunity to speak.

So unless you object council member Rink, and in addition to yielding to our ranking members, vice chair, vice chair Hollingsworth, go ahead, floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate it.

And I'll be super, super quick.

Just want to thank WSDOT and SDOT for being here.

Lars from the Chamber and then also Alex, it's good to see you from Commute Seattle.

Thank you all so much.

I don't have a question.

Just a quick comment and a big thank you.

You know, just we all recognize the the extensive pressure that this has on Roanoke, the Montlake, Eastlake, Portage Bay neighborhood.

And I just think the communication has been great.

I know that anytime I have a question with WSDOT been incredibly responsive or SDOT incredibly responsive in Metro.

And that's kind of like the baseline for everything.

And when I talk to the neighbors or I'm talking to the businesses and all the construction that's going on, the J line, I-5, 520, all these different things.

And it's a lot of communication from city, state, county, just all together.

The one thing people say is like, hey, they're responsive.

They're accessible in that they might not like some of the outcomes that happened with the construction.

And we know that.

But I think at the very least, everyone's been responsive and communicative.

And so I just wanted to share my appreciation for that.

And then also you all responding to our office when we're trying to elevate people's concerns so just thank you and then we've been using our platform to communicate with the different groups there's different neighborhood groups there's different communities churches schools business associations along there and so we've just been using our newsletter and platform just to elevate some of the communication so i just wanted to send you all just thank you for being responsive all right thank you vice chair hollingsworth council member ring for yours

Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Chair.

And thank you all for being here today.

It can't be emphasized enough how important the Revive I-5 project really is.

And so thank you for your work.

And I just have a couple of questions for today.

As you noted, there's been over 200 emergency repairs on the bridge since 2019, which is on average somewhere between two to three emergency repairs per month.

And like you stated, these have become more frequent and extensive.

So I'd like to ask, just in terms of understanding the impact of this multi-year project, do you have a rough estimate of how many emergency repairs the Ship Canal preservation effort will be able to prevent?

And we know that mitigation and addressing the root issue is important, but what are the information and statistics that would be helpful to the general public in communicating the long-term impact of the project?

Thank you.

An interesting question.

I don't know.

We've really actually asked ourselves or tried to calculate.

Certainly your average is a good place to start, and we know that as the bridge ages, those become more frequent.

So I would say that's a place to start in a minimum of the unplanned impacts that we will be able to resolve by completing this work.

Thank you, yeah.

We certainly, I think as Councilmember Hollingsworth, pardon me, Vice Chair Hollingsworth was noting, just we're, as representatives to the public, we'll certainly be receiving questions to our council offices.

And so being able to be good messengers for the impact and the importance of this project, understanding it will create and could create more strain on folks' daily commutes, just being able to communicate impact and the importance.

And building on that point, this weekend we have the start of Revive Club World Cup game, and Sound Transit has emergency repairs that will close stations with a bus bridge operating only 30 to 60 minutes.

This is an unfortunate coincidence, but I think it's important to uplift some realities here.

And the reality is from a writer perspective, these kind of disruptions impact people's lives from missed appointments, being late to work or school, getting where they need to go.

I can speak to that from personal experience, but it's a shared reality for many of our residents.

we want people to choose transit.

We want to inspire trust in our transit system, especially as we're undergoing these major transportation infrastructure projects.

And so I know we have on slide 12, I believe it's our Seattle's approach and work with WASHDOT, but I'm wondering, can you speak specifically to how we're developing emergency preparation plans when we have things like Revive I-5 work in light rail maintenance and other construction, when all these things coincide, and how are we engaging with transit riders to inform what those plans look like?

Do you want to start, Brandon?

Sure.

Thank you.

Well, I will defer to the transit agencies on answering the last part of the question.

But I will say I mentioned on one of the slides that we have this interagency work group.

And so we've been planning for at least a couple of years for these major impacts.

We do have, particularly this weekend and in the longer duration closures, we'll have daily or frequent phone calls where we are getting together.

I mentioned particularly we have a performance monitoring group.

So each of the agencies has their own kind of metrics.

They measure their effectiveness during high-impact closures.

And so we'll be comparing notes and looking for opportunities to...

you know, adjust communications, adjust operations, you know, whether that's signal timing on the roadway network or bus stops in locations and frequencies to the extent that transit agencies have that flexibility.

We do have plans in place to have that, you know, real-time coordination.

I would add further, and we are also trying to entertain a couple of tabletop exercises based on the recent events that the I-90 event or the events that the Sound Transit event that's currently happening with WASH start operation and start operations and including SPD and WGSP so we can be more responsive to those events and better communicate with the public what to do and how can they mitigate and navigate their travel.

So not only just planning and also trying to have a real-time experience and how we can work together in those events.

It's certainly heartened to hear that there's interagency communication on these matters, but I do want to hone in on the follow-up part of my question about how we're engaging and making sure that writer experience, writer or just participant, whoever's trying to commute, how that experience is being factored into some of these things.

Because certainly, I know I've definitely been, again, speaking to my own personal experience, been directed to an alternative route.

that absolutely is inconvenient in every way and not being able to plan my life or my day and just having to accept I'm gonna be an hour late to my next thing.

So again, how can we incorporate in, and if this is an avenue that hasn't been explored, I would certainly emphasize it, incorporating in some amount of writer experience.

So I think Council Member, I would add part of this five weeks closure, we are going to monitor the performance and then we are going to evaluate that performance.

So when it's come to next year closure, we have this lesson and this test period and we can do better and adjust our measures and be prepared more.

So part of our goal is not only just monitoring the traffic and also monitoring the overall performance and how we can react and better be better prepared for the next closure coming up in the line.

Thank you for that.

We'd just love to keep the conversation going as we're navigating a lot of different infrastructure projects at the same time.

So we'll be following up, but thank you for being here today to talk about this important effort.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Winton.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

Thank you to WSDOT, SDOT, Chamber, and Commute Seattle for being here today.

Just going to repeat some of the things that I heard, which is to put Alex's words in a different way.

A third of the population of Seattle, not necessarily all Seattleites, but the same number that is a third of Seattle's population goes across this bridge every day.

Taylor Swift was also born in 1989, the last time this bridge was resurfaced.

So these are the two competing factors that we have to work across.

If we have time, but I also know that I think other colleagues may have questions, I might ask to say at the end to speak a little bit more broadly about the project that was originally envisioned and how this is more narrow because this still seems very large to everyday Seattleites, right?

And I just, we know that there was a bigger impact planned and it's been since reduced.

Being able to share that in a couple minutes would be helpful if we have time.

I do want to focus in on this is not the first time we've had this exercise.

We experienced this when we closed the viaduct and before the tunnel was open.

I think the concern that I have today is that I am not hearing the same level of engagement with communication strategies I haven't received the information that councilmember Hollingsworth has received and so I just maybe we can speak on what are the lessons that we learned from the viaduct closure and what level of communication engagement are we are we doing at this time and are planning on doing between now and these closures the reason I ask that is because for somebody to mode shift that takes months of planning to have somebody take a different route to work, that can be done on any given day.

But if we're asking folks to mode shift, they need a little bit more time to plan.

So where are we at with the communications plan and lessons learned from the Viaduct?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

You know, I'd say in general terms, we're sort of in the kickoff phase of it, recognizing there is a high-impact closure this weekend, but the real big deal this year is a month-long lane reduction about a month out, right?

We've found in the past that If you communicate too early, people don't really pay attention.

So we sort of this, you know, month to six weeks is probably the sweet spot.

So that's where we're focused.

So you're going to be hearing, I think, a lot more from us here in the, certainly in the next four weeks as we lead up to that July, oh, I forget the date, 18th, I think is the Friday night.

Thanks.

That's helpful.

Any lessons learned from the viaduct closures?

So long ago.

You know, I will say that the...

About half the people at this table actually were involved in the planning of the viaduct closures.

And that interagency work group that I briefed on is the same interagency work group that was created in that time frame.

A lot of the same partners at the major venues.

And so I think it's a team that's familiar with one another and with communications efforts that work, and I'm obviously not a communications professor, and I'd give you a really straight answer, but I think we're well positioned with the team and the partnerships that we carry to deliver the messages.

I would also add that the five pillars I discussed earlier, that is something came from Viaduct demo.

So the five pillars about reducing single occupancy vehicle, increasing the communication, public communication, managing the right-of-way, managing the monitoring and operating the transportation system.

Those all came from Viaduct as a lesson learned.

And we have these five players.

We are enhancing it.

We are modifying it in a way as better fit to this project.

The difference is Viaduct is limited in geography and manageable.

This is longitudinally long and the long duration.

Viaduct came to be two weeks.

This is for three years.

So we are trying to adapt the system and modify the approach to better manage the revived Wi-Fi.

Wonderful, I will just say from my perspective, I was working here in City Hall when the planning for the viaduct changes were occurring.

I can tell you it felt like there was more information sooner and that was again because of mode shifting.

For all of the day-to-day detours, I think four weeks is enough time, but if you're asking us to mode shift, I'm also gonna ask for more buses, more direct routes, other ways for people to mode shift because the existing infrastructure is not built for what you're asking for.

So that's an aside, let's keep ticking.

The reason that I ask about this in some ways, and I'm glad that Council Member Hollingsworth is getting a lot of information because her district is smack dab right in the middle of all of this.

When I read these slides, what sticks out to me is the Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor, which runs from Edgar Martinez way back up to SR 99 on either 145th or 105th.

That is the third most used north-south corridor only behind I-5 and 99. And so, if somebody gets off, if you want to go to the slide that has, Shoot, I'm not pulling it up here.

If you wanted to go up to slide seven.

So somebody is traveling northbound on this slide and is suddenly forced to either exit to the northbound express lanes, maybe they're backed up, They could get off downtown or they could exit to Edgar Martinez Drive.

If 99 is also full, they're gonna head up the waterfront where we are asking a lot of people to not be in cars and experience this beautiful world that we've created on the waterfront.

They'll then continue up 15th into what becomes a two lane in each direction bottleneck in inner bay.

How are we planning for this spreading of the issue, more traffic through both 99 and the Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor?

Any plans there or should we work offline?

I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot, but happy to work offline if there's not plans yet.

We can work offline and provide you the information.

And I think if we have any concern, we'll try to address it offline.

Okay, I couldn't hear any of that.

Oh, sorry.

I think we can work offline with you in trying to address the concerns you have as much as we can.

We have considered through the potential impact along the SR99 and the local arterials, but I think we can work with WASHDOT and try to address your concerns as much as we can.

Great.

Are there any, has this been on your radar or is this new information today?

I'm getting a little nervous sitting up here with you, to be honest.

Not new information.

We have identified kind of the primary arterials that we think we'll have as the load spreads, right?

Primary arterials where we think we'll see increased traffic loads and we're working kind of through them.

One of the first ones that we looked at was really 99 and adding the bus, extending the bus hours on 99. And so, That was critical, we believe, for this year's closure, this year's four-week closure.

And then looking at lessons learned as we see where those impacts spread to move on those key arterials and what additional work we might need to do to keep traffic moving as we move into the 26 closures.

Thank you.

Do we have any work plan for 15th Avenue West or Elliott Way?

These are the two main arterials in the Ballard Inner Bay Regional Transportation Corridor.

I don't believe we have anything specifically, but we're looking at what we need to do.

Wonderful.

If it's already the third most used North-South Corridor and the first most used North-South Corridor goes offline, I can...

I, in this case, I do have a crystal ball, and I can see the problems that will exist.

So I'm asking here today that we develop a strategy for the Ballard Inter Bay Regional Transportation Corridor.

Thanks, Dean.

We recognize that corridor, and we have installed a couple of cameras as part of the monitoring program.

So these students speak that because of the timeline, we might not be able to implement any physical changes, but we are going to definitely monitor that specific corridor and position ourselves to do something before the next closure coming up in the pipeline.

What I'm asking for is not monitoring of something that I know that will occur because I've seen this movie before.

What I'm asking for is proactive strategies to address what we know is coming.

I understand.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

All right.

At 100%.

participation rate by questions and comments from our colleagues.

Great job, everyone.

Thank you.

I think it really speaks to the importance of this project, both in highlighting the need and imperative of getting it done, but also being mindful of the impacts that this has on people's everyday lives.

So in neighborhoods across the city and across the region.

So I have a question about, and this is really to everyone, I suppose, anyone who wants to comment about state mitigation funding.

Specifically, in other words, funding from the state to support mitigation measures.

And we know earlier this year, our city, advocated for and lobbied the state legislature to fund $39 million to support various mitigation measures in an earlier scoping version of this same project.

And the state legislature, even amid a significant budget crisis, still found some funding for this, I can't recall exactly the dollar amount, but can you restate what the dollar amount the state allocated this year in the final adopted transportation budget to support mitigation efforts for this project?

Question one, and this question would definitely be more towards from the city's perspective.

What are we using that money on exactly?

Expanded transit service, for example, that would be huge.

That would be important.

But I do know earlier this year, the original $39 million requests that we had as a city was designed to help mitigate traffic disruptions and better prepare the public education outreach.

There was line items there, anticipated spending allocations for expanded transit service and reliability, infrastructure and traffic operations, some funding to encourage travel behaviors, new travel habits and behaviors, and some interagency coordination spend.

So tell us about the mitigation measures from the state funding.

and what those mitigations spending would look like.

So Alex and others, please jump in.

So we have approximately received $4.5 million for the divide by five.

And out of the $4.5 million, almost $2 million come in towards a start for the mitigation measures.

And SDOT so far plan to spend that money on, we have already started spending money on the SR99 bus lane implementation.

And then we are also planning on spending money on the TDM measures, including providing OCA card to visitors who don't normally use the transit as an option.

So we are going to promote by doing that.

And then we are going to closely work with Commute Seattle and King County Metro to identify more TDM specific measures and they spend the money towards that.

And so research funding would be used towards, right now we are working on a couple of other mitigation measures, including potential additional signal communication measures that to better communicate the impact at corridor, as well as implementing brand new signal system in banner and 85th as a potential location where we don't have a signal as intersection out there.

We might need to have a signal as intersection to better manage some of the wide start off-frame traffic.

These are some of the improvements that we have identified, and we are working closely with transit agencies and other partners to identify more measures, and potentially we will be spending the rest of the money towards that.

All right.

Thank you.

So I heard a $4 million grand total, which is a fraction of the $39 million original ask.

but something is always better than zero.

And SDOT's allocation I heard is $2 million to be used for among other things, state route 99, bus lane improvements, enhanced signal, communication measures, new sequencing system, et cetera, et cetera.

With respect to the 99 bus lane improvements, which, transit routes would be served by those improvements on State Route 99?

Which specific transit route would be served?

E-Line.

Just the E-Line?

Just the E-Line is primarily.

Got it.

Thank you, and...

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

If I may.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chair.

Go ahead.

I just wanted to note, one of the key differences between this project and the Viadapra replacement project is the I-5 Ship Canal Bridge, Revive I-5, is a maintenance and preservation project as opposed to being a mega project.

Mega projects come with automatic mitigation dollars from the state of Washington.

This project, because it is maintenance and preservation, did not.

which is why it was vitally important for Commute Seattle to bring together the private and public sectors at an intergovernmental way in order to develop this ask and then bring it down to Olympia.

I'm extraordinarily impressed with and grateful for the collaboration that came very quickly.

in order to support this ask.

And as you noted, given an $8 billion shortfall in the state's transportation budget this year, coming away with additional investment is practically miraculous.

And we do appreciate the investment in E-Line reliability, which is the highest ridership transit route anywhere in the state of Washington.

And so the improvements that are made along that route, which travels, as Councilmember Strauss pointed out, along the second highest volume north-south route, traffic way through our city will have the benefit of benefiting tens of thousands of riders every single day and is very in line with what we are hoping to see as mitigation for the traveling public during this time.

Great, thank you.

And not sure if a few of these are new hands from my colleagues, but I'll take them off.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth, is that a new hand?

It is, Mr. Chair, quick question.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for reminding me.

I had a question really quick about the University Bridge and Montlake Bridge.

I know there's restrictions regarding commercial versus private and the timing in which they can cross over.

Have those been reevaluated to prioritize the construction that's going on now or shift or change to make sure?

Because North Capitol Hill is going to be really constrained and just wanting to know if there was any type of thought there.

I believe you're referring to the kind of the restrictions that we have for the ship canal bridges specifically for opening openings during peak hours to allow traffic.

That's correct.

Has there been any like changes or shift because there's going to be all this construction with 520 with the J line with the you know ship canal stuff.

We have not contemplated that specifically.

That's an exemption that we would need to work through with the Coast Guard to be able to change those shifts.

It's something we could look at and see if there's a desire to, I think the question is to extend the hours in which we don't open the bridges.

That is, yes, that is the question.

Thank you for that.

And last but not least, shameless plug for some of these neighborhood groups, because a lot of this construction is for the people that are going through the neighborhoods.

And so I've been trying to advocate with parks and SDOT and all these different agencies about opportunities in which we can continue to enhance the neighborhood development.

as well um and so rogers playfield is on my list on there uh with maybe a combination of different um opportunities for different local governments to put some love into that park which is in east lake um so anyways that's a shameless plug thank you for the question or thank you for the answer and thank you uh chair um as well that's all i have excellent thank you vice chair hollingsworth uh

All right, thank you.

Thank you again to our WASHDOT partners, folks at SDOT and our governing partners, Commute Seattle and the Chamber for joining us today, sharing more about this presentation and its potential impacts.

But again, the TLDR, from my perspective at least is, although it might cause significant disruptions, please do continue your trips, go about your daily lives, experience the benefit and the wonders of our vibrant neighborhoods and small businesses across our great city here.

So in any event, all right, well, if there are no, well, let me just ask and confirm, do any of my fellow committee members have any final questions?

Hearing and seeing none, we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Our next meeting is July 1st at 9.30 a.m.

And hearing and seeing no further business to come before...

Yeah.

To come before the committee, it is 11.25 and we are adjourned.

Thank you.