Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District 6/4/2026

All right.

Well, good morning, everyone.

The June 4th, 2026 meeting of the Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District will come to order.

It is 9.32 a.m.

I am Rob Saka, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Councilmember Juarez.

Here.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Here.

Chair Sacca.

Here.

Chair, there are six members present.

Thank you.

Let the record reflect that the remaining Councilmembers currently absent are excused until they arrive.

Now, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

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

All right, good morning again, colleagues, members of the public.

Exciting day today, so thank you all for being here.

And for those in the audience who may not have, or who have tuned in expecting one of our regular STEPS committee meetings, welcome.

We are convening the very first select committee on the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

Over the next several weeks, this committee will undertake one of the most important transportation policy discussions facing our city this year.

The decisions we make will help shape how people move throughout our city, access opportunity, and connect with their communities for years to come.

Transportation affects nearly every aspect of daily life.

It affects whether someone can get to work, go to school, access healthcare, support a local business, or spend less time in traffic and more time with family.

It also plays a vital role in helping Seattle meet its ambitious climate goals while supporting a strong and vibrant economy.

For many Seattleites, transportation is not some abstract policy discussion.

It's a daily reality.

I know that personally, firsthand.

I've been riding transit for most of my life.

Growing up, my family relied heavily on transit because oftentimes our cars were often unreliable or simply unavailable.

We did not always have options.

Transit was how we got to where we needed to go.

That experience taught me something that has stayed with me ever since.

At the end of the day, transportation is about opportunity.

When transportation systems work well, they connect people to jobs, schools, health care, family and community.

When they do not, they create barriers.

As we begin this vital work, we must also recognize the reality facing many Seattle families today.

Housing costs remain high.

Everyday expenses continue to rise.

Many people are carefully evaluating every single dollar that they spend.

That reality must remain front of mind and center throughout our upcoming conversations and deliberations.

Now, as elected officials, we have a duty.

Hey, a responsibility.

to ensure that every single dollar entrusted to us is invested thoughtfully, responsibly, in a manner that delivers meaningful public benefit.

Public trust is not earned.

Well, public trust is earned, not assumed.

Over the next two months, six weeks really, this committee will carefully review the proposal before us.

hear from stakeholders and members of the public and engage in thoughtful discussion about the best path forward.

I also want to acknowledge that we have an ambitious timeline before us.

Six weeks, I mentioned.

This committee has been asked to review a significant proposal on a very compressed schedule.

That reality makes our responsibility even greater.

We must ensure the public has confidence that this council is conducting a thorough and thoughtful review of the issues before us.

The Seattle City Council is a co-equal branch of government and our role is an important one.

Our responsibility is not simply to receive proposals.

We're not simply here to put a round peg in a round hole, square peg in a square hole.

Our responsibility, again, duty.

is to evaluate them carefully, ask questions, weigh trade-offs, and ensure that any measure ultimately sent to voters reflects the needs and values of the people we serve.

Now, as we undertake this work, I hope we remain focused on the entire transportation experience.

People deserve transportation options that are reliable.

People deserve transportation options that are accessible.

People deserve transportation options that are safe.

That means safety for transit riders, transit operators, and the people walking to, navigating to and from transit every single day.

Because transit trips begins and ends at the end of the day with a connection.

People must be able to reach transit safely.

They must be able to leave transit safely.

and our transportation system should support safe connections to transit in every neighborhood across Seattle.

Accessibility must remain central to our thinking as well.

Our transportation system should work for everyone, regardless of age, income, ability, race, gender, zip code.

That is the opportunity before us Again, not merely to renew or not renew a specific measure or proposal, but to thoughtfully consider how we can continue building a transportation system that is safe, accessible, reliable, and worthy of a world-class city status.

Today is the beginning of that conversation.

Our first agenda item is a briefing from the Seattle Department of Transportation and the mayor's office regarding the proposed renewal measure.

I want to thank our executive branch partners in the mayor's office, SDOT, for the work developing and transmitting this proposal.

Crafting legislation of this magnitude is no small task, and I appreciate that effort that has gone into bringing this forward.

This proposal will serve as a starting point for our deliberations.

And our second agenda item is a briefing from the Transit Advisory Board.

We appreciate their service, expertise, and partnership.

Colleagues, the work ahead is significant.

Again, for some, transportation is an economic issue.

For others, it is a climate issue, a safety issue, an accessibility issue.

The truth is that it's all of those things.

And that is why this moment matters.

And someone who has relied on transit for much of my life good old, good old fashioned Joe Metro growing up in South King County.

And if you know, you know about Joe Metro.

I know firsthand that transportation can open doors and expand opportunity.

Let us approach this work with humility.

Let us approach it with seriousness and let us approach it with the shared understanding that our responsibility is larger than any single proposal or policy debate.

Our responsibility, again, is not merely to renew a measure.

Our responsibility is to renew the public's trust.

And if we do that well together, we will build something even more important than any transportation package.

We will build a transportation system that connects people safely, reliably, and affordable opportunity providing people with that and a city that is stronger because of it.

Thank you.

Let's get to work, roll up our sleeves.

All right, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we currently have 11 in-person speakers and six remote speakers.

Great.

Thank you.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, could you please read the public comment instructions?

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

Speakers will be called in the order in which they're 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, Paul Neal.

Good morning.

My name is Paul Neal, P-A-U-L-N-E-I-L.

I am the financial secretary for ATU 587. ATU appreciates and supports this measure and appreciates the mayor's vision for a 10-year levy rather than six long term and also increasing the amount for increasing our transportation services.

Transportation is a human right, as Council Member Saka just mentioned for people to get to work, to their medical appointments, to school, to connect with light rail, wherever they need to go, people need to be able to move around.

And the road system is not going to be increasing anytime soon, unless there's something else going on.

So right now, the population of Seattle is increasing by almost 1,000 people per month.

So over the life of this levy, if that continues, that's 100,000 more people.

I don't know what the percentages are, but that's a lot more people that need to move around on the same size roads that we have now.

So we need to increase the carrying capacity of those roads, and that's what this levy does.

Also, cars are becoming less affordable for obvious reasons we've all seen at the gas pump.

The levy also supports the streetcar, which is actually very vital for the high density neighborhoods, the South Lake Union and First Hill.

Also, it is providing for more safety and security, which is vitally important.

Everyone needs to feel safe and secure on the bus or the train or whatever you're doing, the streetcar, you need to feel safe going out.

And also, I think for for the City of Seattle, it gives you a little more leverage over how service is planned and implemented with King County Metro Transit.

You have your own priorities, theirs are a little different, and it will give you that extra oomph on that.

So anyways, thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Our next speaker will be Patrick Brady.

After Mr. Brady will be Noah Williams.

Good morning, I'm Patrick.

I am a driver for ATU, 16 years, and I'm also a District 6 resident.

You're gonna get a lot of input today, and I'll just share two things really from the perspective of being an operator.

One is that I'm currently driving a 106, I appreciate that something called pinch points are to be addressed in this.

And it's really about, for a driver, it's really about mirror clearances.

Our challenge to set up a turn, split a lane, avoid getting our mirror hit or hitting others is something that's constrained by how this city was built and the ability to address that.

The second thing I see as an operator is with people paying their fares.

And so to see this subsidy for SHA and others, a driver's anxiety and confidence is really helped when you see everybody tap.

When someone taps, you know that they appreciate that it's a right, it's a privilege, that they're part of a larger system, and to put Orca cards in the hands of more people, I think, is a way to widen that circle.

Chair, you mentioned three things about spending money, thoughtfully, responsibly, and meaningfully.

And I feel like I have confidence that this is what this measure will do.

I watch Metro participate with all of you and so many others in this FIFA effort.

And I'm proud of Metro in that they are up in this challenge.

Operators see it in dozens of ways, how Metro is gearing in to participate and to serve the public and to do so with some energy and some organization.

And I think we're gonna do the same with this.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, sir.

And as a reminder, when the chime goes off, you have 10 seconds to finish, but thank you.

Our next speaker will be Noah Williams, followed by David Hill.

Good morning, council members.

My name's Noah Williams.

I'm a resident of D1 and a member of the Transit Riders Union.

The proposal before us today asks about $58 a year from the average Seattleite in taxes or about one tank of gas per person.

And in return, they get a freedom of movement all around Seattle at all times of day.

It means the shift worker can get to their job, their medical appointment, or see their partner at whatever time they happen to be able.

it means that they can take that job that would have previously required a car, saving around $12,000 a year in vehicle-related costs.

When POTUS decided to launch an illegal war earlier this year, he greatly worsened the affordability crisis for millions of people, and that is something that you have an ability to mitigate, at least for your district today.

I know there are a lot of important transportation priorities on your plate this year, and as you think about how to prioritize those, just please recognize that the money in this proposal is intended for service hours, targeted speed and reliability improvements that make efficient use of those service hours, and providing transit passes for some of our most vulnerable people in Seattle.

So please direct it to that.

I understand there will be some temptation to appropriate it for other important priorities.

This is the core of what started the Transit Riders Union, and we feel very strongly that it should go towards that.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention taxes.

We understand the desire for progressive revenue and have the strong same desires ourselves.

until the Washington state legislature gives us these tools or case law is overturned and we are able to use more progressive sources of revenue, we gotta drive the bus with the fuel that we have.

And while we don't like raising regressive taxes, this is the most progressive use of tax dollars you can think of.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be David Hill, followed by Katie Ricciuto.

Good morning, council members.

My name is David Hill.

I'm a car-free Seattle resident in District 4, and I'm the treasurer of the Transit Riders Union.

I'm here today to support the outcomes of the 2026 Seattle Transit measure because our working and low-income neighbors desperately need safe, reliable buses and expanded free transit passes to survive in an increasingly unaffordable city.

That said, we are disappointed that this measure relies entirely on a regressive sales tax.

Squeezing working class family budgets to pay for a public good is obviously not our preference, though we understand the city's funding options are limited here.

Mayor Wilson campaigned on progressive taxation, yet our big corporations are still getting a free ride on our public infrastructure.

We urge you to pass this measure because riders need relief today.

But we call on this council to commit to progressive revenue options like an employer tax or an updated parking tax moving forward.

Let's build the world-class transit system we need by taxing the corporate class, not the poor.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Katie Ricciuto followed by Jonathan Gonzalez.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Katie Rakuto.

I'm here on behalf of Transportation Choices Coalition, and I'm a resident of District 3. TCC supports the duration and amount of Mayor Wilson's Seattle transit measure proposal.

Over the past six years, Seattle has invested in a transit network that people have organized their lives around.

This measure keeps that going and expands it.

It gets us back to 2019 service levels.

This is a huge milestone for this city.

People are frustrated with the cost of living.

I get it.

I live here.

It's also really expensive to own a car.

Gas has skyrocketed.

If we do not invest in transit, we will be telling more people that they need to buy a car to get around.

They'll need to buy gas, insurance, and pay for parking.

We have a responsibility, as you said, Chair Saka, to invest in transit so people do not have to live that way.

Transit is one of the most direct tools we have to make the city more affordable.

Every person who can reliably get to work, to the doctor or to a grocery store, without a car is saving money.

Every affordable ORCA pass is money that a person can spend on food or medicine or childcare.

I know many of you are transit riders, whether you're coming from West Seattle, Capitol Hill, Ballard, or anywhere else in the city, and I know you want better access for your constituents.

This transit measure is not about extras.

We are talking about your trips, your constituents' trips, and everyday lives being affected.

Please keep the amount and the duration of the proposal before you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Jonathan Gonzalez, followed by David Haynes.

Hello, I'm Jonathan Gonzalez.

I'm a volunteer with Ballard Fremont Green Streets and an organizer of Save Ballard Rail.

I'm here to show support for the Seattle Transit measure.

Given limited tools available for raising revenue, aggressive sales tax is an ideal, but without public transit, we would be forced into cars, clogging our streets and polluting our air.

With the uncertain future of the Ballard Link Extension, communities like mine will need to continue to rely on bus service.

to keep investing in our public transit networks so we can ensure reliable, frequent and irresistibly good service.

100,000 more bus trips per year helps us get to that goal.

I hope to see this measure breeze through council so we can vote on it in November.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Haynes followed by Nick Satelli.

Hi, David Ames.

We need transit signal priority technology to strategically be placed at intersections that slow up the late eight and certain rapid-ride buses, whether they're going to West Seattle, Seattle Center, or Ballard.

We still need to program all the discombobulated traffic lights on Third Avenue to create all of this congestion unnecessarily.

And if you want to regulate the bus drivers, maybe give them a warning to slow down, but don't harm their insurance.

The supervisors of transit need to have their vehicles taken away from them for a period of time to force them into the system to realize all the unnecessary delays and problems that we're going through.

And the bus drivers still need to speak up about all the horrible crap that's going on in and around transit-oriented like bus systems, because the city of Seattle police chief, cops, and transit authority, and the King County sheriffs are arguing about who's responsible, and they keep transferring you to the other agencies saying it's not our problem because somebody just stepped out of the bus.

but the transit signal priority will expedite so much frustration with people trying to get around.

It's like when the bus comes up near the intersection, the technology turns to light green.

Granted, we still need pedestrian-centric infrastructure, but when you're going through 3rd Ave, you can program it a little bit better.

And if the bus drivers are speeding, transit can address that.

Just give them warnings.

Don't ruin their driver's license, their insurance.

you've got to improve the service.

Because you all are just saying, well, it takes too long to go on rapid rides to West Seattle, so now we're going to spend $7 billion on a Linklite rail that goes one stop to Delridge, and then you get dropped off at Alaska Junction, the same place rapid ride does.

That's kind of ridiculous, man.

Transit signal priority.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper.

It's like $5,000 per intersection.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Our next speaker is Nick Satelli, followed by Jason Lee.

Hello.

Hello, Council members.

My name's Nick.

I help co-lead fix the late in Central Seattle streets for all.

I live in District 3, and I'm here for a more affordable Seattle.

Today, the most expensive things in a Seattleites budget are housing and transportation.

On housing, we're forced to live in some of these few neighborhoods that are transit-rich, or we're forced to buy a car to get around.

The most expensive part of our transportation budgets are the cost of driving.

Insurance rates are skyrocketing nationally.

Car payments are insane.

The cost of a new car now is $50,000.

Gas is skyrocketing.

On my way here is almost $7 a gallon.

And parking is more expensive than ever.

We need more transit to give people opportunities to get around in ways other than driving.

As we talked about earlier, getting back to 2019 service levels would be revolutionary for the city.

Being able to get 10-minute bus service in all of our neighborhoods like the way we had, being able to have off-peak and night service means that people have opportunities to get around, not just in the middle of the day.

Luckily, there's a light at the end of the tunnel for this problem.

The mayor's proposal will a regressive sales tax, which, as we talked about, is not ideal.

It would cost the median two-person household $29 a year for this increase.

That's the same as four hours of parking in Ballard, five gallons of gas, or less than one week of total car ownership.

opportunity for an affordable Seattle to have opportunities to get around without driving.

We can't force people if they want to go out to Eaton Ballard to have to pay for all this parking.

We can't force people if they want to go out to a show downtown to pay for gas.

Having transit means that people are able to get around within our city instead of leaving to go to the suburbs where they get free parking.

We need to have more opportunities for people and more freedom to get around when they want to get around, how they want to get around, across the entire city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jason Lee, followed by Jack Wisner.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Jason Lee.

I live in District D and I co-lead the Fix the Lake Campaign.

According to the Seattle Times, in 2024, Seattle added 13,000 drivers commuting alone to work in just one year.

We are so worried about the traffic that the World Cup will bring, But if this pattern doesn't start to change, then by the end of the decade, the amount of new drivers we've added to our roads could nearly fill Lumenfield to capacity.

And the FIFA World Cup traffic that we've been spending so long preparing for and doing so many things to make an exception to make sure that goes smoothly, that will be every single day.

We need something to change, and this proposal by the mayor will do exactly that.

We need to make sure that people are switching from driving to transit as much as possible.

That will not only give people the financial freedom that the other commenters have commented on, but it'll also give people the independent freedom to go where they want if they can't drive.

Transit is the best way to ensure that people of all ages and abilities can move around the city as they please, like Councilmember Saka discussed.

Right now, too many people have to make a decision between getting home on time by leaving three, four, five hours early for the last direct bus, which I know Councilmember Strauss you're very familiar with, or being able to enjoy themselves for the rest of the night, but spending several times more getting home.

The amount that people are spending in traffic right now is absurd, and transit is the easy way to fix that.

And we need to make sure that this choice to switch to transit is obvious.

Right now, too many people feel like they're forced to drive, and because of that, our streets are more unsafe than ever.

We need the people who know that they're bad drivers to be able to take the obvious choice and switch to transit.

Right now, they're just driving because that's their only option, really.

Yeah, if we didn't have a system where people feel like they're forced to drive, we wouldn't have that situation on Tuesday, where a driver drove up onto Mount Baker Station.

Transit is very popular in Seattle, maybe a little too popular to the point where drivers are trying to get onto the train stations, but we can make it.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jack Wisner, followed by Jason Weil.

Good morning, Chair Sacca, members of the TBD.

My name is Jack Wissner.

I live in District 6. Yesterday, I wrote you a note.

I hope you can check out your inboxes.

Because I only have two minutes, I'll just make two points from that note.

I'd like you to consider two changes to the mayor's proposal.

One, Chair Sacca in 2024 raised the issue of deleting the South Lake Union streetcar.

I think you should really consider that.

carefully.

It is redundant to several bus routes that already serve South Lake Union, and they do a much better job.

If you look at the FTA National Transit database on costs, the cost to run a streetcar is significantly more than the cost to run an electric trolley bus.

Second, I'd like you to consider asking the voters about the vehicle license fee.

It was part of the 2014 measure, not part of the 2020 measure because it was entangled in a Supreme Court case.

But Ayman lost that case, and you could use the VLF again.

It's very clumsy to go to the voters to ask for the TBD measure.

You might as well ask for them the sales tax and the VLF at the same time.

You might target the VLF revenue toward payment management.

I know you have your task force on transportation funding, but that's going to take a long time.

And here, the voters are going to be asked about this.

So go ahead and ask them now.

Target the VLF revenue toward pavement management, which helps all modes.

And when S-TOT fixes the major arterials, they can address Vision Zero, sidewalks, access management, and do several things at once.

And several of these multi-lane arterials have transit routes that need help.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Wisner.

Our final in-person speaker will be Jason Weil, and then we'll go to the remote speakers.

Hi.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Jason Weil.

I am a District 6 resident.

I'm a volunteer with Ballard-Fremont Green Streets and Save Ballard Rail.

Thank you so much for considering this measure.

Although it is a regressive tax, being a sales tax increase is the tool that we have, and I urge us to use it.

Everyone in Seattle is riding transit.

Everyone from students to tourists to professionals working all over the city are depending on transit.

It is the ultimate affordability hack.

For $3 or less, you can ride all over the city.

At a time when the World Cup is coming up, people are going to be able to get to stadiums for some of the cheapest fares in the country.

And that's fantastic because it gets more cars off the roads.

It keeps our city moving.

One of the best ways to add trust to a public transportation system is to add trips.

The idea that, you know, when I was coming down here on the RapidRide D-line, I saw a bus departing and I wasn't even mad because the next one was coming five minutes in the future.

And it did.

And adding more trips is a great way to get more people out of their cars, onto transit, relying on it, recommending it to others.

And so increasing the frequency and the availability of transit should be the goal of any growing and vibrant city like ours.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now switch to our remote commenters.

Our first remote caller will be Alberto Alvarez.

After that, we'll go to Brandon Der Blatter.

Alberto, please press star six.

Alberto Alvarez, can you hear us?

Hello, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Can you reset his timer?

Okay, sorry.

One moment.

Can you hear us?

Sorry about that.

I hear you.

I hear you now.

Thank you.

As soon as he starts again there.

I regret my support for Katie Wilson with two options to raise revenue for transit, increase the sales tax or fees on car tabs, the mayor choosing to hit working class families with another increase in the cost of living.

It's lazy at best, cowardice at worst.

If you want to encourage more people to take the bus, you need to tax the vehicles they would otherwise be driving.

However, this hits families and working people the hardest because it's an increase to the cost of living.

The mayor saying a fight would be too controversial is a sign that until the state allows more progressive taxes, which is not likely to happen in the coming years, Those of us with the least will always be paying the most.

Talk about a bait and switch, betrayed, disappointed, regretful of supporting Katie Wilson.

Thank you all and have a good day.

Thank you.

Our next caller will be Brandon Derbladder.

Mr. Derbladder, please hit star six.

I want to voice my support for Mayor Wilson's Seattle transit measure proposal.

Since the announcement, I've already heard a lot about how sales tax is regressive, but you know what else is regressive?

Subpar transit service.

On average, it costs about $1,000 a month to own a car, which is too expensive for a significant portion of our neighbors in Seattle, myself included.

Our options are walking, biking, and riding transit.

It's vital to ensure high-quality transit, including higher frequencies, so accessible and affordable transportation is available to everyone.

Mayor Wilson's proposal will increase King County Metro service hours by almost 60%.

This will allow us to not only return to, but surpass pre-COVID levels of transit service.

We'll also be able to more than double the amount of free ORCA cards that we provide to our neighbors in need.

Besides, the county just proposed a similar sales tax hike, 0.1% compared to the 0.15% increase in the new Seattle transit measure.

The county tax is only for county-maintained roads and bridges, and no one is complaining about that.

So if they're going to increase our taxes to maintain things that we'll probably hardly ever use, then surely we deserve to have a larger fund for transit infrastructure that will directly make Seattle more navigable for people of all classes and abilities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next remote caller will be Carlo Alcantara.

Please press star six.

Hi, my name is Carlo.

I'm a resident of D5.

I help lead the Aurora Reimagine Coalition.

I'm also a frequent rider of the E-Line, the Route 40, the 61, the 365, the 348, the G-Line, the D-Line, the Link Art Vale, and really any other bus that's going to get me where I need to go.

While I do own a car, it's no longer my family's preferred means of moving through the city.

Driving just isn't convenient anymore for most of the trips we need to make.

I live in Lincoln Springs and it can often take the same amount of time on the bus or sometimes longer when factoring and trying to find parking to get somewhere like the Ballard Farmers Market on Sundays.

My only gripe really is that the buses don't arrive frequent enough.

I can't really emphasize how much less stressful it is when you don't have to plan around an infrequent bus schedule, but increasing that frequency just makes it so that You can show up at any time and the bus will be there reliably for you.

The proposed Seattle transit measure renewal I think is an investment in transit that will continue to make transit even more convenient, more accessible and open up more of the city.

My one ask here is that we hold ourselves accountable in defining what is a minimum required outcome for how late the bus should be or how frequent it should come.

and then prioritize those routes that don't meet that outcome or are missing the mark.

We saw this with the Route 8. It's going to be improved.

We're going to see bus lanes put in on Denny Way.

But I really think we should examine the entire system and find where those buses are failing or where our routes are failing and find the priority to keep those things up.

Thanks for your time and please support this measure.

Our next remote caller is Wes Stewart Please hit star six Wes Stewart

My name is Wes Stewart.

I live in District 2 and I'm here representing Sierra Club Washington State Chapter and our 30,000 members who organized to protect wild lands, water, and air across the state.

Transportation continues to be one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the state and owning a car is one of the biggest pressures on household budgets.

Transit can be a tool to ease climate impacts on our communities and the financial burdens of gas, parking, and insurance.

The Air Club supports the Mayor's proposed transit measure, providing public transit passes to low-income residents, building on transit programs that Seattle voters have already supported, and expanding bus service across the city with more frequent routes, shorter waits, and better reliability.

My neighbors in D2 heavily rely on public transportation.

Working class families commute send their kids to school, get their elders to medical care, visit siblings to provide childcare, and haul groceries home, all on the bus.

The mayor's proposed measure helps expand service for people who depend on transit while making it practical and affordable options for everyone.

Thank you.

Our next caller is Greg Woodfill.

Greg, please hit star six.

Hello.

Good morning.

My name is Greg Woodfill.

I'm president of ATU 587, representing about 5,000 transit workers in King County and on the peninsula and in an airport in D.C.

Sorry for the sounds.

Good morning, Chair Saka and distinguished city council members.

Good morning.

We'd like you to know that our union is fully in favor of the mayor's proposal on extending the current Seattle transit measure, including her bold decision to use the full funding available.

I want to directly address our friends on the city council who have been great advocates for public transit.

We understand how difficult it is in this environment to pass new taxes.

We understand the whole issue with regressive taxes.

This is what we got.

We cannot afford to go backwards.

Seattle will not, Seattle and King County and the region will not reach its full potential.

without continued increased investment in public transit.

Public transit is a public utility.

It's a necessary public right.

We're just asking you, please, with all the pressures and considerations you have, each and every one of you on the council, we're hoping that you will ultimately decide to fully support asking for the full funding.

The public is demanding safety and public transit are needing more of the drive.

Just finally to answer the issue of regressive taxes.

Yes, nobody's in favor of that.

We're not in favor of that either.

But in some instances, regressive taxes, at least we can say they're going more to the people that need them.

So a lot of people don't have a choice about using the bus.

That's how they got to get to work, their appointments, and please support them in full funding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next remote caller is Lam Ho.

Please hit star six.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Lam Ho.

a resident of District 7 and a general manager of the Transit Riders Union here in support of the Mayor's proposed Seattle transit measure.

The Transit Riders Union has always been committed to a safe, reliable, efficient transit system especially for low-income riders and to advancing progressive programs that make our city more equitable and affordable for all.

The proposal by the Mayor aligns with the Transit Riders Union's mission and values expands bus service so people experience shorter waits, more frequent trips, and service that actually matches the schedules and routes riders depend on every day.

For so many residents, including myself, a lifelong transit rider who doesn't know how to drive, this is our primary way, if not only way, of getting to work, to school, to get groceries.

The mayor's proposal is the way to getting us the increased frequency and the options we need to lead our lives.

While obviously increasing sales tax is not ideal, it is an affordable investment into progressive programs and results.

A central component of this measure is the 22,000 free transit passes for lower income residents, more than doubling the current number of beneficiaries under the current measure.

These passes are not a broad subsidy.

They are a targeted benefit for people who already spend a disproportionate share of their income just getting around the city.

As many have mentioned, driving is becoming more expensive, and we need real alternatives.

Gas, parking, insurance, and car ownership keeps rising.

This measure expands service so more people can choose transit and save money, especially those who feel the financial pressure most acutely.

An efficient transit system enables residents to save money by not needing to own a car.

The Transit Riders Union strongly urge you to support Mayor Wilson's proposed measure at the level she proposed.

Thank you.

Our final caller is Harper Nally.

Please press star six.

Okay.

Hold on.

Okay.

Sorry.

I am in...

Hello, I'm Harper Nally from the Seattle Transit Riders Union.

I'm here to demand the council follow the mayor's footsteps and go bold on Transit Sunday.

For those of us who use transit as the primary source of transportation, not as an alternative to driving when convenient, frequency and span are often the dividing line between us and access to jobs, opportunity, life, and affordability.

As Seattleites give up their cars, the need for improvement in transit becomes increasingly pronounced.

This tax will make my life cheaper.

I spend roughly $5,000 a year in non-rent, non-grocery expenses.

And as a result, the first time I don't have to spend $5 for an Uber or a Lime bike thanks to expanded night bus service, this tax increase will have paid for itself.

Thank you.

We have no more public commenters.

All right, thank you, everyone.

And also, let the record reflect that Council Members Rink, Hollingsworth have joined us.

Welcome, Vice Chair, Council President, and Council Member Strauss has joined us in person.

Welcome.

All right, we will, let's see, so there are no additional registered speakers.

We'll now proceed to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, briefing and discussion.

Executives proposed 2026 Seattle Transit measure.

All right, thank you.

And will our presenters please join us at the table as it looks like you're doing now.

Welcome.

Once you're ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

Colleagues, I'll ask that you hold your questions until the end.

Thank you.

Okay, are we all ready?

Hello, everyone.

I'm Angela Brady.

I work for the Seattle DOT.

I'm the acting director.

Do you want to go down the line and make some introductions first?

Sure.

Emily Crawford, SDOT.

Alex Hudson, the mayor's office.

Francisca Stephan, SDOT.

So thank you so much for having us here today.

We are grateful for the opportunity to present the mayor's proposal for the 2026 Seattle Transit Measure Renewal for Council's consideration.

A measure like this takes careful, professional work.

It requires strong data, sound financial planning, and close coordination with our partners, along with a clear understanding of how people actually move around Seattle every day.

At SDOT, our role is to help turn these investments into real service, real access, and real improvements for the people who rely on transit.

That means administering these funds responsibly.

It means working with Metro on transit service priorities.

It means investing in city-owned transit service with a Seattle streetcar.

It means making sure free ORCA passes reach the people they are intended to serve.

It means investing in practical street improvements that help buses move more safely and more reliably.

And it means tracking results so that we can continue to improve over time.

This proposal is the culmination of analysis, stakeholder engagement, and a collaboration that supports the Seattle Transportation Plan, is aligned with our city's comprehensive plan goals, and moves us closer to our vision of an irresistibly good transit network that is frequent and reliable seven days a week.

We are excited and honored to be here to share more details about the mayor's proposal today.

Yes, it is ambitious, but it is also very grounded.

It is about more trips, better service, broader access, and the day to day details that make transit work really well.

I'm proud of my SDOT team and our Metro partners for the professionalism and the care that went into this proposal, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to deliver a transit system that supports a more affordable, connected, and accessible Seattle.

Thank you so much for having us today.

Thank you.

The purpose of our presentation today is to really do two things.

It's to talk about the way in which the existing Seattle transit measure has been serving and contributing to affordable, accessible, and safe transportation for everyone here in the city of Seattle, and to share the mayor's vision for the renewal of this measure, which meets the overwhelming demand for better bus service and lowers barriers to accessing transit and meets a very important goal, which is to return Seattle to 2019 levels of transit service.

A little bit of a history before we get into the current STM.

STM was passed originally in 2014 after a countywide measure to invest in transit service failed to pass at the county level.

It passed with 62% in support of the voters of the city of Seattle and at the time was a 0.1% sales tax and $60 worth in car tabs.

In 2020, Mayor Durkin proposed a renewal of that measure, which was adopted as a 0.15% sales tax and passed with 80% vote of the approval of the City of Seattle.

a little fun fact about that is that at the time was the highest that any measure on any subject had ever been approved in the history of Seattle and has set a national record for the highest any transit measure has ever been approved in the history of the United States of America.

That measure was passed for a six-year duration, which brings us now to 2026, an important time for renewing these investments.

STM is a unique tool the city has to build the transit-rich city Seattle has been working toward for generations, a city where transit connects people to opportunity, strengthens our neighborhoods, supports our economy, and makes daily life a little easier.

First and foremost, it has funded more bus service in Seattle, above the baseline level of service that King County Metro provides.

Since 2020, this measure has added more than 850,000 additional bus service hours in Seattle.

In 2025, that meant an additional 3,200 weekly bus trips, with 88% of those trips in the evenings, at night, on weekends, and midday.

With every transit trip we have purchased, the city has contributed to Metro's transit safety initiatives, investing over $14 million over the life of this measure.

STM has also expanded access to transit, including providing free ORCA cards to low-income residents that saved participants more than $4.5 million in 2025 alone.

It has funded low-income residents, it has funded transit education programs for youth and aging adults, transit supportive capital projects, Seattle's streetcar service, and the city staffing we need to support the planning and permitting of sound transit projects in Seattle.

This is now a proven funding source with a long track record of helping people get where they need to go.

Providing more transit service has always been at the core of this measure.

SDOT uses the city's frequent transit network as the guiding framework for SDOT's transit service investments.

It's the city's vision for a well-connected, frequent, and reliable transit system where traveling by bus throughout Seattle is convenient and easy to choose, no matter what time of day you need to travel.

Community feedback shaped this vision when it was most recently updated in 2024 through the Seattle Transportation Plan as adopted by you all City Council members.

Through the STP engagement process, we heard loud and clear that Seattleites want more frequent transit service at all times of day.

We reflected this feedback in an updated network vision while also factoring in anticipated population and employment growth identified in the Seattle Comprehensive Plan and our knowledge of the impact of the growing regional light rail network.

The city's new frequent transit network has targets that now apply seven days per week.

All STM transit service investments bring Seattle closer to this frequent transit network vision.

How exactly do we do this?

We start by looking at the gaps that exist between existing service and the targets outlined in that network.

This gives us our universe of potential investments.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest gaps are in the evenings, at night, on weekends, and midday.

We know the need to get around does not stop outside of peak commute times.

People are traveling to jobs, school, medical appointments, childcare, grocery stores, community events, and family responsibilities at all times of day.

Ridership has rebounded the fastest at off-peak times post-pandemic.

For example, weekend ridership is now at nearly 100% of pre-pandemic levels and growing.

In addition, we prioritize frequent service to equity priority neighborhoods.

The result is that over 80% of STM bus service investments are at off-peak times and serve equity priority populations.

of STM investments are effective because where our service investments go, ridership follows.

There are several examples on this slide.

I'll start with just the first one.

The Route 60, which connects council districts one, two, and three.

We added bus service on weekends, making buses come every 15 minutes up from Metro's baseline of every 30 minutes from 6 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

After we made this investment, ridership increased 27 percent on Saturdays and 41 percent on Sundays.

Through our public engagement, folks have told us that it is important for them to feel safe traveling to, waiting for, and riding on transit.

Thankfully, every STM dollar spent on transit service contributes to Metro's safety and security investments.

As Metro has increased their investments, SDOT's contribution has also increased.

Between 2023 and 2026, the amount SDOT has contributed to Metro's safety and security investments through STM has tripled.

These significant investments are in addition to the $9 million in dedicated funding for transit passenger safety that is part of the 2024 transportation levy.

These funds have been used to provide an increased transit security officer presence along 3rd Avenue and South Jackson Street.

STM has provided low income access to transit with fully subsidized ORCA cards since the first version of this measure in 2014. Our transit pass programs provide free ORCA cards to 10,000 Seattleites every year.

Our longest running program is our partnership with the Seattle Housing Authority, which serves over 6,000 people every year and saves participants more than $600 on average in transportation costs.

We also have partnerships with Seattle Colleges and the Seattle Preschool Program, coupling early childhood education with reliable access to transportation to support low income families.

Participants in our ORCA subsidy programs tell us time and again how impactful having this resource is to their lives.

As you can see from these quotes, this is a practical affordability investment.

When people have reliable transit and a pass in their pocket, they have more freedom to get where they need to go without worrying about how to pay for it.

Next slide.

Transit capital improvements have been a small part of each of the past Seattle transit measures, complementing our service investments.

The size and scale of the capital program in the current measure was increased well above what was originally planned by council partway through the measure during a period of time when service and ridership were still recovering from the pandemic.

SDOT invested these increased capital funds in alignment with voter intent.

Over the last six years, we have supported over 100 transit capital projects across the city that have ranged in size, scope, and scale, but ultimately they have improved bus travel times, the passenger experience, and made it easier and safer to get to and from the bus.

These investments complement the city's primary funding source for transit infrastructure improvements, $151 million in the transportation levy.

Oh, there we go.

This brings us to the mayor's proposal for the second renewal of the Seattle Transit Measure.

This brings us to the future here.

So we have 0.3% sales tax.

The sales tax authorized for transportation benefit districts, as many public commenters have shared here, is limited by the options that are provided by the Washington State Legislature.

so I wanna recognize where that use comes from and the full duration then of 10 years.

So this proposal is really about improving transit service at all times of day and on the weekends.

We know that what this will do is it'll increase both the access to transit, as you heard many people talk about fares and affordability, connect people to the opportunities that meet the needs of their daily travel, when we talk a little bit about changing travel patterns and helps us move forward towards Seattle's adopted goals around affordability, equity, and climate.

So this slide speaks a little bit to the need to invest here.

So Seattle is a growing city.

Since this measure was adopted five years ago, we've added 80,000 new residents.

And during that time, as Seattle, like every city in the United States and across the world, is recovering from pandemic-related impacts, we've seen transit ridership on weekdays double.

Now, you see here the numbers that are, these are just Seattle transit numbers.

We have over two, nearly 200,000 people are choosing public transit every day, taking those trips.

This is not including Link, which is another 100,000 folks.

So we see both a strong growth in transit ridership, During this same time, patterns around how people travel have fundamentally changed and the transit system has evolved with them to meet those needs.

So we see both in ridership and in what people tell us that people are taking transit now more for non-work trips and at off-peak times.

We also at the same time have grown our transit network to meet this demand.

So here in Seattle, we've seen four new light rail stations open during the tenure of this measure, as well as two new rapid rides, the rapid ride H and the rapid ride G.

This has made it easier for people to choose transit as a common sense option for their trips.

At the same time as we've added new residents, we've added very few new cars.

In fact, we now know that 19% of Seattle households do not own a car, and another 45% of households have only one car.

and so we know that transit is a very important piece of creating affordability and alternatives to car ownership.

As you've heard many people say, AAA tells us that the average cost of owning a car and operating it in the city of Seattle is $1,000 a month and so we know that an ORCA card costs $108, which is one-tenth of that price.

I do wanna recognize that many people live car-free or car-light, and that is not necessarily an option that can work for all people, so it is important to recognize that providing a public transit system that allows people to drive some of the time or part of the way is an important part about creating options that meet people's needs.

and so we believe that the STM provides mobility for Seattleites and supports our population today as we continue to grow.

STM is part of a larger regional transit system.

So STM is how Seattle addresses local mobility needs in the context of a much larger regional network and increases service beyond Metro's baseline.

So King County Metro delivers Seattle's baseline transit service and provides 93% of the transit that people have here in our city.

However, Metro, as you heard in public comment, has their service priorities, which they apply across the county.

And so STM allows us to really address our own local mobility needs and allows us to go beyond that.

And you've heard talk about how we invest in late nights, early mornings and weekends as part of how we grow beyond the baseline service provided.

STM also allows us to directly invest in places of the highest need.

And as we spoke about the baseline here, you can see that this allows us to invest using our equity priority framework for access here.

And so because of these investments, one out of every 13 trips in Seattle is paid for through the STM and allows us to do programmatic things like the 10,000 fully subsidized ORCA cards that we distribute to Seattle Housing Authority residents and others.

and if this measure is, it is set to expire in April of 2027 and so renewal would be necessary in order to maintain and grow current services.

Which brings us back to the measure here, proposal from Mayor Wilson, a 0.3% sales tax for 10 years, delivering on Seattle's commitment and Seattleites' expectation of creating a world-class transit network.

So at the 0.3% rate, the measure would raise about $138 million a year over the duration of the measure, 86.5% of which would be directed directly into transit service, both in fixed route transit service as well as the Seattle investments in our two streetcar lines.

This investment reflects the core purpose of the measure and what we've heard from community over and over again, which is that people want transit that comes more often and serves them to more places that they want to go.

The other elements that the proposal invests in is a more than doubling and expansion of the transit access programs, ability for our city to deliver sound transit quickly through both design, planning, and other necessary work to have the city's largest infrastructure project in its history be delivered as fast and efficiently as people are looking for.

and invest in addressing transit infrastructure, capital programs, which allow us to make good use of the resources that we have and ensure that transit hours are not wasted in congestion.

And this slide here speaks to a lot of community engagement that has gone into this.

We have done a lot of outreach and engagement with dozens of stakeholders.

We've conducted round tables, one-on-ones.

We've spoken with both the Transportation Advisory Board and the Transportation Equity Work Group and collected that feedback also informed by a very robust process for the Seattle Transportation Plan.

So as you can see here, what we've heard and how we've addressed that has been a good feedback loop of community engagement.

This proposal is grounded in findings from our racial equity toolkit, which helped us carefully assess how to balance the burdens associated with the funding source against the benefits it delivers to the community.

The toolkit highlighted that the most impactful strategies for supporting transit-dependent and lower-income communities are expanding transit service hours and increasing access to ORCA subsidy programs.

Through the development of this proposal, we engaged regularly with SDOT's Transportation Equity Work Group, who made it clear that despite the regressivity of our available funding sources, the proposal should not make cuts to the service and access investments that most directly benefit low-income people of color.

Transit service has been the foundation of this measure from the beginning, and it remains the largest share of the proposal.

This proposal would increase the city's investment in transit service in Seattle by 50%.

we would continue to invest where the need is highest with a focus on high equity areas and times of day when people rely on transit most and we have the biggest service gaps to fill.

In addition, the city would continue to strengthen east-west travel, supporting improved connection to the growing light rail network.

Every bus route that receives STM funding connects to at least one light rail station.

Our service investments at the levels we are proposing today, combined with Metro's planned restoration of service in Seattle, would bring service in the city back to levels we have not seen in almost a decade.

This is so important now, as ridership is increasing every year and we know that more service drives even more demand.

The Seattle Transit measure is possible because of the strong partnership we have with King County Metro.

This map shows where Metro operates bus service today.

STM cannot add new routes to this map.

We can only add service onto routes King County Metro has planned and implemented in our city.

Their network is the baseline for this measure.

Any bus route with 65% or more of bus stops within Seattle or rapid ride lines are eligible for STM funding.

By the end of 2026, we will be investing 180,000 service hours across 32 routes in every corner of the city, providing more service to more places at more hours of the day.

This adds up to 7% of the bus service in Seattle.

This map here shows the routes and degree of investment we have citywide currently.

With this renewal, we would add 100,000 more service hours for riders above what STM currently provides.

This level of investment would allow us to improve service on 10 to 15 bus routes across the city.

The map you see here is an illustrative planning tool to help you understand what that 100,000 hours could look like on the ground.

This slide shows some more tangible examples of what this increased level of investment could look like, and I'll select one to speak about.

For example, the Route 21 connects Council Districts 1 and 7, connecting Arbor Heights and High Point in West Seattle to Soto and Downtown.

I'm noticing the picture here is not quite updated.

After passing through Downtown, because it's not gonna show this part, it becomes the Route 5, serving Council Districts 5 and 6, connecting Fremont, Greenwood, and Bitter Lake to Shoreline Community College.

With this proposal, we could double weekend service on these connected routes to fill gaps and create consistent 15-minute service seven days a week, up from every 20 to 30 minutes on weekends.

We believe that these potential investments, along with improvements on many other routes, would make choosing transit easier at all times of day for thousands of Seattleites.

This proposal would also continue supporting both Seattle streetcar lines.

Our streetcar system provides vital connections to hospitals, schools, colleges, special event venues, and the regional light rail network.

The streetcar is the only SDOT owned and managed transit service in Seattle, which gives us the unique ability to tailor service even more sharply to local need.

Ridership on our streetcar system is increasing every year.

Roughly 1.6 million trips were taken in 2025, up from 1.4 million in 24. The First Hills streetcar is back at 2019 ridership levels and still climbing, and the SLU line continues to see significant ridership growth year over year.

This proposal will also expand the number of low-income Seattle residents who receive fully subsidized ORCA cards to 22,000 people, bringing free transit to the majority of low-income subsidized housing residents citywide.

It will continue serving the 10,000 low-income residents, families with young children, and young adults who are served by our Transit Pass programs today.

We would also expand our partnership with the Seattle Housing Authority to offer fully subsidized ORCA cards to all Housing Choice Voucher participants, serving 12,000 more low-income residents.

The proposal also continues transit education programs that help young people and aging adults build confidence using public transit independently.

This proposal would continue supporting Sound Transit 3 delivery by funding city staffing to ensure we keep the West Seattle and Ballard Link extension and Graham Street projects moving.

Funding for Sound Transit 3 staffing allows the city to proactively partner in delivering these projects and advance planning efforts for capital projects to improve access to the new station areas.

This essential investment supports a dedicated team of transportation planners, engineers, permit reviewers, and project managers.

Transit capital investments are a smaller share of the measure, but they play an important supporting role.

They help the city get more value from its transit service investments by improving reliability, access, and rider experience.

The proposed capital budget is $3.5 million each year, consistent with the plan and prior measures.

Those funds would support targeted improvements at places where delay access or safety issues affect transit performance.

They could also be used to leverage additional grant funding to deliver larger, more transformative capital projects.

I got a problem with that one.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Oh, I forgot I'm unmuted.

Sorry.

All good.

Hey, I'm rocking with you, though.

I'm rocking with you.

All good.

It ain't looking good, so I'm just going to put it out there.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I'd like to speak directly to the rate of the sales tax here.

So I want to start with acknowledging that costs have risen 26% since the measure was passed in 2020. We all see that government and transit agencies are not immune to the larger economic factors such as inflation, supply change disruptions, tariffs, et cetera.

and so what that means is that anything less than a 0.223% sales tax would require cuts to the investments and services and benefits that you've heard us describing here.

At the same time, other transportation sources have declined.

Sorry, Bill, could you go back?

have plateaued or declined, such as the commercial parking tax.

As households feel this cost pressure, more people need access to the public services that provide affordable options relative to privatizing the cost burden of things like mobility.

And we know and feel that the status quo is not good enough for the city of Seattle Seattle deserves improvement and is asking us for more and better transit service and we want to deliver on that.

Next slide.

Sales tax here.

We want to highlight that everyone in Seattle contributes to the sales tax, residents and workers, but also businesses and visitors.

According to Visit Seattle, nearly 40 million people visited Seattle in 2025 and spent over $8 billion, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to our city through sales taxes.

In Washington, most everyday essentials are exempt from sales tax, including groceries, over-the-counter and prescription medications, rent and mortgage payments, and with new laws passed in Olympia this legislative session, personal care and baby products are exempt from the sales tax as well.

Through STM, everyone contributes to a fund that the city uses to move people further.

Speak here to the cost to taxpayers.

The current 0.15% sales tax costs a median income two-person household $29 a year.

At 0.3%, we estimate this measure would cost that same two-person median income household about $58 a year or another $4.83 a month.

and then we also talk here about a low-income two-person household making $38,000 a year and the impacts that this proposal would have to them.

I'd like to speak directly to VLF.

Though it is an allowable funding source under state law, the mayor chose not to add VLF to this proposal for several reasons.

First, VLF is a flat fee.

Everyone pays the same amount regardless of income or circumstance.

Flat taxes are more regressive.

Car tabs are due in full every year with no option for incremental payment.

This places an outsized burden on low-income people, individuals, and families.

By our estimation, the average median income household in Seattle would pay $58 a year in sales tax under this proposal.

Adding a $50 VLF would nearly double that amount of the annual cost for households with only one vehicle and triple or quadruple the cost to households with two or more vehicles.

At the same time, adding a $50 VLF would only bring in an additional 15% more revenue each year for doubling the cost on car owning households.

And lastly, we heard very strong opposition to VLF from the communities that we engaged through this process.

included and described in SDOT's Racial Equity Toolkit, and we see this in the results of other opportunities that Seattleites have had to consider this question.

So, why renew?

This measure exists because people have organized, spoke up, showed up, and kept insisting that transit is essential to a fair and affordable city.

For many people in the city, transit is not a backup plan.

It's how they get to work, to school, to childcare, to medical appointments, to the grocery store, and back home again.

We know that these are really compelling folks, like nurses going to Harborview for early shifts, servers getting home from the junction after last call, the student taking the bus to Ballard High School, the parent on Beacon Hill headed to daycare, seniors in the International District, and on and on and on.

These are the trips that make it possible for Seattle to be a functional city.

and this proposal uses the tools available to us and directs the benefits where they matter most, more service, more access, and more support for people who depend on or would like to choose transit.

This measure makes it possible for car ownership in Seattle to be a choice, not a requirement, or for a car to not have to be the only way, the only choice for all of or the totality of your trips.

This is what a world-class transit system looks like, and this is what Seattleites deserve and expect.

We're excited to be sharing this proposal with the City Council today.

I look forward to working with you all on this plan as we continue to move it forward, and ultimately I look forward to giving Seattle voters the opportunity to consider these investments and benefits as we build the transit system our city needs for the next decade.

Thank you.

That concludes our presentation.

All right.

Yes.

Cool.

Well, first off, thank you so much.

Really appreciate the presentation and right on the money there with the timing.

But really appreciate the presentation.

And as I mentioned earlier, more important than that, the thoughtful attention and work that went into crafting this proposed package before us.

So colleagues, I have a few questions to kick us off here.

frame the conversation and then we'll turn it over to you all for your terrific questions and comments.

So again, thank you for the proposal and thank you for kind of walking us through your approach with respect to the vehicle license fee component and the trade-offs involved there.

So aside from the vehicle license fee, Can you walk us through the major policy tradeoffs the executive considered in developing this proposal and specifically which alternatives were considered but ultimately not included?

Yeah, I'm happy to discuss that.

I wanna acknowledge that planning for the renewal of the Seattle Transit Measure was well underway when Mayor Wilson came into office.

We explored options which, as a baseline, did not do any reductions.

So all options that were considered included an acknowledgement that Seattleites want the no reduction in their baseline service.

Moving from there, we considered options that really adjusted dials.

So there's fixed costs, things like the staffing that was approved by legislation by this body last year for the positions, relative to supporting sound transit, as well as the fixed costs associated with the delivery of the Seattle streetcar lines.

Through that, then we had three dials, service, capital, and access programs.

We know that the capital program, as Jen here mentioned, is a small but important part, so we held steady on that and looked at options that could either increase transit access programs or increase the level of service.

We ended right in the middle of those things, and thanks to partnership with King County Metro in helping us to be able to really meet the need for the fair access programs while being extremely mindful, responsible, and efficient with our costs.

Thank you.

So fair access.

So ridership recovery and long-term transit success ultimately depend on public confidence.

Can you help us understand how the executive considered transit safety and security needs when developing this proposal, particularly with respect to operator safety, rider safety, and local implementation of recommendations from the Regional Transit Safety Task Force from a local City of Seattle government perspective?

Sure, I can try to answer that, Councilmember.

So, as mentioned in the presentation, we contribute to all of Metro's safety and security investments through our service purchases, and as Metro has increased their investments, we have as well.

I'm looking for some of my talking points here.

I believe that there has been over 200 additional transit security officers added in the last five years by King County Metro, and we've invested in that.

So as Metro is responding to the Regional Transit Safety Task Force and implementing different components of that plan, many of those costs will be reflected in our service contract as well.

There was only one direct outcome for SDOT specifically in the Regional Transit Safety Task Force, and that was to provide young adults with opportunities to understand how they can participate or get a job in the transit and transportation system.

We have a youth program through our transportation access programs funded by the Seattle Transit Measure already that address that.

We have youth who come for a month in the month of August and are getting exposed to all of the different opportunities employment and careers, essentially, career exploration.

But that's just one specific thing.

But again, as Metro is increasing their or adjusting what their investments are, Metro Transit Police, transit security officers, behavioral health specialists, transit ambassadors, as well as training for internal staffing for operators, et cetera, we would be paying our portion of that.

Thank you.

If I may, I just wanted to also add to that.

This is a key priority that we've heard, especially from everyone, but from two stakeholders in particular, obviously, ATU 587, as well as the Transportation Equity Work Group, groups that we've worked with in deep consultation while bringing forward this proposal in order to ensure that those key priorities are addressed in the investments put forward.

Thank you.

So if I hear you correctly, No additional or dedicated funding for transit safety and security.

It would be included in our standard purchase for extra service with King County Metro.

What they're gonna already cover, it'll be included and baked into that cost.

So no local dedicated funding specifically for transit safety and security beyond what we purchase.

So we do have $9 million in the 2024 transportation levy devoted to transit passenger safety.

So that still remains as a dedicated funding source.

But through the Seattle Transit measure, it is specifically our support of the funding for the Seattle streetcar.

That includes safety and security as well, which is also delivered by Metro.

through our purchase of service.

I think we believe strongly that Metro should lead on transit safety and security investments, and we should support them and have them be the ones making the decisions since they are the operators and owners of that transit system.

Yeah, and the 2024 transportation levy was a completely different funding vehicle.

Today, we are discussing the proposed renewal of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

That said, there's also a shared response.

One of the things that we learned from the King County Regional Transportation or Transit Safety and Security Task Force is that the responsibility is shared.

for implementing those various recommendations.

It's not just solely a, you know, we need to avoid the counterproductive finger pointing, you know, who's on first situation and confusion around there.

Responsibility is shared and every jurisdiction has a responsibility to implement locally those and I'm hearing there's no dedicated funding source, you know, specifically for that.

It would just be included in what the base levels of potential safety and security services or upgrades that Metro has planned based off of our regular purchase of service.

But thank you for that.

I would I have a different view of the infrastructure.

I heard the infrastructure levels of funding are consistent with prior levels in the Seattle transit measure.

I would disagree with that view, or at least I have a different one, especially when you look at the actuals and the revisions that were made over time.

That said, we'll learn more about that during our next meeting from our central staff analysis, but thank you for the additional clarity here.

Colleagues, I will now turn it over to you, starting first with Vice Chair.

Vice Chair Rink, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Sacca, and thank you to all of our panelists who came before us today to present on this proposal.

Your time is appreciated.

Thank you for presenting this in detail.

And thank you to our partners at ATU 587, our transit operators who get us where we need to go.

And huge thank you to all of the advocates who came out today to really champion transit.

Thank you for the work that you do.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you know, I'm the Car Free Council member up here, proudly representing the 20% of Seattle households who don't own a car.

And when I, in much of my adult life, I didn't own a car not based on any type of a principled stance, but because I literally couldn't afford one.

Now I'm able to live a life without a car and I make it work for myself, but I uplift that just to state that there are so many folks in our city who quite literally rely on our transit system, whether it be light rail or our buses.

And so I wanna just start my remarks by really underscoring that point that so many residents in our city are really relying on us to deliver on reliable, frequent, safe transit.

To that point, I have a couple of questions for today.

One just bringing us to this point about just tax burden, and I think I just wanna start off on the note that we've heard about In public comment and already in some of the discourse, some amount of consternation about sales tax, I do want to note for the record that my office engaged with state legislators ahead of our most recent state legislative session in the hopes that we would see a bill in session that would expand options to jurisdictions on how we can fund our transportation benefit districts.

I did not want the city to be in this position of being so constrained and confined with the options that we have, but I was disappointed to see we were unable to get something through this session, but optimistic about future sessions.

I'm wondering if we can just go to slide 32, because I appreciate the information you're providing on how this sales tax would impact residents, but really hitting on this point about how we're using these investments to really have a solid return on investment as well.

So I'm wondering if you can speak to, expand a little bit more on the return on investment for the average bus rider for this sales tax, as well as recipients for the new ORCA passes that you're intending to provide to the levy.

I'm happy to speak to that.

And thank you for the question, council member.

The way that I like to think about transportation and mobility is that there really isn't a lot of alternatives.

People have to get the places that they have to go.

So when we're talking about the cost of public transportation, I think it is important to situate that with a fair comparison about the other choices that people make.

You've heard the word choice here a lot.

Obviously, I wanna be clear that some people, actually far too many people face transit insecurity and transportation insecurity.

In fact, I read a recent report that showed that this is actually the number one hardship.

17% of Americans report that they miss important things in their lives because of a lack of transportation access to do that.

wanna be really clear that that is, in fact, a recent study shows a more significant hardship and a more common hardship even than food insecurity in this country.

So when people have to get somewhere and they can't get there with public transportation, their options are to not go, as we discussed, to if you have access to a car to ask for a ride or to pay for the car to go there yourself.

Gas right now is $6.56 a gallon in my neighborhood.

So that's more than the monthly cost for a single gallon of gas there.

Other alternatives, of course, are owning a vehicle.

As I mentioned, AAA estimates that in the state of Washington, it is $12,000 or about $1,000 a month to own and operate a vehicle.

Your other alternatives there would be, of course, a bicycle, if that works for you.

That works for some people, not for everyone.

Let's be clear about that.

Or, TNCs, Uber, Lyft and Taxi, which for many people, a cross ride could be well over $40 to get across town on a single Uber.

So as we start to think about what are the actual choices that people have and what do those choices cost, that is an overview of what options people have.

So not going somewhere, taking transit, asking for a ride, or paying for that ride yourself in a car if you are able to own one, or taking a TNC, a Lyft or an Uber.

Did that answer your question, Council Member?

Thank you.

Did you want to chime in?

Yeah, if you don't mind, I can chime in.

So, you know, when you look at the cost of the free ORCA card in particular, so these are folks who are living at, you know, mostly living at the 30% of the area median income.

So on this slide, that's $38,000 a year or less.

You know, the value of that, just the ORCA card unrelated to the actual service investments is that it's 67 times greater than the amount they pay in actual cost for the tax.

And I have a quote from a message that was sent in from someone from the Seattle Housing Authority who, the original email was in Spanish, but I'll just read what this person said.

I am Rogelio Peraza Cuesta.

I receive a retirement pension of $401 a month, and as you can see, it is not much.

With that money, I have to pay for electricity, which is not cheap for anyone.

and transportation, rent, senior, internet, phone, and other services.

The money is not enough for me.

If it weren't for the Seattle Housing ORCA card, I wouldn't be able to pay for transportation to go to the doctors and pay for some medications that my insurance doesn't cover.

I recently received information that this card will only be valid for this year.

What solution can I make?

Sincerely, Mr. Rigelio Parasa.

I really appreciate those responses.

Thank you so much.

And kind of shifting gears for a moment, I'm sure for many of my colleagues, I don't want to speak for anyone at all, in so many ways.

I know I'm thinking about all the different routes I've taken, and perhaps my colleagues are thinking about the routes within their districts or the times that they've had to wait 30 minutes for the bus.

And I really appreciate the slide seven, which really highlights in the current STM how those investments were able to increase frequency on specific routes.

I think this begs the question around how are we making determinations for the upcoming, for this renewal effort?

Can you walk us through the steps that SDOT is really making in collaboration with King County Metro and identifying which routes will benefit from increased investment?

Yes, can you go to this, I think it's the slide before this.

Yes.

So we would be using the same data-driven, equity-centered investment strategy that we use today.

So we're really looking first at we have our frequent transit network, which is our vision for being able to get across the city at all times of day, where you don't have to look at a schedule.

You just know your bus is coming.

So we start with that frequent transit network and we compare it to what's on the ground today.

That's our list of investments.

And then we're looking at the demographics of each neighborhood.

We have an equity-based methodology that actually mirrors what King County Metro has for their equity investment.

And we see those routes that are connecting different, that are going through those neighborhoods.

If it's a higher equity priority area, that route gets, those trips get a higher score.

So we basically go through a very mathematical process where we're ranking different potential investments.

And then we also are able to actually see the times of day when reduced fare trips are taken, like either with a subsidized annual pass or an ORCA lift card, and those also receive a higher score.

And then we're able to look at all of those, and we coordinate closely with King County Metro in terms of what they're able to deliver So we're also looking at where density is happening in the comprehensive plan, thinking about that, thinking about connecting across east-west, which we all know is really challenging in our city.

I think what I'm most excited about is that This 100,000 hours lets us get back to those pre-2019 service levels.

So if you go to the slide, I think it's the one that looks like this but shows where we're going to be investing going forward.

Keep going, sorry.

There.

Thank you.

These are not the exact investments, but these are using our investment prioritization methodology.

These are routes and really specific investments on the next slide that we would consider making because they are high on that list.

King County Metro is going to be investing over the next two years.

service recovery project that they can speak to better than we can.

But we'll have public outreach, and we'll kind of re-baseline the service levels in Seattle, and then we'll be able to add on top of that.

So it's a little hard today to tell you exactly where service investments will go, since Metro's investments are changing.

All things being equal now, we think this is a possible representation of where we may make those investments.

And the next slide really talks about what those might look like, which I think are really substantial, going from every 20 or 30 to every 15 minutes on weekends, or even every 10 minutes on the D-line.

It's the third highest ridership route in the city.

And on the weekends, it doesn't have service every 10 minutes.

Understood.

And a clarifying question just on this point, understanding that, you know, it's a complicated formula in some ways, trying to really meet this point and really provide equitable service.

I'm wondering if in the current STM there were any shifts specifically between routes just across the course of the current STM, if there were any notable shifts in terms of where we kind of shifted that service?

Yes.

So there are some investments that were carried forward from the very first measure.

And then as King County Metro delivers what are called mobility projects, so like when there's a new light rail station opening or there's some large change to the network, they will look at the service that's in a certain area and go through a community process where they're asking how that might need to change, how that service might need to change.

And we also change our investments during that time.

So actually, if you go to the slide that looks like this, but it's current investments, I think an example would be the Linwood Link Mobility Project.

So go one more.

So this example on the far right here, the Route 75 and 77. So as part of the Linwood Link Mobility Project that King County Metro led, we chose to invest here in a brand new route, the Route 77 that Metro's creating.

that serves Lake City Way, and it will be coming instead of every 30 minutes, which is Metro's baseline in the future, to every 15 minutes.

We also have invested in Metro Flex, Specifically in District 1, we were able to add service in the South Park and Delridge neighborhoods, which have really challenging hills, essentially.

And it's hard to get around there.

And so Metroflex is another way that we've invested.

Again, chosen through by looking at where the highest equity needs are as well.

Thank you for that.

And my last question for today, well, I mean, I really wanna just state again how much I appreciate the data that's been presented today, specifically highlighting the ways that our investments in expanding transit services also directly translated into increased ridership numbers.

I think it's just really compelling to really lift up that point.

And there's been a lot of discussion about what has kind of gone into shaping of the proposal before us today, and you've spoken to some of the engagement that has gone into this, but I wanna just take a moment and zoom in specifically on the racial equity toolkit work.

And I know on slide 19, there's a point here on culturally relevant outreach.

I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit on what that kind of outreach looked like and kind of unpack some more around some of the work that went into the racial equity toolkit as provided.

You're asking specifically about the outreach for the racial equity toolkit, or are you just saying generally outreach and then also

Specifically, generally when you're talking about culturally relevant outreach, what did that look like?

And then anything you'd like to unpack about the work that went into the racial equity toolkit?

So we met closely, met regularly with the transportation equity work group.

I can't remember how many people are in that group, but they are paid community representatives who support, who come together to provide policy recommendations SDOT, and we walked them through, over many months, the thought processes that we had, the analysis that we'd done in terms of the burdens and benefits of a sales tax increase or a vehicle license fee increase and the benefits it provided.

We did multiple workshops to look at specific instances of, you know, for this particular person or someone living in this neighborhood, what would the investment what would the benefit be for them?

So that's a lot of that specific outreach we did.

I'm just trying to think of other pieces here.

Thank you.

A little support coming in from our subject matter experts.

Okay, we also provided in-language communications about STM at community hubs throughout the city as well.

We've talked with all of our partners that we work with through the Transportation Access Program, so whether that's the residents at senior housing where we do outreach or Seattle Housing Authority, Seattle Preschool Program, talking to them.

So that's some of what I'd say.

Great.

Great to hear that there was in-language outreach done.

Thank you.

That was a really important point for me to understand.

Chair, that concludes my questions for today.

Thank you again so much.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

All right.

Colleagues, what other questions, comments, thoughts do you all have?

Let's see.

Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you so much to our presenters.

I really appreciate the time and the information coming from you all.

I will be fairly brief with my questions.

I did want to ask just for an email follow-up.

I really appreciated the overview of the decision-making process around why you chose the sales tax focus as opposed to the vehicle license fee focus, but I didn't capture everything, and I really want to revisit that.

So if I can ask that you send that via follow-up email, that would be greatly appreciated.

And then I wanted to ask actually sort of a more global question just around the strategy.

And I really appreciate the comments around these investments allowing us to return to 2019 service levels.

I know I've just heard questions around trends in transit ridership and both how they are changing, and I think, Alex, you spoke to that, just we're seeing more people not use transit for work, but use it for late nights or weekends or evenings.

And I've heard some questions around, okay, well, do we need to do this investment to go back to 2019?

And so I wonder if you can speak to the impact that that increased service will likely have on increased transit ridership.

Yeah, I'm happy to speak to that, and I'll probably turn it over to Jen.

I'll start by sharing another interesting example, data point that illustrates this trend.

This is about the light rail service, so not a fixer-out bus service, but at Westlake Station, as of last year, Saturdays have higher ridership than days of the week.

So we're seeing very clearly that transit and seeing by people's behavior that they think about transit as an important part of their whole lives and that is reflected in their choices and behaviors that they're making and showing that we even see things like higher ridership on weekends.

For transit nerds like me, this is like a mind-blowing fact.

So I hope you find that interesting as well.

It's very clear, and Jen's got a lot of data we can pull up here where we've seen those investments, that choice is an important part of, and you've heard many people talk about having schedule-free access.

So routes like the G Line have added, for example, tens of thousands of new riders in the Madison corridor that have not been induced from coming from other routes.

They're choosing transit because it is fast, frequent, and reliable, and you can look at it without a schedule.

So when we make transit be an option that comes multiple times in an hour, it makes it an easier and a lower risk choice for people to have.

I like to think about sometimes, again, fair equivalent, if your garage door only opened once every 30 minutes and you had to be in your car in order to zip right out of there, that would be a crisis that we would treat like an emergency.

that is the lived experience for hundreds of thousands of transit riders every day and so when we make those options easier to say you can go out there and try transit and it's going to come every 10 minutes as opposed to every 15 minutes that's a lower risk option that really respects people's time more and and and we have a lot of examples here about where we've seen those investments.

I'd also point to changes in the overall economy.

So demographic changes, both in terms of people choosing sort of a urban and car free or car light lifestyle are reflected in the rates at which even young people are getting their driver's licenses thanks to the state of Washington.

Washington for making transit free for every young person in this state, 19 and under.

We're seeing behavior reflect in those demographics.

Again, we're seeing this very clearly, the momentum towards transit as it relates to the linking key destinations with things like the Line 2, making more destinations, opportunities, and regions accessible has created a catalytic improvements in transit ridership.

and as has the overall cost burden associated with some of the non-transit alternatives.

Did that answer your question, council member?

It did, but I also see Jen leaning into the mic, so I wanted to let her.

I was just gonna say that, so if you go to slide 13, I think maybe you're looking at, these are the transit trends for Seattle routes, specifically those that have 65% of stops in the city of Seattle.

And you can see that the ridership on the weekends is nearly at pre-pandemic times or amounts, and weekday ridership is rebounding.

significantly.

So for people who don't have a car or are trying to get around by transit, do have a car but are choosing to go car light, traveling by transit isn't just like a weekday peak hour situation.

They need service at all times of day.

And so there's something like there's a latent demand piece here of like If you add more service, they will come.

And I hope that some of the data we've provided here and can provide to you additional information, if you'd like to see it, about how when we have increased service, it has resulted in increased ridership.

And we believe that is going to continue to happen as we add these additional 100,000 service hours through this proposal.

So I think it does speak for itself.

These ridership patterns, Alex spoke to this on this slide originally, but there have been a lot of changes in the system itself.

So bus travel is not going to go back exactly in the same way.

Even that 2019 service level slide, those investments, it's not going to be the exact same number of service hours each route as it was in 2019 because travel patterns have changed.

And those evenings, nights, weekends, midday service is when people are riding more.

And that's actually where our biggest gaps are in the frequent trends in our service levels that we have today.

So we really believe that it will result in more ridership and give trust in people so that people have more trust in the system that they don't have to think about, is it 10 minutes today or is it 30 minutes today when I go to the bus stop?

Thank you so much.

Just to add one thought, which hasn't been brought up yet, which is that one of the issues with being able to be reliant on the transit system is to have some redundancy.

We live in a dynamic city where things happen, there are events, there are congestion points, there are unpredictable things that happen on a daily basis, and having the redundancy of a frequent bus network, regardless of whether people ride light rail or use other modes other times, is a really important part of people being able to sort of drive ridership and ride regularly.

So I think that's an important piece.

Staff has been calculating as part of this proposal what this proposal could bring in terms of additional ridership and are estimating about 50,000 additional weekly rides from the investments that we would make through the STM proposal.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that.

Um, I want to turn now to just a question around the length of the proposal and the focus and some of the changes in our city.

So this is going to be, uh, this is proposed at 10 years, um, for us, for this new package.

And, um, and I, I'm sure that there's going to be other council members who have questions around this, but I'll, I'll just do a lead into it, which is we obviously are at a moment where we're seeing, um, We've seen decisions last week from our sound transit board in regard to the future of light rail service in the city and what we know is coming and when.

And as of right now, we obviously don't have a date for Ballard light rail extension.

Can you speak to how the decision making about these investments is meant to sort of reflect changes in the rest of our transportation system?

So just using Ballard as an example, we know it's an area where we are intentionally planning for growth and we're seeing more residents there.

Can you speak to how we're gonna make sure that these investments that we buy from King County are able to adapt and focus on our growing population centers when those population centers may be experiencing different than planned or anticipated levels of service from other agencies.

And I ask this question understanding that this transit measure is not designed to add additional fixed routes, that we can only buy service from Metro, but I do see this as something that's of growing concern to our residents.

So I just want to make sure I understand the question, Council Member Foster.

So you're asking how this 10-year measure, like are you asking why 10 years?

No, you're asking specifically how we're able to adjust, how we're able to remain flexible through this funding source.

Yeah, and also, I mean, so you spoke to already some of the decision-making processes to Councilmember Ring's question in terms of where you're going to be focusing on the investments, and I'm curious about how, you know, population growth and access to other types of service is also going to come into play in those decisions.

OK, great, thank you.

So yeah, I would say that the way that the proposal is set up and our relationship with Metro, it does allow us to have a lot of flexibility.

We buy on top of what Metro delivers, but we can change our investments over time and will to reflect whatever is happening in the moment.

So as, for example, Metro is delivering their service area recovery project, they're going to be working with community and deciding, using their own service guidelines that have a county-wide focus, where those investments are going to go, and then we would be adding on top of that.

So that allows us to adjust over time.

As new light rail stations open up, like Graham Street Station, for example, is scheduled to open during the timeframe of this measure.

And there is a new bus line that Metro is looking at that actually goes down Graham Street that will connect to the light rail station.

That would be an opportunity.

I assume there will be a type of mobility project that Metro would to undergo, and they would restructure their service in that area.

And we would use these resources to partner with them to figure out where we might want to invest on top, how much service we might want to add on top, as an example.

In terms of population growth, the Frequent Transit Network codified in the Seattle Transportation Plan.

And it already takes into account the comprehensive plan growth centers.

But if those are changing and as they change, we can update that vision for the Frequent Transit Network to reflect those growing population centers.

So that would result in increases in frequencies to places with a greater amount of population, that sort of thing.

Those are in a 10-year timeframe.

I would imagine that we would want to update those policy documents to reflect growth patterns as they change.

Got it.

That's helpful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

We'll move next to Councilmember Rivera, followed by Councilmember Juarez.

I think you don't have your hand up formally, but I heard you speak a moment ago.

So first off, Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

And I just want to say that I'm going to thank you in advance.

I know we have a briefing scheduled next week and I have many questions about the slides.

But I just want to ask here for the public.

Well, let me say something before I ask my question, and that is really appreciate the members of ATU who showed up, really appreciate all our transit drivers and wanna make sure we're providing a safe system for our transit drivers.

They're our great partners and I really appreciate them taking the time to come down here and talk to us and give public comment.

The next thing I wanna say is I actually, I could not be more supportive of public transit having grown up in New York City and not having a driver's license till I was 30 years old.

and I also lived in the other Washington D.C.

where I also used public transit.

I got a license right before I moved to Seattle.

So I lived in D.C.

for many, many years using public transportation, both buses to get to their metro system and then the metro.

So I have a lot of experience with public transit I'm so pleased that we have now a light rail system that was not here when I got here.

And I was a frequent bus driver, excuse me, bus rider when I got here 25 years ago.

So all that to say I have a lot of experience with the transit system.

I would...

So my question is, what is the spending plan for this next 10 years of this proposal?

It would be helpful to see, because there are buckets and you kind of talked you had the 119 million a year for service, but there are other pieces to this, 1.4 billion dollar investment over 10 years.

And so would love to see what the spending plan is in detail for each of the buckets, just as a point of transparency on what it's important to show the public what we're getting for those dollars.

When can we see a spending plan, I guess, is my question.

Absolutely.

I believe it's in our summary and fiscal note in detail by year.

This pie chart is an average over 10 years, so it won't be $138 million in revenue every year, and the spending won't be exactly like this every year, but the idea is that, on average, these are the amounts.

And because costs will go up over time over this 10-year period, you should expect lower revenue and lower spending in the beginning, and increasing overtime to higher amounts of revenue in the end and higher amounts of spending in the end.

Thank you.

And I guess what I would love to see is, you know, bus service, 96 million proposed.

I mean, these are averages.

I understand that.

And it changes from year to year based on various things.

And I understand the flexibility based on the need.

and I should have also said I really appreciate the focus on equity because we know, you know, our low income folks utilize the system more.

I also want, I want a transit system where everybody's using the transit system and getting out of their cars even if they have cars and limiting the amount of need for a car and that means that our friends at Metro are gonna have to figure out how to put bus.

There are all swaths of places across the city where there is no robust bus system.

So we're gonna have to work with our friends at Metro to make sure that happens because we keep talking about getting people out of their cars, the climate, environmental impacts, but if we don't have options for them, then they're not gonna get out of their cars.

So that means all across the city, getting to those places where there isn't much of a bus system, particularly with connections to all the light rail stations.

So putting in a plug for all across the city as well in addition to the priority, which I very much support.

But I'd love to see this bus service, which bus routes, right?

The transit access programs, do we pay for?

Seattle Public School students get a ORCA card.

Does that, does SPS pay for that or do we?

because that wasn't listed on here, so I wasn't sure.

So we actually pioneered that through the last Seattle transit measure.

We started that with 300 students at Rainier Beach High School, and we were able to show how successful that was, and now it's actually paid for by the state, completely statewide.

And so we were able to reinvest those dollars in expanding to all of our Seattle Housing Authority residents.

That's how we re-spent those funds.

Great, thank you for that.

I did not know that, so that's really great and it's good for the public to hear.

And then just on some of the infrastructure and some of these capital projects, we'd love to see a list of proposed projects so that people again know we get these questions all the time.

and I you know as you all know I do my due diligence in trying to provide as much transparency and information to the public as we build support for the things that we do and then of course particularly because this particular sales tax increase I have concerns about sales tax increases because of the regressive nature of them and I sometimes feel like we're taxing poor people to support poor people.

And so, you know, low income people to, we tax low income people to support low income people, that doesn't feel great because folks are really struggling to keep up.

And we have one of the highest sales taxes in the city.

So I also would like to see, and I guess central staff will probably give this to us, but just what this point three in addition to the existing sales tax, what impacts that will have for our folks.

Because I'm also mindful that the last time this was passed, it was a 50% increase, but now it's 100%, it's double.

So I just know we need to be transparent and honest about that and what our residents can expect.

that money will go specifically to, I understand there are these big buckets, but it's really important to show what routes, what capital projects, et cetera.

So thank you.

I can share that some of the initial transit capital projects that we're hoping to invest in first would be transit operational safety and access improvements along Route 60 and 45. King County Metro has just done a large study on potential reliability and performance improvements along the Route 60, so we'd use that as a jumping-off point.

And I just wanted to speak to the specific routes I think we intend to add these 100,000 hours to the system within the first couple of years of the measure and then carry those through for the remainder of the time, so the same levels of service or add if we are able to over time in partnership with Metro.

So I think we'll be able to deliver this benefit to residents very swiftly.

and Metro is ready to deliver those service hours, and we've already been talking with them about that possibility.

Thank you.

I still would like to see a list of, but we can talk about that also when we meet next week.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

I won't take up any more of your time.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Juarez, Flores Juarez, if you have any questions or comments.

I do, and I want to apologize, Chair.

I should have raised my hand on the computer.

And for the comment that I made when I realized I was unmuted, let me just share this.

Let me just get some baseline info here.

Obviously, I had some problems with page 29 of the PowerPoint.

But let me just, I want to frame this issue so we can put it in context.

So in 1990, we had the American Disabilities Act.

In 2010, we enacted the American Disability Act standards.

and then Seattle, and then we passed in 2014, the Transit Benefit District.

2015, we put together the Transit Advisory Board, 12 members.

And then in 2018, we had a consent decree that Seattle wasn't living up to the American Disability Acts, the standards that were put forward for accessibility.

And then we have the plan that we looked at in 2020, the ADA transition plan report and how we would respond to the consent decree for accessibility.

and so my big push was equity and accessibility.

And so when I was looking at your PowerPoint, I had two questions.

The first question is this, did the transit, and I think there's a distinction between what you write in the legislation it's interesting to me because in the other language it's called citizen-led not community-led but anyway did SDOT or did the transit advisory board work with the ADA coordinator for SDOT the SDOT ADA coordinator in putting together this doubling of this tax So what we have is more services that you're asking for, more money, double the taxes, but less transit infrastructure, i.e. sidewalks.

So it's all nice of you to all talk about how you love buses and you don't have cars, but that doesn't do anyone any good if you don't have sidewalks to get to transit.

So I want to know whether or not the Transit Advisory Board worked with you guys and the ADA coordinator to put this together and how you could only come up to 3.5 million.

I mean, if you don't have an answer now, I would like an answer and maybe in an email or a memo because I went back and looked at the consent decree.

I went back and looked at the 2020 ADA transition plan report.

And then I went back and looked at the advisory board, the 12 member advisory board.

It's citizen led.

not community-led as is in your legislation.

And I'll tell you one thing, I'm always a little bit offended when you start dragging out the words BIPOC and underserved, because we're not props.

So in order to double this tax, double the, what, 100,000 extra hours in service?

But you're not gonna have, you have less money for transit infrastructure.

so I you can either say hey we'll come brief you and give you some more information if you don't have the answer right now and you know the question I think there's a lot of power in these kind of questions I'm just going to be frank with you I'm not happy with this legislation I think it needs a lot of work and I think you're not optimistic and living in the real world not everyone can you know not have a car some people have to use obviously a bus some people have to drive a car and I don't think this does that, not for asking to double the taxes for 10 years.

So I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today.

As a lifelong transit rider, I have depended on the bus to get around.

I would like to be a daily transit rider.

Oftentimes, that's not the case because I can't rely on the buses that are on our streets today.

You've heard me say this for many for over a year now.

I have not been necessarily quiet about it, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

especially after last week's Sound Transit meeting where I was literally clocking when the last direct bus to Ballard left.

When I left that Sound Transit board meeting at about 7.45 p.m., I was talking to my Pierce County colleagues.

It was going to take us the same amount of time to get home.

They live in Tacoma.

I live in Ballard.

So I've got a number of questions that we'll get into today.

I've asked you all of these questions previously, so I hope that none of these are a surprise and that you're all ready to have that conversation.

A couple things that I didn't expect to ask about was regarding the VLF, I think Council Member Foster and I might be asking a similar question here.

I wonder if you could just say a little bit more, expand on what you said previously.

You mentioned that you'd spoken with a lot of people who said that sales tax was better than a VLF because a flat fee impacts people in a different way.

But in my basic layperson math, if somebody's percentage of their income is taken up in sales tax, would they not be overburdened with a larger sales tax fee as compared to being hit with a flat fee?

I can start in on that.

Sales tax is a proportion of what a person spends, which is a reflection of what they have available to spend.

And so as a proportion of income, yes, sales tax, can comprise, especially for low income people, a higher amount.

But because the VLF is a flat fee, it doesn't, unlike the Sound Transit MVET, the vehicle license fee, which the council has already passed $50 in vehicle license fee through your councilmatic authority several years ago, so this would be the remaining $50 that is authorized in the legislation, would impact everybody regardless of what your income is. and so as we've mentioned for the average household we believe that the impact of this is $58 a year which if we added the additional $50 VLF would double the cost to the average household but produce only 12% more resource that we could create benefit for.

So there's a disproportionate impact both to the cost to the individual that is very outsized to the benefit that it could create in terms of the investments available.

Okay, these questions are just based off the presentation that I've seen today, so I didn't prepare these questions previously.

I'm interested to know more because I'm concerned today, just from the presentation that I've received, that we are actually overburdening people who are at the lower ends of the economic spectrum by not using a flat fee because their budgets are smaller.

So one of the things you said, the amount of money somebody is able to spend but when somebody is cost burdened as we saw in the presentation from this Monday at council briefing, we have many of our residents cost burdened and so my concern is that we are actually using the sales tax and VLF in the opposite manner and so I'd love to learn more.

Happy to be wrong, I hope I'm wrong, but I have great concern there today.

Just add a quick note, just because I think it's relevant and I would love for people to hear this.

Just in terms of sales tax and what it applies to, I think it's worth just mentioning really quickly what is not subject to sales use tax.

So people do not pay sales tax on groceries, on rent, mortgage payments, personal care products like soap, shampoo, et cetera, diapers, prescriptions, and over-the-counter medications.

I just wanted to highlight that sales tax does not apply to some really critical household essentials.

Thank you.

Can we click to slide 30?

Sorry, 27. I was going for 27. Seattle Housing Authority.

Man, I love Seattle Housing Authority.

I've had the opportunity to be their neighbor multiple times in multiple different locations.

The folks that live in our Seattle Housing Authority buildings are amazing.

Some of my favorite neighbors.

Seattle Housing Authority, I think many people don't realize it's not actually a city of Seattle program.

that they are their own independent agency.

Can you help me understand why we chose the Seattle Housing Authority and not other programs where the City of Seattle funds housing for folks who are low income?

Yeah, the Seattle Housing Authority is a really wonderful partner.

One of the challenges with delivering the benefit of ORCA cards to residents who need them is actually getting cards into people's hands and managing and tracking who has which ORCA card, what's the serial number, if they need a replacement, all of that.

And the Seattle Housing Authority has been a proven partner over many years.

We started off with a pilot program with several different properties, and then we're able to expand, as I mentioned before, to all Seattle Housing Authority properties.

And they've just done a really amazing job of that.

And so there has been a lot of community interest specifically in expanding to housing choice vouchers, which is also administered by the Seattle Housing Authority.

And so going through this one quasi-governmental agency, we're able to reach the vast majority of folks who are living in low-income subsidized housing.

And so it's a way to easily and quickly actually deliver the passes to as many people as possible.

It can be very, very challenging actually get cards in people's hands and track them reliably.

So for the next 10 years, we are only going to provide additional access to Seattle Housing Authority residents, not anyone who's low income or anyone who's living in one of our affordable housing units?

Yes, we would be proposing to go through this, carry forward with this plan.

If there were other opportunities to expand, we would look into that.

If there was funds available to do that, obviously we'd love to provide free ORCA cards to everyone who's low income and meets these criteria, but it's really challenging to do that.

The expansion here is to go from SHA residents to SHA residents and Housing Choice Voucher.

So it's a significant expansion, additional 12,000 people.

I love expanding low-income ridership opportunities for free to, you know, $0.

I love the idea.

What I'm concerned with is the response that I just heard is if funds are available, yet this is the funding package in which we are that we're going to approve of and what I'm seeing is that we, just initial reaction, I'm concerned that our focus is too narrow and that we are not providing ourselves the ability to provide free access to transit for low income people no matter where they live.

I'm gonna keep going on because I've got a long list of questions and Chair, we're over time but these are really important questions that I'd like to get on the record so I'm just gonna keep moving on if you will.

looking at slide 29, construction funding.

I might actually be in a different position than Council President Emeritus Juarez here, which is construction funding in this package.

How much construction funding was left over from the most recent Seattle Transit Benefit District measure?

Do you mean the first one, the 2014 one?

Sure, or the second one.

I mean, we've had two.

How much money do we have in the bank today, please?

I know at the end of this measure, we will have fully spent down all of the capital dollars that we have allocated.

Wonderful.

Good.

That's great.

How about in the most recent transportation measure, which is the largest levy that we've passed for transportation, how much construction funding, how much funding do we have associated to assist transit?

The 8-year levy included $151 million over 8 years.

The spend plan for 25 allocated $12.6 million and the spend plan for 26 allocated $14.1 million.

That's an amazing investment.

I'm very excited about that.

My question here is why are we spending money in the transit measure that in my opinion was designed to increase the amount of bus hours that we have available to us?

Why are we taking from the ability to expand bus hours to provide concrete and asphalt in which the transportation levy just funded?

I think that's a great question.

I think that's part of the trade-offs that we've been talking about throughout the conversation today.

I think what you see in this proposal is a return to the sort of baseline that was in the 2020 proposal, so I think it's in alignment with some of the thinking that this is a service-first measure, and we thought there's still value in some amount of ability to put in those speed and reliability improvements that make our dollar go further.

That's really the focus here, is what are the small insertions we can do so that every hour we purchase, the bus can get through faster and it's not stuck.

100%.

That's why the transportation levy investments were so critical to me.

Although 2020 reinvestment in the STM, that was when we reduced bus hour service.

Is that not correct?

Yes.

Yep.

So we'll get into that in just a minute.

I have concern that we are paying for asphalt and concrete when we should be providing additional service hours in our city.

Moving on to Sound Transit, number 28, please.

What positions do these fund?

Sorry, I was taking notes.

You're asking about the sound transit positions?

Yes.

So this funding goes toward the planning, the permitting engineers needed and necessary to review West Seattle Link Extension and Ballard Link Extension projects that will run through our city, the largest infrastructure project related to transit in our city.

This funds the city's team to review and provide that key partnership.

As Sound Transit constructs their projects through the city, we're gonna need to plan for construction coordination, mobility impacts.

Part of this would fund that as well.

We also have a series of planning for capital projects that the city will lead to support the light rail system, and specifically around station locations, so stationary planning, stationary designs, and how to get people to and from those critical new light rail stations from the city's perspective.

Thank you.

And just for while we are here, until we receive full funding for the Ballard Link Extension, I'd kindly ask us to refer to that extension as the Downtown Tunnel, because it does not get to Ballard today.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

It's my understanding, though, that the permitting and the engineers, those are fee-based positions.

So are we proposing to pay for those positions with tax dollars instead of the fees that are generated from pulling those permits?

we have a combination of income that we're utilizing to pay for Sound Transit's projects.

So we are continuing the fee-based, but we also need to support the city level of effort to really look at those station locations and to plan and build out a system that works for communities to get to and from those light rail stations.

A good example is the Pinehurst station that will open up later this fall and some of the improvements that we're making.

We're using levy money for that, but this would help support those types of projects where we're building improvements to get to and from those new stations.

So the fee-based positions that we provided in the budget either last year or the year before, this funding would pay for those fee-based positions?

This would be on top of the fee-based positions.

It's about half and half.

Yeah, it's a combination.

We can give you more information offline on that specific question.

I have large concerns with us paying for fee-based positions with taxpayer dollars.

It's a departure from the past.

It is one of the options that we have when we're stabilizing the core fund for our planners and our permit reviewers, but this is a departure that I have some concern with.

We can follow up in the past.

And I guess my question here is, if the City of Seattle is putting funding into...

Actually, let me ask the other question.

Do we have any of the station area planning funded through the transportation levy as well?

Less on the planning side, more on the building side.

We have once a project has been identified, so you can, there's a period before a project goes into the design phase where there's a sort of conceptualization and actually scoping phase.

We have less money for that in the levy and more for the taking it from 10%, you know, 10% design to construction.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, and that's where I thought I had remembered the Pinehurst station improvements coming from the levy, from the transportation levy.

There are some funds for that in the 2024 levy, yes.

Okay.

What you're hearing from me is deep concern that we're asking for taxpayers to pay for things twice.

I'm not quite clear on the different streams and where these streams are landing.

I'm going to just keep ticking on.

We can happy to follow up after this.

And I guess just last question is, if we are adding money into the Ballard Link Extension and the West Seattle Link Extension, Will the mayor be fully supportive of getting full construction funding to Ballard?

Last week, the mayor has been very supportive of full funding for Ballard throughout the entirety of this conversation and was happy to join you in taking a unanimous vote to that exact matter to put forward amendments which ask for future funding and ensures that we deliver on voter-approved promises and expectations to build to Ballard.

What I heard is yes.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Let's tick into talking about service hours, the most important part of this transit measure, because that's what we were promised in 2014 when Metro had to start reducing hours for our city's delivery.

And we said, well, if King County's not gonna pass a transit measure, Seattle's sure we love our transit, so we're gonna do it.

At that time, how many service hours were we providing?

We can use 2019 as a baseline pre-pandemic.

2014, 2019?

I don't have that number off the top of my head.

Sorry.

If I recall correctly, it was over 300,000 hours.

It was over 300,000, yes.

Thank you.

And how many hours did we have in 2020?

It was 350,000 hours, actually.

350,000 hours in 2019?

Gosh, take me back.

I don't know what they actually went down to, but because of the pandemic, there was a reduction.

Yes, that's true.

And the reason I ask is because my entire life I've been able to walk to a bus stop until September of 2021. And that was the first time that I've not been able to walk to a bus stop in my entire life.

And it was not because I moved, it was because a bus stop, a bus line was canceled and I can live with that.

To be really frank, I don't need my bus stop to come back because my travel patterns changed.

I drive to the bus now.

I drive to the bus that can get me directly to where I'm going.

And what I've found is that, well, we'll get into it in just a minute.

How much service did we have in 2021 after that reduction?

Sorry, I don't have those numbers off the top of my head.

I am so sorry.

I thought I prepped you for all these questions, because these are the same questions I asked you when we briefed previously.

So my apologies.

I am not intending to put you on the spot.

That's why I asked you all these questions when we met independently.

And then, sorry, I'm just going to rattle these off.

How many hours are we experiencing today, and how many are proposed?

So at the end of this measure we'll have over 180,000 hours, and we're proposing to add 100,000 more to get us to 280,000 hours.

There will be additional service from Metro through their service area recovery project, which can address some of the other service hours that were reduced during the COVID pandemic.

Thank you.

And just to note though, in the summer of 2021, we had better bus service than we had in the fall of 2021. And that was during the height of the pandemic, right?

As we were coming out of the pandemic, it was not that we had less bus service during the pandemic.

So just wanna clarify that.

What I'm hearing today is that we today are experiencing less than half of the transit hours purchased than we did in 2019. and I just say that because we had 350,000 hours in 2019 and we have 160,000 hours today.

And what I'm hearing is a doubling of this tax to be able to provide less than 280,000 hours, which is less than what we had in 2019. I am asking these questions because I'm a huge proponent of more buses, more reliability, more frequency.

I want more buses and I want them.

yesterday.

Am I representing this accurately?

So costs have gone up, which is what we were trying to describe in terms of cost of delivery service, including metro service, has gone up.

And that impacts how much we're able to fund in this next measure, given other priorities that are included.

And can we tick to slide?

Well, I'll just ask this question.

And there are five routes that I'm going to be asking about.

The 28 and the 5 both had higher rates of service previously that were reduced.

The Route 20 was a bit of a redundant route for most of it, but it reduced service on Linden between 65th and 55th.

Let's actually, if we could go to slide five, this might actually be descriptive of the Route 20 issue.

So I hope that I am wrong, but when you are looking at the Tangletown area of this map, there's a light blue line.

I think that there might be two different bus routes that you're conflating here.

I believe that the bus route that goes through Tangletown actually turns north about halfway between your two north and south areas because what I'm seeing is on your far right is that I believe that you're actually representing the Route 20 that's been canceled.

So just a little bit of concern there.

I want to take a look at this map importantly.

In 2019, Ballard had the routes 15, 18, and 17. How many trips total were between those three routes in 2019?

I don't know that off the top of my head.

I am so sorry.

I thought I prepped you for all of these questions.

Did not mean to catch you off guard.

And how many trips between those three routes occur today?

I also don't have that information.

I'm, again, so sorry.

I thought we prepped for this.

So it is four trips into downtown per day and four trips out of downtown per day.

The reason that I say that this is the only direct bus service to and from Ballard to downtown is because the D-line If uptown's downtown, then the D-line goes directly downtown.

But the uptown jog is not.

I will take the D-line to Seattle Center.

But if I need to rely on it anywhere past Seattle Center, it's not reliable for me.

Route 40 is a total milk run, which I love for many different reasons.

But it is 45 minutes to an hour to get from this destination here to downtown Ballard.

I'm not stumping just for my neighborhood.

I am trying to represent an area that the city has decided to focus job and housing growth in a denser fashion than many other parts of our city.

There are many people that I grew up with in Ballard that did not like the changes that are happening in Ballard.

The family that used to be able to afford to the American dream is not able to.

They have been displaced from the neighborhood because the city has chosen to focus density and growth in the neighborhood.

And yet on this map, what I'm seeing is the best Ballard has is frequent 10 minute transit.

Am I mistaken there?

Well, I see, I'm not trying to be contradictory, so apologies.

I just see, so the green lines are better than 10 minute, yellow is frequent 10, blue is frequent 15, and I see both yellow and blue lines in Ballard.

And no green.

Correct.

Yep.

And the yellow lines that are represented are the lines that are on these milk runs that I've just discussed.

There's no Well, maybe if we could go to slide three.

It has been my understanding that we have been able to collect the amount of tax revenue that Seattleites desire to have used for transit service, but yet we have not been able to use that full amount of funding because, and I'm not trying to point fingers, I'm just trying to talk about reality.

Metro has had a shortage of operators, shortage of buses, other implications, but the whole point of the Seattle Transit measure is that Seattleites are paying for more service for Seattleites to use.

How much of the funding have we collected that we have not been able to use for transit hours?

I don't know that we can speak to an exact number of dollars, but we've been able to add as many service hours as Metro's been able to deliver.

And as mentioned in terms of the additional capital funds, we were able to pivot and use capital funds in that time when Metro was less able to deliver additional service to improving access to transit and speeding up and making transit more reliable throughout the city.

And Metro is at a place where they are able to deliver more service.

As I mentioned, we plan, should this proposal move forward, we've received, Metro has let us know that they would be able to add those 100,000 service hours within the first two years of the measure.

So they would be able to deliver on that, and that's one of the reasons we wanna make sure that we're expanding transit service as much as we possibly can.

Thank you, but today we do not know how many dollars we have not been able to use.

We will spend, we will be, we are at the level where we're getting, we're spending all the dollars committed on transit service from the 2020 measure and we are getting the service that we're requesting from Metro.

I will say yes and no to that.

One of the reasons that we're able to do that is because of my favorite new program, the Golden Gardens Direct Bus.

Golden Gardens is one of the only parks in our city that does not have direct bus, doesn't have any bus access.

at all.

And it's akin to Alki.

We'll go on in just a minute to see the maps between Golden Gardens and Alki.

I'm so excited about the Golden Gardens direct bus service.

And the only reason that we've been able to pay for it is because we cannot pay Metro enough to have regular service.

And so, I'm both super excited for this program and super excited that we have a funding source that is able to create the Golden Gardens Direct, but more than getting to the Golden Gardens on a bus, I'd rather be able to rely on transit every day rather than just three months of the year.

Can we go to slide 24?

So now getting into your present, your, and Chair, I'll try to wrap up briefly here.

So potential new service here, I see that there is no new direct service to Ballard.

Is that correct?

We can't add new routes through this measure.

We add additional service on Metro's routes.

So we have improvements in Ballard as well on this as an illustrative example.

But the 17 is currently running today.

Is that not correct?

I believe that's an express route.

That's correct.

And we at STM, we don't currently fund express routes because we're trying to have a broader benefit to as many people as possible.

It was only made an express route because Metro decided that they couldn't continue funding it at a full-time route.

So it used to be a full-time route and changed to an express route.

Is there any reason that we can't make it a full-time route?

or the, and like getting back to it, I don't care if you use the 15, the 17, the 18, I don't even care if you get all the way out into the ends of those lines because candidly, I think that the ends of the lines are a little bit too far.

All I'm talking about is how do you get more bus service from downtown Ballard to downtown Seattle, from downtown Ballard to our link light rail?

do we have any proposals to connect the regional center of Ballard to downtown directly or to light rail directly?

So I think what we're saying is that we, at this moment sitting here, don't have an ability to commit to new routes because this is something we purchased.

We purchased ours.

We don't purchase new routes.

Certainly, as Jen has mentioned, there is a whole, in our future years, there is a service analysis that Metro is planning on doing.

And as part of that, there will probably be changes to routes.

We don't know what those are at this moment.

but STM will still move forward with a purchase on existing lines and in collaboration with King County Metro and through those discussions could make final decisions on what gets funded.

So I'm hearing maybe.

Yeah, that's fine.

I mean, if that's the answer, that's the answer.

I'm not trying to be silly or coy.

I'm just trying to be direct as to what do we know today.

It's certainly a collaboration and conversation that's ongoing with King County Metro.

And the one bright line is that we will buy hours on routes that exist.

If over time a route comes, we will definitely run it through our formula and buy hours if it's in existence.

And do we have the policy choice of purchasing hours on express routes?

Is that why the 28 and the 5 also have reduced, or I guess the 28 specifically has reduced service?

I can't speak to that specifically, but we do support the service on the D-line, Route 48. We did talk in our briefing about the significant investments we do make in the Ballard area, and I think what we're trying to illustrate through this example or potential places where we would invest with an additional 100,000 service hours is that we think Ballard would be well served by that.

And we would be able to add additional service in that area, connecting folks all over the city.

And this is where I think we're maybe talking past each other a little bit.

Using the D-line or the Route 40 from Union Station back to Ballard takes me the same amount of time as it takes my Pierce County colleagues to get back to Tacoma.

that's the problem that I'm trying to solve.

So Route 40 and D-line are absolutely important and critical, and I'm here to support them.

But what I'm saying is, if Ballard has been asked to take on the regional density and job growth, how are we not creating a direct line there?

I think obviously the travel time that people experience is a really important factor in their choices.

So absolutely, we share a concern that people have effective and timely connections.

The RapidRide system is right now, as far as a sort of surface running transit system goes, the best product we have out there to offer people fast, schedule-free, reliable service, which is why we have sort of stepped up to, you know, the For example, on the map, it had showed a less than 10-minute service through Interbay up to Ballard, right?

So it doesn't get you through Ballard, but it gets you to Ballard.

15th and Leary is a stretch.

Sure, sure.

Understood.

I'm sorry.

I don't mean to be rude here.

Yeah, no, understood.

I think one of the challenges we have is the physical reality of moving through a dense urban environment, which is different than going distance on a dedicated right of way.

We, too, want to get people through the city as quickly as we can.

The Rapid Ride product is our best way to do it right now.

A new route would be stuck in traffic, too.

So a new route, though, of 17, 18, or 15, if we could go to slide 25, the D line used to be the 15. and this route here that's described in the third column is actually an amalgamation of the old 15 and the old 18 routes.

And so that's how much of a transit geek I am around here.

And so this route, the 15 is literally this route except it doesn't go to Uptown.

So you're saying that we don't have the ability to run that route.

Are we able to run the D line, an express D line that doesn't go to Uptown?

I think I'm saying something slightly different, which is that the ability to move people quickly at grade with the time it takes to on-off and fare pay is a reality that we're dealing with in getting people as quickly as possible there, and that right now that product that we have in the RapidRide with prepayment and all the things that come with it is the fastest way we can move people through, and perhaps there are more opportunities for lanes and other transit signal priority that will help.

But there's just a sort of physical friction challenge we're all faced with here.

You're one of my favorite people to work with because of this type of conversation.

We are totally aligned.

Just like we are totally aligned on this.

And that's one of the things that I love working about you.

Without having this depth of the conversation, you weren't in the pre-meeting.

you didn't hear any of this and you and I are already straight aligned.

What I'm saying is that the geographical choice of going through Uptown creates a reduction.

It expands the amount of time it takes to get anywhere so much so that it becomes less reliable or sometimes unreliable.

And that's because we have one lane roads on and off of Queen Anne.

And there's no room for a bus lane.

like there's one lane total.

And so this is the problem that I'm sharing with you because in the original Seattle Transit measure, we had over 300,000 service hours.

And actually this is where if you could go to slide 30. My question here is, we had over 300,000 service hours in the first round of STM, and I appreciate the last point here, 0.223% sales tax is the baseline for renewal.

How much more service would we get if we used all of our service dollars today?

I don't understand the question.

I'm sorry.

Last year in the budget, I had the ability to reroute Seattle transit measure dollars to fund the Golden Gardens direct bus because we were not fully utilizing all of the dollars in our budget for metro to run service.

How much of the 0.223%, how much more service could we get as compared to today if we were able to utilize all of the current dollars that we have earmarked for transit service.

So maybe I'm just...

It's 180,000.

It's 180,000 service hours.

That's what this is.

So there is no change to the level of service that we would be able to buy would be 180,000 hours.

It would be the status quo, the measures renewed exactly as it is.

We would be already having to increase the sales tax rate to 0.223.

but frankly we are delivering as much service as Metro is able to provide.

So we'll again be at over 180,000 hours at the end of this measure.

Yeah, that issue that existed 2018, 2019 and coming out of the pandemic where Metro was struggling to keep up with demand in terms of drivers, mechanics, base capacity, vehicles, that's not an issue anymore.

They're able to provide the service that we want to buy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can you actually go to the map about the equity distribution in the city?

And this is something that I want to be really clear about.

I'm not looking to take service hours from any other part of the city.

Councilmember Schraus, I'll ask you to please wrap up your questions and ask maybe some of the- we're starting to dive into very detailed, specific questions.

I know you received a briefing, but I'll ask that you, as much as possible, get another briefing offline and dive deeper into some of these details.

Thank you.

This will be my last set of questions here.

And it's an important point that I want to make.

I'm not asking to take money from other parts of the city.

In this analysis, you see that Ballard is a low priority area on your map.

and I don't need to take money from other routes, from other parts of our city.

The questions that you've heard me ask today are how do we use our dollars more efficiently to provide the, take buses, if you take one bus off of Route 40, one bus off of Route D and you create a direct line, you have created 50% more direct service to Ballard than you have today.

That's one bus from each of those lines.

and so I'm not looking, but when I look to West Seattle with my friend, council member Saka, in Alki, there's more investment than in Ballard.

West Seattle is not, no offense, but you're not a regional center, but Ballard is. and so West Seattle's not being asked to focus the housing and jobs in the same way as Ballard is, and yet West Seattle has more direct service.

Chair, I'll wrap up here just to say it feels through this conversation, it feels like Metro's forgotten about Ballard.

Last week, Sound Transit forgot about Ballard.

and today it feels like this proposal is forgetting about the Ballard Regional Center that is being asked to take on more housing and job growth than other parts of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

I appreciate your zealous advocacy for your district, including Ballard.

I know the intent there was not to pit Ballard against West Seattle.

They are both wonderful, unique, and vibrant communities.

I will say, though, that West Seattle is Seattle's largest neighborhood by both population and landmass.

But again, both wonderful, vibrant communities.

I had planned colleagues on going up till about 1 today.

And as was noted, we are running long.

I have some brief closing comments to make.

We have, it looks like, one more question, and I want to be mindful and respectful of our 100% volunteer co-chairs' time for the tab, who are our next agenda item.

I think they said they need about five, 10 minutes, then additional questions.

So we're still on track.

We're still tracking for that.

One more question.

Hopefully it's fairly brief.

Councilmember Rivera, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to ask for the record, page 30. As you all know, I have concerns about the sales tax increase regressive, and also this is a doubling.

So if you go to the baseline, it would be 0.22 about sales tax instead of 0.15.

But then you wrote here anything less would require cuts from today's level of investment and that didn't make sense because a baseline renewal denotes that you're gonna, if we continue to do what we're doing it would be 0.22%, it would be 0.22%.

So it sounds like what you're saying is if we don't go to the point three we can't do the additional things that are in here and there are additional things in here.

So I just want to be really clear because this is misleading that somehow if we don't do the point three it's going to cut to today's and that's I don't think that's true.

It will cut additional things that we want to add in here and I think for me therein lies also the rub is we keep doubling everything and on sales tax in particular it is the most regressive which then I wanna say on page 19 when you talk about, you recognize it's regressive and you're looking at the burden versus the benefit, but it's gonna benefit the folks who are most impacted by the regressive nature of this.

That doesn't land well, I think, because, you know, on the one hand we're saying there you know we don't want them to have to be burdened but then we're saying but we're going to tax them and burden them so then we can give them something on the back end it just that doesn't make sense to me and so this is why I'm always very concerned about sales tax increases and why I raised that earlier so I am concerned about this particular proposal but I do and I do want to hear more about the particulars including the spending plan because of that.

But I do have concerns about the price tag of this proposal and this constant doubling of everything that we seem to be doing because we're talking about affordability on one side of, you know, on the one hand and then we're like doubling everything and I don't think that takes into account.

that that is creating an affordability issue for folks.

So thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to say that for the record and correct that slide, because that's important.

Thank you.

One final comment?

One final...

Can we just address the...

So I just wanted to address slide 30 and the question about...

It was kind of the footnote at the bottom of the screen there.

The baseline currently is 0.15, and so just to be clear, the 0.15 is not enough to continue carrying the level of service that we have carried over the last several years.

What would be necessary if we were gonna continue with the same hours would be the 0.223.

That's what we were trying to say there, Councilmember Rivera.

So I hope that's more clear, but we can always answer questions behind the scenes here.

Yes, thank you, because I understood that to mean the .3.

I thought the way it was written was a little confusing, so thank you for it.

So you could have done a .22, but you didn't.

And so that's what I also want to hear about, because this is, again, a regressive tax, and so we could have done the .22 and kept the level of service we have today, but instead you went higher.

And I didn't hear options for, you know, less.

or even continuing the .15, knowing that we might not continue today's service, what could go?

I mean, it's good to have options, particularly when you're talking about a regressive tax.

And I just didn't hear that today, so when we meet, I'd like to hear more about why you chose not to have options that included you know, keeping it where it is today or just keeping or just doing the 0.22, which would have kept today's service, but it's less than the 0.3.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

A couple brief comments and additional reflections from my perspective and close this out.

We'll move on to our next item.

So the proposed expansion of transit service at 50% above baseline.

I happen to ascribe to the Council Member Deborah Juarez model that as you expand service, the surrounding experience, that's what I'll call it, the experience, because it's not just infrastructure, the experience of the transit journey should also be, see some corresponding level of investment increase.

And, you know, what that looks like varies on circumstances, but I've said it before, I'll say it again.

Transit service, in my view, is not like the fill the dreams.

If you build it or expand it, they will come.

We need to create a more robust, vibrant, safe transit experience so people are actually delighted and excited to take transit and then and only then will we better achieve all of our stated policy goals, whether it relates to climate and the environment, you know, economy, reduced congestion, density, growth, housing, whatever it is.

And so that whole experience, whether we're talking first and foremost, in my view is safety, the whole issue of transit safety and security.

was referenced earlier, the 2024 voter-approved transportation levy investment of $9 million.

There was some conversation there and assumptions made about the adequacy and sufficiency of that level of investment.

Now, I want to note two things.

I happen to think it's an inadequate and insufficient amount.

I want to note two things since that time.

Two significant events have happened.

First and foremost, King County Metro operator Sean Yim, operator number 21882, was tragically murdered in the line of duty on 12-18-2024, December 18th.

Fallen.

ATU member.

Murdered for just doing his job, trying to get people safely to their job or their connection or wherever they needed to go.

I have here in my hand a patch.

Let us never forget the service and sacrifice of Shawn Yim.

That highlighted the huge need and imperative to improve the transit experience.

Yes, and including safety.

That's why I think we can't hang our hats on a previous investment before a couple significant events happen and think that's enough.

The second key thing that happened, as a result of Sean's tragic loss, there was enough political will created around our region to create the King County Regional Transit Safety and Security Task Force.

They released over a hundred page plus report with some very concrete, specific steps and investments and things that all jurisdictions can do to improve transit safety and security.

And also one of the key learnings from that is this notion that improving transit safety and security is a shared responsibility.

It's not one, it's not a responsibility borne by any one jurisdiction or not, and this, because you're an operator of the service and we're just a customer, you do it and, you know, we'll include whatever in our baseline, but we'll not go above on top of that in terms of gravy.

No, Seattle must invest on top of that.

and so this opportunity here with this proposed renewal of the Transportation Benefit District gives us also a unique corresponding opportunity to revisit those levels of investment for transit safety and security and actually implement, if we have the political will, some of those bold but admittedly to some maybe less sexy ideas for actually improving the transit, safety, and security experience, operators, riders alike.

I believe there is will.

And point number one.

Point number two, as was kind of surfaced in a few of the conversations and exchanges with my colleagues, I generally agree with the principle of service first approach that I heard for funding of this measure.

At the priority, at the principal level, I think probably all of us, most of us are aligned.

It's not what it's...

We're not limited to that, but under authorized uses under state law, but I agree with that.

Generally, service first.

The real, you know, some of the You know, most productive conversations happen when, well, what does that mean?

And putting aside the fact that the proposal would double the sales tax rate, impact affordability, expand service by 50%, but not add additional on-top-of-baseline investments to improve the transit safety and security experience or add any new ADA accessibility ramps or curb ramps in light of the Reynolds consent decree, any other ADA accessible features, an occasional new sidewalk or two to connect people safely to transit.

and again, we'll talk more about this at the next meeting when we have our central staff analysis, but the authorize, the legislative authorized amount based off of material changes in scope that were duly authorized and approved by the Council of Capital is $12.7 million annually.

And this proposal would significant, doesn't even, not only does it not adjust that baseline level for inflation, but the net result is a significant reduction in that.

So those are some of the important policy conversations we're gonna have here in this body, in open, in plain sight, in a transparent manner for everyone to see.

But I appreciate the comments, appreciate the presentation, appreciate our partners at the mayor's office, the executive, the department for bringing forth this proposal.

Now, we will now move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record.

Agenda item two, briefing and discussion, Seattle Transit Advisory Board consultation on the proposed 2026 Seattle Transit measure.

All right.

Will our presenters please join us at the table?

Welcome.

When you're ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Is this how this works?

Great.

Thank you, Council and Chair Saka for having us here today.

We know it's been a long meeting with a lot of information, so we do not want to take up too much more of your time.

What we've passed out to you is a letter that the Transit Advisory Board passed yesterday, which we'll kind of draw off of for our conversation today.

detailing our reaction to the mayor's proposal.

So to introduce ourselves, my name's Ashwin Pumbla.

I'm one of the co-chairs of the Transit Advisory Board.

Hi, my name is Zach Burton.

I'm also a co-chair on the Transit Advisory Board.

And just to give some context, the Transit Advisory Board is the Public Oversight Committee of the STM and its funds.

We have been on the board for a handful of years now, so we have been briefed on the current STM many times, and the current STM has been very successful we approve of all the successes of the current STM.

And just to give some context, I just work in the coffee industry and I'm a car-free resident of Capitol Hill.

I love public transit, I use it every day.

I come from a suburb in Missouri where we had no public transit, so to me, Public transit is extremely important, I rely on it, and I have lived experience with that.

And with all of that in mind, the TAB as a whole is thrilled with the Mayor's proposal.

We wholeheartedly endorse this proposal, which has a great deal of alignment with our priorities.

We laud its focus on improving transit service, meeting frequent transit network goals, expanding transit access through the TAP programs and keeping essential transit services and connections like the streetcar and with this proposal we see every dollar being collected being spent as optimally as possible with the vast majority going towards immediate visible and effective changes in transit service.

We believe this proposal is exactly what Seattle needs and that it will pass out the ballot.

The great thing about transit service is that we can implement it immediately, so the STM will make these meaningful changes immediately, and we don't have to wait four, five, six years to see improvements.

I'm gonna let Ashwin go into more some of the details of why we support this, but we do support the mayor's proposal as a board.

Yeah, and you've heard over the course of the last couple weeks and couple hours the details of this proposal.

We don't need to tell it to you all again, but just to kind of go over what's in our letter and what Zach spoke to, we agree that or maybe before that I'll take a step back and say like every year the tab gets numerous presentations on how STM dollars are spent in that year.

Every year we formulate a letter, we send it out to council and I bring this up to say that we have seen how these funds have been used and we more than anybody agree as the Public Oversight Board that It's our responsibility as a board and collectively to ensure these funds are used responsibly.

And I really want to stress that in our estimation it has.

The best predictor of the future is the past.

We are very, very happy with the reports that we've gotten from SDOT over the years, how we've seen this money be spent.

And so going forward for the new measure, We going forward for the new measure.

Sorry, one second.

We view it as primarily an affordability measure.

We know that there's been a lot of talk and rightful concern over any increase in taxation, and we just kind of want to bring up the idea again that it is not only all of Seattle, but especially those most cost-pressed who are going to benefit from the investments that this makes.

Two years ago, the council, and I know it was a different council then, I do believe that still a majority of the members are the same.

Two years ago, council unanimously passed the Seattle Transportation Plan, which included many different items for a 20-year plan for the city, right?

In this was the frequent transit network.

in this as well was the climate change response framework which laid out the city's plan to address climate change by tackling an aggressive mode shift away from single occupancy vehicles towards transit.

This That measure was passed unanimously by council because I believe that council then understood that these were changes that we needed, that weren't optional over the next 20 years.

They were needed from an affordability angle.

They were needed from a safety angle, from a climate angle, and also a geometry angle.

I believe some public speakers brought this up earlier that Seattle's a growing city and there is legitimately, geometrically, physically not enough space for us to keep using single occupancy vehicles in the same way we are now.

So here we have a chance to take these plans and move them off of just aspirations.

We have a chance so that in 2044, we're not looking back at the last 20 years, looking back at the grand designs we had and asking, where did we go wrong?

What steps didn't we take?

We believe this measure is a step in that direction.

And we highly encourage council to keep that in mind over the amendment process.

As part of amendment process, the tab will stay in tune and we'll send out letters to all of you as we understand more of what your amendments are, offering our perspective.

And I also wanted to thank, we reached out to council members over the last couple months and thank you so much to those who we were able to meet with and to understand the priorities of your district.

And we really want to work together with all of you to make sure that this legislation is the landmark piece of legislation that it can be going forward.

That's all we have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Did I hear something?

Oh, I said thank you as well.

Oh, cool.

Cool.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mr. Burton, Mr. Fumbla.

How do you pronounce your last name, Ashman?

That was pretty good, Bumbla.

It's a tricky one.

All right, all right.

Super cool one, though.

Well, thank you, gentlemen, Beau, for your presentation, your overview.

and it's like the letter was just presented here, skimmed it, but I'll reveal it more closely in detail, dated today, later.

So thank you.

Colleagues, welcome any questions or comments you may have.

And remember, we're our own worst enemy from potentially getting out of here.

Well, I'll start with you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

Respectfully request to extend this meeting another 45 minutes.

I am totally joking.

I'm so sorry.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for this letter.

Very timely.

You align with me in so many ways.

That first bullet point of an even larger percentage I am reading from their letter, the bolded section, or I guess the whole sentence is, to this end, we also believe an even larger percentage of funds, at least 60% should be spent directly on transit service.

100% agree.

I guess when we're stuck in these moments, we're limited to either increase the total amount of revenue or to create trade-offs within the package as described.

That's why you saw me ask a whole lot of questions about the other parts of this program because I'm already looking, how do we increase the amount of transit service that we purchase?

I'll ask the three questions and this is like the end point, right?

Were you, was the Transit Advisory Board, were you asked to give your input during the development of this?

We were.

Okay, great.

And then when you were asked to sign off on this, were you provided any different options that could be taken into account, whether it was like VLF or, if you wanted to move things around within this levy, were you provided that opportunity?

Yeah.

It was less that we signed off, I should say, on the proposal, but we were briefed through over the last year at many different times with how the proposal was going.

We gave our feedback.

We did see kind of over the last couple of months, different options.

And in that moment, we have a specific subcommittee dedicated to STM.

That subcommittee gave its opinions on which of those options we preferred the most.

Fantastic.

And was your feedback put into the plan or was it just listened to?

It's hard to tell how much came from us and what was incorporated as a direct part of our feedback and how much was coming from S.D.A.T. and the Mayor's Office in general, but as our letter points out, we see a great deal of alignment The letter that we sent on March to all of Council goes over kind of the main points that we were looking at, which was, yes, increasing to from 0.15 to 0.3% sales tax.

Yes, having a 60% minimum spent on transit service.

And we were delighted to see that the mayor's proposal included the same.

And so if you had a magic wand, how would we get to at least 60% transit service?

Last question, and I don't need to speak again, Chair.

I may be misrepresenting things for which I'll ask the folks at SDOT to maybe correct me after the fact.

But we had our TAB meeting yesterday.

We got a presentation on STM.

And I believe that that 60% minimum is in the mayor's proposal already.

Yeah.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Any other final questions, comments, colleagues?

Oh, and I just wanted to say, we'll be sending out this letter in an email form as well.

So sorry.

I know Council Member Juarez will be able to send that to you, too, as well.

Yeah, it'd be nice.

Thanks.

Will do.

Excuse me.

Terrific.

Well, thank you.

Really appreciate you gentlemen again.

I appreciate your partnership as well offline.

I feel so, speaking of adequacy and sufficiency, every time I engage with you guys, I feel so totally inadequate and insufficient in terms of level of coolness, your vibes, your coolness, vibes, and look.

I just love it.

And thank you for dressing up for this occasion.

But you're still very cool.

Thank you, everyone.

One final comment to close us out.

I'm going to say this because I know some of our partners from the executive are still here.

I really do love the support and expansion of the transit access in terms of equity that is included in this proposal in terms of preserving the existing level of people serving, but not only that, expanding that.

and some valid questions were asked, some terrific questions from some of my colleagues around the appropriate partners to leverage for that.

But again, let's start with the principal level and the priority level.

principle and priority level.

I think it's a terrific investment.

And as someone, you know, my sort of journey and personal experiences are sort of well-known and documented at this point.

Someone who's overcome the foster care system, experienced free and reduced lunch, you know, Section 8 housing, all those things.

But more importantly, a very regular, robust transit rider over the course of my life.

Had my first job at age 15, living in the valley in Kent.

Took the 150 from Kent to South Center Mall to my job at the mall.

And, you know, at the time it was 75 cents for kids or under 18. Now it's free because of a variety of levels of investment.

And I remember vividly, you know, those transfer passes that Metro provides.

I remember collecting all of them, all the colors.

It's not just green that they have, they have teal.

and turquoise and like 14 offshoots of green and then red and same thing.

I had all of, well, almost all of them, but they're really, they're all different.

They all include different numbers on them or, excuse me, letters.

And I would try and pass those off.

I would go to work and try and save 75 cents in the afternoon and pass and show the driver.

And the driver's all new.

They're smart people.

They knew the letters didn't match up and they gave me a pass anyway.

So shout out to the operators for all they do to the earlier point.

Part of this is about providing opportunity.

There's a certain sense of pride when you touch, when everyone taps to get in.

I heard one of the operators, ATU members say exactly that.

and to close this out, that's what this program supporting and expanding transit access from an equity perspective helps all of us do and be dignified when we show up and use our vibrant transit network as well.

So thank you all.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

The next meeting of the Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District will be held on June 18th, 2026 at 9.30 a.m.

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

Hearing and seeing none?

We are adjourned.

It is 12.47 PM.

Thank you.