Seattle City Council Transportation Committee 1/21/2025

All right.

Good morning.

The January 21st, 2025 meeting of the transportation committee will come to order.

It is 9 32 AM.

I am Rob Saka, chair of the transportation committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Rink.

Here.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Present.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

All right.

Thank you.

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

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

All right.

Good morning, everyone.

Today is our first committee meeting, transportation committee meeting of the new year, but It's also the first transportation committee since the tragic murder of King County Metro bus driver, Sean Yim, who was killed in December in Seattle in the U district.

Now, as our office continues to form the committee agenda for 2025, transit security and work plan for 2025, I will tell you definitively that transit security will be a significant policy area in which we take on.

I am also fortunate to serve as not only chair of this committee, but vice chair of our city's public safety committee.

We also have chair of the public safety committee that sits on this committee as well.

And council member Bob Kettle.

And.

Speaking of which, Council Member Kettle and I, in our respective roles as chair, vice chair, and chair and member, had a very productive meeting last week with ATU Local 587, where we specifically discussed transit security.

Every driver and passenger should feel safe while taking our transit system in Seattle and beyond.

And we remain firmly committed to making sure we deliver on exactly that promise and doing better to achieve exactly that result.

Moving on with respect to levy spending plans, colleagues, really, but members of the public as well, SDOT is requesting meetings with council offices and staff regarding their proposed levy spending plan, which is due to the council.

By January 31st, 2025, as this new levy approved by voters recently in November 2024, SDOT will be presenting their proposed annual spending plans.

This is especially crucial this year, their first year rollout and delivery of the levy.

In terms of today's agenda, we have very important good governance items to keep our city moving, including new permit, propose new permits and propose permit renewals.

Also really important information on school traffic safety.

That said, we will now move on to our open and 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 have one in-person speaker and one remote.

All right.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with the in-person speakers first.

Clerk, could you please read the public comment instructions?

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

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

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

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

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

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comment 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.

And that first speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and killer.

My name Alex Zimmerman, I'm president of Stand Up America.

I'm a Trump supporter for 10 years in my election.

It's very good, Phil, win.

It's exactly what I'm fighting for all my life, of, by, and for the people.

Viva Trump!

So, right now, very simple point, and I spoke before you, Consul Sakhar, you know what has been twice before.

For last four months, I go every day, I repeat again, to admin, in admin go to your office, he ask staff, talk to me for one minute, behalf of dozen, thousand people, what is I want to explain, situation, what is kept, can keep these people much happy, because you stealing their money, and you doing this.

You, exactly, personally responsible for this.

And nothing happened.

Four months every day, why they, I don't, yeah.

Freedom of speech right now exists.

Yeah, I know this.

I can use everything what I want.

But I don't want to use the reward, you know what it means, about your stuff.

Four months, every day.

Admin, go to your office.

Ask for one minute, speak with me.

And nobody want doing this for four months.

Who are you?

You are a real Nazi pig.

No, pardon, cockroach, you know what it means.

It's exactly what has happened.

And I want talking about thousand, dozen thousand Seattle low-income who have problem with money paying for ticket, not legally.

We have rules that is everybody broke, include you.

Stand up, America.

Viva Trump.

Viva new American revolution.

We need to cleanse this dirty government totally.

A Nazi and kill it.

Okay, our last speaker and remote speaker is David Haynes.

David, when I allow you to talk, remember to press star six.

Hi, thank you.

Transit Authority, Transit Police and the Seattle Police Department and the bus drivers need to be encouraged to work together to combat all the crime that's overwhelmed the transit system.

And a separate issue that council is discussing today, we need to reimagine the neighborhoods as being resident pedestrian-centric, where you have automatic lights that trigger the pedestrian crosswalk to make it safer so that we can calm the roads.

We have way too many roads because we're living in a 20th century negative side effect and we're trying to patchwork fix it And we need to realize that there literally is too much accommodation to the laziness of the modern wheel driving through every block.

And I hope that we're able to expedite the understanding of that and have a great American housing build out in the near future.

And good luck.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you, David.

That is all our speakers.

All right.

There are no additional registered speakers and we will now proceed to our items of business today.

So clerk, will you please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, resolution 32158, a resolution granting conceptual approval to install, maintain, and operate a below-grade pedestrian tunnel under and across Boren Avenue North, north of Denny Way, as proposed by Oney Boren Avenue, Seattle LLC, as part of the construction of 121 Boren Avenue North in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

All right, thank you.

And looks like our presenters have started to join us at the table.

Please, once you're ready, introduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

Yolanda Ho, Council Central Staff.

Amy Gray, Seattle Department of Transportation.

So I wanna thank Council again for the opportunity to brief you on four pieces of term permit legislation before you today.

These resolutions and ordinance present a unique opportunity to see the program at different points in the permit process from new projects to renewals to re-permitting expired term permits.

These items were presented in depth at the December 17th Transportation Committee.

So today I'll be just providing a brief overview.

So should I go to the, are they going to be read in?

You have the presentations on your computer.

Oh, sorry.

Do you want the presentations up?

Because we could do it either way.

For a frame of reference, yeah, I think that would be helpful.

And I think there was going to be just a very light overview and refresher.

Correct, yeah.

I believe Amy was gonna present agenda items one and two together because they both pertain to the same projects.

We're just gonna pull that up right now just so you can see the site location and understand the context of the proposal.

You want me to pull it up?

I got it.

Bill's got it.

I always hear pitch back up.

ID.

While we're doing that, maybe we should read item two into the record.

Okay.

Gender item two, resolution 32159, a resolution granting conceptual approval to install, maintain, and operate a below grade private thermal energy exchange system under and across Boren Avenue North, North of Dennyway is proposed by Oney Boren Ave, Seattle LLC, as part of the construction of 121 Boren Avenue North in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

Thank you.

So these resolutions are for conceptual approval of the pedestrian tunnel and a thermal heat exchange under Boren Avenue North, north of Denny Way.

The pedestrian tunnel will connect the residential hotel office and other logistical uses between the new building at 121 Boren to the Ani Southlake Union residential building.

The thermal heat exchange will be the final connection between the three buildings to share energy between all of them, reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.

City Council previously approved the first connection between John Street and Ani Southlake Union by ordinance 126135 in 2020. These resolutions for the pedestrian tunnel and the thermal heat exchange are the first step in the term permit process, providing conceptual approval for the project to move forward to 100% design.

If City Council adopts these resolutions, SDOT will be presenting two ordinances later in 2025, and the ordinance set all the terms and conditions of the permit.

Thank you.

All right.

Do any of my colleagues have any comments or questions pertaining to these items and these proposed items in the South Lake Union area?

And I hear a council member Shrouse, go ahead.

Chair, I'll jump in just real quick.

Having worked on or around these projects since 2018, it's exciting to see them moving forward or just say centralizing both the heating and cooling as well as providing access between buildings, I think is smart.

And Amy, your presentations are always a very matter of fact and I appreciate that.

I got no issues here and I'm happy to vote in favor of these.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Colleagues, anyone else?

Oh, Councilmember Kettle, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Obviously, this is in District 7, and we've seen other examples of this in terms of being, you know, moving forward, we have to make our buildings that much smarter and energy efficient and the like, and anything that supports that process is important, so pretty straightforward.

Great.

Thank you.

Hearing and seeing no further comments from my colleagues, I move that the committee recommend adoption of resolution 32158. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend adoption of resolution 32158. Are there any further comments?

Hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to adopt resolution 32158?

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Rink?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Chair Saka?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council adopt resolution 32158 will be sent to the January 28th, 2025 Seattle city council meeting.

We will now move on.

We talked about both items, numbers one and two hand in hand, but do any of my colleagues have any further questions or comments with respect to item number two on the agenda?

Nope.

All right.

I move that the committee recommendation, adoption of resolution 32159. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend adoption of resolution 32159. Are there any further comments?

Hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to adopt resolution 32159?

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Chair Saka?

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass resolution 32159 will be sent to the January 28th, 2025 city council meeting.

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

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Agenda item three, Council Bill 120846, an ordinance granting Triton West LLC permission to maintain and operate a pipeline system in, under, along, and across 13th Avenue Southwest and Southwest Florida Street for a 20-year term, repealing section eight of ordinance 123-990, specifying the conditions under present, providing the permit and conditions.

Thank you.

And same presenters from before.

We have a new presenter.

Please introduce yourself and begin your presentation.

So this council bill would renew the permission for the Triton West pipeline system in Harbor on Harbor Island This pipeline was originally permitted in 1947 and it allows for the movement of petroleum products between the dock site and the oil storage plants as Mentioned in the introduction if the council passes this ordinance then the permit would be in effect for 20 years, and I'm happy to answer any questions All right Thank you

Any of my fellow committee members have any comments, questions?

Hearing and seeing none, I'll just say that this is a critically enablement or critically important commerce enablement permit that helps keep our communities and businesses going and humming along.

So this is in my district and look forward to supporting its passage today.

Before we get there, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120846. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the Council Bill 120846. Are there any further comments?

Council Member Kettle.

Chair, thank you.

I just wanted to note the vital importance of our port to our economy, both today and into the future, and to ensure these pieces are in place is very important.

So thank you for bringing it forward.

Thank you.

Hearing and seeing no further comments.

Will the clerk please call the roll and recommendation to pass Council Bill 120846.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair, there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass council bill 120846 will be sent to the January 28th, 2025 city council meeting.

We'll now move on to our fourth item of business.

Will the clerk please read item number four into the record.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120924, an ordinance granting Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority permission to continue maintaining and operating a pedestrian skybridge over and across Western Avenue, approximately 300 feet north of Pike Street, repealing section seven of ordinance 114388, and providing for acceptance of the permit and conditions.

Sky Bridge Permit.

This is another renewal briefed last month, as was noted, but will the presenters please give a very light briefing update on this proposal.

Thank you.

This council bill would re-permit an expired Sky Bridge Permit at the market that was originally granted in 1989. The new permit would be for 15 years with one renewable 15-year term.

When a SkyBridge permit reaches the end of its initial 30-year term, the Seattle Municipal Code requires a public benefit be provided for the continued use.

Pike Place Market's public benefit is an elevator upgrade system to replace one that was originally installed in the 1980s that is faster and can can accommodate more passengers, replacing the fire escape stairs to make them wider and ADA compliant, and the installation of bike racks at Alaskan Way.

At the end of the first 15-year term, there's a midpoint check in to make sure that the Sky Bridge is continuing to be used in the way in which it was originally granted, and it update any terms and conditions for a second 15-year term.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Do any of my fellow committee members have any questions or comments?

Hearing and well, yeah, Council Member Kettle, go ahead.

I'll defer to my colleague, Council Member Strauss.

He was lifting up his mic in such a manner that I think he wanted to go first.

I don't know.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

I was going back and forth.

I love this.

The SkyBridge used it my entire, not my entire life because it was built after I was born.

But I was getting into nerd alert here.

Is it district one or is it district seven?

I think it's district seven.

District seven.

Thank you very much.

Just think I was making sure I wasn't losing my my marbles.

Thank you.

Awesome.

All right.

Council member Kettle.

Go ahead.

Thank you, chair.

You know, these connections are very important, not just the Sky Bridge, but obviously the Overlook Walk, which is the, you know, the biggest bridge, Sky Bridge there is, which is a huge addition to the Pike Place community.

And, you know, one of the things that we need to look to is, you know, connecting Western and now Alaskan Way with the Overlook Walk to Pike Place Market and see what opportunities exist.

And I just wanted to add, as well, that I did meet with our new Pike Place PDA Executive Director, Rachel Leitenberg, and SDOT Director, Greg Spatz.

And we set up a meeting.

To happen, well, we had our initial meeting and basically related to Pike Place.

And so SDOT and Pike Place Market are working at the issues related to Pike Place.

And we're going to convene a stakeholder meeting, a conference, if you will.

And I believe early April, I don't want to give the exact date because that date is shifting a day or two to the left, but basically the first week of April.

where we bring in all the stakeholders to identify what we can do to, you know, further Pike Place the street in terms of for the city, but also the market and for the city overall.

And I'm really encouraged from that first meeting with Director Spotson and Director Leitenberg.

And again, we'll have this, meeting in early April and I've already put invitations out to like Seattle neighborhood greenways.

We'll also have the fire department there for those that remember this discussion and other key stakeholders and I think at the end of this we're going to come out with a a great way ahead for Pike Place.

And I bring this up now because I think it's important, but it also ties into this piece because I think it's really important to think of Western, to think of Alaskan Way now in a way that we didn't before because of the Overlook Walk.

And this sky bridge is going to be part of that story too.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Appreciate your comments here and also Councilmember Strauss.

you're right to ask the question, which council district is it in and our governing partners at SDOT know that at the beginning of each of these briefings that I would like us to, I would like it to include where, which geographic council district, these proposed permits on a going forward basis.

So yes, this is definitely district seven.

Oh, and Chair, may I?

Yeah.

Just to say, I know that the borders changed down and around Chinatown International District and Pioneer Square.

And so I had myself second guessing, did it go all the way up the waterfront or not?

So I know things change.

And thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair.

Yeah.

It's always good to remember the ferry terminals in District 7. But if you're paying for your ticket to get on the ferry with your car, you're in District 1. There it is.

There it is.

All right, well, do any of my fellow committee members have any additional questions, comments?

Hearing and seeing none, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120924. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120924. Are there any further comments?

Hearing seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to pass council bill 120924. Council member Kettle.

Aye.

Council member Rink.

Yes.

Council member Strauss.

Yes.

Vice chair Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

Chair there are five votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass council bill 120924 will be sent to the January 28th, 2025 city council meeting.

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

Will the clerk please read item number five into the record?

Jet item five, safe routes to school presentation.

All right, thank you.

And will our new presenters please join us at the table and share your presentation.

Once ready, please also do introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Thank you.

I am Sarah Colling, and I am the Safe Roses School Program Manager at SDOT.

And I'm Ashley Reed.

I manage the pedestrian and neighborhood projects team.

And Bill LaBoard from SDOT playing AV support.

Right.

Vital role.

Okay, so we will be presenting an overview of our program, Safe Ropes to School.

And what we are working toward is making it safer and easier for more kids to walk and bike to school.

And we're aligned with SDOT's vision, mission, and values here.

And we are particularly focused on these core values of equity, safety, mobility, and sustainability.

So today, the purpose is to dive deeper.

I know many of you have probably heard of Safe Routes to School at a higher level, but we can dive deeper into the what, why, and how of Safe Routes to School.

So we'll cover why Safe Routes to School, what do we do, go into some infrastructure highlights and programming highlights, and then also talk about what's coming for Safe Routes to School, and then does it work?

And there's a spoiler.

Yes, it does work.

Okay, so the why for Safer Us to School.

We developed this graphic in partnership with Seattle Public Schools to show how we are working holistically to support the big picture environment around students to make it safer and easier for them.

So you can see examples in here.

We have speed humps to slow people driving down.

We have marked crosswalks and stop signs.

We have crossing guards.

We have bike racks.

Even in the back, there's a traffic garden and a PE class where students are learning how to ride bikes.

So we're in partnership with Seattle Public Schools on all of these things to create safe and welcoming schools.

A couple years ago, we received the Vision Zero for Youth Award.

And so Vision Zero, as you likely know, is the goal to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. And so we received this award because of both our infrastructure work and our programming work coming together.

And so this is the how.

We use the safe systems approach.

This is a nationally recognized approach.

Most all programs at SDOT are focused on the safer roads and the safer speeds facets.

And something that's kind of special about Safe Routes to School is we're also focused on the safer people.

So how do we fit into the levy?

What does our funding look like?

For the Move Seattle levy, we delivered a project to every single public school in the city.

That's over 100 school buildings.

And with this new levy, we are contributing to at least 70 projects to improve safety and fund safety education programs at public schools.

And so we get an average of 1.75 million per year in new levy funding, which is a little bit more than the previous levy.

And we also receive a range between a million and six million from the school zone safety cameras.

Okay, so this shows the range of our work for Safe Routes to School.

We have a lot of flexibility where we're doing any sort of infrastructure project that supports kids walking and biking, which can be a lot of different things.

But just to get a taste of it, last year, we ended up having our projects fall into three buckets.

So first, you can see the schools listed that had crossing improvements.

And second, you can see the schools listed that had traffic calming.

And then third, you can see the schools that had place making.

So diving into one of these traffic calming projects, this was in Greenwood and it was a project on Third Ave Northwest where I'm sure Council Member Strauss, you know, for a very long time there was no traffic calming along the street for a very long stretch.

And so this project brought in both marked crosswalks and crosswalk daylighting so that parking is pulled back, it's easier to see people as they're waiting to cross, as well as speed cushions.

And we've collected data on speed cushions over past projects, and we have seen a 21% reduction in speeds after we put speed cushions in on arterials.

And Greenwood Elementary in particular has very high walking and biking rates at about 60%.

And so it feels really good to be able to support kids as they're getting to school, especially across this busy street.

Another example is in West Seattle.

This is Genesee Hill Elementary.

And you can see a before and after here for our school streets program.

So before, maybe you would drive on the street and maybe not even notice that there's a school right there.

And after, we make it very clear that there is something special going on on this street.

So school streets, the block next to a school is closed through traffic.

And the idea is to prioritize that space for kids who are walking and biking to school.

And for this particular project, we got to work really closely with the school.

So the art teacher had kids during class time designing the art that went into the streets.

And this is a candid photo of these two kids watching as the art was being installed.

So it was pretty cool to see kids excited about seeing their own work in the street and just over the public space.

So how do we choose projects?

We have a formalized school ranking and we'll be re-running this analysis now that we have the Seattle Transportation Plan.

But within the Seattle Transportation Plan, we'll be able to rank schools in priority order by equity, safety, and the infrastructure needs near the school.

And then within that, we select projects based on many factors.

One is we work with Seattle Public Schools to know where students actually live so that we're serving a lot of kids.

We also use collision data.

We collect annual speed data so we know what the safety needs are.

We do direct engagement with schools, sometimes even directly in the classroom.

And then sometimes there's an opportunity.

We can have a walking school bus with groups of families walking to school together.

And if there's a crossing that feels uncomfortable, we want to be able to prioritize that.

Okay, so that was a lot about the infrastructure.

Now I'll shift over to the programming.

And this is the Safer People piece of Safer House to School.

Okay, so I've mentioned this partnership with Seattle Public Schools.

We fund a Safer House to School coordinator who is embedded directly at Seattle Public Schools, and Brooke is actually here in the audience.

Having that connection within Seattle Public Schools is invaluable.

It's been a windfall since that position has been active the past couple years.

You can see Brooke is here leading a walk and bike party.

This is at Dunlap Elementary.

So we do programming like that directly with Brooke.

We also do a lot to support walking school buses and bike buses.

We do in-classroom engagement.

And we try and give people the chance to run with their own ideas.

So we have packages where we give out supplies, like free reflectors or lights or helmets, so that if people want to do their own bike bus, we can support them.

And then we also have mini grants up to $1,000.

You can see in this picture, Chair Sok is here in the picture.

So he was supporting students at Denny International Middle School.

And students at Denny actually worked together to apply for a mini grant on their own.

And they led a Ruby Bridges walk to school day.

And so they designed and printed these t-shirts, and they used the money to pay for all of that.

We also fund a big program.

This is pretty unique to Seattle.

I think it's the biggest in the country, where it's called the Let's Go Bike and Education Program.

And we are funding Seattle Public Schools to teach kids how to ride a bike in all third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade PE classes.

And this also includes a partnership with Outdoors for All where they bring in adaptive bikes so that we can include all kids.

And so here's a couple highlights for what's coming for Safe Routes to School.

This project on the left is the South Hunterson Street School Safety Project, and this is in Rainier Beach, and it's a two-way protected bike lane that will connect three, or actually four schools in Rainier Beach, and it will also connect the Rainier Beach Light Rail Station to Beersheba Park in Lake Washington.

And then on the right is the First Ave Northeast Shared Use Path.

And currently what's here is a really narrow substandard space for walking.

And so this will be a really nice wide sidewalk that will have space for both people walking and people biking.

And it will connect James Baldwin Elementary up to North Acres Park.

And then it will also connect to the new light rail station that's coming in on 1 30th.

So with Safe Roses to School, we do see an increase in walking and biking.

So over the past two decades, we've about doubled our walking and biking rates to school.

Seattle has a climate goal to have 90% of people taking personal trips in a fossil fuel free way.

And so we do have a ways to go.

But we're excited to see the progress.

And this is a video that just shows all of the safe systems approach all coming together.

So this is a bike bus of students and families and staff all riding to school together in Rainier Beach.

You can see they're riding here on a healthy street that has traffic calming.

I was, after I took this video, I was walking with the Dunlap Elementary PE teacher, and she said, I taught that how to write.

And so it was so cool to see the whole picture coming together where through the Let's Go program, she was able to teach a student how to ride their bike.

They were able to ride in an organized group together on a healthy street that supports them riding safely.

And you can see at the very back here that even their principal is riding along with them.

And at Dunlop, we saw a really nice increase in walking and biking after those improvements and programming support.

And that is it.

Thank you so much for listening.

Thank you.

Appreciate this presentation.

Love that last video of the kids, of the group rolling on into school and Really like the image of that unicyclist.

One wheel.

There's always someone in every group that tries to outshine and one up everybody, huh?

So shout out to that unicyclist.

You got two wheels.

I only need one.

That's right.

It's saying how safe that feels.

Oh, man, that was cool.

Thank you.

Really terrific work here.

Colleagues, any questions?

Go ahead, Councilmember Strauss.

Yeah, may I jump in, Sher?

Thank you.

I'm going to start and end this presentation with appreciation for your work because you've even highlighted some intersections that I crossed as a student that were not as safe as they could be.

I'm going to also share some challenges with this work.

Namely on 65th and on 3rd, I had been asking for safety improvements for quite some time.

And on 65th, they were a little bit more than I expected, but either way it got put in without any warning to me.

And so the outcome was that neighbors happy and angry were the ones giving me the alert that SDOT had done work in the neighborhood, right?

And in that case, without having more information, all I can say to my residents is, I don't know what Estat was thinking.

And that isn't good.

Third, in particular, I had asked for those safe crossings for many, many years at that point.

And while I wasn't expecting the speed humps, I know some neighbors really don't like them.

I just have changed my travel habits.

So I now use 8th Avenue.

And I think that that's in part what they're designed for.

And that's an outcome.

But again, it was something that I had asked for for a long time.

And the way that I found out about it was some neighbors were happy and some neighbors were upset.

There were a couple intersections that had missed opportunities for additional safe crossings that have been requested by the community for a long time.

And so, again, appreciation for your work because you're making it safer for kids to get to school, right?

and that's that is paramount the issue that I have is is the communication and I know we're now entering our 11th year of district council members the first four years were citywide council members that sat in district seats and then the last two the last eight years or so has been more of that transition more and more into the community I can tell you with these elected council members were deeper and deeper into the community.

So many people in the neighborhood have my personal cell phone number, right?

And so this is also in part about Third Avenue was why I passed a statement of legislative intent a number of years ago as part of the budget requesting what was the formal communication standard for projects in the district because I wasn't getting, the action that I had wanted to see on Third Avenue.

And then all of a sudden it happened.

And I'm relieved of the crossings.

And at the same time, I think that we missed a couple opportunities.

So I'll go back to, again, My question is, what should we as district council members expect for communication about projects?

How can we support you in making sure that kids get to school safely?

And I'm gonna again, end with, I'm so appreciative of your work because it's critical the question about communication really comes down to how do we do this better?

How do we instill confidence amongst our residents, whether they're happy or sad about the change?

And those are my questions.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

You don't want to be surprised by something, and especially if it was something that you were a part of from the start.

You want to know what the plan is and why.

So yeah, I think that we can definitely take that feedback back.

And if there is a project like that in the future, we'll make sure that you're aware, as well as other council members.

Thank you.

I mean, because both 65th and third occurred within the district were both things that I was interested in.

I'll share candidly.

I think it went further than I expected.

And so that was hard for me to talk about in the community because I didn't know what SDOT's perspective was.

I was expecting just crossings.

There was calming in crossings.

I noticed in your presentation, you had Greenwood and Adams listed under both.

Um, and the, And if you wanna go back to the slide with the crossings and the, it was on third, it was slide 10, I believe.

I think so, not sure without page numbers.

Right, yeah, it was listed under both for that reason.

Right.

And so I think for us, it's managing our expectations.

I was expecting just crossings.

We got humps as well.

And then how do you set me up with all of the information possible so that when all of the neighbors, happy and sad, frustrated or glad, who have my phone number, how am I set up to support your work?

Makes sense.

Thank you.

All right.

I can add a little bit about on 65th and 3rd specifically why we did traffic calming as well as adding crossings.

So we use different standards and guidelines to determine what an appropriate scope is. when we're making a crossing improvement, and that's based on vehicle speeds and volumes.

So if we're seeing volumes that are too high or speeds that are too high to put in just a marked crosswalk without any additional improvements, then we need to take that additional step and slow down people who are driving through those corridors so that when kids are crossing the street, there's better stop compliance for them so that it's a safe environment for them.

That's not to say that we shouldn't communicate about it better, but that's just how it became more than a crossing.

May I share it?

Thank you.

That's helpful because I'm not going to get too far into this, but for me to understand how to communicate that with the residents of District 6, there was confusion as to why there was a speed hump uphill after the crosswalk.

We don't need to get into the minutiae here, but I hear your high-level perspective on that, and I agree with that, and that's something that we want to do.

when that is faced with an uphill speed hump after the crosswalk.

I think there's intuitive misunderstandings.

Yeah, I could add a couple more things.

So also in terms of 65th, we originally had talked about installing 20 mile an hour flashing beacons.

And the reason why we shifted to speed humps or speed cushions on 65th is because We found that the traffic calming benefit with flashing beacons is during the morning arrivals to school times and the afternoon dismissal times when the beacons are flashing.

But the rest of the day and other days of the year, the beacons are not flashing.

So the community doesn't have that traffic calming benefit.

365 days, 24 hours a day.

And Adams is an elementary school, but there's also a park and a community center there.

So we know that young children with their parents are walking to the park when they're older siblings or when older kids are at school.

So we wanted to make sure that we were providing that 24-7 traffic calming benefit.

And that was something that we looked back with the school and discussed with them about what are our different options for what we could do on 65th.

There's pros and cons of different options, and so we settled on that.

change scope.

And the reason why there's speed cushions kind of on the uphill side of the westernmost, well, both the east and west, the 26th and 28th crossings, is because we put the speed cushions all the way across the whole street.

So when you're going westbound, you go over speed cushions before you get to the crosswalk.

And when you're going eastbound, you go over a speed cushion before you get to the crosswalk.

And so because we put it across the entire street, both east and west directions, you're gonna, again, go over a speed cushion after you've passed that last crosswalk when you're...

driving away from, if that makes sense.

I need a diagram to better illustrate that.

But essentially, because we don't put it just in the direction of travel.

We put it across the whole street, because we wouldn't want to have drivers drive in the opposite direction to get around the speed cushion.

So we're considering driver behavior in the placement of the speed cushion.

So they cross both directions of travel.

Thank you.

And so one of the issues that I had was I was expecting flashing beacons and we got speed cushions, right?

And so again, it's the communication that is the issue because if I had known that when all of the neighbors who, you know, some again were happy, some were frustrated, if that had been shared with me, I would be able to share that with the neighborhood.

And Lacking that, it doesn't look intuitive.

Yeah, I can understand that, yeah.

And we definitely want to, you know, we really appreciate you as an ally with Safe Routes to School, and so we want to support that relationship and support that communication, so we definitely will improve on that next time.

Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I've run across that intersection, 65th and 28th.

I mean, it was not a safe place for me. to cross.

So I appreciate your work and I look forward to deeper communication.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member Strauss and appreciate your feedback there and your comments.

I think we're very insightful.

From my perspective, and I think the general public should understand, taking a setback, I'm not talking about the specific feedback about Third Avenue and your district, but your broader comments that you mentioned at the outset in terms of the fundamental change and shift in dynamics that we have on this council And because of the system that we have in place today, you aptly noted that the district-based system has been in place now, I guess on paper for 11 years or something like that, yeah.

And so for a while, that said, the OGs who were once citywide inherited that and then moved to a district and they were elected on a district-based system, but they were still legacy holdovers of the citywide system.

And they also retained the power of incumbency when they ran for re-election.

This is the first time with two-thirds new council members and where we are all starting out fresh, the newly electeds in 2023, starting out fresh were elected purely under the district based system and layer that with some members like council member Strauss who cares deeply and is deeply connected to his own community.

It's a fundamental shift in dynamics and I think it highlights the continuing ongoing need and responsibility that we have as individual council members and our colleagues and partners at SDOT and every other city department and agency as well to have closer, tighter communications and collaborations with respect to what's going on in our district.

And we all have different kind of views and philosophies on what that ideally should look like and the level of detail and information we need to understand, but we do need to understand it.

And the right answer is what Council Member Strauss thinks is appropriate for his district in terms of how he would like to receive and hear information.

And I think it's kind of a reckoning that many executive departments are having this past year with how to best communicate and engage with this fundamental shift in dynamics of this council.

And they've worked hard to do it, and I appreciate SDOT, in particular, your work towards helping to ensure we have better communication between our offices and branches.

Councilmember Hollingsworth, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for this work.

Just want to double down on Councilmember Strauss's comments, knowing that this work is super hard.

A couple things.

I wanted to thank you all for improving the flashing crosswalk on 17th and Union.

We had a great interaction with the Dash family, Sydney and Ian Young.

I said, hey, if you want to get anything done in the city, just send us a picture of two young kids smiling, saying thank you.

and you will get attention.

So that was great.

So thank you.

The repavement on John Street next to Miller Park was huge, next to Meany Middle School, repaving that and having the crosswalks bright.

And I see so many kids going back and forth from that school, going to the bus stop.

And also I see the new work that's happening with the extension of the, I don't know what you call them, the bulbs or the, Is that what they're called?

Bulbs?

Yeah, curb bulbs.

Okay, curb bulbs.

That's what they look like.

To be able to have a driver's stop for the kids crossing back and forth.

And just a lot of people use that park all day, every day.

So thank you.

The other thing we've been getting a lot of outreach from, and I think it's on the docket for 2025, is the crosswalk.

It's right next to the Harvard School on Olive in Harvard.

And I know that's down the pipeline.

I know some people painted their own crosswalk.

for safety and that was removed and I know it's coming back, but I'm looking forward to that.

We would have some accidents there, but it's also a school right on the corner.

The Harvard School has over 150 kids that go to that school between their two locations and they have been advocating for that.

One question I had, and I know this is difficult when you're looking at schools on main thoroughfares, but Garfield 23rd Avenue is like super dangerous, and I know a lot of kids have talked about crossing and just throwing around ideas.

I just wanted to throw it on your radar.

I know you all have been working on it, and it's really hard when it's a main thoroughfare, but a lot of people have been asking about 23rd and figuring out making it a little bit more safe so cars aren't you know, when they're coming down the hill, coming north off of 23rd, wrapping around from the library and going downhill, sometimes you can kind of get a little speedy.

So anyways, I wanted to throw that out.

And also last but not least, I'm curious, and we can take this offline, the paints used, I've asked this before, why the paints peel so fast.

You repaint a sidewalk or a crosswalk or what have you.

and then it fades really fairly quickly on some stuff.

Some intersections it doesn't, and I don't know what that is, but I know that sometimes when we do paint crosswalks and they look phenomenal, like within a short period of time, it looks like they haven't been repainted in years.

So anyways, I just wanted to throw that out and just thank you all for all the work that you do.

So it's not really necessarily a question, but more so feedback and comment.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Council Member Kittle.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

There's been a number of improvements in District 7, particularly Queen Anne.

District 7 doesn't have a lot of schools.

It's kind of no high school, for example.

Middle school, kind of, you know, not much either in terms of options.

McClure, Catherine Blaine.

I do love the K-8 model for those in the audience that follow that.

But I do appreciate the work that's been done that I've seen like Coe Elementary, great work in terms of stop sign, all the above kind of things.

And it also tied into some other work related to the Queen Anne Boulevard Park Street.

And so that was another positive for Coe Elementary.

And definitely look to ensure that the District 7 schools are covered.

And there's been some improvements too with Queen Anne Elementary and John Hay as well.

So I appreciate that.

A question I had was, I got a couple actually.

One question is, the focus is with the Seattle school district system.

And this may be more of a District 7 thing again, to your point.

Each of the districts are different.

But there's a lot of kids in District 7 that go to either private school or parochial school.

And where did they fall into this?

The focus has been solely on the Seattle school system, the school district, Seattle public schools.

And I was curious if those are made safer too, or if there's anything related to those.

Right, I mentioned that we had a project at every public school within the last levy.

Something I didn't mention is, so there is about 100 public schools.

We actually completed about 215 projects total over the levy.

And so it included not just public schools, but also private schools.

Because yes, all children are vulnerable users of our streets.

we do have an equity prioritization.

And so that is informing the scale of projects at our schools.

We also have many private schools that are serving students who have high equity needs.

So definitely there's a lot of nuanced considerations when we're selecting projects.

Yes, and as you're saying now, I was thinking too that a lot of schools are co-located or very close to a park.

So any improvement for that private or parochial school would also help kids who are going to those nearby parks as well.

So that's another piece of this point.

I noted your public education piece to include the biking, which is speaking of Coe.

Coe is the place in Queen Anne where kids learn to ride their bikes, by the way.

I can speak from personal experience.

But in pedestrian education, one of the things in terms of pedestrian safety, and hopefully the kids are learning it as they learn other things, safety items, is how to wear bright clothes here in dark Seattle, particularly at this time of year.

So often in the dark, the big dark with the big rains coming in, and you're going down a road, and people are wearing dark clothes.

you know, black hat, black, you know, whatever, and they are basically not able to be seen.

And so hopefully the public education also goes to, you know, identifying those unique Seattle pieces as it relates to the big dark and the many rain.

Is that something that's included in that?

We have those walking and biking packages that I mentioned where we give out many free, very bright reflectors and things like lights that kids can clip on backpacks and also bike lights.

So we're definitely focused on visibility.

And we always try and round that out with creating safer streets so that the default is safer speeds so that kids aren't getting hurt.

Thank you.

As mentioned, not a lot of schools in District 7. But I do keep an eye out for Coe, Queen Elementary, John Hay, McClure Middle School.

And also, because we share Magnolia, I also am interested in Catherine Blaine, Lawton, Magnolia Schools as well.

And one thing, I had a question.

And I spoke with the Queen Anne Greenways, along with the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, regarding the street first west between Crockett and Howe.

And because you've got McClure, you've got the Queen Anne Community Center.

Across the street is the pool.

Further south to the right, if you're moving north to south, is the big Howe Park.

In terms of that street becoming more of an access street, kind of creating more of a campus feel in that area, that's something that's been proposed by a community.

I've been checking in with them, but I don't have anything formal.

Is that something that has come to your attention at SDOT?

I don't think so.

I wonder if that could be a candidate for a school street.

Well, it's McClure, so I would think so.

I'll follow up with you.

This is one of the things that's coming from community.

I'd like to check in with the Queen Anne Community Council about it, too, because there's definitely impacts.

And by the way, this is also in the urban center of Queen Anne, which is part of the comprehensive plan.

So there's a lot of pieces to this, but it was something that's come up to me through community, so I just wanted to ask.

I'll add just one other thing in terms of how the department serves schools more broadly.

You know, we have many other programs that also look at where schools are, whether they're public or private.

So we have a crossings program.

We have a new sidewalks program.

We have a neighborhood greenways program that connects schools to parks.

So outside of the Safe Routes to School program, there are also many other programs that are also making improvements for kids.

I appreciate that.

Thank you very much, Chair.

All right, thank you.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair.

And I'll keep mine just focused on comments.

I'd like to follow up with a couple of questions related to site-specific things, but wanted to voice my appreciation for today's presentation.

I think we can all agree how critical this work is to make sure that kiddos are safe on their way to school.

And also just take a moment to state, I know one of my priorities being a part of this committee is finding ways and making sure we're really making investments so folks are making natural choices to walk, bike, take the bus, because they feel like that's the most efficient and safest way to get where they need to go.

So I wanted to take a moment to state that priority.

And again, thank you for your presentation.

I'll be following up with some questions.

But thank you for the work that you do.

Thank you.

Right, thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Just because Council Member Kettle corrected his attempt at annexing Magnolia from my district, I will also say I was looking at the 2014 Council District maps that led to the 2015 first round of Council Member elections in the district section, the district manner, taking office in 2016. And so just to correct my own mistakes there.

And can you remind me also, one of the reasons that we have somebody in the Seattle Public Schools working with SDOT, is that because in the move Seattle levy, we designated at least one improvement for every public school?

Or am I misremembering that?

Do you want to go ahead?

I'm sorry.

Could you state your question one more time?

Just to put more directly, thank you.

In the move Seattle levy, we had made a promise to deliver at least one safe route to school implement for every public school.

Correct.

And that was in part, you know, you focused on the most dangerous places, the places that need the most assistance first, which is part of why Adams and Greenwood went towards the end of that levy cycle.

Is that correct?

That's right, yeah.

And we used equity to, you know, the broader framework looking at, at the time it was the pedestrian master plan adding on recent safety data and equity to sort of determine, you know, which schools would we try to do first.

So under the levy to move Seattle, we did a certain list of schools was included in that, in the levy, and that was based on free and reduced price lunch eligibility.

So we wanted to make sure that the schools with the highest need went kind of first in the levy, and then we would do a project for every school.

But, you know, some schools may need to wait a little longer in the levy time period to get their project.

And we're always excited for it.

Last plug I'll make, just because you highlighted the sound transit station at 1 30th, as of this week, it will have an official name.

So I'm trying to spread this joy wherever I can go.

It is now known as the Pinehurst station.

So I'm having to correct my own shorthand for it as well, but just thought I'd share that out there.

Thank you, chair.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

I guess I'll close out here by stating my appreciation for this work.

Thank you all very much, really, and to the person in the audience who does this work and is the liaison at SPS, really important work.

I just want to just emphasize how important it is, and it is a priority of me, and I think...

this council that we continue to support, uplift, clarify, exercise legislative oversight, but ultimately support this work.

And because just when we think we have the right treatment at the right location, best practices and our understanding of those best practices shift, the situation on the ground shift, the dynamics, the local traffic patterns, then we need to do something else.

And so it's a constant cycle, and there's clearly more work to do, but I just want you all to know it's greatly appreciated.

I have one question that is from a programmatic perspective, but I have a D1-specific example of how it kind of plays out.

So how do you all work and liaise with our city's new sidewalk program?

Because Safe Routes to Schools is a huge, very important program, as we learned, and it's working, as we learned, right, working.

Spoiler alert, it works.

But, or it's working.

but it touches so many other kind of vital programs across the city, and in this case, within our own department here in SDOT, new sidewalk program.

So my, for example, we learned during the levy that my council district one has, I think the second highest number of missing sidewalks in the city and certain areas are more impacted than others.

Arbor Heights, for example, Highland Park.

And so when we talk about safe routes to schools, making sure more kids can safely walk, roll and bike, take bus to school.

We need to ensure they have safe, it's not just the area immediately in front of the school, it's the ingress, egress routes.

And so in my own district, for example, I mentioned a few neighborhoods that are impacted by the missing sidewalks.

So Arbor Heights Elementary and Highland Park Elementary are, are elementary schools within communities that have, you know, a fair amount of missing sidewalks.

And so just curious to better understand how this program communicates and engages with, you know, our partners within the new sidewalk program, that team and how you coordinate work.

Thank you.

Yeah, I can answer that in a few ways.

So one is to talk about the Safe Routes to School toolkit, that there are many different types of improvements that the Safe Routes to School program uses depending on the needs of the school.

And one of those is sidewalks and walkways.

So the Safe Routes to School program itself does deliver sidewalks and walkways if that's the main need of the school that we are working with.

And then in terms of working with the new sidewalks program, yes, we are absolutely focusing on schools.

The Seattle Transportation Plan prioritizes sidewalks based on several different factors, but some of the destinations that are priorities are schools and parks and transit.

But we don't want to just stop with schools.

We know that we care about where kids are going, whether they're going to school or whether they're going to a park or to a pool or to a community center or any other destination.

So just the same that we don't only care about grownups when they're coming to and from work.

We don't only care about kids when they're coming to and from school.

So we are working with the new sidewalk program on outreach to make sure that we are engaging with kids in outreach and including connecting with parents as well, that we're looking at those connections to broader neighborhood destinations.

So we actually, because we have this great partnership with Seattle Public Schools, we did a mapping exercise to look at where public K-12 students live, because that's the data that we had access to.

in relation to our sidewalk deficiency network.

So we could, and also in relation to sort of a small list of common childhood destinations.

So we can sort of see where, you know, which are the blocks that are kind of popping up as priorities for kids to move around their neighborhoods.

And then from there we can, you know, work through an outreach process to be identifying the priority blocks.

So we're next weekend going to be doing outreach with the Pinehurst neighborhood to be looking around Hazel Wolf Elementary School and identifying needed sidewalks in that neighborhood for that community.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, do any of my colleagues have any further final comments, questions?

Hearing and seeing none, thank you again.

Really appreciate this important work that you all do.

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

Will the clerk please read item number six into the record?

Gen item six, School Traffic Safety Committee presentation.

All right, thank you.

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

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

and Council.

I'm Ryan Baum, a District 1 resident, Seattle Public School parent, and the current chair of the Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee.

With me are some other community volunteer members.

Noah Gooder.

Mary Ellen Russell.

And just wanted to thank you for taking the time to allow us to share with you some of the work of the committee.

We're excited to let you know what we've been working on and to call out some important areas where we could use your continued support.

So I thought I'd start with a brief overview of what the committee actually is.

It was established in 1975 by City Council.

It brings together the various agencies that work on school traffic safety with community members.

So it's a little unique relative to a lot of the citizens' boards in that we have both staff and community volunteers as part of the committee.

So that includes representatives from Seattle Public Schools, Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Police Department, and King County metros, as well as the volunteer members who also represent pedestrian bicycling advocacy, parents, grandparents, and neighbors.

So there's a lot of detail that goes into ensuring our children have safe routes to schools, and that work frequently cuts across those different agencies.

That's why the committee was created with this structure, to ensure that there's a mechanism for the community to raise school traffic safety issues and get a response informed by multi-agency coordination.

So some of the things we do, maintain a working relationship between those organizations, provide a forum for community members to raise school traffic safety issues where maybe it hasn't fit into one specific bucket.

We define elementary school walking boundaries for Seattle Public Schools using Seattle Department of Transportation and public school information.

We identify needed crossing guard assignments and work to improve crossing guard recruitment.

We review and advise on traffic circulation plans for newer renovated schools, and we engage with and respond to emergent traffic safety issues as they arise.

Just want to share some examples of that cross-agency coordination.

really feel that we're uniquely positioned to help foster collaboration and holistic problem solving.

So some examples.

We organized a first-of-its-kind school walking tour to address safety issues near I-5 on and off ramps near John Stanford and Concord Elementary.

It was attended by both local and state agencies and highlighted the significant traffic safety concerns and potential solutions for both schools that had floundered somewhat due to the need for better coordination between state where that state and local jurisdictions intersect at those ramps.

We've been updating the school walk zones.

So we've been doing a systematic review to review schools on walking boundaries for which Seattle public school elementary and K through eight school in the district.

Working with SDOT, we've developed a scoring rubric to help us identify both potentially too risky to cross intersections that may need to be excluded from walk boundaries or need a crossing guard.

And those intersections where safety improvements allow, made those intersections more crossable for students on their way to school.

The good news is the safety work by SDOT and others has allowed for opening up more routes for students to walk to school.

After some advocacy from the committee, SDOT funded a Safe Routes to School Program coordinator position that is embedded in the sale of public schools.

We heard that mentioned in the previous presentation.

The coordinator has been in the role since 2023 and works closely with the SDOT Safe Routes to School Program to provide wraparound support for families to walk and bike, especially at equity priority schools.

And that's really been a boon for the committee as well to identify earlier opportunities and help with community outreach.

wanted to highlight an item with King County Metro and SDOT coordination.

This was actually an interesting example where SDOT was doing a visit at Mercer Middle School, and the students raised concerns about bus capacity around bell times.

Using that relationship within the committee, the Metro team was able to add two new trips to Route 107 that aligned with the school's bus schedule and also adjusted Route 36 schedules to ensure more trips around bell times to be served by the larger articulated buses.

And these changes also benefited students attending Cleveland High School.

Summer school beacons.

In previous years, the school zone beacons had not operated for summer school sites.

And this is an opportunity to improve communication between SPS and SDOT to identify those summer school sites earlier.

And it gave SDOT the deleted time they needed to reprogram the school zone flashing beacons to operate for summer school locations.

And then also, The school streets program continues to expand and we've helped advocate for additional private and public schools as well as SPS schools and to bring in traffic calming measures in that vicinity.

Next slide, please.

I'd like to...

highlight two areas where we think the committee has both had some success and is still pushing for another item to get over the finish line.

A lot of times, we see issues that come up as a one-off or really isolated.

But because of the way the committee operates, we're able to see a pattern of what might be going on across the city.

So one success of this was all-way stops.

Last year, we had a request from a parent at James Baldwin Elementary for an all-way stop intersection.

And it didn't initially meet with the SDET guidelines for all-way stop.

but they're willing to take a look at it again and ended up not only just adding the all-way stop, but actually changing the guidelines for all-way stop intersections so future schools could be accommodated with this traffic safety treatment.

We applaud SDOT for quickly engaging and updating their policy to meet the real-world conditions.

And so that's a success from the committee's perspective.

Where we're not yet there is really to talk about school parking requirements and the outdated school zone code.

So we've been working with the Seattle Public School project team and the Department of Construction and Inspection since 2022 to update outdated city codes that cost taxpayers millions annually.

Basically, the Seattle City Code on public schools and residential areas and on parking requirements are somewhat outdated remnants that reflect car-centric thinking that really is not applicable to our urban schools today.

A recent example of this is delays with the reconstruction of Alki Elementary, where costs overrun due to process delays are now over $2.5 million.

What's going on is to comply with the code as written, Schools have to pay for yards and playgrounds to provide parking or can't update HVAC systems on the school roof due to neighborhood height limits.

SPS is able to apply for special departures, and they're almost always granted, but the process adds time and cost to the projects and allows small groups to delay the outcome by challenging them in court.

We've been working with the staff to try and draft code revisions.

The good news is that we understand that they're supposed to be promulgated this spring, and they go in front of council for approval.

However, we've been hearing that update for a little while, so we really look forward to things moving forward and finally getting them passed.

Beyond those examples, the committee also writes letters of advocacy for changes that would benefit Seattle schools, such as support for the Seattle Transportation Levy Package, support for Aurora Avenue updates, and requests for original grade crossings, and supporting the expanded use of school's own cameras.

Next slide, please.

Looking at our work this year, we have a few priorities.

First, we'd like to finish updating all those K-8 elementary schools on BAPS and get them published so that parents have them available to use when planning their routes to school.

We're looking to add youth or student representation to our committee, discussions, and work.

We find that we'd welcome a youth perspective, likely a high school student or recent graduate, through Seattle's Youth Employment Earn and Learn program.

We continue to see better opportunities to integrate with state agencies to resolve traffic problems across the city and state authority.

We've set up some ad hoc connections.

We're looking to build on it this year.

We're very excited to support draft city code updates when they're released.

It's processing a long time, and we look forward to it being closed out.

Of course, we continue to explore how to make satellites support aware of the committee as a resource and venue.

Sometimes we find that community members come to us almost as a last resort when struggling to find the right agency or person to contact.

We're delighted to assist, but we also see opportunity to raise visibility to this type of work earlier on.

And we've noticed some really improvements in that with having a Safe Route school coordinator in SPS.

With these objectives in mind, we also wanted to share with you some areas where we feel the city could help support us.

First of all, we'd love to see the work to review terrific tickets from stop paddle bus cameras operationalized.

It's a high priority item to improve safety along routes, and we urge a swift restart to this program.

We'd like to bring back temporary enforcement patrols to high-risk areas to adjust parent and driver behavior.

We've previously been able to leverage the police department for hotspot patrols for traffic enforcement, but with the challenges of police staffing, this hasn't been as available to us the last several years.

As the police department restaffs, we look for ability to be able to use this as another short-term fix while SDAT works out physical improvements to reduce speeds and manage safety in the area.

We look forward to getting the school construction code changes over the finish line.

We look forward to seeing improvements in SDOT and Washington DOT collaboration to create more comprehensive responses to traffic near freeways and highways.

This is somewhat a mind shift to think less about those agency boundaries and more around what's the right overall solution for our students.

We urge continued funding of the Safe Routes to School program.

We thank the council for its support so far.

And we support the community expansion of the school traffic zone safety cameras.

We regularly review the traffic camera data and see that cameras continue to be effective deterrent to speeding near schools, improving safety in the few critical hours around pickup and drop off.

We also look forward to continued support from Seattle Public Schools to reduce crossing guard vacancy from the current 55% down to zero.

Establishing a process to keep walk zone and maps updated as the school boundaries change.

Removing barriers for kids, community members, and other non-staff to advocate for bike racks near schools.

And we see key opportunity there.

We'd like to see safe routes to schools institutionalized as part of the school board policy on wellness and as part of each school's site improvement plans.

And we'd like to build out systems to have people get better involved in traffic safety at their school and in their neighborhood.

Of course, success will also require work from our other partners.

Look forward to the state legislature funding school crossing guards, which is required by current state law but has not been allocated.

We urge continued funding for public transit, safe routes to schools, walking and rolling infrastructure, investments in Vision Zero, and building on that city and state collaboration.

For King County Metro, we work with them on ongoing adjustments to routes, capacity, and stops to accommodate student ridership.

And of course, success in this will require changes in the general public mindset and shifts in how we view traffic.

Encouraging biking and walking buses and other non-car activity in the streets helps change driver behavior and expectations that transportation isn't just for cars.

We look forward to emphasizing walking, biking, and rolling as part of the overall transportation experience.

and encouraging community engagement, providing input into engineering, road design, and other physical aspects of safety.

That's all we have for you today.

We want to thank you for your engagement and ongoing support, and I'm glad to take questions along with my fellow committee members.

All right.

Thank you very much for this helpful, insightful presentation.

Really, difficult to discern, you know, what your highest priorities are.

No, it's not very clear, but thank you, but thank you for sharing very, very helpful information.

I will take questions, comments from my colleagues, I guess, starting with council member Kettle, go ahead.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome.

I should ask anything else from the colleagues, any additional points?

Oh, okay.

Just thought I'd throw that in here.

Two questions.

One, and it kind of plays off my earlier question.

In the diagram, you had the various participants, including community members.

And I was curious, within the community member section, is there anything in terms of outreach to my question about private and parochial schools, is there any representation from that community, the committee overall?

Yeah.

Well, so, you know, we're all volunteer members here, and anyone in the community can apply for an open position, and anyone is also welcome to come to any and all meetings, and we always reserve time to have anyone who chooses to come speak about any issue that they would bring up.

So we're all just private citizens.

And in that respect, we just represent our neighborhoods and our communities.

We don't have any formal mechanism for private school membership.

But we do have people with bring us issues around private school traffic concerns.

Specifically, we had one at, oh, I'm blanking on the name of the Catholic high school that's just between 80th and 85th in Greenwood.

Bishop Blanchett.

Bishop Blanchett, thank you.

We worked around some concerns around crossings, worked with Bishop Blanchett to connect them, with SDOT, people who could help address some concerns around visibility at crosswalks several years ago.

And that's not the only time in my eight years on the committee that a private school has brought us a concern.

And we've tried to connect them just like we would any other community member with resources like the hotspots at SPD when it was running and with folks at SDOT who are best positioned to get eyes on the question and figure out what an appropriate response would be.

Another example of that would be the school traffic zone safety cameras that operate both at public schools and private sites.

Those placements there, so those serve all types of schools.

Thank you.

Well, the committee is established by council and you do represent the city.

So I understand your point and, but the, I would think the committee could also formally go out to them as well in terms of outreach to ensure coverage, um, to ensure that, you know, those pieces that, you know, there may be low hanging fruit in terms of safety.

Um, and again, oftentimes these schools are near parks, so you get that added benefit.

Um, so Thank you on that.

My other question is related to King County Metro.

You know, in the Public Safety Committee that I chair, we have our mission, Safe Base, and we have our vision and our strategic framework plan.

In our vision, we explicitly say, talk about kids riding safely on buses.

And as you noted, probably if you were here at the very beginning, we do have some serious challenges in transit security.

And I've talked to so many parents in terms of the challenges, like when I was on the campaign trail as a candidate, but also now as a council member and chair of the Public Safety Committee.

those issues.

And having that voice would be incredibly important.

And what I say there is there's moves for fair reenactment.

It's just the not accepting fentanyl to be smoked on the bus when we have children on the bus and others.

That's not just children.

And then some of the other issues that we're seeing in terms of transit safety.

lending your voice to that is very, very important.

And I would say it goes beyond ongoing adjustment of routes, capacity, and stops to accommodate student ridership.

We need to have your voice on this public safety challenge that we're facing and to channel that to us either here in the Transportation Committee or the Education Committee with Council Member Rivera or myself on the public safety side.

I think that's really important.

Thank you for the challenge.

I completely agree.

We're actually going to be meeting with King County Mentors Youth Ridership in our next committee meeting, and those are some of the questions that we have as well.

I know my neighbors have middle school students riding the bus regularly, and I'm aware of some of those concerns as well.

So appreciate the challenge and glad to support it.

I should add, too, that are you going to add something?

Yes, I'd like to add that cross-committee collaboration is something that the committee has started to actively pursue, both working with Parks and Rec and the Fright Advisory Committee.

And it sounds like a really good opportunity for us to continue and increase our visibility in our reach.

Thank you.

By the way, in working with King County Metro, you'll find that they're very specific about the buses or the bus shelters themselves.

And if you get a couple feet beyond, then it's like, if there's anything a couple feet beyond, definitely come to us.

And I know that.

Like at 15th and Dravis, there's pickups.

The bus itself may be OK, but just the immediate neighborhood due to, and it's not all the time.

Some of these challenges, they're very like just in the morning, just in these certain time periods.

And so for those, if King County, if it becomes something that's outside of King County Metro, but it's kind of related to the bus stop experience, please let us know and whatever memo or come back to us, or we're going to have meetings on transit security.

And then if you do have some, please reach out because we can have you participate in that committee meeting too.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you for today's presentation and thank you for your committed work on this body just to advance this really critical issue.

I deeply appreciate seeing such strong partnership between different entities to really have a hands-on approach and find alignment between all of these bodies to really advance what is a really important measure.

to be improving safety on this.

And I also appreciate the concise direction that you're providing to us and some of the other key partners from the state legislature and Metro.

I think that concise direction is helpful for us as we engage about our work this year.

And my question for today is related to some of the points you raised about the Washington state legislature.

And curious about, you know, I don't know if anyone's a lobbyist here, but curious about if there are some ongoing conversations happening there that you're tracking, if you think there's appetite for them to be addressing these four areas, or if any of you are working with legislators on that.

Well, so, you know, speaking about collaboration, I think with WSDOT is one of those items that we are talking about.

And that's one where there is, you know, kind of a new direction at WSDOT.

They've very recently established a pedestrian group there that's up and running.

We had raised these issues around off-ramps and on-ramps and high speeds there a number of times.

And it's really difficult because it's kind of like both Seattle and WSDOT will say, well, you know, WSDOT says it's not our problem once it's on city streets.

And Seattle says, well, you know, the speeding on the ramp isn't our problem.

And so we felt like getting that walk with people high enough up at both SDOT and WSDOT that they could really begin a conversation was a big start.

And we would like to continue to push that.

We know it's going to take a long time to build closer collaboration, but WSDOT has also had some recent changes of policy that allowed, for example, greenways crossing on Aurora at 92nd that's implemented.

And we just, in our last walk boundary committee meeting, we ran it through the scoring rubric and realized that this is now scoring safe enough for kids to cross Aurora.

That's a big change.

So we're excited to see that change, and we think it's going to take a lot of, you know, more building relationships to move it forward.

But it is happening.

In terms of funding, I mean, of course, that's a big question.

There's a lot of questions about school funding happening this year.

And the crossing guards one is a very small piece as far as Seattle Public Schools is concerned.

They have about $100 million deficit.

Crossing guards is about $400,000 a year.

So this would not be their top priority, but it is something we like to raise because it's very clear in the plain language of our current state statute that it should be paid for by the state.

and they have never funded it, not a dollar.

So we like to bring that up and just say, you know, we'd like the state to honor its own loss, and we hope that maybe they will start to consider doing that.

A fair ask.

Thank you for that.

And thank you, Chair.

All right.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you for your volunteer work.

Thank you for sitting in a space of understanding what parent and student needs are and holding both the city, the state, and the school district accountable to get those deliverables into people's lives.

I laughed out loud when you brought up the departures conversation because my team and I were just talking about this.

I think the conversation began when I was the land use chair.

And we thank you for supporting it then and helping bring it to the stage it is now.

Yes, and a level of frustration that government works too slow in these ways.

And so every year, the reason I laughed out loud was because every year I've asked for an update and every year they've said, SDCI in the school district has said it will come this spring.

This is not the land use committee, so I'll save those land use questions for another time.

But if we could just briefly share info after the meeting because I'd like you to connect with my team.

I'd like my team to connect with you because my patience is wearing thin.

Your lack of patience is shared.

Amen.

Well, thank you for all your work.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

I guess I have a question and kind of highlighted in a few different dimensions across the various comments and lines of questioning here, but I'm just taking a step back, zooming out to the 30,000 foot level.

This is a very unique committee, the school traffic safety committee.

It's a unique composition and amalgam of stakeholders, if you will, and includes reps from various departments and agencies across governments.

So it's cross-cutting in terms of the issues, cross-cutting in terms of governments involved and stakeholder and more.

And as I understand it, it's 12 members, is that correct?

12 members, okay.

And maybe this question here is best for our own SDOT rep, so Bill.

What is the city's role in appointing?

And can you tell us more about the composition of this from various, in our role in helping to set that?

Yeah, so I'll ask the members here to clarify the number of seats that are community members.

But the community member seats are appointed through the appointments do go through council for confirmation.

I think we've all been appointed by the Transcription Committee and council.

And I think we had the last round of appointments at Midway last year.

Yeah, that summer.

All 12.

Last April.

All the community volunteers, the six community volunteers.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what I was curious about.

So the six community volunteers are appointed by council or the executive, whatever, confirmed through council.

And then what about the other six members?

And yeah, it's up there.

Yeah, those are appointed by the relevant departments, SPS, Metro.

We have a liaison to the committee.

So for example, the two committee members from SDOT are our Safe Routes School coordinator, who you heard presenting earlier, And then we also have a liaison to the committee in SDOT, Diane Walsh, who's here as well.

For example, Seattle Police Department, we have an officer who's in the traffic enforcement squad who's typically dealt with safety issues.

And public schools, it's our transportation director, and then the Safe Routes to School coordinator.

Seattle Public Schools as well.

And I'm missing...

And there's also a representative from Metro.

Metro, yes.

Got it.

So in terms of the city's role in setting the composition, we have six seats that we get to make direct appointments to and then distributed amongst whether it's King County Metro, Seattle Public Schools, et cetera, those other governments.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

Thank you.

Yeah, I remember this summer we confirmed...

Was it you?

Yeah, I knew you looked familiar.

Say something for the record, please.

You've been way too quiet.

What has been the number one thing that has excited you about this work in the few months since we confirmed your appointment?

Sorry to put you on the spot.

No problem.

No, I'm thrilled to be part of this committee because it actually does a lot of work that makes concrete difference in kids' and parents' experience in being able to get to school.

And you saw a lot of these changes that are happening.

I got involved because I'm the father of the now second grader.

When my son was going to South Shore, I started to lead a bike bus with students and parents in the neighborhood.

And just being able to see kids have that empowering experience and ownership of getting to school on their own and do it with their friends and their family, You know, there's so much that I think we can do to make our streets around school and the way that kids get there a better and welcoming place and set that expectation for how people are supposed to behave, whether they're driving or rolling or walking to get to school is, I just think, really important work.

So I'm just...

I look forward to continuing the work and trying to transform our streets around schools to make sure that everyone can experience that.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ryan.

Is your other co-chair here?

No, it's the outgoing chair.

Outgoing chair.

Much of the work was done under her leadership, and we're thankful for that.

I just took over, actually, this month as chair.

Okay.

Can I just add one thing about the committee makeup, which is that our members coming from the different agencies are really invaluable in helping us, you know, get accurate information and make connections between the agencies.

But when we are doing things that move more into advocacy, you know, writing letters to the city government or the state government, they don't participate in that.

That's something that only the volunteers would sign because everyone is well aware.

that they need to be staying within the appropriate roles of say an SDOT employee, an SPS employee, et cetera.

So when you see things in this that are more advocacy related, that's coming from the volunteer members.

Got it.

That's why you've only got the community members here presenting today.

All good.

Well, I appreciate you all, each and every member of the school traffic safety committee.

And I appreciate your dedication and service to clearly not just the city because we only get six seats, but it's a regional task force.

It's a regional citizens advisory board that touches so many people's lives, literally.

So thank you all for your terrific work.

Colleagues, any final comments, questions?

Happy birthday.

Hearing and seeing none, thank you.

Hearing and seeing none.

Oh, go ahead, Council Member Ring.

Thank you, Chair.

I certainly wanna express my appreciation for you putting together today's agenda and bringing these presentations forward.

I think there are a tremendous number of learnings from the work that's been done here to identify strategies to create more safety for young people just going to school.

And I sincerely hope that we can take some of these learnings to expand our work for our full city in service of pedestrian safety.

That would be, I think, a priority of mine for this year.

There are still far too many person vehicle collisions happening all over our city.

So any learnings we can do from the work you are doing and as well as the previous presenters to expand across the city, I think will be a great thing we could all work on this year.

So thank you, Chair.

Awesome, thank you.

Well, Hearing and seeing no further final comments.

Thank you everyone again.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Our next meeting is scheduled for February 4th at 9.30 a.m.

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

Mr. Chair, this is directly from your Chief of Staff.

We would all like to wish you a happy birthday.

We know we don't want to embarrass you, but we really appreciate all the work that you're doing, and happy birthday, my friend.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

42 is the new 32?

Anyways.

All right, cool.

Well, thank you.

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

It is 11.13 a.m.