Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 10/18/19 Session I

Very deep subject.

Good morning, everybody.

It is October 18th, 2019. This is our Budget Committee.

I'm Sally Bagshaw, Chair.

Thank you very much, my colleagues, Councilmember Juarez, Gonzalez, and Pacheco, for being here with me this morning.

Today, we're going to continue with the budget issue ID deliberations, and I want to say thank you, Calvin Chow, in advance.

We're going to be hearing from Transportation, and then we're going to be diving into TNCs later.

this morning and then probably continuing on this afternoon.

So, we've put the TNC into two parts.

So, we'll focus on the proposed tax, licensing fee reduction, and the spending plan.

And the second part, we will be discussing the focus on the worker protections for the drivers this afternoon.

And that conversation will begin at 2 o'clock.

So, yesterday, if any of you were paying attention and watching us, we were discussing our Housing, Homelessness, Human Services Department, Education, and Early Learning, our Office for Civil Rights, and the Office of Economic Development.

And I want to say a special thanks to my colleagues who are here.

I really appreciated your good questions, Councilmember Gonzalez.

leading the charge on that.

Councilmember Pacheco, for the work that you're doing around the University Heights, I think that you've got some excellent ideas there for our car parking.

Councilmember Juarez, thank you not only for all your work for D5, but looking at how our navigation teams can work more effectively together.

So, with that said, let's just dive right into Department of Transportation issues.

Kevin and Tom, if you'll just introduce yourselves for the record, and we'll get going.

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Tom Mikesell, Central Staff.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Today I will be talking about budget issues related to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I'll be speaking to my issue paper which is attached to the agenda and my presentation will cover an overview of SDOT's budget, nine issues that I've identified for discussion today, three pieces of budget legislation, and 15 council member proposals that will be discussed at the end of the presentation.

I'll start today with an overview of SDOT's budget.

The slide in front of you shows SDOT's appropriations for the 2020 proposed budget.

You'll see that the proposed budget is $28.2 million more than was in the 2020 endorsed budget.

This is a 4% increase, and it includes the average wage increase inflator for 2019 and 2020 that was not included in the 2020 endorsed budget.

The main increases are in four of the operating budget summary levels, or BSLs.

The largest operating increase of $12.3 million is in the general expense BSL shown in line H, and that is a 29% increase.

This includes money, $4 million for the Mercer Mega Block transaction costs, $3.6 million for repayment of the South Lake Union Streetcar Operating Loan, $5.5 million for transfers to the Streetcar Operating Fund.

Now, can I ask you just to slow down a tiny bit?

Sure, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I mean, you've got a great memo here.

We want to read it.

And following up on the summary, it's a little hard to catch where you are, so.

Thank you for checking me.

I'm looking at line H just to show the BSLs that have the highest increase for the increase in SDOT's budget.

And the general expense line in line H has a 29% increase, which is $12.3 million more than was in the endorsed budget.

Now this is primarily related to some one-time expenditures this year, $4 million for the Mercer Mega Block transaction costs, $3.6 million for repayment of the South Lake Union Streetcar Operating Loan, $5.5 million for transfers for the Streetcar Operating Fund, and $1 million for transfers for the Seattle Center Monorail.

So even though this is the largest increase, these are one-time changes in the 2020 proposed budget.

Thank you.

The next line item, well, the next increase, significant increase is in line E, the right-of-way management BSL.

This increased by $3.8 million, which is a 10% increase.

And of this increase, $1.7 million is related to technical adjustments that are backed by street use fees.

$1.6 million is related to the average wage increase, and the remainder is related to some permitting system improvements and other IT upgrades.

Council Member O'Brien.

Cal, on the wage increases, did we just have a different estimate last year, or did we just not do it because we were waiting for something?

We did include it, and we held it in a reserve fund.

Got it, because it was still being negotiated.

It was still being negotiated.

We now know it was 4% in 2019 and 3.6% in 2020, so the compounded effect is 7.74% for the 2020 proposed.

Got it.

Thanks.

You'll see that there are two line items for streetcar BSLs, line F and line G, which I'll be discussing a little later in my presentation.

The overall capital spending remains generally consistent with the endorsed budget, although there are some changes to individual projects based on scope, schedule, and cost estimate changes.

The budget establishes two new BSLs for the waterfront project.

The capital funding that was previously included in the major projects BSL is now in the central waterfront BSL, a new BSL, and reimbursable work that was budgeted on behalf of other departments that was previously in the bridges and structures BSL is now in a separate waterfront and civic projects BSL.

Can I ask a quick question about that on the waterfront and civic projects?

Is that just transportation oriented investments or what is the extent of SDOT's responsibility with that 41 million?

So I would have to ask my colleague Eric McConaughey to go into more detail of what these items are, but in terms of how the budget BSLs work, the capital funding for transportation infrastructure is now in the central waterfront BSL listed under the capital line, so that would be line O.

And those are the transportation-related investments that SDOT is on the hook for.

The reimbursable work that I talked about for line C is work that it's primarily engineering and design work that SDOT would do on behalf of other departments and they'd be reimbursed for that.

So that would be the work for parks or for other portions of the Waterfront Project that has to pay for SDOT to do their portion of that in support of their project.

Great.

So that's simply capital.

Is there any operating in there?

I do not believe so.

Okay.

So when we come up and back to conversations, we've had requests to assist with the waterfront shuttle because WSDOT is going to be concluding at some point this fall the amounts of money that it has been putting in to try to relieve congestion down there.

I will be bringing it up again, but the waterfront shuttle, I'd like to know where it would fall if we were to provide some additional funding for it, whether that's the central waterfront money or the item C?

It would probably go under the mobility operations budget summary level in terms of if we were to purchase transit service of any sort.

All right, thank you.

It would typically come under line A.

I received information indicating that you would be speaking about this and some background information and appreciate receiving that from the downtown Seattle Association.

Just really quickly, I actually don't know how that is funded currently, the waterfront shuttle.

Does the city subsidize that shuttle service currently?

No, it is a mitigation commitment of Washington State Department of Transportation.

I believe it was, I can't remember exactly what it was put in place, but it was mitigation for tearing down the viaduct.

And it's funded through, I believe, the end of this month.

And theoretically this is, so WSDOT claims that it's going to be ending its funding at the end of October.

It may go through the end of November.

But the shuttle is proving to be moving more people than about any other mode down there.

So TSA and WSDOT have been the primary funders of it.

And I'm not sure whether METRO is involved at all.

I don't believe METRO is involved in that funding, just in the provision of the service.

Actually, I don't even think they are.

I think the provision of the service is done by that shuttle, and it's privately owned.

And Howard S. Wright, I believe, is the owner of that.

And there are issues, of course, around supporting a privately funded transportation mode.

But we'll get into that more when we get into the various options.

So I will reserve question and comment until then.

I wanted to draw your line to the bottom line.

The budget adds 25.5 positions.

19 of these positions are existing temporary positions that would expire in 2020. And there is baseline funding for that work in the 2020 endorsed budget.

The remaining 6.5 are new positions that include two positions for curb ramp inspectors.

one position for the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Program, one position for the Traffic Permit Counter, one position to support downtown mobility programs, a conversion of an existing half-time urban forestry position to full-time, and one position to lead congestion pricing and climate efforts related to transportation.

And that position would be housed in the Office of Sustainability and the Environment.

The next slide shows SDOT's revenue sources.

This includes 45.9 million of general fund, which is shown in line N, and this satisfies the no supplanting requirement in the Move Seattle levy.

Just to remind you that the Move Seattle levy prohibits the city from collecting the property tax if a minimum amount of general fund is not allocated to SDOT.

I'd also note that this table includes use of available fund balance, which strictly speaking isn't revenue, and this includes 36 million from the Move Seattle levy fund, $20.8 million from the Seattle Transportation Benefit District Fund, and $1.8 million from the School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement Fund.

I've identified nine issues for discussion today, and the first item is the Seattle, excuse me, the streetcar operating deficit and the center city streetcar.

As I briefly touched on in the overview, the proposed budget increases appropriations for both the South Lake Union and for Seattle streetcar operations.

Much of that increase is related to accounting changes that basically shows ORCA revenue on the city's books and is revenue neutral.

But this increase also includes a reduced projection for operating revenue of $826 million less than what had been assumed in the endorsed budget.

And so this increases the city's operating subsidy for the streetcar to $4.9 million in 2020. I have a table that shows the trend of the streetcar subsidy.

And you'll see that the subsidy was about $1.5 million in 2016, which was the first year of First Hill operations and has tripled to 2020.

This table includes...

Excuse me.

I know Council Member Herbold was here.

She would ask again, what are we looking at for operating money going forward after 2023, which is my understanding is when Metro will no longer be...

Metro Sound Transit will no longer be subsidizing this.

So what are the plans for being able to pay for the operating costs out three years?

There is not currently a specific executive proposal for how to cover those costs.

The last streetcar operating report made a projection out to 2024, and the operating deficit reached 12.5 million in 2024. That would be the last year of the King County contribution, and Sound Transit contribution will have ended by then as well.

So, we know there is an outstanding gap going on to the future.

And that's just for the existing streetcars?

That is just for the existing streetcars.

At Westlake and Broadway, it would not cover operating costs going forward, should the streetcar, the middle section, be built?

If the middle section goes forward, the expected subsidy in 2026, which would be the first year of operations, was $18.1 million.

Thank you.

Madam Chair?

Please, Council Member Morris.

Thank you.

This is, I apologize, I should have caught this earlier, Calvin.

I was busy reading, trying to catch up with you.

Just quickly, back on page one, when we did the waterfront lid bond, can you explain to me, I see that what's in the endorsed, what's proposed, just, and also for the viewing audience, we've had questions about if you can interpret that for us, what that means.

Specifically speaking,

That's V, waterfront lid bond.

We have a...

I will have to ask my compatriot Eric McConaghy who covers these, but I believe it's related to the delay in the formation of the LID.

And so that's delaying the time period of when the bonds would be issued or the amounts.

But I would have to confirm with him because I'm not covering that issue directly.

Okay, that's it.

Thank you.

question.

Thank you.

Please, Council Member Bryan.

Cal, back to the the streetcar.

When I'm looking at your chart here on slide four it shows modest increases in operating costs from 2019 to 2020 that look in the realm of kind of inflationary but I don't know if there's anything else in there but there's no nothing jumps out at me the the decrease in revenue you know, reverses a modest trend that's been happening over the last five years.

And I'm curious, you know, what accounts for the $500,000 in decrease there.

Are there, is it a anticipated reduction in fare box recovery or is it advertising or?

I think the advertising has been roughly the same and it hasn't been particularly great.

Yeah.

The story for the South Lake Union streetcar has pretty consistently been performance and whether it's an attractive transportation option for South Lake Union when you have things like the rapid ride, an additional 40 service and other bus service that has increased other options in that area.

And I think that may have eaten into the ridership for the streetcar line.

So I believe it's predominantly fair revenue.

Okay.

It seems like That would show up in 2019 as a lot of that service has been going on for at least a year.

And so I don't know if maybe that partially we don't actually have final 2019 numbers and it's anticipating that those are coming down or?

It's a little tricky also in that there was some accounting changes in our agreement with King County that showed different costs on our books or not on our books.

There were times when some of the fair revenue was netted out of the payments that we paid for them.

So I have to go back and look and see.

This is drawn from the most recent 2019 streetcar operations report, and it has a little more background.

And I know that they had to, over the last couple of years, they've had to recalibrate the cost because, as you'll recall, in 2016 when we launched, we didn't expect to have to spend any subsidy at all, so there has been some evolution of these costs.

But I can follow up with you about sort of what's behind this.

I don't need anything down to the penny, just more the concepts.

May I just ask a follow-up question?

to that, Cal, and again, I don't expect you to know off the top of your head, so if you could do a little research on this.

So, Council Member O'Brien has shown here and discussed that the revenues are less than anticipated.

And can you double check for us to see whether the actual revenues have been included in the 2019 report?

So that I know the assumptions were really much higher looking out on what the ridership was going to be and how much the fair revenues were expected.

And so if it's proving that the ridership is not what we were anticipating, whether the models have been adjusted to confirm that in accordance with the actuals.

The last, I'll check into that in a little more detail.

I do know that the last projection came in about middle of the year, so they wouldn't have had the full year to go on, but they would have had trends that they, to establish, to reconsider what 2019 would look like, but I'll confirm for you.

Great, thank you.

I've lost my place a little bit, but I think.

Sorry, you've only had 16 questions.

But just in case I didn't cover it before, there are external funding contributions shown in this table.

So there is $5 million annually for First Hill operations coming from Sound Transit through 2023. And King County Metro has agreed to continue contributing $1.5 million annually for the South Lake Union streetcar operations through 2024.

So in the total revenue for 2020, it says $8.9 million.

Does that include the sound transit in King County?

I believe so.

So that would be like 85% of that revenue is the operating subsidy and the fare recovery is much smaller?

Fare recovery is much, much smaller, yes.

What was your question?

I'm sorry.

I just wasn't sure if the, when we talk about total revenues here, if that's just Fairbox or if that includes the King County and Sound Transit subsidies.

It does include the subsidies, yes.

If it does include those subsidies, then that's almost the vast majority of our revenue is actually from subsidies as opposed to operating.

Fairbox revenue for transit is typically on the order, small digits.

20% or something.

20 to 30% for high performing systems.

I would highlight that the budget does not include new funding for project development of the Center City Streetcar.

In August, council approved $9 million to allow SDOT to continue design following the stop work order and the independent consultant review that was completed last year.

SDOT expects that this design work will lead to revised estimates for capital costs, operating costs, revenues, and the ongoing subsidy required to operate the streetcar system.

And again, I think I mentioned that the, a projection for the streetcar system with the Center City Streetcar.

The projected deficit is $18.1 million in 2026.

Thank you for repeating that.

I just wanted to make sure Councilor Herbold that you would pick that up because it's a question that you frequently ask.

The previous capital funding gap, including once we take into account the $9 million that council authorized earlier, is down to $56.4 million, and the proposed budget contemplates imposing a new tax on transportation network companies, which my colleague Amy Gore will be discussing a little bit later today.

Funding related to this tax is held in finance general and is not included in the SDOT budget.

And so maybe some more conversation as part of the TNC discussion.

There are no staff options identified this time, but Council Member Herbold has a proposal that we'll discuss at the end of the presentation.

The next item, item two, is micromobility options and parking corrals.

During SDOT's budget presentation, council members asked about the status of permitting scooter share.

SDOT is developing a scooter permit proposal for launch in spring of 2020, and the permit will require council authorization to establish the fee schedule and possibly code changes governing how scooters operate in the right of way.

And the executive intends to transmit this legislation in 2019 or potentially early 2020. On a related issue, last month, Council passed Resolution 31898. This resolution requested a budget proposal for adding 3,000 micromobility parking spaces in 2020 to be funded through permit fees.

In response, SDOT identified a funding need of $1.4 million to deliver 3,000 spaces.

This funding was not included in the 2020 proposed budget.

This is a higher cost per space than SDOT is currently experiencing in its 2019 delivery of bike corrals.

This year, SDOT received about $1 million of bike share parking fee revenue, and half of this was directed towards installation of bike parking spaces.

1,500 spaces are planned in 2019. This is in addition to another 1,500 spaces that will be delivered as part of Move Seattle Levy projects.

The higher estimate of parking costs for 2020 may be due to having completed the easiest locations first, as well as the need for dedicated staffing if a program were scaled up for 3,000 parking spaces.

SDOT program staff do not believe that the micro-mobility market could support the size of permit fees that would be necessary to generate $1.4 million for parking deployment.

They intend to update their 2020 parking goals based on the available fee revenues once the permit is in place and they have vendor applications to have a sense of how much permit revenue there will be.

I have no staff recommendations at this time.

Thank you.

Item three is the Mercer Mega Block property sale proceeds.

The budget recognizes $138.5 million from the sale of the megablock, and of these proceeds, $54.7 million is restricted for transportation purposes, which reflects the use of gas tax and the initial purchase of the property.

Table 3 shows the proposed uses of the transportation funds.

At the top of the table, you'll see that most of the funding will repay outstanding inter-fund loans that were previously pledged against this revenue.

This includes $12.2 million for the Mercer West project, $3.6 million for the South Lake Union streetcar operating loan, and $9 million for the Center City streetcar design work.

There's also $4 million to cover SDOT's share of the transaction costs, and $9.2 million to backfill for lower than anticipated commercial parking tax revenue.

The commercial parking tax forecast is down about 3 million per year in 2019 and 2020 than was included in the endorsed budget, and that impacts future years outgoing as well.

Quick question on the commercial parking tax revenue.

My understanding that this, the 9.2 million is a is basically some money we put in reserve to help cover what we had expected the commercial parking tax to cover, but for a number of years out.

It covers roughly three years.

It'll cover roughly 2019. Well, 2019 is coming in three million less.

2020 is projected to come in about three million less, and all the projections are basically down about that much.

And I assume my understanding is that Well, I haven't heard any clarity on why we think 2019 revenues are lower than before.

And I've also heard that throughout 2019, the numbers have fluctuated a bit.

And so my sense is this is a conservative attempt to just, there's something going on that we don't really understand.

And so let's cautiously move forward.

It is not the funds that would be set aside to backfill commercial parking tax would sort of buttress against future revenue fluctuations.

If those revenues come in as projected, then this revenue would be available for other uses.

So it is in some ways hedging against the future.

I don't know how much more information we're going to be able to get in the next few weeks, but I don't believe parking rates are going down in the city, and it seems like there's still lots of cars downtown.

I mean, it may be that, in fact, our transit system robustness means that there's a lot of more empty stalls in parking garages.

I don't know.

I mean, that would really be the only explanation unless somehow we're not capturing it or people have shifted to do some sort of tax avoidance scheme that we're missing out on.

And we are, I mean, this is the Seattle squeeze.

We're entering the, I mean, this, we have started this whole process that we knew was coming and I think it's probably very volatile in terms of how people are responding to it and what their driving habits are.

Yeah, okay.

So the remaining $16.7 million is shown in the middle of this table and is directed to Vision Zero projects that are scheduled to be delivered over the next several years.

So this includes $2.2 million for Pedestrian Master Plan Crossing Improvements, and that funding is programmed for Lake City Way.

There's $650,000 for the Northeast 43rd Street CIP Project.

There's $2 million for Bike Master Plan Greenways Program, and this funding is programmed for Thomas Street.

There is also $3.5 million for the Highland Park Intersection CIP Project.

And there is $8.35 million for the Bike Master Plan Protected Bike Lanes Program.

And this funding is currently unprogrammed for specific locations and will be discussed in the next issue.

Madam Chair?

Please, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

I had an opportunity, thank you Kelvin, you've been great about it.

I know we have some projects that we haven't, we're still working on to get to the rest of my colleagues for SDOT and some of the concerns we have and some of the budget asks that we'll be putting to Council Member or Chairwoman Bagshaw.

But looking at pages 6 and 7 in the 16.7 million of the Mercer-Megawatt proceeds, Now, I know that you talked about there being proposed for Vision Zero priorities, including intersection improvements on Lake City Way.

Is there a way that we could get a list of which intersections are going to be targeted?

I know you said it'd be 2.2 million.

So that's first and foremost.

And I do want to share this because D5 is not just the land of no sidewalks.

It's become, in the last six months, two people have died.

in District 5 after being hit by drivers while crossing the street.

And most recently, the Seattle Times reported that two senior citizens, a husband and a wife, who were very well known in our community, were struck and hit by a hit-and-run driver in Lake City, Wade, killing one of them.

This is in part due to the lack of a crosswalk to the community center.

That's the Lake City Community Center, where we have a lot of senior activities for our elders.

So this is just one example of the many incidents of traffic accidents due to lack of pedestrian infrastructure in North Seattle and District 5. So needless to say, I'll be looking at this budget in ways to make sure to ensure that we reduce pedestrian injuries and deaths caused by accidents involving vehicles.

I do support Vision Zero priorities and I support keeping the Mercer Mega Block spending dedicated to pedestrian safety projects and not reprioritizing it to other transportation needs.

So I just want to make sure that my colleagues and the viewing public and particularly my constituents know that I heard them and that we will continue to push for these pedestrian protections and safeties, not only along Lake City Way 125th, but Aurora, and we also had another elder that was hit by a car up at Northgate.

So I'm gonna keep that on the radar.

And I'll follow up with you on the projects.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Are there some specific project investments that you are seeking?

There are.

I know that we have the highest number, I think, of Find It, Fix It and Your Choice, Your Voice.

And I'm actually waiting for a list of that to get back to me to see where we rank.

But I know that in the hierarchy of neighborhoods and looking at, and we're still working with Calvin on this, that three neighborhoods are, I think, in the top 10 of the matrix of funding for pedestrian improvements, and they're all four of those are in District 5. And I just, I can't think of them right now off the top of my head.

What we put to Calvin and we're still working on is still to be determined because it's taken a lot more, a little bit more time than we had anticipated getting the information from SDOT.

I know this isn't the time or the place and I'd be here all day if I were to talk about the consent decree that we're under, as you know, for sidewalks that we were sued by under the ADA, American Disability Act.

That was done in 2017 and I think we got like 15 years to pave so many sidewalks and it's gonna cost billions of dollars for curb ramps.

Yeah So I don't want to go into that, but we do have some targeted areas We do have some areas where like I said, I walked the neighborhood last Saturday and just on the private side I'm up to 1100 new units of just on the in the private side market of being built that's not counting on the 1,500 units at Northgate.

That's not counting all of the low-income housing we're doing that we did with Speaker Chopp.

So we are looking at a lot of density on Lake City Way and Northgate because light rail is coming.

And we are looking at where we have not had those infrastructures reinforcements since the city annexed Lake City Way, I believe in the 50s, late 50s, early 60s.

So we have a lot of work to do there.

I don't expect it to get done in this budget, but I will continue to push for those infrastructures and thank you.

You've been great, Kelvin, in getting us information.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So I don't have staff, I don't have staff recommendations at this time, but this is new money that's in the in the proposed budget that obviously is for council review.

Council Member Bryan has a proposal that we'll discuss a little bit later.

Issue four is bicycle infrastructure.

And last month, council adopted resolution 31894, which requested that the executive identify funding in the 2020 budget for projects that were not funded in the 2019-2024 BMP implementation plan, which was released earlier this summer.

The proposed budget does include partial funding for the projects that were identified in the resolution, and it's shown in table four.

Of these projects, only the Vine Street-Bell Street project is fully funded.

And the total cost estimate for all these projects is over $32 million.

The 8.35 million of MRSA proceeds, which we just discussed, could fund a portion of these projects.

And SDOT intends to work with BMP stakeholders in 2020 to prioritize the use of those funds.

So as an option, council may wish to reprioritize resources for additional spending on these projects.

I'll just ask folks to bookmark this when we get to the number four and my proposed additions will come back to look at this for a South Seattle connection that we want to make.

The next item, item five, is programmatic neighborhood spending.

One of the difficulties that I think we all have in reviewing SDOT's budget is the sheer number of projects that the department delivers, and SDOT has a number of neighborhood programs that allow the department to manage portfolios of small projects across the city.

Many of these projects are screened and prioritized through modal plans, like the BMP and the PMP, and screening includes criteria for geographic equity and race and social justice considerations.

Every year SDOT updates its implementation plans to show the next six years of planned spending, and these are typically presented to committee to keep council abreast of project status.

There is also the Your Voice, Your Choice program, which allows for participatory budgeting and lets residents vote on priority projects within their own council districts.

Table 5 shows SDOT's programmatic neighborhood spending since 2016, which was the first year of the Move Seattle levy.

Since 2016, overall spending in these programs has roughly doubled.

However, these are still limited resources and many neighborhood proposals and exigent needs remain unfunded.

A couple of these modal implementation programs, item F and item J, were split into smaller programs in the 2018 budget.

Item B is the home zone pilot that council established last year and council member Juarez, I think a number of I think a number of the projects you were talking about were in consideration for the home zone pilot.

The program provided $350,000 for traffic calming measures within a more focused, coordinated neighborhood setting.

SDOT evaluated 20 different locations and developed concepts for four locations, but ultimately funded only, were only able to fund two, and these included Broadview South and South Park.

The 2020 endorsed budget did not include continued funding for the pilot, and no additional funding was included in the 2020 proposed budget.

I've identified a few options for council's consideration.

For option A, council may wish to add funding for programmatic spending, which would fund the next level of priority projects.

For option B, council may wish to direct funding for specific projects.

For option C, council may wish to consider the home zone, consider more funding for the home zone pilot.

And as option D, you may wish to consider a more formal review of the modal implementation plans as part of next year's work plan.

Madam Chair?

Please, go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kelvin.

I forgot that is the matrix that besides that was one of them, but I have to say in district five, the home zone pilot project has been very successful and we were focused on Sacajawea Elementary and Broadview Elementary safety for our kids where we have schools that have John Rogers could go on and on that have not, Hazel Wolf, yes, because they built a brand new school.

Bob Eagle staff, yes, because they built a brand new school.

So SDOT kind of had to do that infrastructure, which was needed.

But I'm really going to push hard and I hope my colleagues will understand this as well.

The pilot program, the home zone pilot, those worked really well in our district.

And if we're not going to have sidewalks, then at least when we have these projects of pilots that have been successful where you're doing the traffic calming measures and you're slowing down traffic in areas where we have our elders, which we've seen the two deaths, or areas where we have our elementary schools, where we have kids getting on and off buses and parents picking them up, and just children trying to walk to school.

And we're seeing more and more kids biking to school.

The street in front of my house is a greenway, so I see a lot of kids on bikes and adults as well.

And we're starting to see that more in District 5 off the main corridors.

So I'm gonna be a big proponent of bringing back this pilot program and hopefully making it a line item that's always in the budget.

Maybe I'll get it from the sweet and beverage tax.

May I just ask a quick follow-up question on that?

Can you tell me how does the home zone pilot connect with the funding that we get from the school zone cameras?

Is one funded by the other?

Are they in sync somehow?

Because I concur with what Council Member Juarez is saying that we hear from neighborhoods all the time about if we could just get the traffic slowed, it would be safer here.

And these speed homes, I'm surprised, always surprised at how much they cost, but I would love to hear what the plan is and how those two might interrelate.

So the, this answer may seem a little convoluted and I'm sorry, I'm not sure I have a good way to make it completely clear.

It's the homes on pilots has been a good way for SDOT to engage with neighborhoods on safety issues in an area.

The money specifically to the home zone pilot, they had to focus on two locations, but they ended up with a number of different recommendations for a number of different areas, and they have tried to bring other resources to bear in those areas.

Sometimes that's not as far as what the recommendation was, but they do try to tap into the rest of their programmatic spending.

Many of these are small projects and they don't rise to the level that we typically would budget for so that it's sort of programmatic use of some of their other safety programs.

And I know that SDOT has responded to our questions about what have they done in a number of these areas to get a sense of how responsive they've been.

I think the Homes on Pilot, we've seen just how many neighborhoods are interested in it, and it has been a good way, I think, for people to have that conversation with SDOT.

It's been an organizing principle.

But $350,000 is not very much money.

For sure.

Well, I know that Council Member Juarez has a follow-up question, and I'd just like to ask too, are our internal systems working?

So the question I asked is, is this money also being used in conjunction with the school zone cameras?

And then also our Department of Neighborhood has, you know, multiple grants.

And now they've gotten organized so that individuals and neighborhoods can apply just to the Department of Neighborhoods for three different levels of grants.

I think that simplified things.

I'd love to know if SDOT and Department of Neighborhoods are working on this in conjunction so that people and neighborhoods can either combine forces, combine grants, or at least just apply once and not have to try to figure out what monies are available to them.

I think the staff are well engaged in the other available funding measures and they're often able to help the community groups.

frame up their proposals for grants.

In terms of the specific money, I think the home zone pilot, we actually used commercial parking revenue last year when council proposed this program.

There isn't an intrinsic, you know, there's been no, there was no dedication of resources or anything like that when we set up the program.

So that's, it was a funding commitment, but not tied to a specific revenue source.

So if we have multiple requests for this, and I'm delighted to see that South Park got some assistance, and I know Council Member Herbold is promoting the connection with Concord Elementary.

Is this the kind of monies that could be used for that, or are there different resources that we could combine to accomplish the goals?

I think that part of why I wanted to show you this matrix of different programs is that when it comes to kind of responding to a neighborhood the department draws on a lot of these different programs to come up with solutions and it can be hard to track from a that the budget the budget view of that looks different than the work that the department does with the community to kind of figure out how to actually deliver the projects.

So from a constituent response sort of lens, it can be hard to track that in the budget.

If there are specific locations, we can certainly follow up with SDOT to kind of understand where it's all coming from, but it's very, very hard to explain that at this budget level.

Thank you.

Council Member Morris.

I'll be brief and I should have said this the first time in my notes.

It somehow got past me.

I just want to note for the record that in 2019 SDOT evaluated 20 potential locations of Hone Zones and 11 of those were in District 5. So I think that speaks for itself.

And I would like to request a breakdown of completing the 20 locations that SDOT evaluated, particularly the additional two home zones that have conceptual plans developed.

So if we have the 20 locations, 11 which are in D5, if we can have a breakdown of the 20, and how they're evaluated, then I think that also goes to the Chairwoman's concern or issue of raising where other funds, where other revenue sources we can look to because wherever we get the money, I think it should fall squarely with SDOT, quite frankly.

I hope it's not contingent on the commercial parking revenue.

Again, going back to my days of building big stuff everywhere across the country, including Indian country, sidewalks, safe areas, getting elders and children safe on the streets and to school and to where they live is an essential governmental function.

And as such, it should be funded as an essential governmental function.

not just a pilot program.

I know there's problems tracking, and I know anecdotal is important, but I think a lot of what we've seen goes beyond anecdotal and protecting people so they can walk to school and walk to their homes and use the other facilities or other services that are in their neighborhood.

So we encourage people to walk.

So I will leave it at that.

Thank you, Kelvin.

Any other questions?

All right, please proceed.

Sorry, Council Member O'Brien.

I just want to make sure I understand the nature of the pilots.

Are these largely like capital traffic calming investments, meaning now that the pilot's over, do these two projects exist in perpetuity and is it just a matter of adding more of them or is there kind of operational things that go away without a budget action and we lose them?

This was, so the Homes on Pilot, the idea was to focus, we've often had neighborhood traffic control programs and the idea was to deploy those in a sort of concentrated area and really try to encourage a much stronger pedestrian environment for a dedicated area.

So I think it's more of a location geographic focus than maybe some of our other programs, which may be more driven by complaints or specific spot location requests.

My view of it is that the pilot gave SDOT sort of an organization, organization tool for working with neighborhoods, and it generated some interest, and it came up with some audits of different areas that they are able to kind of go forward on.

If we funded the program for additional years, that would, we have some in the hopper already.

There's probably also some outreach work that would be able to go out to some other communities that haven't had attention yet.

20 locations have already been identified and we've only funded two, so there's certainly that next thread.

But did we actually put capital investments on the ground in Broadview South and South Park?

Yes, and part of the reason that those two neighborhoods were chosen, as I understand it, is because of the work that SPU is also doing in those neighborhoods, and some of the low-impact drainage work that they're doing has a connection to the sidewalk environment.

So they were able to leverage a little bit more out of that, and that was part of SDOT's considerations as they move for this $350,000.

That's great.

Do we have any data on the kind of outcomes that we've seen in those neighborhoods, or is it too soon to tell?

It's too soon, and I think some of these are still in, well, I should check to see where they are in the implementation phase.

They've been built or not.

Council Member Juarez and others, I support this, you know, finding a path to continue to do this deployment, and I think it'd be important if we don't already have requirements, for them to capture some data on the first ones that are being deployed to come back to us and report back on what we've seen, what we've learned.

And I also think I appreciate SDOT's continually looking for opportunities to leverage their investments with other projects that are happening.

And I think some statement, if we do find the funding to continue, is to continue looking for those leverage opportunities would be good too.

Great.

Thank you.

All right, please continue, Kelvin.

The next item, item six, is congestion pricing.

In the 2018 budget, council added $200,000 to begin assessing the impacts of tolling and congestion pricing, and in the 2019 budget, the mayor added one million more to support the work.

SDOT presented its initial work to council in July, and this work focused on lessons learned from international cities that have implemented congestion pricing to date, and this includes Stockholm, London, Singapore, Milan, and Gothenburg.

The study also identified four pricing strategies with the strongest potential for implementation in Seattle, which include cordon pricing, area pricing, fleet pricing, and road user charges.

This fall, SDOT has developed a congestion pricing model, which will help explore different pricing strategies and help model their effects.

In the next phase of work, the executive intends to focus on public engagement.

And the budget includes one FTE, which will be funded through SDOT, but housed in OSCE to lead this work.

Of the 1.2 million identified in the previous budgets, 470,000 is expected to carry forward into 2020 to support the public engagement process.

There is no new money in the 2020 proposed budget for this item.

The work is also partially supported by a Bloomberg Climate Challenge Grant, which funded an additional position in OSCE through 2020 to support the work.

And I have no options identified at this time.

a question?

Sure.

Council President Harrell.

Just a clarifying question.

I understand they have one FT still leading the citywide efforts, but that wouldn't require the use of the balance of $470,000.

So what is the other monies going for?

The intent is to start a public conversation around congestion pricing and so it would support other outreach efforts.

other incidental expenses to start engaging the public.

Okay, okay, so that's communications.

Seems a little nebulous to me.

So is the Bloomberg Climate Challenge, did that, of the 1.2 million, was that, did that include that?

Is it, so that's in addition to the 1.2?

It's in addition, yes.

The challenge grant, as I understand it, it's related to congestion pricing.

It helped fund one position that is currently in OSC that devotes a portion of their time to help support this work.

And then it's potentially a funding source if specific recommendations come out, we could go back to them with proposals that they would consider funding.

So it's kind of like being on a grant roster, if you will.

Okay, so because there aren't any significant budget changes on this issue, is the assumption that at the end of this work that the city would have a pretty well thought out recommendation on what this should and could look like?

Is that what the assumption is, or is it just sort of dying a natural death and we're not heading in that direction?

I'm just trying to get a feel for what this means.

So we're trying to figure out what is a very complex issue.

Well, one of the main lessons that I think Estat's initial study tried to highlight was that how these efforts develop in different cities is very much a you have to have a conversation and then find out when the time is right, when sort of the stars align to really go forward with a proposal that makes sense to the region that's going to have to vote on it, in our case particularly.

And so what the intent here is to not get ahead of, they do not have a proposal at this time.

They want to engage the public with the information they've identified.

They now have a model that can help them sort of show what the impacts of a couple different, pricing strategies or options might look like.

And I think the idea is to take the temperature of the community as well before coming back in the next budget to come up with more money to do whatever the next phase of this is.

And I guess I'll leave this alone because I'll be on the outside and one of the people.

possibly using this, and so I have to ask these questions now.

If the strategy is to sort of wait to see what happens, if the congestion is as bad as most people anticipate it will be, and then to come out with a plan or to, because we don't know, right?

We don't know how much diversion there's going to be from the waterfront.

Then it seems to me that all this outreach is a little premature if it's sort of a wait and see.

I mean, we could do it, but I mean, I could pretty much anticipate what the different camps will say on this issue.

It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out who's going to advocate for what, who would like it, who wouldn't like it.

I mean, I think we know what the constituents are saying.

So if this is sort of a wait and see approach, I just sort of want to know that.

Because again, we don't know what kind of diversion it's going to be.

It's a fair comment.

I think one of the main things to remind ourselves is that any type of congestion pricing is going to require a vote of the people.

So the temperature of the community reviewing this thing and how much they are willing to stomach is going to be part of where we go forward.

Thank you.

Okay.

Council Member O'Brien.

Yeah, thank you.

Calvin, I'd love to grill you on this, but I imagine that you don't have all the answers for what the executive's intention are here.

But I appreciate, Council President Harrell, your questions.

My understanding is that, you know, to be clear to the public, the city can't unilaterally implement a congestion pricing or tolling scheme in Seattle.

It requires a vote of the people.

And one of the commitments that the council has made through various resolutions and the mayor's stated publicly is you know, we would have to do something that would be equitable and that, you know, lowest income people aren't disproportionately burdened by any system.

And so my understanding of how this funding will be spent in the next year is specifically reaching out to communities that would potentially, you know, could potentially be disproportionately impacted and really understand what their needs are and how they currently use the system and what are the types of investments that would help.

Frankly, this was some of the information that I had hoped to gather more information on in the report we funded two years ago.

I think I was a little disappointed in the kind of robustness of that report, kind of doing the equity analysis.

But my understanding is there's a commitment to do that with some of this funding.

And I think there's a bit of you know, until we have a clear, until the city has a clear understanding of how different users use the system to design a program.

You know, a congestion pricing scheme could be certain times of day, at different rates, it could be always around a cordon price, it could be It could toll everyone.

It could only toll certain people on certain times of day.

It could offer rebates to certain individuals.

It could heavily invest in transit alternatives so the folks most impacted have better alternatives.

So there's a whole host of scenarios that could be played out and it's really hard to design that without having good data on who's impacted.

Calvin, I would be interested in understanding, you know, we put in about 1.2 million, 4.7 left, so about 750,000 has been spent to date.

My recollection was that only a couple hundred thousand was part of the original study.

And so I'm interested in what the other 500 or so thousand went to or what they anticipate spending on through 2019 because I've seen the report they did and I, you know, again, I wasn't totally happy with the robustness of it, but I appreciate that that was done.

But I'm not clear on what the other money was spent on, so it'd be good to get a little feedback on that too.

Item 7 is the Seattle Transportation Benefit District and vehicle license fees.

I just wanted to highlight for you that the budget includes $32.9 million of vehicle license fees through the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

This includes $24.6 million which supports Proposition 1 programs that were approved by voters in November of 2014. It also includes $8.3 million to support basic infrastructure programs such as neighborhood traffic control and the pothole repair program.

In November of 2019, Washington voters will vote on Initiative 976, which would rescind the city's authority to assess vehicle license fees.

If I-976 passes, central staff will work with the executive to develop potential budget actions for your consideration to address the decreased revenue.

Council Member Brent.

Colleagues, I just want to reiterate the potential for fundamental radical change in our budget depending on the outcome in November.

And so certainly been thinking through what options we would have to help support some of the most critical transportation funding that might disappear if 9-7-6 were to pass.

In a moment, I will get to some of my ads, and we're going to talk through over a dozen different opportunities there that, from my perspective, all look pretty good.

But really, the context of whether 976 passes or not is going to be critical, for me at least, in deciding what investments we want to be doing going forward.

A warning that I'm generally supportive of a lot of things, but I really can't tell you the types of things that I'm going to want to prioritize until we have a little more clarity on.

on our ability to collect our transportation benefit district funding and frankly the upstream effects that that would have on other funding sources we get in metros funding and some transit funding.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

And it's unfortunate that we won't have the final numbers until after my proposed budget is put in front of us.

So we may have to do some amendments after that.

Item 8 is the Director of Citywide Mobility.

In January, the Executive announced this position to lead efforts on the Seattle Squeeze and Viaduct Closure, and this position came up for discussion during SDOT's budget presentation two weeks ago.

Since then, the Executive has informed Council that the planning and preparation work conducted by this position would be complete by the end of the year, and that the position would end.

The proposed budget does include funding for this position through 2020 through FAS allocation rates, which included $135,000 of general fund, about $9,000 from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, about $18,000 from the retirement fund, about $30,000 from Seattle Public Utilities, $40,000 from Seattle City Light, and $20,000 from Seattle Department of Transportation.

As an option, Council may wish to eliminate the 2020 funding.

Issue number nine is capital oversight.

In the last few budget cycles, council has taken actions to increase oversight of SDOT's capital program, and this includes passing budget legislation to condition SDOT's grant applications, which would ensure that council is supportive of projects before the department applies for grants over $5 million.

In the past, council has also established stage gate provisos, for example, on the Delridge Multimodal Corridor Project, which required check-ins at the 10% and 30% design stages.

In the proposed budget, the executive has highlighted a new executive oversight process through this capital sub-cabinet, and the new process would wait until 30% design to complete before establishing formal cost estimates for projects.

It would also trigger third-party review for projects costing over $50 million.

The executive will be using this new process for the new North Lake retaining wall project, and this is a new project NESTDOT CIP to repair a deteriorating timber structure along the north shoreline of Lake Union.

The proposed CIP only includes $4 million to fund design of the project, and instead of a specific cost estimate, the project page lists a potential range of $20 to $35 million, given the early stage of the project development.

As options, council may wish to consider legislation to condition SDOT's 2020 grant applications.

Or option B, council may wish to consider stage gate provisos.

And Council Member Herbold has a proposal to discuss later, or perhaps now.

Go ahead.

I just have a question.

I didn't want to discuss my proposal now, but thank you.

I had a question about whether or not we need to actually pass legislation to continue to require the capital project oversight reports that we've been receiving.

No.

We do not, okay.

There are three pieces of budget legislation I'm sorry to go back.

I you went by it real quickly, and I was multitasking on the number eight director of citywide mobility That position is currently filled correctly.

This is currently filled.

It's a temporary position so the proposed budget includes that or limit I it was my understanding that that was not going to be carried forward and

Is that what this is saying?

In the last two weeks, the executive has informed council that they believe the work that that position does would be complete by the end of the year and that they don't intend the position to continue into next year.

That communication was after the proposed budget was transmitted.

The proposed budget has funding for that position baked into it.

That's what I want to clarify.

Yeah, but I think Council President's point is well taken, is that it's baked into the budget, but if the position is not going to be filled going forward, is that money that's available for any of the issues that we've been discussing so far?

Yes, so the funding was gathered, was spread across the FAS allocation, which goes to six of the major city funds.

And so my paper lists where the money comes from.

I believe there's 135,000 of that is general fund.

So that would be available for other uses if the funding for the position were cut.

Since I flagged the issue, that money would be earmarked for Harold projects.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Can I ask a quick follow-up on that?

So SDOT's budget has about $45 million in general fund funding in it.

Is the general fund funding from this currently in the SDOT budget, meaning that to honor the commitment to a minimum threshold, the general fund would need to stay in SDOT, or is it outside of that?

I believe it's outside of that, and I think there is still sufficient wiggle room to handle a $100,000 difference.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think I'm already hearing that it's been dubsed up here, so we'll see where it goes.

So there were three pieces of legislation that the executive transmitted with the budget.

Item one is a change to the commercial vehicle license fee and the temporary no parking fee.

This would increase the commercial vehicle load zone permit from $195 to $250 per permit and would add $2 per day to the temporary no parking fee.

The increased funds would support staffing and program ads in the commercial vehicle enforcement program in the permit counter.

The items two and three would establish the term of Interfund Loans for the Mercer West Project and the South Lake Union Streetcar Project, both of which, or excuse me, the South Lake Union Streetcar Operating Loan from 2007. And both of those were set to expire at the end of this year, so this would extend that for next year in anticipation of the Mercer Mega Block proceeds.

And I'll be working to prepare Council budget actions for your consideration during the budget process.

Thank you.

For this last section, council members have identified 15 items for discussion, and I would invite the sponsors to speak to their projects as we go along.

The first item is to add funding for an active transportation coordinator at Seattle Public Schools, and this item is sponsored by Council Member O'Brien.

Colleagues, the concept behind here would be that at Seattle Public Schools, What we find is that there's a lot of kids through the ORCA program now have ORCA passes outside the one and a half or two mile radius depending at the school they're at.

But there's still a significant number of kids that live within that radius and do not have access to the ORCA passes.

And we find that only a fraction of them are actually still walking to school.

Lots of their parents are choosing to drive them if they have parents that are available to do that.

But the reality is that there aren't great programs to help people feel safe getting to and from school.

We've reached out to, let me pause for a second there, to the extent that there are programs and we do see some pretty robust programs like the walking school bus programs or other bike to school programs, they're often set up on an ad hoc basis based on the availability of kind of parent involvement or sometimes teacher involvement to set up these programs.

But as you can imagine, the robustness and availability of programs are not spread equally throughout the school district.

And so schools where there are parents with more resources or more time often find that there are some decent programs and other schools may not have the capacity to do that.

The idea behind funding a active transportation coordinator at school district would be to try to fill in that gap and make sure that all students in the school system have access to that type of programming that would allow more of them to choose to walk and ride.

And just briefly, the benefits, obviously, getting kids to be more physically active is a good thing.

Fewer cars on the street is a good thing.

school districts to make sure we have a safe alternative making sure those that really don' t have any other options that they have safe alternatives to get to school so we don' t have accidents or injuries I shouldn' t say accidents collisions or injuries is all really important.

We reached out to the school district my staff has spoken to a couple school board members and had a conversation with fred podesta over the school district they' re very excited about this and I anticipate we will receive a letter of Professor Dodd is a very strong interest in using this as part of the school safety investment, but want to make sure that it's going to be well received and we're not imposing it on it.

And the conversations to date have been excitement about funding for such a program.

So you should all have four different pink sheets in front of you that will, this is the first of those four and the next three items are all mine and they're all included on the subsequent pink sheets.

The next item is to add $1 million to provide for ongoing maintenance of bicycle infrastructure.

As we continue to add protected bike lanes throughout the city, it's a great thing and we're seeing more of those come online this year and we'll be talking in a second about potentially adding more of those elsewhere in the city.

Right now there's not a dedicated funding source to do maintenance on those.

So maintenance can look like things like sweeping them, it could be snow removal in events like last year.

repainting them, posts often get broken, and so replacing those posts.

And what we've seen is now that we have, you know, now that we're building a network of these lanes, but some of them are getting a few years old, and as we continue to add more, we're going to want to see dedicated funding.

There's about $38 million, I believe, in general maintenance for the roadways throughout the city.

And so what this would do would be to proviso a million of that $38 million to be focused on doing bike lane maintenance, too, as that becomes a bigger part of our transportation network.

Council Member O'Brien, I will support this and I want to acknowledge and I'm sure that Council Member Gonzalez will weigh in on this as well.

When we were in Copenhagen, all three of us have been there over the last decade.

I know they had baby Zambonis and they were oftentimes used first, even in snowstorms.

to clean the bicycle lane so that they were open and available.

And those hardy folks, I think they said even in the rain and snow that 37 percent of the riders that were going into downtown for work were riding on their bikes or whatever.

It's 70 percent.

It's up to 75 even in the snow and rain.

I love it.

For commute time, yeah.

That's great.

All right, Zambonis, here we come.

Item three is to add funding to support implementation of the transportation equity agenda.

Colleagues, there's been some great work done at the Department of Transportation on equity over the last few years, including creating of an equity director position.

And just this earlier this year, equity work group was formed.

And the intent was originally to have a set of recommendations from them by the end of this year.

The timing has slipped a bit, and so we anticipate that that report back will come sometime in the spring of next year at the moment.

There's my understanding in the budget is there's enough revenue to because of the late start this year to simply roll that over to keep that funding going.

The intent of this agenda item is to make sure that we have some funding in place for when those recommendations come out.

from that group to be funding some of the equity investments.

This would be, you know, likely allocating money from elsewhere within the SDOT budget and we can talk a little bit about that if folks want.

But that's the concept is to make sure that when that work group is finished their work or finished their initial report that we can actually not just wait a year until we decide what we want to do with it but actually have some funding available for that.

The next item would direct funding from the Mercer Mega Block property sale to support South Seattle bicycle infrastructure.

Good.

Council Member O'Brien.

So this was this was the one we've already identified this in a resolution we passed with earlier this year around complete streets and bike safety.

If you look back at that chart under, I forget what item it was that I asked you all to flag.

I think it was item four.

There's a series of bike infrastructure investments that are identified.

One of the concerns we heard from community members and a lot of us shared was that in the bike master plan implementation plan, that got revised and presented to the council in June of this year, there was no Southeast Seattle bike connection that was gonna be complete by the end of the Move Seattle levy.

And so that was a priority for the bike advisory, Seattle Bike Advisory Board and A number of other community groups really wanted to see that and in our Resolution we prioritize that if we look at the chart under the bicycle infrastructure for of this memo There's there's two main prospects.

One is the Martin Luther King way jr Martin Luther King Jr.

Way from Rainier to Henderson.

And then there's three segments on Beacon Avenue.

Each of those, well the MLK is about $7.5 million gap.

and the Beacon Avenue has about a 10 plus million dollar gap in funding to complete those.

What I would intend to do would be to direct that the Mercer-Mager block proceeds in item three which has protected bike lanes in the bike master plan about 8.3 million dollars be dedicated to one of those two projects so that we can, by the end of the levy, when we're going back for renewal, we will have a direct bike connection with an all-ages and ability connection to go back to the public and say, hey, here's something we did.

And I think it's critically important that the communities in Southeast Seattle have safe connections.

Go ahead, Council Member West.

Thank you, Council Member Bryant and all the work that you've done always on bike lanes and Vision Zero.

I'm hoping we can work together on this because my main concern is about why we should redirect 16 million of funding for Vision Zero projects across Seattle to fund bicycle lanes only in South Seattle.

My question to my colleagues and to Calvin and those listening Based on the data, would these bicycle lanes prevent more pedestrian injuries or deaths than the current Vision Zero projects?

So my goal here today is to see how I can work with my colleague, Council Member O'Brien, to see how we can accomplish both goals, that we have bicycle lanes and that we continue to fund projects that go to, as you were saying, Calvin, a pedestrian safe environment.

And your that's in your presentation when we're looking at page six And how you broke down where the money was going so that is something I'm hoping that customer Ryan you and I can work on It's certainly I'm supportive of bike lanes what I am concerned about is taking 16 million dollars and Focusing on bike lanes only in South Seattle, which would take money away from different neighborhoods Where we are really struggling with just keeping our elders and our children safe.

I'll leave it at that.

Thank you

And thank you for that, Council Member Juarez, and we'd love to work with you on that.

My intent here is not to reprogram the $16.7 million.

On that list, it has line items, I think five line items, so $2.2 million for the crossing improvements, which have been identified to be in Lake City Way.

We'd leave that where it is.

We'd leave the Northeast 43rd Street improvements where it is.

We'd leave the Greenway portion where it is and we'd leave the Highland Park intersection improvements where it is.

It's just the $8 million of the bike master plan and that is a big chunk of money going to one neighborhood.

I think it's important for us to take that in the context of the other bike investments that will be made over the next five years.

be happy to share a range of investments.

There are other investments that are happening throughout the city, and it feels like Southeast Seattle is a bit of a void that's behind, and so that's why I'm trying to keep it up to speed, but let's work together and walk through that, and we can just talk about where other bike investments are happening.

Good.

Thank you for that discussion.

The next item is from Councilmember Pacheco, item five.

It would add funding for implementation of bicycle and pedestrian master plan projects.

Great.

Council Member Pacheco.

Hi, colleagues.

I just wanted to put this forward as a flag for everyone about my desire to find a pathway to increase funding for the implementation of our pedestrian and bike plans.

As Council Member Juarez stated earlier, I will actually go a little bit further than D5.

North of 75th in D4, you have a lot of sidewalks that are missing, and I've heard that loud and clear from a number of constituents.

I also want to specifically call attention to several relatively small-scale transportation projects that would provide major safety benefits in District 4. I will be looking to explore options to fund these projects in the budget process, and these projects include a crosswalk and other safety improvements along Northeast 45th Street, just east of I-5, where there is a three-block stretch with no crosswalks across a busy, pedestrian-heavy arterial.

safety improvements near View Ridge Elementary that would protect students walking to school and crosswalks at Northeast 52nd Street and Brooklyn Avenue Northeast in the U District.

As I've said many times through various committees, with the light rail station opening up, I do think it's important for us, as well as to Council Member O'Brien's point, where there is existing light rail stations, for us to put a focus to make those pedestrian and bike safety improvements.

so that more folks are able to access and use the light rail.

Thank you.

Council President Harrell.

This is not on number five.

Before we go to the next 10 issues flagged by the council members, I just want to go to the very first one and ask Council Member Bryan a question.

I really like all four of your ideas, by the way.

From just a practical standpoint, on the active transportation coordinator, would that be still a city employee, or that we fund the district and they hire the person?

Or do we know yet?

My intent and my understanding is it would be a school district employee, and so we would provide the funding to it.

And so that would...

So, go ahead.

And it would come out of the funding that is currently dedicated to school safety projects and would just allocate a portion of that to the school district to do that.

Have we done that?

Anything like that?

I love the concept.

I love the concept.

I actually thought in Council Member Lorena's bailiwick, the education bailiwick, that my experience when I had a child at a public high school was the difference in the, not the transportation issues, but the PTSA and PTA issues, that some schools would raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, and some would raise zero.

And we got Cleveland up to the point to where they were one of the higher, and it's been sustainable.

We had a sustainable fundraising, because when my daughter was a freshman, they raised like $2,000 for a PTA.

So this position, as you envision, is really working with the parents and the families and making sure that they are optimizing their ability to get to school a different way and a safe way.

And you just flagged the concept that, man, it would be so nice for a kind of employee to help in other parent involvement issues as well.

I have to admit, I really like the idea.

I'm a little skittish, I guess, of just giving the district money and saying and trusting that they'll do the kind of job we want.

So I'll talk to you offline about that, but I really like where you're heading with the idea.

Sorry to go back all the way to number one.

I know we're number six now.

I appreciate that.

And I think it would be really important that if we I mean, I think there's a benefit to having someone that would be working very closely with each school to be embedded in the school district as opposed to an SDOT employee.

And one of the challenges we've had with some of the ORCA passes is that just institutional barriers.

But you're absolutely right to just put money into it.

There would need to be some fairly strong criteria.

I'm really grateful to both that there's a school board members that seem interested in perhaps more importantly that Fred Podesta over there Seems excited about that and I think we can work through to get some commitments about what that would be and I Assume we would probably follow some of the models of what happens in deal as we fund other school positions And the grants that we use yeah those because we have very even though they're competitive we have requirements to demonstrate how

of the schools are responding and implementing the grants themselves.

So we could do something similar, I imagine.

So Council President Harrell, I'll work closely with you to figure out what kind of language would be in there and what level of detail we can get to through the budget process to really define how that works and figure out who at SDOT would be administering that.

Chair Bagshaw.

Yes, please.

So I didn't raise the same issues in this context as I did yesterday during our conversation about, you know, both in the Human Services Department and in the deal context about sort of where the revenue source is, primarily because the School Traffic Safety Committee letter that, or memo that Council Member O'Brien circulated indicated that the revenue to fund the active transportation coordinator position as proposed in this agenda item would come from the Safe Routes to School revenue source.

So, I mean, I just want to flag as we continue to have this conversation that the revenue source that comes from the FEPP levy is obviously largely restricted based on the ordinance that we passed in that context, but this seems to be proposing that we would pursue funding this position potentially through the Safe Routes to School Program.

Is that accurate, Council Member O'Brien?

That is accurate.

And the school safety, the Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee, which is a city committee, this is a recommendation of theirs to do that, to use some of those safe routes to school funding to do this.

And this would be a citywide position for all schools across the city, not just for one particular area?

Correct.

And, you know, I imagine one individual covering all schools, I think the hope would be to use an equity lens on finding, you know, there may be schools that are very well served independently through parents, teachers, PTSA stuff.

And so, we'd want to focus on the places where there are gaps, but the idea is to fund the entire school district.

Right.

And I think in the deliberation of the Families in Education Preschool Promise Levy, one of the things that we weren't able to prioritize, unfortunately, through that proposal were issues around transportation equity, specifically as it relates to children of families who are experiencing housing instability and or actual homelessness.

So that is an area that I'd be interested in identifying as part of the transportation equity agenda should this proposal advance.

One of the top issues that I heard in Communicating with teachers and family support workers and the school district itself and administrators was the unfortunate reality of transportation difficulties for those students who are experiencing homelessness or housing instability.

It is hugely impactful on the attendance rates for those students to be able to participate and show up.

And of course, attendance is one of the key ways that we as a city fund, you know, better attendance means more funding through our FEPP levy dollars.

But more importantly, every hour that a student is not in a seat learning, and ready to learn takes us way, way back in terms of academic achievement of those students.

So transportation is super important for us to figure out specifically for that population of students.

So if this is another mechanism for us to get there, I think that would be money well spent.

Item six through nine come from Council Member Herbold.

Item six is to add funding for the Georgetown to South Park connection.

Thank you.

So this item is one of the projects that the council prioritized in a resolution in September.

Central staff confirmed that $600,000 is available for design work.

These communities have limited walking and bike connections and the proposal is community generated.

A couple of questions for Calvin.

The CIP lists 538,000 for 2019. Is this funding for design?

Yes.

And has SDOT affirmed that they'll be doing final design work during 2020?

I'm not sure that I can recall at the top of my head what their schedule is for the design work.

That's all for me on that one.

All right, do you want to just keep going?

Because you've got the Duwamish Longhouse, Safe Street.

I've got a few, yeah.

And Center Street, Streetcar Connector, and the Delridge Way Southwest Rapid Ride H Line all belong to you.

Item 7 would add funding and establish a CIP project for the Duwamish Longhouse, Safe Street, and Accessibility Project.

This project has strong community support.

Options for funding are listed in the memo with $250,000 for planning, $500,000 for design, and $2.5 million for construction.

One of the things I think that would help us in designing a budget proposal is getting more information from SDOT on what exactly they could accomplish in 2020. Would they be able to do both planning and design?

So could we ask that of SDOT?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

The next item, item eight, would provisor spending on the center...

On this, Council Member O'Brien has a question.

Thanks.

First, I just want to indicate my strong support for both the previous item and this item.

So thank you, Council Member Herbold, for bringing those forward.

The dollar amount on this one is quite high and I understand there's some complexity of Interacting with rail cars and things down there, which I don't fully appreciate And I just would would love to get some I'm not sure if it's consistent with the question you asked councilmember herbal, but if there are if there are ways to phase things or figure out how to Try to get the the biggest safety bunch the biggest safety improvement If we don't get to all three point two five million dollars for that crossing, that'd be great.

I

Thank you.

Next item, item eight, would proviso spending on the center city streetcar connector.

So I know that this council has, of course, voted to authorize design work, but nevertheless, it's reasonable to require an operations funding plan before spending begins in 2020. We requested an operations plan in 2017, did not receive one.

And I think this is, it is responsible oversight for this council to exercise, to expect and receive an operations spending plan before authorizing 2020 spending on the capital side of the project.

Thank you.

Item number nine would proviso spending on the Delridge Way Southwest Rapid Ride H line.

We have in prior years used a proviso for this project and it is I think for the community producing good results both as it relates specifically to oversight of the project, but also has resulted in enhanced community engagement on items that we have, through the proviso, identified as important to the community.

So to require council approval before construction In March, SDOT indicated that the final design would be in fall 2019 to allow council consideration as part of the 2020 budget.

The proviso that we placed earlier on spending through the budget process ensured, as I said earlier, that community concerns were addressed.

There are ongoing issues that community members are desirable of SDOT in addressing as we get to the final part of the design work on this, and a proviso would, I think, enhance that engagement.

Thank you.

Next four items are from Council Member Bagshaw.

Item 10 is to add funding and establish a CIP project for Fort Square redesign implementation.

Thank you.

Colleagues, you were very generous and supported me last year in putting some money into City Hall Park.

and what we dubbed the Yesler Crescent.

And if you have walked through City Hall Park at all in the last few months, you'll see how much work was done at a fairly reasonable level through parks.

I want to extend my thanks to parks again.

I was there Wednesday night and the lighting that they've put in makes it feel very safe as you walk through.

The next block as you're moving west is one that we still have a great deal of work to to make on that.

Sound Transit is taking over most of that property.

But when you get down right in front of Colleen Echo Hawk's Chief Seattle Club, there is an area that's called Fortson Square, which is a property that's owned by SDOT.

It is frankly a mess and has been very much rat infested.

Trees are questionable.

We've made great progress there this year.

And thanks to SDOT, to many of the people recognizing Susan McClain and Susan McLaughlin, sorry, and others.

But that is where Colleen Echo-Hawk is building her new all-all housing.

And right up in front, she wants to have a community connector, a community engagement area just on that land.

Well, we've made progress.

Arts and Culture has agreed to de-assess the art.

That's underway.

And when her project, her being Colleen's project is done, we will want to improve this little corner.

So I am asking for additional support from SDOT.

We also, we did a public life study during the summer to identify how many people are walking through, how many people are staying, The numbers are very low just because it's not a safe, comfortable area.

So ultimately, and it would be about a couple of years down the road, we'll have a community gathering space, which is what Colleen EchoHawk is pursuing with Chief Seattle Club.

So we put $75,000 from our crescent work this year into that, and this would continue and to build ultimately capital project and assist her and assist the neighborhood in redesigning and this little corner.

So there's not a dollar amount attached at this minute.

We will have a better understanding of it as we go through, but I'm excited to see.

that Council Member Juarez has something she'd like to add.

Thank you for helping me out, Council Member Gonzalez.

First of all, let me just say this.

Council Member Bagshaw, it has been an absolute joy and pleasure having you in my committee in the last three and a half, four years.

And one of the things I'm most proud of that we have accomplished with the work of the Native American community, Indian country, and the urban Native American community is the sense of redesigning and renaming and replacing particular spots, historical quote unquote spots in this city with the correct name that represents the indigenous and Salish people that were here.

and you've been a part of that, and this is like one piece of it.

I know at some point we wanna look at, I know some people are gonna raise some eyebrows, the city of Seattle seal behind you, which is a Plains Indian, not a coastal Indian, and I think there's a dolphin on there.

But my point is, you've been great about working with me on so many of these projects, and I know we did a slide last year asking to work with Parks and other groups about how we are reclaiming We worked with Abigail and Colleen Echo Hawk through parks in taking down some of the more offensive signs about there were no more indigenous people here.

Therefore, now we have a creek that happened up at Thornton Creek on the North Fork.

And we continue to do that.

And so this council has been great understanding that, recognizing that.

recognizing that Native people are not invisible, that we're still here.

And so I just want to thank you because I know this is just one piece of the work that we've been working on.

And I know myself and Council Member Gonzales will continue to do this work.

Well, hopefully I will be here to continue to do this work.

Excellent.

Well, thank you for those comments.

And one other thought that we've brought up with that thought, Calvin, and maybe you'd help us pursue, is that we're looking at the potential of putting the renaming brown signs up on those couple of blocks near Chief Seattle Center, Chief Seattle Club, and the next block where Union Gospel Mission is.

We've talked with neighbors about naming it All All Street or something, because I believe that means welcoming, welcome home.

But I like the concept to be able to honor the people that were here first and recognizing this as a possibility.

But in the meantime, we'll move on to the next item.

Item 11 is to add 400,000 for the market to Mohi.

Thank you.

So this is a project that I have been working on for a number of years.

Many of you know my buddy John Pearson.

He's taken the lead on that.

They have raised over a million dollars on this corridor, and they're down to the last four blocks.

And what they have asked for is assistance in implementing pedestrian lighting.

It's great because they've raised, I believe it's a million dollars in private funding, but maybe that's a total dollar amount.

And this will be the first age-friendly corridor in Seattle from Pike Place Market to South Lake Union.

And I'm just delighted because we'll have the benches.

They, of course, have been working with HistoryLink to make sure that there's poetry and a recognition for the indigenous people that were there first, and it's just connecting so many people, residences, as well as people who are working downtown.

And I also want to say that the other night when we were with Andy Billings, at an event, he was talking about looking at health, not just healthcare or health insurance, but health in the ways that we approach building our city.

And one of the things he talked about Seattle is that we are getting these pedestrian corridors.

So I'm going to ask for $400,000 for Market to Mohai to finish these last four blocks.

Item 12 is to add funding for the Thomas Street redesign implementation.

Great, thank you.

And this is an opportunity to connect Westlake to the east side of Seattle Center and then picking up on the other side of Seattle Center and connecting it to the waterfront.

We had a design charrette that was put on this summer, and I want to recognize how much work that Allison and Dan Strauss, Lena did in my office, putting this together.

But the great news is we've had huge support from Cascade Bicycle Club, from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and from the neighborhood.

And I also want to recognize Deborah Smith, head of Seattle City Light, because their Broad Street substation is there.

And she has put money forward and a commitment to expand the sidewalks and put some artistic lighting and some public art. in front of and around and through their substation that will just make this a real a very much welcoming quarter.

The mayor has put two million dollars into this many thanks for that and I've been given the high sign from SDOT that more is going to be needed.

I don't have that dollar amount but I do want to recognize that this redesign is underway and it is really going to make that vision of the pedestrian corridor and the bicycle priority corridor to Seattle Center a reality.

And that my goal is to make sure that when the hockey puck drops, which is October 2021, isn't that right, Council Member Juarez, that this is ready to go.

Item 13 would add $1 million to continue the waterfront shuttle service through 2020.

We have a question first.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Council Member O'Brien.

Council Member Bakeshaw, my understanding is that in the back in item 3, the Mercer Mega Block proceeds, that there's a couple million for greenways and a lot of that is earmarked for Thomas Street.

Correct.

Would this be in addition to that?

Correct.

And as I said, we thank the mayor for identifying that and making it a priority.

I've been told by SDOT staff, of course, I think that they have to be careful, but that more is going to be needed if we're going to be able to realize the vision that what they're trying to do both East and West.

of Seattle Center.

Thank you.

So I'll just take up the waterfront shuttle.

Council Member Gonzalez, I loved seeing your eyebrows raised when I first brought this up.

This is a project that was only 15 months, it's only 15 months old now.

And in these 15 months, The Port of Seattle and WSDOT have contributed money along with Downtown Seattle Association.

It is really a focus to improve mobility around downtown.

And in just the first 15 months they've had, it's a free shuttle too, I want to point that out.

Their goal was to be able to move people, improve mobility so people aren't driving their own cars down in this area, particularly when we've lost a number of parking spaces.

But also, in addition to the congestion relief, it has moved, as I said, 400,000 people in the first 15 months.

So it's working.

We know that it's effective.

Council members, our King County Council colleagues, Jeannie Cole-Wells and Rod Dembowski, have also indicated their support in matching what we may put in here.

And I think if that happens, then the next round would be competitively bid, which I think is probably a good idea if there's going to be public money going in this.

I also want to acknowledge how This shuttle has been around assisting people with disabilities.

I have one friend who I've spoken about before who lives in West Seattle, is in a motorized wheelchair.

He can take the waterfront taxi, the water taxi, here to our waterfront.

but at that point is stuck unless the water the our free waterfront shuttle comes and picks him up and they do have lifts and he has um is able to get to where he needs to go which is up near seattle center so it is a route that metro bus does not um does not support and i'm asking for a million dollars from s dot to help us keep this going for 2020 and continue the pilot as i said 400,000 riders in the first 15 months is a pretty impressive number.

Chair?

Please.

I just want to confirm what I'm pretty sure I heard you say.

You said this would be competitively bid?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Gonzales.

Thank you, Chair Baxhaw.

I apologize if it appeared that I was raising my eyebrows.

I didn't intend to do that in skepticism.

I just wanted to make sure that I understood what the concept was here.

I understand that right now it's a privately run shuttle service.

I think that it's important for us to continue to have fidelity in our transportation systems to make sure that those are truly public.

transportation systems as opposed to subsidizing public interests that may not be held to the same fiduciary responsibilities or transparency requirements that publicly funded entities are obligated to comply with in addition to the labor standard issues that are applicable to publicly funded And so I really want to make sure that I have a sense of clarity around what public financing or subsidization of a historically, historically in the last 15 months, privately run enterprise really means in the context of a public investment.

I'm also happy to hear that you've had some conversations with the county around what potential contributions they might be making to it.

And I would be interested in getting a better understanding if the Port of Seattle also intends to continue their contributions to this as a regional partner on mobility issues, particularly around the waterfront, which has a pretty direct impact to how they operate and manage their business as well.

And I think it would be responsible and appropriate for us to all consider a partnership there and to also take into consideration?

Again, how does transforming a private sector run transportation mobility option into a publicly subsidized one, how does that actually become implemented and play out in terms of our historic commitment to things like you know, fair wages and labor protections, et cetera, in this line.

But as a model, I think it's a good idea for mobility purposes.

On the other side of the sound for West Seattle, we have the King County.

water taxi and which is primarily funded by King County and so I think that there is precedent in the city to sort of think about how to encourage people to not drive to those epicenters of Tourism and business and economic development and it's also and that are also portals for for work I think it makes a lot of sense to do that, but I just want to make sure that we're not losing sight of of some of those other issues that I flagged.

Thank you for that.

Council Member Herbold.

So, given that this will be competitively bid, should the council approve this funding, could we, what would be the mechanism that this council would use that competitive bid to address some of the very important issues that Councilmember Gonzalez identified.

Should we maybe consider a sly that would accompany?

Absolutely.

Or you can proviso if the money is set aside that we expect certain elements to be included.

And I do like what you brought up to make sure that there is a partnership.

Because King County paid for the 99 route.

And it essentially went by the waterfront, but not often enough that people could rely upon it.

And it went down, I believe, towards the International District Station and back up First Avenue.

And the ridership was abysmal.

And in no small part, it was because people weren't, you didn't know how and when the bus was coming, so you couldn't count on it.

And I think that's what this effort is, is let's try something with a public-private effort, but I hear you loud and clearly, see what we can do, and I'm open for those suggestions.

Thank you.

Very good, thank you.

Okay, that's it for me.

Next item is item 14 from Council Member Gonzalez.

It would add funding for a public life study of Capitol Hill.

and come, oh good, Council Member Gonzalez, talk to us about this.

Great, I'll be, I've been talking about it a lot so I'll be really brief.

It is essentially, would propose $150,000 to fund a public life study.

This would be a follow-up to some of the important lessons that I learned in conjunction with the partners who were part of the delegation of this recent Copenhagen It would effectively allow the Eco District to lead an inclusive participatory planning process that will create a community-driven vision and implementation plan for the Capitol Hill Eco District in 2020. We know that in the Capitol Hill Eco District footprint, there are billions, that's billions with a B, of dollars in upcoming investments to institutions, those are major institutions such as the Kaiser Permanente, to the Seattle Central College campus, and to Seattle University.

and infrastructure projects also within and at the edge of Capitol Hill that really makes this the right moment to ensure that all of those billions of dollars of upcoming investments are going to center people first in planning for public spaces, such as parks, sidewalks, streets, and alleys.

And so this is really an opportunity for a very diverse set of stakeholders in Capitol Hill to come together and lead this participatory neighborhood planning process to make sure that they have every opportunity possible to leverage these investments that are coming into the Capitol Hill Eco-District and Eco-District adjacent areas to really make sure that we are centering people first in how those investments are being made.

So I think it's a modest investment of $150,000 to allow for both the visioning and implementation plan that will have timelines and metrics and what is going to be delivered and by when.

And I think that it's an important way for us to model how we can reimagine neighborhood planning in a way that is truly participatory and that is truly going to leverage literally billions of dollars of investment that are coming to our urban villages, and of course, Capitol Hill is the densest, one of the densest neighborhoods in the city of Seattle, and I'm really excited to be working with folks at Seattle colleges, at Capitol Hill Housing, at the Eco District, at Kaiser, at Seattle University to advance this, and look forward to facilitating this work, ongoing work next year.

if this budget item gets prioritized.

I think it's an excellent plan and I'll be supporting this.

I'd also recommend that as we're doing it that we reach out to the Department of Waterfront because the Pike Pine Corridor is getting itself reactivated again and I think it would Just like come right up to the lines that you were telling me about.

Melrose to 12th, is that essentially the blocks that you are considering?

There's a lot of blocks that are part of the Eco District.

The Pike Pine Corridor is obviously a major portal into Capitol Hill, including the the, I think, westernmost part of the Eco-District, but the projects that are really, there are projects that are within the actual footprint of the Eco-District, and then there are things that are on the border of the Eco-District, and so I think that might arguably be one that's on the border.

There's a lot of opportunity here.

I mean, I think the point, the question that you're raising, and the suggestion that you are providing, is precisely why this funding is needed, is because there are There's so much focus and energy going into ongoing development of Capitol Hill that it's gonna be really important to have somebody in the front seat really driving the coordination in a comprehensive way that is really gonna facilitate the process of a larger vision for what this neighborhood can look like and how it's gonna connect into downtown and into other residential neighborhoods that are adjacent to Capitol Hill.

Good.

Thank you.

I think it's an excellent plan.

Thank you.

Okay.

Last item, item 15, is from Councilmember Sawant.

It would adopt a statement of legislative intent requesting that SDOT develop a plan to make all public transit in Seattle free to ride.

Good.

And Councilmember O'Brien is going to speak to it.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant, who is unable to attend this meeting, asked me to make some points on behalf of this item.

One of the proposals in the Green New Deal resolution passed by Council is calling for a massive expansion of public transit and making it free for all to use.

It's not possible to substantially reduce the number of cars on the roads and the time people spend in their cars unless we invest in making other forms of transportation effective, efficient, affordable.

and make housing affordable so people do not have to have very long commutes.

The statement of legislative intent asks SDOT to make recommendations for how to make all transit in Seattle free for all to use.

Options could include requiring employers to supply ORCA cards to employees.

It could include taxing big businesses to fund ORCA cards for all, or coming to an intergovernmental agreement to make Seattle a ride-free zone.

The reality is rider fares are right now a minority of the revenue used to operate a public transit program, so it's not an impossible stretch to make transit free for all just like the roads and sidewalks are.

All right.

Anything else, Calvin?

All right.

Well, that brings us to the end of our first part of this morning, SDOT, and we will get going into our transportation network companies, focusing on the tax-free reduction and spending plan.

And then this afternoon, starting at 2 o'clock, we're going to hear about the worker protections.

And by the way, public comment is going to be at the conclusion of the second part.

I just want you.

those who are here to know.

All right.

So, our presenters, I believe, Amy Gore, I see you here, and Tom.

And Karina, are you part of this?

Okay.

Well, it's good to have you.

Audience or at the table, either way.

Thank you, Calvin, for working us through SDOT.

Great.

Amy and Tom, would you like to start with introductions?

Amy Goyer, Council Central staff.

Tom?

Tom Mikesell, Council Central staff.

Thank you.

All right, Amy, is this yours?

Yes.

Okay.

Good morning.

I am here to begin the discussion on a suite of proposals related to transportation network companies, which are typically referred to as TNCs.

The mayor has transmitted five pieces of legislation to council to be considered during the budget process.

The first is an ordinance reducing existing TNC fees.

The second is a new tax on TNC rides originating in the city of Seattle.

The third is a resolution outlining spending priorities for the revenues generated by the new tax.

Fourth is an ordinance related to minimum compensation for drivers.

And finally, there is an ordinance establishing driver deactivation rights.

All five of these pieces of legislation will be transmitted and introduced on Monday, but the legislation is attached to the two deliberation papers that will be presented this morning and this afternoon.

As Chair Baggio mentioned, in this morning's session, we will be discussing the first three pieces of legislation, which are the tax, the fee reduction, and the spending plan.

This afternoon, Karina will brief the committee on the Worker Protections.

This morning, I want to briefly review current regulations of the TNC industry, provide additional detail on the proposed legislation, and present issue ID and finally review council member proposals identified thus far.

If there are no questions about that, I'll go ahead and get started.

Just dive in.

Okay.

So just so we are all on the same page, I wanted to start with a brief definition of transportation network companies, particularly for the folks that might be watching along at home.

In the Seattle Municipal Code, a TNC is defined in part as an organization that offers prearranged transportation services for compensation using an online enabled TNC application or platform to connect passengers with drivers using their personal vehicles.

This is a different business model than the traditional for hire industry, which includes limousines, taxi cabs, and flat rate for hire.

TNCs entered the Seattle market in 2011, and council began regulating TNCs in 2014. They've since set requirements for TNC and drivers, including inspection and licensing requirements through Ordinance 124524. They've established a collective bargaining framework for the for hire industry in Ordinance 124968, though that has not gone into effect due to an unresolved legal challenge.

Last year, council passed Resolution 31808 requesting a voluntary data sharing from TNCs.

asking for consideration of a minimum charge across the four hire industry and several items designed to improve parity between TNCs, taxis, and flat rate companies and drivers.

Many of those items are still in progress.

As far as the industry today, there are seven licensed TNCs in King County.

The five that are operating are Hopskip Drive, Lyft, Uber, Via, and Wings.

Currently, FAS collects two fees from TNCs, totaling 24 cents per ride.

There's a licensing fee of 14 cents per ride.

The code sets the fee at 10 cents, but it has been increased to 14% by director's rule.

The fee is used by FAS to cover the cost associated with administration, enforcement, and regulatory cost related to licensing TNCs.

The second fee is the wheelchair accessible services surcharge.

This surcharge is 10 cents per ride and is set by code.

The fund is used to reimburse wheelchair accessible taxis, which are sometimes referred to as WATS, W-A-T, drivers for the additional cost associated with purchasing and operating an accessible vehicle.

Amy, can I ask you a quick question on that?

I know we brought this up last year, and I think the year before.

Some of the cars that are driving are not wheelchair accessible, and I'm going to compare that to, for example, what's in London.

And those are all wheelchair accessible, and they don't look that much larger.

than the cars were driving.

Do you have any idea about how many cars on the road can actually accommodate somebody in a wheelchair?

I do have information on the number of licensed wheelchair accessible taxis that we have that I can send you after this meeting.

It is a low number compared to the overall number of four hire vehicles that we have on the streets today.

But I'll send that out.

All right.

Thank you.

In 2018, the licensing fees, the licensing fee brought in $3.4 million and the wheelchair accessible services surcharge brought in $2.4 million, just as a per scale.

Let's see.

So this slide shows a table with the, sorry, I skipped a slide.

going back.

So we have two pieces of legislation related to the fees and the tax.

The first is a ordinance to reduce the FAS licensing fee.

This legislation would reduce the FAS licensing fee from 14 cents to 18 cents per ride That's based on a determination by the FAS director that the cost to administer and enforce the TNC regulations has decreased on a per ride basis due to the rapid increase in the number of TNC rides.

In the legislation, authority to adjust the fee remains with the FAS director and the fee reduction would go into effect on July 1, 2020. The second piece of legislation is a tax ordinance.

This legislation would create a $0.57 tax for each TNC ride.

The legislation includes a base tax of $0.51 and a supplemental tax of $0.06.

The tax would apply to those TNC trips originating anywhere within the city of Seattle, and it would apply to TNC companies that have provided at least 1 million rides in the preceding quarter.

Currently, that would apply to Uber and Lyft.

This tax would go into effect on July 1st, 2020, with revenues anticipated to begin in October 2020.

And we had a quick question on number one.

I understand The TNC tax, I just want to make sure I heard you correctly.

We reduced the FAS licensing fee.

I understand sort of why we reduced it from 14 cents to 8. But you said because of the increase in rides.

Right.

So why would we decrease the administrative cost because of an increase in ridership?

If you imagine, it's because the total cost, if you, let's see, if you provide a license to a driver who makes 100 rides within that year, and then that grows to 1,000, the per ride cost reduces.

We've raised more money because there's more rides.

Exactly.

Gotcha.

Exactly.

So it's just a more efficient.

It's not a little counterintuitive.

I gotcha.

So the table on this slide, on slide three, and it's also on page three of the memo, shows the total change in fees and taxes.

As you can see, the result is an overall per ride cost increase of 51 cents based on, again, a tax of 57 cents.

Can I ask a quick question?

Council Member O'Brien.

The distinction between the tax and the supplemental tax?

Yes.

And we'll get into this in issue ID, but just briefly, the original plan was to change the FAS licensing fee via director's rule.

And what they wanted to do was to make sure that the director had the ability to be flexible about changing the tax so that it filled up that 75% limit that they were looking for, but since they are sending that down as a ordinance that we will be doing, I'm not sure that the supplemental tax is really necessary at this point.

So estimated TNC rides.

As shown on the chart that's on the screen and also on page four of your memo, CBO reports that the number of TNC rides in Seattle in 2018 was 24.3 million.

Based on recent growth rates, they estimate that the number of TNC rides in 2020 when this proposal would go into effect will be $33.0 million and would grow an average of 6.5% per year to 54.4 million rides in 2030. And these are the red bars on the chart.

Shown in orange is the estimated number of rides with a tax of $0.57 per ride and also assuming that TNCs increase the cost of an average ride by approximately $4 to pay drivers a minimum wage.

This would result in a reduction in the number of rides to 32.1 million in 2020, growing to 51.9 million rides in 2030. Overall, you can see that rides are assumed to be fairly inelastic, meaning that with modest cost changes, there's not a significant impact on the number of estimated rides.

So the tax revenues based on the revised ride projections are on slide five and also in your memo.

The estimated revenues based on the proposed 57 cent tax would generate 8.9 million in 2020 And again, that's going into effect in July, so half of a year.

And 19.9 million in the first full year, which would be 2021, increasing to 29.6 million in 2030, as shown in chart two.

And I just want to note that this is slightly lower than some of the initial numbers that we were receiving from CBO, which I believe was 9.4 million, I believe, for 2020. So I just wanted to point that out.

Are there any questions about the revenues?

I apologize for stepping out for just a second.

Did you talk about the number of riders and the increase from 2011?

I heard you say a number, but I didn't write it down.

Let's see.

I didn't say 2011. I have data for 2018. Let's see.

The estimated, or sorry, the number of rides was 24.3 million based on the growth rates, which are quite high.

CBO estimates that the number of rides in 2020 will be 33.0 million.

And that is based on the growth rate without any additional cost to a ride.

Are those rides that are starting in Seattle or coming to Seattle or both?

Those are, I believe, rides in Seattle, so both.

But I will triple check that for you.

Thanks.

So now I'm going to move on to the proposed spending plan.

The proposed spending plan is reflected in a non-binding resolution, which is attachment three of the memo.

The resolution includes the following planned uses.

First is funding the administration of the TNC tax and regulations.

The resolution stipulates that in year one, there will be up to $2.0 million for that purpose.

The budget documents that we've seen thus far have $1.5 million dedicated to the administration.

In years two and four, it will be up to $1.5 million.

And then it states that in year five and beyond, it states this amount may increase based on inflation or subject to appropriations.

The second item to be funded is the Driver Resolution Center.

It would include up to $3.5 million per year for a contracted organization to run the Driver Resolution Center, as well as city costs related to administering driver protections.

Can I ask a question about that, Amy?

How is the cost of that sort of derived?

What's just the thought behind that?

It seems a little costly.

We've asked that question and Karina will be able to dive into that this afternoon.

Okay, very good.

No problem.

It does, just to point out that the driver resolution center and associated cost, the resolution does not include any language about escalation or inflation as it does for the administration cost and the housing cost.

The third item to be funded would be affordable housing.

During the first six years, the overall funds, first administration would be paid for, and then the driver resolution center and associated cost.

The remainder would be divided 50-50 between affordable housing and transportation.

So the first six years, the affordable housing funds would go towards finance acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, operations, and maintenance of affordable housing.

This housing would be affordable to households making up to 80% of annual median family income according to the resolution.

The proposed resolution specifies that the housing be located within the frequent transit network as defined by the Transit Master Plan, which is an attachment for to your memo.

Beginning in the seventh full year, the amount of funding towards housing will be set at $5 million and then inflated based on, I believe, it'll be indexed to 2020 dollars.

And that money will go towards the operations, operational support for the Office of Housing to fund housing affordable incomes at or below 30% of the median income, median family income, excuse me.

Is that clear?

I kind of stumbled over my words.

Seventh year, it drops down to $5 million and then starts growing at that point at 30% AMI for operations, not capital.

And the fourth item is transportation.

The remainder of the tax revenue after the first three items are funded will support projects related to transportation and transit, including the Center City streetcar, which is how the resolution states the priorities.

So this chart shows the overall estimate of projected revenues as well as spending for the four priorities and the four spending areas that we just discussed.

To start with, in 2020, the total projected revenue is $8.9 million.

$250,000 would go towards the establishment of the Driver Resolution Center.

1.5 million would go to FAS to set up the tax.

3.5 million would go towards the affordable housing near transit.

And 3.5 million would go towards transportation and transit.

I just want to say, I really like this chart.

It's really easy to study whoever did that.

I like pie charts too, but this is better.

Okay.

It's a stack and bar chart if you're interested.

Great job.

I was going to mention in 2020, which is the first full year, the total revenue would be $19.9 million.

And again, you see 3.5 for the Driver Resolution Center.

The administration would go down to 1.1 million because at that point they're just administrating, not setting up the tax.

And then it would be 7.7 million for affordable housing and 7.7 million for transportation and transit.

And just to give you a sense of totals over the 10-year period, that would look like $35.3 million for the driver resolution center, $13.2 million for administration of the tax, $79.3 million for affordable housing, and $132.5 million for transportation and transit.

So now we are going to move into issue identification.

The first one, as I mentioned, the Supplemental Rate and Taxing Authority.

As previously discussed, the proposed legislation includes a tax of 57 cents per ride, which is divided into a 51-cent base tax and a supplemental tax of 6 cents, which was based on a just previous drafting approach of the legislation.

Because the FAS fee is proposed to be reduced by ordinance, the separation is really unnecessary.

So the council could opt to amend the proposal to remove the supplemental tax and set the base tax at 57 cents.

They also could choose to remove the proposed authority given to the FAS director to change the tax as needed to keep the total tax and fees at 75 cents.

Chair, please.

Amy, one of the things that I've talked to you about that seems like it might be another option to consider is rather than have a base tax set on 57 cents, the concept of having the tax be based on the distance traveled Would that be another option?

Yes, and I think it's the third issue ID.

We'll dive a little bit deeper into other structures of the tax.

But yes, this would be, you know, keeping it a flat rate tax.

But again, there are many options to introduce some variability to the structure.

Okay, all right, thank you.

And the second issue ID is, again, the total amount of the tax and the tax rate.

Again, the proposal is sort of founded on this idea that the total cost, including the fees and the tax, will be $0.75, leading to a $0.57 tax.

However, the council could set the amount of the tax at a higher or lower level than the proposed rate.

The table on slide 8 of the memo shows estimated rides and the tax revenues if the tax revenues excuse me if the tax was decreased to 32 cents per 32 cents per ride or increased to 82 cents per ride and that's an increase or decrease of 25 cents.

And I believe this, what we found was that if we decrease the cost per ride by 25 cents, that would result in about 3.9 million, a difference of about $3.9 million in 2020. And I apologize, but the last column on this, the revenues at the 82 cent tax is incorrect.

That was an old chart.

The actual revenues in 2020 at an $0.82 tax would be approximately $12.7 million, which is $3.8 million more than if the tax was $0.57.

So I will correct that for everybody and send that out.

But I just wanted to give you a sense of order of magnitude of if you're going up or down, what that looks like in terms of revenues.

So, do you want to run that one more time?

Just take the 2020 line.

Sure.

So, assuming that there's 32,000 rides, and then the next column, when you do 57 cents, you're assuming 30 of just a few fewer rides, 32,000, is that

I'll walk through that line one more time.

So at a $0.32 tax, that is a reduction of $0.25.

There would be an estimated 32,000 rides, sorry, 32 million rides, and the revenue would be $5.0 million.

Got it.

As proposed, at a $0.57 tax, you're looking at 32 million rides.

So is your assumption there?

I mean, it's only 60 riders different.

It would be 60,000, yeah.

But these are rides.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

I got that.

Thank you.

That's the elasticity is very.

Exactly.

Exactly.

The change in price doesn't change behavior much at all.

No, it does not.

That's based on a model we've developed.

Yeah, that's a CBO estimate of negative 0.2, I believe.

Elasticity.

So it's very, very little.

Very little change in ridership is what you're saying.

Right.

With 57 cents and when you go to 82 cents.

It's still not much.

Right, the number of rides decreases the 32,035,000 rides and the last column is the one that should be a little bit lower.

The actual revenues at an 82 cent tax would be 12,721,000.

Okay, got it.

Council Member Morris, did you have a question?

I was just confused on the math, but I think I got it.

OK.

Great.

Let me ask a clarifying question.

And I just want to make sure, as we delve into this stuff, I'm understanding the The numbers, the $0.50 tax as proposed, it's 51 plus a supplemental tax of .06, but the FAS licensing fee reduced from $0.14 to $0.08.

Is that the $0.06 that we're talking about?

Yes, basically.

So I always, I thought in the marketing or promotion of when this was released, we were using the term 71 cents or something like that.

Yes, I believe originally there was a plan to adjust the wheelchair accessible surcharge as well.

But as they were developing the proposal, they decided not to do that.

And therefore, the total amount of the tax decreased.

Well, OK.

It wasn't that issue.

I thought that we were simply adding 51 and 14 or something like that.

So the total taxes considering our 0.57 is the 51 proposed and the now not 14, but the six that FAS has always charged.

I'll go back to the somewhere the term 71 cents.

tax has always been tossed around in this legislation.

You add the 10 cents for the wheelchair, is that where Council President Harrell is coming from?

Yeah.

So I think 71 cents, you're right about that.

So I add the 57 and the what?

Moving forward, the licensing fee and the wheelchair accessible fee would be a total of $0.18.

And the tax would be $0.57.

And that includes both the base and the supplemental.

And when you add those together, it comes to $0.75.

So I'm missing the $0.10.

Right.

Which is $0.67.

The total is $0.75.

The total cost per ride is $0.75.

Okay, so total is $0.75.

Yes.

The increase in the total cost would be $0.51.

So, Amy, when you're walking us through this chart, you're actually just focusing on that increase, right?

Because you're saying it's $0.52.

No, I'm saying the tax is $0.57.

I don't know where $0.57 is coming from now.

I'm confused.

It's the base tax plus the supplemental tax.

You're okay didn't sound Any of your other charts here, I'm missing I think I'm just missing 18 cents as a fee so 18 cents because we I understand the 57 includes the 6% FAS licensing fee and a proposed 51, so the 18 cents, some of that is the Watt fee of 10. And then I'm missing 8 cents somewhere.

The 8 cents.

The 8 cents is the new amount of the FAS licensing fee.

Oh, let me look at this chart.

OK.

It's in the middle column, top line.

So they're bringing that one down.

Oh, I see it's the supplemental tax.

I was thinking the supplemental tax was the FAS licensing fee.

So what is the supplemental tax again?

Yeah, the supplemental tax, again, was part of an earlier approach to drafting because they wanted to maintain flexibility for the FAS director to change the amount of the tax based on changes in the fees.

So that, for example, if the FAS director decided to decrease the wheelchair accessible fee, that they could change the amount of the supplemental tax to maintain that $0.75 total.

So as, just let me step back from legislation for a minute.

So as proposed, the director has discretion on supplemental tax.

Yes.

As proposed, does the director have discretion on all of the licensing fee, the surcharge, the base tax, and all the other taxes?

Currently, the director has authority for the FAS licensing fee and the wheelchair accessible surcharge.

That does not change in the legislation.

I see.

And the council action would be always required for the base tax.

Yes.

However, what you have correctly identified is that in the legislation, it is the supplemental tax piece that authority is given to the director.

To complicate things a little bit, because you wanted that, is that it gives the authority to the director, but also states fairly explicitly what the surcharge should be under different scenarios, which both scenarios are six cents.

So, it basically gives the director authority to change it, but also says, and it will be six cents.

Thank you.

Which is why I think we can take that out.

That's actually very helpful.

I understand that.

Thank you.

So moving on to the structure of the tax.

As I mentioned, the fee and proposed tax are set as flat rate per ride.

This has the advantage of being relatively simple.

The structure is also similar to the existing fee structure and uses data that the city already collects from TNCs.

Council may choose to create a more complex structure that would use a variable tax rate or surcharges to achieve other or additional policy objectives.

For example, a higher rate during peak times or by geography may reduce the impact of TNCs on traffic congestion during specific times or in certain areas.

A variable rate or surcharge for a single rider compared to a pool or shared trip could encourage higher occupancy vehicles.

a flat rate per mile could discourage long trips.

So council has the option to amend the proposal to a variable tax rate with a higher tax during peak congestion times, in high congestion geographies, or amend the proposal to a variable tax based on ride occupancy or ride sharing, or based on a per mile basis rather than a flat per trip basis.

And we are assuming that the technologies there by the TNC organizations to be able to do this?

I believe so.

The data that they collect on their trips that we have is limited, but I don't think that is because they do not know where the cars are at six o'clock in the evening, for example.

Very good.

The next item is applicability.

The proposed tax would apply only to those TNCs that provide 1 million rides in the preceding quarter.

In today's marketplace, this would apply only to Uber and Lyft.

The tax does not apply to other smaller TNCs that have a niche market or have only recently entered the Seattle market.

The 1 million ride threshold could allow for smaller firms to gain or maintain a foothold in this market.

However, if there is a significant disruption to the industry and the larger firms are no longer operating in Seattle, it is possible that the industry could shift to more companies providing fewer rides, which would result in a larger share of TNC rides that would not generate tax revenues.

Therefore, council could consider amending the proposal to increase the number of rides threshold or even decrease the ride threshold.

questions.

In terms of the current marketplace as it exists, Amy, do we have a sense of or any information about how many smaller TNCs are in our marketplace?

We do.

There are five additional TNCs that are licensed and only three that are operating and I can provide you offline with the number of trips that each one is has been reporting, I will tell you that it's much lower than that 1 million threshold.

So even if the threshold was 500,000 or even 250,000, it still would not be applying to those smaller startups that we have right now.

And do we have a sense based on the model proposed here, the revenue model proposed here, how many dollars we're talking about excluding?

I haven't calculated that yet but I can absolutely provide that for you.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, this is a relatively small technical one.

The Move Seattle levy general fund floor, I believe this was touched on earlier this morning, the Move Seattle levy requires that the SDOT budget be funded with a minimum general fund appropriation, which is approximately $45 million currently.

As proposed, the TNC tax revenues could be considered general fund dollars and applied to the general fund contribution required by the levy.

So council has the option to specify that TNC revenues applied to SDOT projects do not count towards the general fund contribution.

Council may also choose to create a separate fund for TNC revenues.

And related to the spending plan resolution, as I mentioned, it is a non-binding resolution that outlines the detail around the spending plan.

Council members may prefer to include more detail about the spending plan and spending plan priorities, and they may choose to put that into the ordinance rather than into a resolution.

And finally, related to spending priorities.

The council may want to change the proposed spending plan, either by changing the balance between the proposed funding categories, amending the specific policy choices related to the proposal, or specifying new projects or items to be funded.

For example, council may want to amend the spending resolution to fund housing affordability to households earning below 60% of area median income.

They may want to amend the spending resolution to specify other affordable housing priorities.

They may want to amend the spending resolution to add transportation projects or take transportation projects off of the list specified for funding or there may be entirely new funding priorities that council wants to include in this plan.

Question?

Amy, you just went right to the question I was going to ask, but on the options for B, it says amend the spending resolution to fund housing affordable to households earning below 60, but we know with the legislation it said at 80. So...

Exactly.

So it is set at 80 right now, and this would be an option to decrease it to, for example, 60% of AMI or some other income level that council deems appropriate.

And we could also do that in the change it so when the seventh year comes, we don't have to wait to drop it down to 30 AMI.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I mean, we can work with those numbers.

Okay.

Thank you.

Please.

Now we will move on to Council identified priorities.

We've received one proposal thus far from Councilmember Herbold, which is related to Center City streetcar funding.

Thank you.

So this proposal is to redirect a portion of the TNC tax that is currently proposed for the streetcar towards other transit uses.

I think my interest in what transit use these funds should be directed to is dependent on what occurs on the I'm an initiative and the impact that initiative could have on our current bus service.

If that initiative fails, I believe it's really important for the city to start talking about the need for third-party funding for Sound Transit, Sound Transit 3. There are a lot of costs associated with the alignments that our communities support.

And to my knowledge, there is not discussion yet about how we intend to move forward third-party funding.

And I think with Seattle putting some skin in the game around that conversation.

I think it will be helpful in facilitating collaboration with other partners.

Thank you.

Council President Harreld?

I don't have any comments on that one.

I'll make sure there's no more discussion on Council Member Herbold's proposal before I add something else.

I don't see any.

We'll get there.

Thanks Councilmember Herbold.

I'm working on something that I've shared with central staff and this is after doing some research in other states and cities and in meeting previously with a lot of constituents out there and I'll describe it now and central staff's somewhat aware of it and I'll describe it as a transportation assistance voucher program and what this would do would be to take in terms of our spending plan would take to create a voucher system used for qualified seniors people with disabilities and potential individuals enrolled in the utility discount program and basically allow these vouchers to be used for what are legacy taxis or the for hire industry, the city of Seattle licensed and operated taxis vehicles.

And why would we consider this?

We consider this for a few reasons.

Number one is we have to also realize that a lot of people still do not use the technology or are not capable of using the technology that the TNCs are presenting, number one.

And number two, we dealt with the diminution of value issue associated with medallions in the legacy taxi area, and we realized there are some legal issues associated with simply creating a fund.

And when we first started talking about a TNC package, we talked about creating a fund to look at the diminishing value that it really is devastating, almost bankrupt-like effects on many of the taxi industries.

People have really worked hard to keep the industry alive.

And because there's legal restrictions, associated with that, it would seem to me from a policy standpoint, we still want a transition period since we were unable to regulate the number of TNCs that are coming into the market.

And we welcome the innovation and the technology that are presented.

And obviously, consumers love the choices they have.

There's still a transition period.

So I think this serves two purposes.

Number one, it allows that industry to sort of migrate and retool themselves and have consumers who are now incentivized to use their services, number one.

And number two, it allows folks with disabilities, seniors, and people on lower incomes the ability to have easier access to transportation.

So I'll describe it as a transportation assistance voucher program and draft something up.

I think it makes all the sense in the world to have something like this very creative and Legal I should say, but that's something I'd like to to pursue We don't like breaking the law here Yes, oh sorry councilmember particular didn't see your hand no, I just raised it right now um

Chair Baxter, I just have a question in terms of timeline.

Given that so many of us on the dais have expressed just the overarching concern of what potentially may happen with Initiative 976, what's your timeline for moving with this as well as like the SDOT budget?

That would help me in terms of kind of my comments.

So, from the standpoint of our calendar, what we have in the next couple of weeks is we will have another Monday and Tuesday deliberation coming up then at the last week of October, we will have further committee discussions among ourselves.

Theoretically, the chair presents the initial budget proposal on the 6th of November, so that will just be a day after the election.

You know, because of late incoming ballots, we may not know what and how The I'm an initiative in particular How many how that will land so we will have we will have time after The initial budget proposal to see what else we need to do.

I Hate to do that, but we always redo the budget frankly multiple times from the initial proposal So there will be time to adjust and amend as needed.

Okay, so

This is just because I love maps.

On the attachment to the legislation attachment for the frequent transit network, first of all, I'm glad to see 130th on there.

But this map is dated March 2016. Are they going to give us an updated one?

Because I think a lot has changed in the last three years.

Right.

This is, I think, using this map, this is the Frequent Transit Network map, which is housed in the Transit Master Plan that's maintained by SDOT.

One thing that Council could consider is there's a different map called the Frequent Transit Area, Frequent Transit Network Area.

that is maintained by SDCI as part of parking regulations that is updated a little bit more frequently and is updated based on actual metro scheduled times that the, I believe, Land Use Committee did in the last couple of years.

And it includes a quarter mile buffer between these lines that might be a little bit more specific.

I believe it also includes all of the urban villages.

So I can provide that map as well.

I'm not sure exactly how frequently they update this map in the Transit Master Plan.

I'll ask that question, too.

And the reason why I ask this, and thank you very much for showing us what our options are, because I think as we have discussions and look at congestion pricing, what time of day, what areas of the city we're targeting, where light rail is coming online, if people are taking Ubers or Lyfts to light rail.

I mean, I don't think that's all going to happen this session, but it would be good to see that so we can further those discussions about what we're looking at.

Because didn't you anticipate, or isn't the chart, doesn't it go out to 2030?

Yes.

Yeah.

So it would be helpful to see something more intense on these, particularly the, well, you know, like the red lines.

I mean, you can see where people are using Uber and Lyft down these rich transit spines to get downtown.

I'm guessing that's going to change when we, the light rails are up, particularly Northgate will be online 2021. So I would be, I would like to see that.

Okay.

Thank you.

See what I can come up with.

Thank you.

Any further questions, Council Member Pacheco?

Okay.

Okay, in terms of next steps, we will be looking for form Bs on next Wednesday for any ideas about amendments to these proposals.

I am happy to speak with anybody before Wednesday about ideas or if anybody has any additional questions.

I will send out the updated chart on the tax revenues as well as some of the other items that we discussed today, but if there's anything I can do to help clarify or expand on anything that we talked about today.

I'm happy to do that.

Are there any recommendations that anybody has that you want to add on at this point, Council Member Herbold?

Well, I am interested in knowing if we were to pursue some of the different tax structures, how we might go about getting estimates on revenue generated.

I'm glad that you brought that up.

I will say we have somewhat limited data, very limited data, on the trips and the existing trips.

And so it will take some kind of assumptions.

to come up with calculations of, for example, if there was an A&P difference, if there was a geographic difference.

So we're going to have to work on how to calculate estimated rides and revenues under different scenarios.

And the other question is, and you may have covered it and I may have dismissed it, the idea of doing a different rate, a geographic focused rate, for instance, downtown, that would not run afoul of the requirements under state law to go for a public vote for congestion pricing?

I will double check.

I don't believe so.

I know that it has been something that has been discussed quite a bit, and I don't believe so, but I will triple check with law.

I just want to signal my interest in both of those structure changes and getting, even though it's, I appreciate the caveat that it may be imprecise, I would really be interested to get some estimates of revenue assumptions.

And we do have ride data by zip code, so the geography will be the easiest to manipulate.

Thank you.

May I make a comment here?

Absolutely.

I know it's lunchtime.

I guess I started paying time and a half at 12, so I want to milk this up a little bit.

That's good.

I hear Councilmember Herbold's concern, and I do like the notion of having some variance and possibly in the rates and doing it differently.

I just have to articulate the frustration we've had, Councilmember O'Brien and I have had, and many of you and the Mayor's Office, on getting this data from the TNCs.

And one of my concerns as we try to do this now is that We just again, I mean we've tried everything from having the University of Washington as a protected source and their Confidentiality obligations and we've tried it's like escrowing the information and making sure we can't disclose we've done everything Humanly and legally possible to make sure this what they will consider proprietary and confidential of information is safeguarded and my concern is given the short time frame we're working on, is that we create a model that once again delays this.

And so I'm wondering, again, I would love to look at variable rates and geographic issues, mileage issues, much like we do for taxis, by the way.

But my concern, again, is that it delays another year because the TNCs have been very, they've been effectively not sharing, blocking information.

And I don't want to play into that.

And I sort of want to keep things simple if possible.

Just stating my preference.

that's a very realistic concern given our experience with these companies.

I think that we have two issues here.

One is data that will help us develop the proposal.

And I agree with you that we would not be able to get data from the companies that would inform that decision.

It would have to be made based on assumptions.

I do believe that in the past when we have been requesting data from TNCs, it has been, to meet the goal of policy development.

However, if we were to require this data as part of a collection of attacks, FAS has very specific rules about how that data can be used and who it can be shared with.

It basically goes into a FAS lockbox.

And so I'll look into the concerns that you're stating, but I don't know that if the data collection would be as concerning to the TNCs if it follows those FAS rules that we have for data that we collect as part of a tax collection.

I appreciate that.

I have no problem saying publicly that that's logical, that's fair, but it has very little to do with how some of the experiences we've had with some of these TNCs on information sharing.

I'll take a hit on that one.

Good.

Council Member O'Brien, are you raising your hand?

Yeah.

Okay.

Council Member O'Brien followed by Council Member Pacheco.

Thank you.

Council President Harrell, I share your frustration with our inability to get decent data that other cities are collecting.

And I'm interested in, as we work through this, too, of thinking out ways where we can try to get more data.

And I appreciate the opportunity, Amy, the option that you described.

But I also think this is a major piece of our transportation system, and we want access to that data to make policy decisions, too.

So I'm thinking through some ideas, and I'm happy to share with folks as they ferment a little bit.

Ferment or foment?

Well I was thinking ferment, but that means they rot, so maybe I should foment them.

I know that there was discussion before the proposal came to us, or at least in comments that I think the mayor or her team had made about having differential taxing at different times a day, specifically something to model a congestion pricing to try to, you know, either discourage use of these during rush hour when there's already congestion on the road, but also perhaps raise additional revenue.

And that's something that I'm still interested in exploring.

I'm wondering, do we have any ideas why the mayor's proposal chose not to go down that?

Because I believe it was discussed at some point.

Right, and we can ask that question of them.

I will say that I've talked to law and it's not a legal concern.

Okay.

So I would assume it was more of a political concern.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Council Member Pacheco.

I was just going to really briefly say, because I know we're going to lunchtime.

As someone who just doesn't have a car, you know, I appreciate the desire to streamline and go as quickly as possible with this.

You know, I'm relying on all the different services that we use as a city, as well as, you know, walking, biking, busing everywhere, and the occasional carpool with Councilmember Juarez.

to North Seattle.

So I just will spend some time, and I would open the door to my colleagues in terms of wanting to provide some additional scrutiny about the tax rate and where those resources are going.

I know we're kind of operating under the cloud of Initiative 976. And so I know for all of us, that may change in terms of how we prioritize where those resources go.

And so I just want to open the door.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Is that it?

Yes.

Council President Harrell is ready for lunch.

I'm not the only one.

All right.

We are going to take a recess.

And if I don't hear any objections, I'm going to consider this meeting recessed.

And we'll see you at 2 o'clock.