Seattle City Council Sustainability & Transportation Committee 4/2/2019

Good afternoon, everybody.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome.

Hello.

And we're going to go ahead and get started.

We're going to ask folks to turn their voices down a little bit.

My name is Mike O'Brien.

Welcome to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

I'm joined today by my colleagues, Councilmembers Johnson and Samad.

Thank you both for being here.

And staffed by Jasmine Marwaha.

Thank you, Jasmine, for being here, too.

We have four items on this afternoon's agenda.

We're going to start with a presentation on the bike master plan implementation plan.

Then we will have a discussion about legislation, which we won't be voting on today, creating an EV electric vehicle readiness ordinance for new construction.

And then finally, we'll take up two reappointments to the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee.

We have a lot of folks signed up, and I'm going to go for about 30 minutes on public comment and try to get as many folks in as possible.

We've cut the public comment time to one minute each.

And if folks are here together, and if three or more people come up in a group and want to speak together or share some words, I'll give you three minutes as a group to do that.

And so that wasn't on the sign-up sheet, but just if you come forward and say you're part of a group and there's three people, you can only be in one group, just to be clear, because we're trying to get as many different people to speak today.

So we're going to start with David Haynes and then Doug Miles, maybe, and then Tom Gaffney.

Oh, David, yeah.

We need to fire those still in charge who failed miserably copycatting elsewhere places on business vacations to patchwork fix a total modern third world infrastructure for bikes.

In fact, the second most dangerous location in first and permanent injuries is the Burke-Gilman bike path specifically under the Beller bridge east two blocks.

There is a cement and joyride train causing thousands of wrecks while government claims They have the answer by adding another lane of highway traffic coming off Leary Avenue, speeding, bypassing three traffic lights at 11th Avenue, 14th Avenue, and 15th Avenue.

Yet Seattle's government in charge, drinking and thinking about engaging with adding another lane of highway traffic is unnecessary.

We need to force the cement trucks onto Leary Avenue or out of Ballard.

It's totally unsafe to ride your bike starting two blocks east of the Ballard Bridge, headed west under the bridge.

There is an obnoxiously loud train that's destroying the fresh air with toxic plumes 24-7.

The dirty trucks are short-cutting and speeding right in between two gas stations, one of which is the PCC being built 10 feet from the toxic train.

And it's kicking up plumes of dust right where all these kids are coming to preschool.

You need to shut down the Salmon Bay Concrete and Gravel Company.

are not worth it.

David, and I've been joined by Councillor Mosqueda.

Thank you for being here.

Hi, I'm David Miles.

I live right over the hill on Martin Luther King, just a couple blocks south of Cherry.

I've been riding a bike in Seattle and commuting in Seattle for over 60 years.

And I'd say over the decades, more people biked, it got safer, more mutual respect.

Lately, in the past decade, decade and a half, There's been a push that's made biking less safe.

There's been a push for bike paths.

These unsafe separated where the curbs will knock you down.

The Roosevelt, which I remember my sister saying how much she liked to ride down Roosevelt because she could just zoom along.

Well, I've ridden down it twice since they put the bike lane.

And of course, I don't ride in the bike lane because it's dangerous.

It goes behind the bus stops.

You cannot ride fast, which is what I like to do.

So I think maybe it was the wrong reason for canceling that 35th Avenue.

bike path, but it was the right thing to do.

And I have ridden 35th, that's where I had my most unpleasant experience in Seattle.

When I was riding to a friend's house a block and a half away, and a guy leaned over his baby to curse at me and say, get yourself on the trail.

He was talking about the Burke-Gilman Trail.

The trails and the paths make biking more dangerous.

Thank you, David.

Tom?

And Tom's going to be followed by Gabe Galinda and then Marty Oppenheimer.

I am Gabe Galanda with Tom Gaffney and Bob Fish.

We'd love three minutes.

Great, we'll do that.

I'm a civil rights lawyer with my offices in Wedgwood, and I'm an advocate for the Save 35th Community Coalition, comprised of 5,091 taxpayers, 57 entrepreneurs who own small businesses along 35th Avenue Northeast, and five community associations from North Seattle.

To be clear, we support a safer 35th Avenue.

a smart redesign of our community's main street.

We support slower speed limits, left-hand turn lanes at signals, more crosswalks and flashing beacons, more sidewalks, of course, because there aren't any sidewalks in Northeast Seattle, and curb cuts that are accessible to all.

We also support preserved bus stops.

The only point of contention was a 2.3 mile proposal for protected bike lanes, which we believe would have impaired small business owners and commerce and displaced certain demographics in our community like the elderly.

Recall that by late 2016, SDOT recommended against re-channelization and platooning of traffic along 35th by way of bike lanes based on 68% community opposition.

SDOT heeded the Bike Master Plan's requirement that the city engage with and listen to the community.

As you all know, since 2015, the Bike Master Plan has provided, quote, as projects move through the project development process, our analysis, design, and community engagement may lead to a project being developed in a different way than envisioned in the plan.

That's precisely what happened.

That language was the linchpin to our community advocacy, especially in mediation with the mayor's office and SDOT.

We followed the bike master plan in our advocacy.

We did our research.

We engaged a traffic planner and a traffic engineer.

We devised our own position and engaged in the mediation process and in good faith.

We have our 14-page position paper supported by 39 appendices that we'd like to offer the committee for its consideration.

Throughout that process, we proposed compromise, depicted by the mapping that Tom Gaffney here generated.

We proposed needed safety improvements along the 39th Avenue Greenway, which are part of the mayor's adopted plan.

We proposed a new greenway along 30th, which we solicited and received community support for.

We also proposed and supported proposed bike lanes along part, but not all of the 2.3 mile stretch.

Unfortunately, the bike lobby was not interested in any compromise, leaving the decision ultimately to be made by the mayor.

In the end, the city followed the bike master plan and arrived at a compromise.

It provides further, quote, the BMP may recommend a protected bike lane on a particular street, but through our projected development and outreach process, we may determine that an alternative facility such as a parallel neighborhood greenway would be preferable.

And that's precisely what the mayor decided in adopting improvements to the 39th Avenue greenway that exists in our neighborhood.

We remain supportive of a new greenway and other facilities that will allow for biking in our neighborhood.

We thank the mayor for the decision she made.

It was a compromise, and as everyone knows, in a compromise situation, you don't get everything we want.

We're not 100% pleased with the decision, but we support the decision nonetheless.

Thank you for your audience.

Thank you, Tom.

Marty Oppenheimer will be next.

And Marty's going to be followed by Vicki Clark and then Phillip Weiss.

I'm joined by Debbie Wilner from Lakewood Zoo or Park.

So we'll last for two minutes, if we may.

I'm the Transportation Chair of the Lakewood Seward Park Neighborhood Association, and I'm here today to speak against the SDOT protected bike lanes on Wilson Avenue South.

I can tell you that the residents of Wilson Avenue and the neighborhood, including many avid bicyclists, are largely opposed to the installation of these bike lanes.

SDOT proposes that they will be installed in the interest of safety, but we know they will have an opposite impact.

The bike lane project will eliminate parking on one side of the street, which will force our many seniors disabled and families with small children to park on one side and cross a busy street to their homes on the other side.

That sets up a dangerous situation.

SDOT also believes the change will result in safer driving conditions, which we question.

In fact, we know that Rainier Avenue South road diet has diverted a significant number of drivers onto Wilson Avenue South, and that increased traffic has created more safety problems, including periodic accidents in our neighborhood.

Furthermore, the Wilson Avenue South project creates eight-tenths of a mile of orphaned protected bike lanes.

What I mean by that is this project provides eight-tenths of a mile of protected bike lanes in a four-and-a-half-mile stretch of roadway, most of which can never be protected.

If the entire four-and-a-half-mile stretch could be protected, the community might have a different opinion.

But this project only creates this orphaned eight-tenth-mile stretch of bike lane.

At one of our meetings with SDOT, one staffer told us that there was a commitment to 50 miles of protected bike lanes in the city, and this was going to be part of it.

Sad.

Additionally, the preferred path of the vast majority of bicyclists is to travel north or south following Seward Park Avenue South and Lake Washington Boulevard, not Wilson Avenue South.

Most bicyclists do not travel on Wilson Avenue.

SDOT agreed to do a study of bikes, autos, and pedestrians, which they did for one week last May.

Despite having agreed to share those results with the community, 10 months later, we have not seen them.

Marty, your time is up.

That was set for three, but you only have two minutes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Vicky.

And again, Vicky's going to be followed by Philip Weiss, Kathy Dunn, and David Goffrian.

Good afternoon, Vicki Clark, Cascade Bicycle Club.

The last-minute reversal on a planned protected bike lane on 35th Ave.

NE is a blow to anyone who engaged in the public discourse genuinely, and is a blow to the chance of improving that street for the next decade or more.

Protective bike lanes demonstrably make streets safer for people walking and biking, and help create safer travel speeds for all.

The mayor's solution is a confusing middle ground that doesn't seem to address any of the concerns raised in opposition, but more importantly, does not make it safer for people biking or walking that street.

Instead, it begs the question, what is the mayor's vision for transportation in this growing city, where two in three people want more options to get around in some way other than the car?

We're asking Council today for their support.

We need more accountability.

Somehow passing laws and policies, be that Vision Zero or Complete Streets, is not enough.

Somehow backing up with public money with the Move Seattle Levy is not enough.

We are not doing enough to make our streets safer for everyone, and that needs to change.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm a resident of East Lake, and I tell you that because East Lake does not have safe bike routes.

And I'm angry that the mayor and SDOT have canceled safe bicycle improvements on 35th Avenue.

How can I trust the city is going to follow through on its promises to East Lake if you can't follow through on the promises for 35th Avenue?

The safe bicycle routes in my neighborhood have already been delayed to 2024, which gives five years for the mayor and SDOT to find a way to renege.

The implementation plan that is being presented to you today might as well be written on toilet paper for all that they actually guarantee.

Both Erica Barnett and the urbanist have written pieces about this.

about how it moves the goalposts closer and still claims touchdowns for cycling.

I also want to note that the Levee Oversight Committee nominations before you, those people should be advocating on their committee meetings for that, and the last three months of minutes for that, I do not see that.

Ask them if they will do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Philip.

Cappy?

I'm Kathy Dunn.

I live in West Seattle.

I'm 68 years old.

We had a success story in Admiral Way.

We had five meetings with the community and SDOT to try to paint two-way bike lanes, one-way bike lane on each side of the street.

People screamed.

They cried.

They were bitter.

One woman got up and bawled because she was going to lose a parking space in front of her house.

Then SDOT worked with them on the parking, and they put them in.

And now it's safer.

It's calmer.

They have statistics now that are less accidents on Emerald Way.

And I'm not scared to death, because I don't have any grocery stores or any shops at all in my neighborhood.

I have to bike up that hill, and there's no alternative route.

And I would like to say that this morning, I did my weekly ride from West Seattle to Beacon Hill for a class.

There's six blocks of terror.

4th Avenue South between Spokane and Lander.

They paved it recently.

They put in six general traffic lanes and two parking lanes, but they couldn't squeeze in a complete street bike lane on each side.

And they said, well, wait, someday we're going to have an alternate route.

I've been waiting since 1996 for that alternate route.

Thank you, Kathy.

David?

David, hi.

Sorry, one sec, David.

You're going to be followed by Kelsey Mesher.

And then Alex Zimmerman.

Hi, my name's David.

I'm a West Seattle bicycle commuter into downtown.

I'm a West Seattle Bike Connections member, a Cascade member.

I'm a taxpayer.

I have voted for just about every tax that we ever put on a ballot.

If it says we're going to improve things, I'm for it.

And the bike master plan was one of the things that I, and the levy, the move is one of the things that I voted for, and I'd like to see it continue.

I'd like to see progress made, and I'm not so sure that we're on the right step by backing off on a lot of different projects for other priorities.

Thank you.

Kelsey?

Hi, I'm Kelsey Mesher.

I'm with Transportation Choices Coalition.

to speak on the BNP Implementation Plan.

We want to acknowledge a lot has happened since voters approved the Move Seattle Levy, including continued escalation of costs and often unpredictable federal funding situation.

And we understand this year's BNP Implementation Plan is grounded in those sometimes stark realities.

and that it reflects a priority to rebuild trust with the public, and we appreciate that.

However, we also want to acknowledge that there remains an enormous and existentially critical need to transform our transportation system, and that active transportation, including a robust bicycle network that is integrated with and complementary to our growing transit system, is an essential part of that functioning system.

And to achieve this, the city needs not only a viable plan, but an improved process for implementing that.

One that is respectful of all opinions, but truly grounded in the policies we've agreed to as a city, Vision Zero, Complete Streets, and our climate goals.

Thank you, Kelsey.

Alex.

Alex is going to be followed by Don Brubeck, then Sarah and Avon Riggle, and then Joseph Lobbock.

Sieg Heil, my dear Fuhrer, a Nazi pig!

And that's a Gestapo pig from Animal Farm.

My name Alex Zimmerman.

I speak right now to everybody, to this 700,000 freaking idiot who live in this city.

Why we need pay for bike who don't have license, don't have taxes, drive with our rules and regulation?

Why I pay for everything?

Tax for my car, ticket, everything.

And I pay every year 1,000 bucks.

Why?

Why the 700,000 idiots respect bike like Bill Gates or another Amazon billionaire?

Why you freaking 700,000 idiots accept this?

This is a criminal.

He's not only sucking blood and money.

He's dangerous.

He can kill everybody, bike and driver, everybody.

City Walk 2, stand up America.

Don is next.

I just want to acknowledge this is Councilmember Johnson's last committee meeting and hence it's the last time he will hear testimony from Alex Zimmerman.

I'm a member of West Seattle Bike Connections, and I'd like to thank the council members, especially outgoing members Rob Johnson and Mike O'Brien and Sally Bagshaw, also Lorena Gonzalez and Teresa Mosqueda for being champions of equitable and safe and connected transportation systems and to SDOT's dedicated bike staff.

We'd really like to ask you that you reject this update to the bicycle master plan implementation plan.

It goes backwards instead of making progress.

instead require SDOT to adopt and implement the 2018 version, which was never accepted by the mayor, and put that into effect and add in about the $21 million of funding over the remaining years of the Move Seattle levy in order to fully implement the projects to actually meet our targets of 2030 for a connected citywide network and 2035 for a completion of the bike master plan implementation.

Thank you, Don.

Sarah and Eva?

Hi, I'm Sarah.

This is my four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Ava.

I'm a working mom and a bike commuter.

We ride for fun, for sport, to work and to school, and to explore this great city.

Ava was pedaling on her own in the street without training wheels before she was four.

Access to safe streets and bicycle options is just one of the reasons we love Seattle.

Ava and I commute together daily, sometimes by bus, our car, and most often on a cargo bike together from our home in Wedgwood, just a block off 35th.

After winding through various bike infrastructure, or lack thereof, we find our way downtown, just blocks from here, for our work and school.

We used to ride regularly on 35th, but after being hit by a car making a right turn there one morning, we were forced to find an alternate route where we could more comfortably coexist with cars.

We ride out of our way on the 39th Avenue Greenway.

It is not an acceptable alternate or parallel route, nor does it allow me and my family a safe and direct way to access the neighborhood businesses on 35th from which we'd like to partake, restaurants, grocery store, coffee shop, and the library.

I chose this neighborhood and this community in part so I could continue to bike to the places I love or want and need to be.

I want to live in a city that prioritizes safe streets for me and my entire family, be it in our car or on bicycle.

The mayor's decision to scrap the Bicycle Master Plan in favor of more cars on streets is disappointing.

We are angry and saddened.

It is not a compromise.

It does nothing to support our Vision Zero and the safe community we all want.

Ava and I stand here and ask for your continued leadership to step up and say what's right.

To carry out the Bicycle Master Plan and to support policy that prioritizes safety of all of our residents big and small.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll let you go a little lower because you had two people there so thanks for testifying.

Joseph?

Hello, my name is Joe Laubach.

My family lives in West Seattle.

I'm an active member of the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee.

In our 2018 annual letter sent to the Mayor and Council on March 5th, which I hope you've had the opportunity to read, the committee states that the 2018 levy goals of the Bicycle Safety Subprogram were not met.

Specifically referring to the number of protected bike lanes constructed, the letter states this rate of progress is unacceptable.

These are not just empty words.

Much of the public testimony our committee hears relates to meeting Vision Zero goals and giving people the ability to get around our city safely on bike and by foot.

I'm a bike rider and parent of an eight-year-old bike rider.

I'm not yet comfortable having my daughter bike on certain stretches of road to get from our house to amazing places like Alki Beach, so we end up in the car.

When I learned the city abandoned plans for a protected bike lane on 35th Avenue, I was very frustrated.

Will the same short-sighted decisions jeopardize protected bike lanes in other parts of Seattle?

Please implement the will of the voters and connect every neighborhood with safe, comfortable, and convenient bike routes.

Thank you.

Megan Murphy, you're next.

Megan, you're going to be followed by Peter Goldman and then Glenn Bowman.

I was in Olympia about a month ago, and somebody was discussing the electric bike renewal tax, how they're going to get a break if they buy an electric bike, and all the psychological benefits and physical benefits, emotional benefits of bike riding.

So how are we going to use this tax if there's no bike lanes in Seattle?

Mayor Durkin, we're passing the ball to you.

because families want to have safe places to bike ride and sometimes the first design isn't the most elegant design and we're inviting Mayor Durkin to struggle with us on finding the best design.

We tried to pass the carbon tax and believe it or not someday it's going to pass because climate change is having impacts disproportionately on people who struggle financially and If we have these bike lanes, then it's more on the grid of the future.

We have to invest in the new grid, which is that of renewables, bikes, and it's time to plan now.

Thank you.

Thanks, Megan.

Peter?

Good afternoon.

My name is Peter Goldman.

I've lived in West Seattle for 36 years.

I'm both a bike commuter to Pioneer Square and a recreational bicyclist.

I'm here today to urge political leaders in this great, green, and supposedly sustainable and livable city to recommit to building out the Master Bike Plan.

When Amazon was searching for a second headquarters, one of its criterias was this, quote, for each proposed site in your region, identify all transit options, including bike lanes and pedestrian access to the site.

In Amazon, third bullet down.

What does this signify?

What does the Amazon signify?

It means that all of us living in this city and region know there are just too many people, too many cars, and too much traffic.

Bikes, and of course, bus rapid transit, light rail, and buses are our only hope to move people around safely, comfortably, efficiently, and sustainably.

This is not about bikes versus cars.

It's not about bikes versus small stores.

This is not about any of that.

This is simply about transportation policy, sustainability, and safety, livability, the way Amazon wants to see its cities.

So please, double down.

We were promised a $930 million levy, and we know we're only halfway through, and it doesn't look good.

Please, double down.

Let's build it.

Thank you, Peter.

Glenn.

Glenn, you'll be followed by Philip Singer, and then Barbara Gordon, if she's still here.

Hi, my name's Glenn Bowman, and I am not a member of the bike lobby.

I'm simply a dad with two kids, one of who's 16 and rides his bike by himself.

I regularly have to go to 35th, and I'm here to speak in favour of doing whatever Council can to get that plan back on track.

Specifically, I have four asks, Do whatever you can to direct or force SDOT to follow the city's complete streets and Vision Zero policies.

Ensure that any recent projects that were called bike projects are not counting work that is not related to bicycling.

In particular, 100% of the 35th Avenue Northeast project, including the $14,000 for the mediator.

Pass binding legislation which legally requires SDOT to build complete streets.

Require SDOT to not present a do-nothing design for projects when that design does not meet city ordinances and policies.

This is one of the reasons neighbourhoods demand these designs and don't feel heard when SDOT chooses a plan that does follow city ordinances.

Thank you, Glenn.

And thank you to all of you, especially Rob Johnson, for everything he's done.

Philip?

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Philip Singer.

I live in northeast Seattle in the Sandpoint Way area, and I want to urge the mayor's office, the mayor, and the city council to implement the bike master plan and to implement bike lanes on 35th Avenue Northeast.

I've lived in Seattle for 22 years.

I've seen a lot of changes.

I've biked for 22 years around here.

I bike in North Seattle, I bike in South Seattle, and I've seen a lot of improvements.

I've seen a lot of good things happen, and I want to see that happen in my neighborhood.

I live in the Sandpoint Way area, and the closest shopping area to me is 35th Avenue.

I go up there to the library.

I go up there to the bakeries, I go up there to the post office, and my dentist is on 35th Avenue, and he has a sign in his window saying no bike lanes on 35th Avenue.

So, you know, we really need to have this.

I think it really improves the street, it improves the neighborhood, you know, just makes City more livable, what I've seen throughout this city, it really helps.

And I don't want to see what happened several years ago on 75th and 35th Avenue, where two pedestrians were killed by a drunk driver on 75th Avenue.

I don't want to see that happen again, as some driver to put in a bike lane.

Thank you.

Thank you, Phil.

Barbara is going to be followed by Emily Payne, and then Patrick Taylor.

Hi i'm Barbara Gordon i'm a mom and my mom to an 11 year old who lives on the greenway right in Bryant and.

Greenway is amazing it's great to have, but it doesn't get you to businesses and the bicycle master plan was addressing just that by putting in a.

a bike lane on a street where there's library and there's businesses that an 11-year-old child wants to go to, that families all over that neighborhood want to go to.

It makes so much sense.

It doesn't make sense to keep people just on greenways.

Greenways are wonderful, and they get you from one neighborhood to another, and they are enjoyable for the neighborhood, but people want to access businesses.

And I just wanted to reaffirm that.

So, thank you.

Thank you, Barbara.

Emily?

I'm Emily Payne, co-chair of the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board.

However, I'm commenting just as a private citizen because the board did not see the Bicycle Master Plan Implementation Plan in time to organize a group response.

I am concerned at some of the implications in the Bicycle Master Plan Implementation Plan, particularly regarding the designation of some projects as risky.

We think that this potentially gives SDOT an excuse to back down on projects that they've already decided that they're not going to put their full force behind.

We're also really concerned that there are projects in the implementation plan list that are not that are indicated that SBAB recommended we remove them.

Some of those projects were not recommended by SBAB to be removed, and we're actually given our highest endorsement.

That's my time, but thank you very much.

Thank you, Emily.

And you all are meeting tomorrow night, I believe.

And so I don't know if you'll have time to get to that, because you probably already have an agenda.

But whenever you're ready, we really want to hear from the committee.

Thank you.

Patrick?

Patrick, you may be followed by Matthew Lang and then Paul Thackeray.

And we'll take three more after that, and then we're going to hold public comment until the end of the meeting.

For folks that want to stick around, I'm sorry about that.

Hi, my name's Patrick Taylor.

I'm a South Seattle resident as well as a member of the Bike Advisory Board.

But as Emily said, I'm speaking as an individual.

I'm here today to speak because a pattern has emerged in this administration of delaying and eliminating bike plans that prove challenging or controversial.

We've seen this on 35th, 40th, 12th Avenue South, much of the central city plan which has been delayed that the council endorsed.

And then when I look at the implementation plan, I see many of the most important projects as listed as risky, which paired with an administration that does not seem to have the gumption or vision to follow through on projects to prove challenging, I feel a strong sense of concern.

And I would like to either see, as you said earlier, a strong statement from the mayor expressing her vision for transportation in our city and where bikes play into it, or failing that, money and endorsements from the council for a revised plan that has more of a guarantee of what will be built.

And we will follow through on our commitments.

Thank you.

Hi there.

My name is Matthew Lang.

I'm the lead organizer at the Transit Riders Union.

I'm here today to speak for the Transit Riders Union.

We are not pleased with the decision of Mayor Durkin's administration to cut the protected bike lane on 35th Avenue Northeast.

It is a problematic thing because we have the Bike Master Plan and the SDOT study that showed that we should be building these protected bike lanes.

We need to be taking care of people in Seattle that use other forms of transportation other than cars.

As a car driver myself, I work all over King County, so I have to drive.

I drive along 35th Avenue often.

I drive along Schill Shoal as well.

We are not prioritizing safe bike transportation.

I feel like people are not safe.

I would rather prioritize people's safety than have to circle around the block again to find another parking spot.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew.

Paul?

So after Paul, we're going to hear from Kim Kin Chen.

And then 350 Seattle has a group.

We'll hear from Tamara Schmoltz and Apu Mishra.

And then we'll hear from Mona Lee.

And then that'll be it for now.

And we'll move into the presentations.

And at the end, we'll take some more public comment.

There's about 10 more people that have signed up.

And if you stick around, I'll stick around to hear from you.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Paul.

My name's Paul.

I'm a 15-year resident of the neighborhood near 35th Avenue.

I'm a pedestrian in the area.

I'm a transit rider.

I take bus and light rail.

I am a driver and I'm also a cyclist occasionally.

I think that the revised plan that was presented last week for 35th is simply poor urban planning.

It goes against everything we know about urban design, about creating vibrant, healthy, human scale, livable, walkable neighborhoods.

And I think that SDOT knows of that.

And I think that this was a political decision.

And I don't think anybody at DOT is proud of this design.

This is a car's first design.

And it exacerbates an already bad street design.

Thank you, Paul.

Regarding the parking concerns that were voiced, I think that this really doesn't seem to be about parking as the final plan doesn't really answer that.

Your time is up.

Most of these businesses have off-street parking already, plentiful off-street parking.

Thank you.

Kim?

Hi, my name is Kimberly Kinchin, and I live on Capitol Hill, and I bike, and I walk, and I bus.

I do not drive.

Almost 20 years ago, I took a photograph and a pile of paperwork to one of the city's neighborhood service centers to apply for a passport.

And I brought supporting paperwork far beyond what the U.S.

Department of State required of me.

And for photo ID, I brought my Washington State ID card, which is issued by the same department that issues driver's licenses.

But the clerk told me that because I did not have a driver's license, I would need someone who did to vouch for my identity, even though my ID card was issued by the State Department of Licensing.

The city would literally not recognize me on my own without a license or without a licensed driver.

Today, with this scaling back of yet another bike master plan, it doesn't feel like much has changed in this city.

It feels like the city still barely recognizes those of us who cannot drive or who try to choose to drive less, I can't, and I'm so tired of being an afterthought.

All streets can't do all things for all people, Mr. Zimbabwe.

Do you know why that is?

It's because SDOT continues to prioritize the movement of cars and the convenience of drivers over the movement and safety of people on virtually 100% of our streets.

There might be a protected bike lane on 2nd Avenue, but it's just like, I don't know, 10 feet wide.

There's three lanes still devoted to cars.

And if you look at all of our streets, Cars are prioritized.

It's very clear.

Anyway, transportation policy, like vaccination policy, it's a public health issue.

And if you think about it like public health, would you ever back down on public health policy because of the vocal minority of people who spread misinformation and fear?

Thank you.

350.org.

Three minutes.

350 Seattle.

Thank you, Mike.

Yes.

I'm Ellis Lockhart with our transportation team and fully connected bike works are required.

Absolutely.

If we are to eliminate the 50% of Seattle's greenhouse gas emissions that come from personal transportation, we ask that the city keep its promise.

And on a more personal note, I'm Meg Wade, also with our transportation team.

And I'm just actually going to give a heads up to any people with kids in the room.

I'm about to say some words, because what I want on public record is what is said to me as a cyclist in this city.

And at the moment, I feel like the decision the mayor has made has been a validation of harassment of people out on the street.

As a bicyclist in North Seattle, I have been called a cunt.

I have been called a bitch, taking up too much space on the road.

I have tried to step into a crosswalk and asked a driver to move their car and been told, I am sick of you people.

I've been told, fucking get out of my way.

That is the daily reality for those of us who bike.

in the city, and that is what I hear from my neighbors, that it's okay for that harassment to continue to happen and for me not to be safe on the street.

And it is astonishing to me that our mayor, who comes out of the gay community, would not understand that telling us to get out of the main street, get over to the little sort of side streets out of the way, go hide, go hide out of the public vision, be out of our public spaces, that she wouldn't understand the similarities.

I myself identify as queer and know that we take threats of violence against queer folks really seriously in this city.

And we said, that is not going to happen.

But it doesn't seem to me that we take that seriously when it comes to the safety and the health of people who get around by bike, on foot, in wheelchairs.

We need to take that seriously.

We need to think about what it means to make our streets a safe place.

I appreciate this committee of folks because I know that you keep those values in mind.

And I ask, as many others have asked here today, that our mayor stand up and actually show some vision and actually hold all members of our community in mind as we make decisions about how we use our street space, because that's what we need.

We have the climate crisis.

That's what I'm supposed to be up here talking about, because I'm with a climate group.

But it always comes down to the personal as well and how we get around.

And we need to have some grace and love for one another and understand that all of us here need to be safe, and we need those safe spaces on our streets.

And I hope that my neighbors in North Seattle will consider that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Meg.

and Apu will give you two minutes, and then Mona Lee will be our last speaker for one minute.

Thank you.

This is Apu Mishra, Beacon Hill, and I'm Tamara Schmautz from West Seattle.

We come today to mourn the loss of the Bicycle Master Plan.

We're protesting the shredding of the Bicycle Master Plan.

Seattle Climate Action Plan.

And the Complete Streets Ordinance.

And we look to you council for guidance and advising the mayor and the mayor's office and SDOT to bring them back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Mona Lee.

I live in Southeast Seattle by the Othello Station, and I'm 80 years old.

I bike everywhere.

I don't drive a car.

I put my bike on the train, the light rail, and on the bus, and even on the ferry.

I last drove a car in 1999. So you figure how much less pollution there is in the air because of the fact that I've gone on my bicycle instead of in the car all these years.

And a lot of people tell me they're amazed that I'm bicycling because they think it's so dangerous.

Well, if people didn't think it was so dangerous, just think how much, and they were bicycling, just think how much less pollution there would be in the air and how the CO2 emissions causing climate change there would be.

The only bike route through our neighborhood in the Rainier Valley from going from south to north, or north to south, is the bike greenway route, and it goes right over the mountain.

Well, I don't understand why the cars get to go on Martin Luther King Way and Rainier, and they get to stay on the flat.

And so what's really needed is a bike lane along Rainier.

It's a really wide street, and it doesn't necessarily have to be one of those fancy ones like down on 2nd Street.

It would be nice if we had that, but I don't see why it would be so terribly expensive to paint a line along along Rainier Avenue on either side so that people could bicycle.

Right now- Your time is up, Mona.

It's creating lots of hazards, and last week someone was killed there by a red and brown driver bicycling.

Thank you, Mona.

I want to thank everyone for coming out for public comment today.

Again, there's about 10 more folks that signed up that I'm going to pause on so we can get to the presentation.

I apologize, folks, that came to give public comment, and I'm holding you to the end.

But if you stick around to the end of the committee, I'll stick around to hear from you.

And I really appreciate we heard a variety of views today, but I appreciate folks being respectful of each other as we work through these challenging policy decisions.

Jasmine, would you like to read agenda item number one into the record?

Yes, this is an information item related to the 2019 Bicycle Master Plan Implementation Plan update.

Why don't we start with introductions?

Calvin, you can go first.

Calvin Chow with Council Central staff.

Sam Zimbabwe.

The button is up on the stem.

It's on.

There we go.

It's on.

So it's a veteran move.

Sam Zimbabwe, SDOT.

Thank you.

Jim Curtin, SDOT.

Monica DeWald, SDOT.

Thank you all.

I don't know that I have much more to say than what you've all heard, so why don't we, unless colleagues, you want to do any preamble, why don't we just go ahead and jump into the presentation and we'll talk through this as we go through it.

Sounds good.

I will give a little bit of an intro, and then I'll turn it over to Jim and Monica to run through the presentation.

So thank you for having this committee meeting today, and thanks for the opportunity to come here and talk about the 2019 to 2024 proposed bicycle master plan implementation plan.

A long title.

I also want to address what we heard during the public comment period just now, and I know what many who are watching are interested in, which is our shared commitment to building a connected bicycle network in Seattle.

Over the past three years, the city of Seattle has built 27 miles of new bike facilities, and we're on track to deliver another nearly 11 miles of projects in 2019. Last week, though, as we heard before, we announced that we would not be moving forward with installing bike lanes on 35th Avenue Northeast.

which was a real challenge.

The paving and asset management work planned on the corridor had given us the opportunity to redesign the street to better organize the space and address the multimodal safety issues.

Based on the bike master plan, our original design included a protected bike lane.

However, because of the 40-foot curb-to-curb distance in much of the corridor, especially between 85th and 65th, we were only able to fit a protected bike lane on one side of the street with an unprotected five-foot bike lane on the other.

We also needed to accommodate the existing frequent transit service and maintain some parking for businesses and residents.

All this created a squeeze, which included lane widths as narrow as 10 feet in places, but we moved forward with that plan.

Throughout product development and into construction, we continued to hear from the Northeast Seattle community, both for and against the original design.

Ultimately, we made the tough choice to change the design.

Throughout the community engagement, there was consistent consensus that making safer pedestrian crossings while reducing vehicular speeds and aggressive driving were important shared goals.

Compared to the street today, the new design for 35th will help us address those issues while not precluding future bike connections.

35th Avenue remains in the bicycle master plan.

We're also committed to making enhancements to the 39th Avenue Greenway and continuing our work to improve connections in the area with the future 68th Street Greenway.

This brings me to the 2019 to 2024 bicycle master plan proposed implementation plan that we're here to discuss.

We've changed a few things from previous years.

First off, we're seeking public input on the implementation plan before we finalize it.

And second, we've gone to greater lengths to explain our product delivery constraints, identify potential risks in the plan that could further affect project delivery.

We think both of these things will help us create a stronger understanding of the plan with the public and aid us as we continue project level outreach and engagement.

The proposed plan reflects the hard work the agency has done over the past year to complete a comprehensive assessment of the levy to move Seattle under the leadership of Mayor Durkin and based on more realistic assumptions than the city used in 2015. Because the bike master plan is funded in large part by the levy, we've been working with the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board to prioritize projects to make the best investments and maximize safety, connectivity, equity, ridership, and livability.

As a result, this is a realistic plan that reflects nearly $77 million in funding that we expect to be available over the next six years for bike investments.

As the proposed implementation plan demonstrates, Mayor Durkan and I remain committed to building out a connected and safe bicycle network throughout the city, and we're going to be discussing the plan with the Levee Oversight Committee tonight and the Bicycle Advisory Board tomorrow evening.

We'll also be holding public engagement events over the next month to hear from people directly about their priorities for the implementation plan.

The plan does reflect some difficult choices related to the cost of projects, but also highlights the important connections we're making to existing and future transit, schools, and other community destinations.

I'll be working throughout the agency to see how we can deliver our projects more effectively and more efficiently and stretch our funding as far as it can go.

While we have removed some projects from the proposed implementation plan, they remain part of the long-range bicycle master plan.

And as funding becomes available and we progress projects, we can hopefully draw these or other priorities back into the work plan.

I hear the folks who gave public comment today, and I understand their frustration, and I'll continue to listen to what they have to say.

I also see this plan as an opportunity for safety advocates, our department, and all of our residents to move forward together.

The plan includes many of the bike safety projects that you and many in this room have consistently prioritized as important projects to build.

These, combined with the 27 miles of bike facilities installed over the last three years, will continue building our bike network and make it safer and more enjoyable for riders biking through our city now and those that might be drawn in the future.

With that, I'll turn it over to Jim and Monica to walk through the presentation, and I'll stay here to answer any questions that you have.

I'm going to pause you all for just a second, because I want to just comment on some of the things you said there, Sam.

First of all, thank you all for being here.

I, like many in the audience today, am really struggling with the decision and how we got there.

And I acknowledge that it's a challenge.

And it's been a challenge the dozens of times we've been out in community doing this.

There's nothing unique that was said on 35th Avenue Northeast that has not come up in multiple other communities.

I would say that the length of the process was a lot longer, and some of the actions that were taken were maybe more severe than we've seen in other projects.

But the general sense of what happens when we go to build a bike lane, We know that playbook.

I don't imagine in other cities you've worked in, Sam, it's the same.

And the only way you get through these hard decisions is with having these North Star that's guiding you in a direction.

And we worked really hard on a Vision Zero commitment that by the year 2030, no fatalities and serious injuries.

We worked really hard on a climate action plan that shows that we're going to be carbon neutral by the year 2050 and have tripled the bicycle ridership from 2007 to 2017. That didn't happen.

We didn't come close.

I think, you know, I don't believe that anything you said is inaccurate.

I haven't measured the lane widths myself and all those things, but I trust that those are all accurate things.

And yet, if those are not, if we're not being guided by meeting our climate objectives, meeting our safety objectives, it feels like then we will always say, well, this one's just too hard.

And that's what feels like a mess.

And I fear what happens everywhere else.

what happens going forward.

Because you look back, and time after time, there's amazing people at SDOT that are really smart.

And to be clear, they come to me and tell me things that I would like to see, that's not going to work in this place, or we're not going to be able to do this, here's what we recommend.

And I will defer to those experts, because I know that they are focused on that same guiding guiding light of where they're going.

We have a shared vision about what needs to happen.

And what happens at those projects is a year later we go back, we study them, we talk to neighbors, those that show up.

Usually most don't show up because at that point they're fine with it.

We show that the traffic movement is still the same.

Speeds are usually lower because we wanted them to be lower because that's safer.

But the same number of people and vehicles are getting through.

We show that there are fewer collisions that are happening because we have really smart people that are guided, not by just folks' fear of what happened.

And we show that businesses are doing fine.

I mean, there's plenty of studies in Seattle, around the country, and around the world that do that.

And so I'm struggling with what is guiding the department and the mayor's office on this right now, and I don't expect you to answer that at this moment.

But it's something that I think we really need to get clarity because I'm a little shaken right now, as are a lot of people in the community.

Colleagues.

I don't want to get the presenters tied up in too much of this, but I want to give space for for colleagues to make comments too.

Yeah, you know, I concur with everything that you said Councilmember O'Brien, I think you know we're at an inflection point in the city's history where You know, we're trying to manage a lot of growth in the city, and we're also trying to be consistent with those visions and values that you've talked about.

You know, in addition, in this neck of the woods, which I'm fortunate to represent for another 72 hours or so, you know, we also have a couple of major institutions, the folks at Children's and the folks at the University of Washington.

who we have banded together and said, we want you to be good neighbors.

And one of the ways that you can be good neighbors is by making sure that you have fewer folks that are driving to and from your institutions on a regular basis.

We set goals and objectives for those institutions to really reduce the amount of driving that they have going to their neighborhoods.

In the University of Washington, we set an aggressive goal down to 12% from the existing 17%.

At Children's, we're trying to go from 30% 7% to 32%.

And so those folks at those institutions, I think, step up to those challenges, and they want to be good neighbors.

And so they do innovative things like offering free bikes to folks who choose to bike to commute to work, or working really hard to build more infrastructure on the UW campus to be able to host folks who are making that choice to bike to work.

I struggle a little bit with that disconnect, too, because it feels to me like we have a set of policies where we're asking these major institutions to join with us.

And when I talk to the leadership within those institutions, they express concern about having the next brilliant researcher or the next incredible lecturer be struck and killed on their way to work one day.

And so we've seen that happen time and time again.

We've seen folks that have been, unfortunately, struck and killed in this neighborhood.

I walk past a ghost bike every day, and I think a lot about Andy Holslander and his untimely death at 46, and how I'm rapidly approaching that number, and how he had two little girls, and how I have three little girls, and how hard it would be for my little kids to grow up without a dad.

And so I really, I believe in this city and our ability to come together to try to make hard decisions.

And time and again, we have struggled with the construction of protected bike lanes.

And we've convened processes that have done a good job of helping to find a way to get to a consensus.

That's one of the reasons why I Personally, Rob Johnson advocated for the hiring of John Howell as a mediator in this process because I thought that we have had good mediation processes in the past, whether that was the Westlake Cycle Track, whether that was the Second Avenue bike lane, whether or not several other examples on Stoneway, where we have had facilitated conversations, the missing link in Ballard.

I mean, in each of these instances, we've had people on both sides of a topic.

We've brought people together.

and facilitated conversations and we've come up with an outcome.

that maybe wasn't perfect for everybody, but did end up building those facilities in most every instance.

And so I would really love to see that kind of opportunity for us to continue to have that dialogue.

Sam, I'm hardened by the fact that in your opening remarks, you said that 35th is still on the list for the Bicycle Master Plan.

I'm hopeful that there's an opportunity for us to continue this dialogue.

From my perspective, I think it's a really valuable corridor and we are, building out a really great network of connected bicycle facilities in District 4, and I'm really proud of that fact.

The one that is just about to open, we're gonna cut the ribbon on this coming weekend, but has actually really been open for a couple weeks, has seen a tremendous amount of use just in the last couple weeks, and that's gonna get people to the light rail station, so we know it's gonna get a lot more use.

So I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic.

I know, Sam, that you have experience working in challenging environments where there's different political opinions, But just really hope that there's an opportunity for us to be mindful of those folks who said today that they are concerned about their safety.

They're concerned about the bullying behavior that's happening when they choose to get on a bike.

They're concerned about the impacts of those folks who make that decision to drive a 3,000-pound vehicle and how one small decision could change their life forever and the life of their friends and their families.

So I ask you to keep that top of mind in Council Member Bryan's terms, that sort of true north for us.

And I look forward to seeing how over the next couple of years we might be able to continue to see those values play out in real infrastructure on the ground.

Thank you.

Council Member Johnson.

I know, Chair O'Brien, you said that we should let the presentation go on, and of course, generally I agree, but I also, there's a part of me that doesn't entirely agree because it seems meaningless to me to go through a presentation that has slides like, that are titled, Seattle is an award-winning bike city.

Data shows more people are riding bikes.

Progress in building a completed bike network.

It seems meaningless to me and sort of tone deaf and out of touch to go through a presentation.

I mean, obviously you will go through the presentation and I won't stop you, but my point is that it's strange for the mayor to send you all for this kind of presentation at the same time that the mayor's office and the SDOT leadership has dealt a blow, a significant blow to the whole plan of addressing climate change and also as the speaker who made a very poignant remark about how her identification was not accepted because she didn't have a driver's license, as she pointed out, this is actually, it's about the question of carbon emissions in this region, but also about the rights of people who walk on people who bike, people who need to use wheelchairs, and people who use or need to use public transit.

And I think the mayor's office is being tone deaf also to the whole spectrum of community members who are fighting for Seattle to be a bicyclist-safe and pedestrian-safe city.

It's working-class people.

Even just today's public testimony shows that working-class people, middle-class people, families with little children, elderly individuals, community members, all of them have spoken.

And so I don't really understand when the mayor's press release says it's about community engagement, it's about public feedback.

Well, whose feedback are you actually listening to is the question.

And I will say this, too, in support of the speakers who said this already, is that the Move Seattle Levy is one of the many, many examples of where working and middle class people have shown their willingness again and again to tax themselves in a city with the most regressive tax system in the entire nation in order to do the right thing.

And so after having repealed the Amazon tax, the least the mayor's office could do is not deal a blow to, you know, tax monies being used for doing the right thing.

And these are tax revenues that are being generated from working people's limited incomes.

And the mayor's press release or whatever the email that was sent out, I think this is the actual press release.

It's a very long press release.

And it has lots of nice words.

It says, we have heard consistently that safety along this corridor is the neighborhood's number one priority.

But clearly you're not, this move is not an example of prioritizing safety of pedestrians and bicyclists.

And so, I mean, as you go through the presentation today, that's fine but honestly my question is much more fundamental is what are you actually going to do to reinstate this work and and stop being anachronistic and behind the times and listening to uh when you say community feedback really what the mayor is listening to is business owners and not ordinary people and in fact some of them are business owners themselves who support the bike master plan And the last thing I'll say is that for those of you all who are fighting for the city to be a pedestrian and bicyclist-friendly city, and for Vision Zero, and for the Bicycle Master Plan, please always know that my office is strongly on your side in solidarity with you, and please let us know what we can do to help build the fight back, because honestly, this will have to be a fight back, because the mayor has Chosen to ignore us all and do what she has done And we we need to fight back and I also wanted to apologize in advance I have to deal with another emergency in you know on a personal front, so I will have to leave at 330 Thank You councilmember All right, I am actually interested in hearing your presentation and having some discussion about the implementation plan so let's jump in and We'll do our best to get through this

Thanks, Council Member O'Brien.

So today, I will be going over, we will be going over the recent progress that we've made on the BMP, talk about our prioritization process, talk about how we look at equity when we're coming up with the implementation plan.

Also mentioned that new this year, we've done a risk assessments, and also new this year, we'll be doing outreach around this plan, which is something that we have not done before.

And then we'll go into a little bit of the nuts and bolts of the plan.

So Seattle has made progress over the last few years.

In fact, we have the number one new bikeway in 2018 on 2nd Avenue, the PBL out there.

We were named the number one bike city in the United States by Bicycle Magazine as well.

And that followed on the footsteps in 2016 of the best new facility that year, which was the Westlake Protected Bike Lane.

In addition, people are riding more.

This is a great trend here in 2018. Bike ridership was up by 12% at our four permanent counters at Spokane Street, the Fremont Bridge, Elliott Bay, and Second Avenue.

I would encourage anyone to go out to the Fremont Bridge in the morning or in the afternoon and see the swarms of bicyclists who are using that area.

It really is that, and I think the Spokane Street Bridge to West Seattle is really one of the epicenters of cycling in Seattle, and it's very encouraging to see that.

When we opened the Second Avenue extension, we had a 32% increase in ridership, showing that, yes, when we build things, people do come.

And bikes were definitely a great travel option during the Seattle squeeze and we had a massive increase in the number of people biking at that time.

And there's no doubt that those folks were partially responsible for the success of the Seattle squeeze.

Basically, we had about 30 to 40 full buses worth of people who decided to take their bicycle.

And of course, we didn't have capacity on our streets for those buses at all during the squeeze.

And I'd like to point out that these are just four counters and that there are literally thousands of other trips that occur in our neighborhoods that don't get counted here.

But nevertheless, this is really encouraging and something that we want to monitor as we head into the future.

We are making progress in completing the bike network.

We recently completed the phase one of the West Seattle Neighborhood Greenway, which starts south of Roxbury Street in West Seattle and meanders along a topographically enhanced route to deal with some of the big hills to connect up to some of the schools and parks that we have in the neighborhood.

The Rainier North-South Greenway was recently completed as well.

This is a nearly six mile facility in Southeast Seattle.

We have a number of projects that are under construction, including Northeast 65th Street, Columbian, Wilson Avenue, PBLs as well.

And of course, we have many projects that are in design.

And of course, the Center City Bike Network, we are charging forward on those projects.

But again, we also have projects in other parts of the city as well.

Stoneway and Green Lake, we have protected bike lanes, as well as Delridge as well.

Jim, we talked at some length about the Center City Bike Network a couple weeks ago, and this is showing up as in design as opposed to Construction for completion.

I know there were some little pieces a couple weeks ago that there's some challenge But the majority of that is gonna get built this year I just want to make sure that I shouldn't read this as a shift in the last two weeks.

No, not at all Okay

There we go.

So we prioritize the projects in the 2014 Bicycle Master Plan every year and we report to you as required by ordinance.

There's a quantitative analysis that takes into account safety, connectivity, equity, ridership, and livability.

And then along with the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board, we work through some of the more qualitative measures as well.

We go over some of the leveraging opportunities that we may have.

For example, if there is a paving project, we often like to partner with that project to do our best to save some funding there.

We coordinate with many different partners.

We look at the geographic equity to try our best to invest in each neighborhood or each sector of the city as equitably as possible.

We're making conscious efforts to connect to light rail, transit, and urban villages.

And of course, we're building to our budget.

We are looking at the funding availability per our levy to move Seattle reassessment, which we, of course, completed last year.

And I'm going to chime in just really briefly here.

One of the things that was different this year from previous years is we've put together the list based off of mileage, where this year we based it off of, we tried to apply it towards the amount of funding that we had and select projects within those parameters.

We worked with the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board to select their top priority projects.

And I want to clarify something that we should have clarified when we submitted the plan.

They had a large list of prioritized projects that were their priority.

But we didn't have enough funding for all those prioritized projects to make this list.

And so we selected projects from that.

Not all of their prioritized projects made the list, and I apologize.

We should have shown that, reflected it differently in the project list.

We should have shown it as FAB prioritized, but funding constraint.

Okay.

Thank you.

As previously mentioned, we are committed to creating not just a bicycle network that is connected to people, places, and goods, but also balanced geographically across the city.

We can look at each of our projects from a geographic perspective.

We look at socioeconomic factors, health and accessibility issues as well.

We also incorporated a quantitative analysis as well to help kind of confirm the things that we saw in our quantitative analysis.

Furthermore, we understand that there's a lot more that we could do.

We've recently partnered with the University of Washington and the Evans School there to to do a review of effective outreach strategies and actually kind of look in the mirror as well.

So they're going to do a review of what we do and what we've done in the past and look at different ways that we can ensure that diverse voices are heard and that we are well aware of the many issues that may determine whether someone decides to ride a bike, take the bus, or drive a vehicle.

Community engagement, of course, is welcome.

And this year, as mentioned previously, we are going to take a different tact with this plan by having a more open conversation earlier in the project design process.

So here we are at level one on our graphic here in the prioritization process and the pre-planning phase.

At this point, we want to go out and talk to the community.

And this year as well, we really looked at the risk.

an effort to increase transparency with all the stakeholders on the plan.

And we also looked at the different considerations as well, including where we are in the design phase.

Clearly, we are much more aware of some of the risks when we are further along in design than when we are in the pre-planning phase, which is one of the reasons why we want to talk to people more frequently about these projects.

We, of course, looked at our funding levels as we assessed the levy and saw what we had to actually go to construction.

We're looking at our potential partnerships and what that means for some of our projects and right-of-way requirements as well.

Our next step is to start getting input on these projects.

So projects that are in the planning phase, we are very interested to hear what folks who live or work out in these neighborhoods have to say about these.

What we really want to do is go out there and help people understand the value of a connected bike network and what that means for livability and what that means for safety.

We also want to help people understand how we got to these projects, how we selected these projects as well.

So tonight, we'll be at the Levee Oversight Committee.

Tomorrow night, we'll be at the Bicycle Advisory Board.

And then throughout the month of April, we'll be conducting outreach events to hear from folks out in these communities.

We'll report back to you, Council, and the Bike Advisory Board in May.

Council Member Johnson.

Just a quick question.

First of all, Jim, great picture of a small protected bike lane in my neck of the woods, which came about because a citizen on one of our city-sponsored parking days took over a section of the right-of-way and showed that, hey, this actually will work just fine, right?

Traffic still made it through.

And again, kudos to SDOT for taking that citizen-generated idea from parking day and turning it into something that now really works well for bicyclists through the neighborhood.

You mentioned, you know, funding priorities.

One of the guiding lights of the investments that we've intended to make in protected bike lanes is driven by other projects that are happening within SDOT's portfolio.

It's a way for us to demonstrate that we have efficiencies of scale, and rather than coming back several years later and reimplementing something, it's a hell of a lot cheaper for us to do something concurrently with other paving projects or other issues.

that SDOT is looking at.

Based on the project list over the next couple of years, do you anticipate anything coming up the priority list or coming down off the priority list because of that synergistic opportunity where we might be able to leverage other projects that are moving forward to add protected facilities that don't exist today?

Yeah, I think there's definitely opportunities for projects to move up from the in-design list to the funded through construction list.

I think this is especially true on projects where we have cost savings, whether that be at the overall project level or even down in the weeds a little bit more on the individual.

components of the bicycle facility that's being designed there.

So I do believe that there are opportunities as we move forward.

And again, with this proposed implementation plan as well, we, I think, made a conscious effort to not include any of our grant funding in this so that we could be true to the levy to move Seattle.

So I think there is a lot more opportunities for things to move up.

on the list.

Our proposed grant funding, our future grant funding.

In past plans we have had a line item for you know future grant funding and we didn't we didn't put that in this time but we still plan on actively pursuing grants.

I appreciate that.

I mean I think part of my frustration and this is not just the frustration around We've got about 30% of the city's land mass that's paved over for roads and right-of-way.

And if we've got 5% of the folks who are making the choice to ride a bike to and from work or to shopping or to other destinations in the city, we are nowhere near even 5% of that 30% being safe and protected bike lanes.

The same...

The same could be said for the, you know, more than 50% of people who are making the choice to ride transit into downtown every day.

We don't dedicate 50% of our downtown right-of-way to transit riders, though we have 50% of people that are taking the bus.

And so I think the frustration that you're hearing from folks up here, and I think from out in the community, is that these are hard choices, but they're political choices fundamentally.

Because when we get together and make a decision, we can paint something pretty quickly, and we can put up posts pretty quickly, and we can make it a safe place for people pretty quickly.

And what I'm hopeful for is that you're hearing real interest from the community to see what are those projects that might be rising in the priority list and find opportunities to leverage new ideas that will make it safer for folks to get around.

Yeah.

Great.

So the 2019 to 2024 proposed implementation plan is a six year plan.

This aligns with the next six years, the last six years of the levy to move Seattle.

And of course, we have reassessed that and this plan reflects the spending moving forward.

We have 62 miles of new facilities that will be constructed or designed in this current plan.

That represents about $76 million investment, almost $77 million in investments.

And I think it reflects the city's commitment to build that connected and safe bike network as the city continues to grow.

So here's how we're doing it.

It's a mix of protected bike lanes, bike lanes and trails.

As you can see in this picture here, this is Northeast 65th Street, which as you know, is currently in the process of being transformed into a much more friendly street for people who want to ride their bicycle, people who want to walk and still for people who want to drive as well.

So I think what you'll see out here is a A street that works well for everyone and provides people with connections to their light rail station as well.

And we are connecting to proposed frequent transit network routes, we're connecting to link light rail stations, and we're connecting to schools as well, to those destinations that people do want to get to.

We're also building a network of neighborhood greenways, as you know, which are typically installed on lower volume, non-arterial streets, and have some fantastic arterial crossings as well.

On our neighborhood greenways, we are connecting to schools, we are connecting to transit as well, and soon to be open link let rail stations.

As we head into the project, you can see that we're investing throughout the city.

I'd like to highlight a few projects.

So we have in Southeast Seattle on Swift, Myrtle, and Othello, we have bike facilities that are currently under construction, as well as on Columbian Way and Wilson Avenue South.

In West Seattle, the red line you see there is the recently completed West Seattle Neighborhood Greenway.

We're about to go to construction on the Avalon Way project as well.

which is a project that does reconfigure parking and make for an excellent street for people who are taking the bus or taking their bike or just walking around the neighborhood.

In Central Seattle, our focus definitely remains on the Center City Bike Network, but you'll see that we have projects proposed throughout the central part of the city, including East Lake and Union Street as well.

And in North Seattle, a slew of projects are currently in the works or underway.

You can see 65th, the 68th Street Neighborhood Greenway, which Sam referenced earlier, as well as projects in pre-planning that will connect neighborhoods like Little Brook and Cedar Park that are close together, but are currently challenging to get to because of major barriers like state routes in the neighborhood as well.

One, Jim, on that previous slide or the previous three, just as an example, the legend with the different colors is somewhat confusing to me.

I mean, I get what you're trying to say, but when I look at this map, what I want to see is, like, when is the thing near me getting built?

And I'd love to see maybe, well, a suggestion would be to color code it by completion year so folks can say, I'm this year, or I'm three years out.

And I can imagine you might be able to say, well, I know it's in pre-planning, but I don't actually know when it's going to get built.

But I guess maybe there's some asterisks or something.

But that'd be much more helpful, I think, than to just know that stuff.

Yeah, that's great feedback.

I think that's something we can definitely do for you.

So as we move forward, I think I previously mentioned that we'll be at the Oversight Committee tonight.

We'll be at the Bicycle Advisory Board tomorrow night.

We'll be doing some outreach events throughout April.

And in May, we will transmit an updated and hopefully final plan to you all for approval.

And of course, ongoing, we want to talk with folks more frequently about these so that if there is an issue to mitigate, we can start working on those solutions sooner than we have in the past.

So a couple other kind of questions on this and then I have some more broad comments I want to just make.

You talked in the presentation about a new category of risks and I see that in the draft plan that it shows up.

When I see the word risk, the first thing that comes to mind is like risk that someone might die and so that would be a top priority.

I don't think that's what this risk is.

Can you, is this political risk?

Is this third-party funding risk?

Is this

So I think this was a new attempt by us.

This is the first time that we've presented the list like this.

And I think that in the past, if something changed from the list that was delivered, it was seen as a failure to meet a commitment.

And there's a lot of things that are moving on a lot of these projects where we wanted to make sure we we're clear in where there are challenges that are out there.

So some of, you know, and some of them are third party coordination, some of them are other project related items, some of them are funding available for all like the to move things into construction.

So I just wanted to highlight what those things are that we are still working on to not make it seem like we've figured out everything about every project that is still three or four years away from delivery.

Okay.

So I didn't hear in there like political risk or controversial, but is that a component of it or not?

For all of these that are still in the planning or design stages, there is still community engagement left to happen, and there are still concerns that need to be addressed.

Right.

Yeah.

I guess in my perspective, if you tell me you're going to build a bike lane somewhere in the city, you don't have to tell me where on the map.

My assumption is it'll be controversial at some level for somebody.

But I guess what I'm curious is, are the things that are flagged as risk, are some of those, we think this is going to be more controversial than others and we want to brace ourselves for that, versus this is only going to get done if PSRC approves our, whatever, TIP funding or something.

And so I'm trying to figure out how to read this and understand it.

So I think the funded through construction with risks we've tried to highlight what the top issues that we see out there are The ones that are funded through construction with low risks are that we don't anticipate anything affecting those going forward so We've tried to be clear and transparent I agree every bike lane that I've ever been a part of installing has somebody who didn't know about it until it was being installed or it had some concerns about it I've worked through 90% of those problems in my career.

So I think we're trying.

We're open to the feedback.

We're open to the feedback from you.

And I heard some concerns from the public about how this is being received.

The idea behind this and behind all of the levy reset activities was to be clear with everybody about where we stand with projects so that our delivery is also understandable and sort of a bit more predictable.

I mean, what I hear is an attempt at being kind of transparent and honest, and that's great, because there is uncertainty in all this stuff, and we know that.

I guess let's continue to work together and work with community members on how we characterize that.

I mean, I can imagine that, you know, like you said, the ones that we're about to break ground on tomorrow, we're feeling really good about, and the ones five years from now, there's just more uncertainty.

It'd be great to know if from the Department of the Mayor's Office, if there's a particular one that's coming in the future, we know that's going to be really challenging because we've already heard from whatever the businesses on that street.

And to just flag that so folks know, and if folks want to start doing organizing now to talk to people, that can be great.

And if it's just a funding risk or something that that's different, just so we can understand the different criteria.

And so I think it's great to not just say everything in the plan we know is going to get built on exact timing.

I think the community is aware that that's probably not true based on past performance.

But understanding what those things are that we're already worried about and how we can mitigate those.

If it's like this was going to rely on state funding, we'll do that.

So.

Councilman Johnson.

Sam, I'm going to ask you some questions that I think are going to sound ridiculous, but I feel compelled to do so because this is some of the information that is out there.

Any SDOT employee who works in the bike program get extra kickbacks about the construction of protected bike lanes?

Do they personally profit or benefit from the construction of protected bike lanes?

No.

I don't either.

The defendant said no.

The witness said no through the microphone.

I don't either.

There has been rumors and allegations that either individuals who are employed by the City Department of Transportation or I myself have stand to personally financially benefit from the construction of protected bike lanes throughout the city.

So it's wonderful to hear you say no they do not and I want to reaffirm that I do not as well.

Also, I'd love to ask you another somewhat ridiculous question, but can you talk a little bit about the sort of goals of protection and safety of the department?

Because I do, I think people want to hear a little bit more.

about your vision for protecting people in the city who make the choice to walk, bike, or take transit.

And you talked about this a lot in your confirmation process, but I think there's a lot of people who are here today that weren't tracking that.

And I'd love for you to have the chance to talk a little bit about your commitment to Vision Zero and to safety in this city.

Sure.

Yeah, I mean, I have a deep-seated commitment to protecting everybody that travels around the city.

I think that comes from building out a connected network of all ages and abilities facilities, and that includes bicycle, pedestrian, and transit facilities.

For me that starts from understanding where our safety challenges are and prioritizing our investments in those locations to address the issues that we are currently seeing in the community and working to overcome the actual crash patterns that we see and working to overcome those.

I do think that building out connected networks is critical, and to me that means connecting people to transit, to schools, to other destinations that they are trying to get to, and getting people to and from those locations.

long process in doing that in some cases.

And incremental investments that we make should build on one another and continue to build out a connected network.

I'm grateful to hear you say it, Sam.

And I feel, obviously, a sense of personal responsibility associated with not only the project that a lot of people talked about in public testimony, but other projects in my neighborhood.

Part of the reason why I'm so proud of the opening of the new protected bike lane on 65th is because of the series of deaths that we've had in the neighborhood on that street.

I myself was accused of personally, again, benefiting by my relationship to the city and getting a crosswalk painted nearby my house.

And somebody submitted an ethics complaint saying that I had exerted undue influence by asking the SDOT folks to come out and repaint that crosswalk.

Well, the reason why SDOT folks came out and repainted that crosswalk was because two weeks earlier, an 80-year-old woman was struck and killed by a car making a left-hand turn to while she was trying to get to the coffee shop.

And one of the things that we do when a death like that occurs is we go out and refresh the crosswalk paint, which is a simple thing to do, but it's an important visual thing to do.

So I feel a real responsibility and I know from our conversations that you feel that real responsibility too.

And I think I'm very excited to see how we might translate those visions into real actions.

I have two more kind of overarching comments on the plan.

The first is about the timing, and I just want to say I'm a little disappointed and frustrated on the timing on this.

The goal of the city is to do annual updates.

Last fall, there was a lot of move Seattle reset going on, and so there was a request that, hey, we want to take some more time to get the bike thing right.

And so I appreciated that.

The expectation was, my expectation was, and maybe I wasn't clear, but by the end of March that we would have a final plan that had gone through months of feedback with community members, and to get it at 5.05 p.m.

on Friday, the last day of March, with draft written all over it, and hearing from a lot of folks that, well, we haven't had time to review this, to even comment on it.

I appreciate that in the coming month, there's gonna be a lot of opportunities for feedback, because I do think there's some work to be done there.

I just, there's a sense of urgency that I feel is missing.

You know, these projects, Sam, you said it, they save lives.

And so every month they're delayed is the risk, the real risk, that someone's going to get injured or killed.

These projects save carbon emissions.

And we should be, at least, in a speedy race prevent more than 1.5 degrees of warming by the end of the next decade, or we're going to be in real trouble.

And these projects make a huge difference on that.

And so there's, I just really want to urge us to figure out how we put some urgency behind this work.

Both the planning work, the feedback work, and then the delivery work.

You know, we need to be doing community outreach.

When I go out to communities, we learn a lot.

We learn a lot that people know in the community.

People have different opinions and different sets of values of what they want to prioritize.

but it's critically important that we learn what's going on there, but it shouldn't take a year.

Let's hear what the business owners need, let's hear what the neighbors need, and then bring our expertise, expertise that we've learned from doing this in dozens of other neighborhoods, and move on things relatively quickly.

And come back, report on it, measure it.

It may be that occasionally we do something, we say, hey, that didn't quite work out, but what I can tell you is the vast majority of things come back, and it's like, yeah, it worked out just like we thought, it's great.

So that's one concern.

The second concern is even higher arching, and this is really directed at the mayor and her team, and I assume she'll get that from listening to this.

There are some real challenges that facing, you know, if climate change were easy to fix, if safety were easy to fix, cities around the world would have done it a long time ago.

And the mayor for sure inherited a levy that had some challenges, probably both in design by previous administration, some challenges because of the construction environment we're operating in that didn't exist when this levy went out, and some challenges from a federal administration that maybe isn't as generous with matching grants at the time this went out.

So those are all legitimate changes.

You know, I think the mayor has done a decent job through this reset and her whole team and the community members on recognizing what things are going to have to change and we're going to have to be somewhat flexible.

The thing that's hard, and maybe it just hasn't come yet because this was just released late Friday, is someone saying, like, look, There's some projects that we're not going to be able to do in this plan with this pool of money.

But we have these other things.

We absolutely have to do them.

And I'm committed to Vision Zero.

I'm committed to our Climate Action Plan.

I'm committed to by 2020, this is going to be the mode split on bikes.

And so we're going to have to find new ways to do this.

We're going to have to get more creative, whether it's lower cost things or new pools of money or look at rebalancing or whatever that is.

But some commitment that, well, this plan shows some things that are disappointing.

We want to tell the people that we're not happy with this.

This is not an excuse to do less.

But this is actually motivating us to do a lot more.

And we want to come back and tell you what and how we're going to do that.

And it's going to be even harder.

But I want to be able to hear what that vision is.

I want to be convinced that that's a vision that I can buy into, that the folks in the audience can buy into, and how we come together to work to solve that.

And then the last thing I'll just mention about rebalancing, which I talked about, we looked at the levy reset in the fall without these pieces of information.

The spending on bike facilities drops a couple million dollars a year.

Previously, it was about $14.5 million a year on the five-year plan.

Now we're at about $12.5 million a year for the six-year plan.

I think it's important that we look at that in the context of the overall package.

And I don't know the exact timing to do that.

But, you know, we're building a, you know, some projects are a couple hundred million dollars for a few blocks of an overpass.

It's really expensive.

I get it.

But I want to look at this in the context of all the things we're doing and make sure that when we center climate, when we center safety, that we have the right balance now that we have more of the pieces of the puzzle kind of to see and see how it fits together.

Okay, with that, I can hop off my soapbox.

Thank you all for being here.

A lot of work to do, but I appreciate you all showing up today and having the conversation you did.

With that, we'll move on to agenda item number two.

Agenda item number two, council bill 119472, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, amending sections 23-22062, 23-24045, 23-4919, 23-54030, and 23-84A-010 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

So as we have presenters come forward, I know a lot of folks were here for the exciting topic we just covered.

This is also a pretty exciting but much less controversial about how we're going to make all the buildings in our city ready to accommodate what we expect to be a rapid transformation to more electric vehicle use.

But those who don't want to stay, just ask you to keep your volume down as you exit the chambers and you can have your conversations outside the wall.

Thank you again for being here.

So why don't we start with introductions.

Yolanda, would you like to go first?

Yolanda Ho, Council Central staff.

Jessica Finkoven with the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Andrea Pratt with the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

And Christine again with the SUCI.

Welcome, everyone.

Thanks for being here.

I've given my brief opening to this, and why don't you jump into the presentation?

Well, thank you, and I believe this will be my last time at the table with Councilmember Johnson So we'll just note that it's been a privilege to work with you Thanks for having us here today.

We are here to talk about the electric vehicle readiness ordinance I'm gonna quickly pass it along to my colleagues who have worked so hard to develop this ordinance.

I will say just briefly that We recognize that electric vehicles are not the end-all be-all they are not our only solution to reduce global warming pollution, but they are nevertheless a critical part, a piece of the puzzle.

So really excited to be here to talk with you a bit about why we think this ordinance is so important, the work that went into developing it, and then some more detail about what it does.

And with that, I will pass it along to Andrea.

Great, thank you.

So today we're just going to give you a brief background and kind of go over how we developed the proposal and give you an overview.

And without further ado, the EB Readiness Ordinance was a joint effort between OSC and SDCI and supports several city policy goals.

First and foremost, electrifying transportation is critical to reach our net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Council Resolution 31696 asks the city to transition our transportation system from oil to electricity, using half the oil by 2035, and having 30% of all vehicles in the city of Seattle be electric by 2030. This ordinance is also one of 12 climate action priorities outlined by Mayor Dworkin in 2018 and is a key implementation action of Drive Clean Seattle.

And I do just want to take a moment to acknowledge that this ordinance supports a broader climate framework that promotes walking, biking, and transit and reducing our dependence on single occupancy vehicles.

Just to be clear this ordinance does not require or incentivize additional parking But it just ensures where developers are choosing to build parking those spaces are electrified Thank you for for making those points.

I really appreciate reiterating that and where electric vehicles fit in the overall framework and Occasionally you hear folks say, like, we don't need to worry about it because everyone's going to be driving electric vehicles and it could just be a free fall.

One, I'm not sure the path to get there makes sense.

And two, there's also a lot of other impacts when you have a ton of vehicles going around, like safety that we talked about.

A question on the goal to have 30% by 2030. I see a lot more electric vehicles out there today, but where are we?

What's our latest number?

Oh, yes.

Well, without further ado, Seattle.

It is one of the top U.S. markets for EV sales in the nation and adoption rates are climbing.

At the end of last year we had 6,700 EVs in the city and today 10%, so 1 out of 10, of all new registered vehicles in the city is electric.

Great.

Yes.

And do you know what it is?

That's the new ones.

Do we know how many vehicles are in the city?

Total, we have roughly, I believe, around 600,000.

So we're a little over 1% total.

But what we do know by that statistic is when people are choosing to buy a new vehicle, one out of 10 of those is electric.

And the growth curve is exponential.

So we continue that, or we expect that to continue going forward.

Automakers are all in on electrification, and they're ramping up production with dozens of new models coming out over the next few years.

One of the biggest barriers to EV adoption is lack of access to charging.

Due to convenience and cost, most charging happens at home, which also happens to be the best time for the utility grid, so we prioritize residential development in this ordinance.

You know, when you think about parking, the parking that we're building today is going to last 50 years or more.

And this ordinance ensures that all new parking is facilitating the transition from dirty fossil fuel vehicles to clean zero emission vehicles.

So when we talk about EV readiness, what we mean is that all of the infrastructure is in place at the time of construction to support charging.

So this includes everything from the electrical service, the transformers, the panels, the conduit, and the circuits.

they're all going to be big enough to support 40 amp or level 2 charging, which is similar to a dryer plug.

Another term for this is called fully wired circuits.

We know installing this infrastructure at the time of construction is by far the cheapest, and retrofitting later is cost prohibitive, particularly for apartments and multifamily.

Right now, EV infrastructure is being installed as kind of a higher end amenity marketed to higher income environmentally conscious buyers.

And mandating this in all newly constructed parking will increase EV access across development types, including multifamily and traditionally underserved communities.

That's great.

So what we're seeing, if I hear you correctly, is that the market is delivering some EV, but it's a premium product as opposed to a baseline.

Absolutely.

Great.

I mean, that's not great, but it's great that we have a solution to fix it.

Hopefully we'll change that.

So other leading cities with progressive EB codes include San Francisco, Vancouver, BC, and Atlanta.

And we worked with all three of these cities to understand the nuances of their policy.

lessons learned, and we really wanted to take what other people had already done and kind of use that to inform our process and achieve our desired outcomes.

Our ordinance is similar in the fact that it focuses on residential, including single-family and multifamily, but our policy requires fully wired circuits instead of just conduit, and that will avoid those costly retrofits later.

I just want to point out that OSC and SDCI did significant research, outreach, and engagement.

We really wanted the goal to have all new parking BEV ready in the city, but we didn't want the requirements to overbuild or exacerbate the cost of development.

And I think we were successful on both of those counts.

And with this point, I'll pass it over to you.

Awesome.

So Seattle does have currently some requirements for electric vehicle readiness in the electrical code.

There is, as Andrea's graphic showed, a continuum of readiness.

And right now, we have some really helpful but basic stuff in there about sizing your mechanical rooms so that you could have space for charging infrastructure there in the future, or reserving space on panels.

Those are certainly great steps, but what we are proposing today is much more significant than that, and we'll really have those parking facilities be fully EB-ready, so we're excited about that.

So in developing this legislation, we had a couple kind of high-level goals to keep in mind.

We really wanted to maximize readiness, as Andrea mentioned, for very clear good reason, and also balance that constant issue of minimizing costs in a city where we're also struggling with housing affordability issues.

and rising costs of construction.

As she also mentioned, we want these rules to apply to all parking, whether it's required by city's rules or whether it is built by the developer or the property owner for their own reasons.

And again, as we mentioned before, this isn't changing any of the parking requirements that are in the land use code or in the zoning code.

This is just applying kind of design criteria to those as well.

So we looked, we thought about questions of what types of development are appropriate to have this EV infrastructure, what portion of parking spaces are appropriate to be served.

the type of charging infrastructure, the level of charging, and then as part of all of our conversations and thoughts, just what are the potential existing racial equity implications and how would those be impacted or addressed by this bill?

So we talked to a lot of people, mainly last spring and summer.

We talked to various people in the EV communities, charging providers, organizations that do retrofits, all kinds of different organizations, environmental organizations that are focused on EV work and climate work.

We had also a lot of conversations with the development community.

The master builders were really helpful in sitting down and working through some of the technical issues related to kind of smaller scale development and just in general really tried to understand all the different implications that may come out of this, not wanting to accidentally create issues for construction.

We also, OSC did a great job facilitating conversations with the environmental justice community as well, and then we talked to internal city departments about potential, City Light obviously is a huge player in this, and then the Office of Housing, since they are the ones that direct a lot of city funds toward affordable housing products as well.

So a lot of talking.

And some main things we heard, first was a re-emphasis to focus on residential development, again, because of the opportunity for that to reduce barriers for people to buy an EV.

We also heard that level 2, kind of the 40-amp outlets are the most appropriate.

sort of charge a car with the standard 110 household outlet, but it takes a really long time and batteries are getting bigger is what we heard, and so that's a good baseline.

We also heard that there are opportunities in larger scale development for load management technology, load management systems.

to help sort of stretch the power from one outlet to serve multiple parking spaces.

And so you don't actually need one plug for every single parking space because there are all kinds of software developers and technology enthusiasts out there who are happy to hop in and come up with alternatives for that as well.

Along the lines of what Andrea mentioned, renters and people who live in multifamily housing, face much bigger barriers to EV adoption in part because of the issues of retrofitting those facilities.

If you don't own your property, it's hard to put in wiring for your EV charger.

Or if you do own your property, but it's a condo or a townhouse, there may be legal barriers that get in the way there.

And so those are important things.

We also heard that for right-hailed drivers that may be interested in adopting EVs, that access to home charging would be critical for them as well, among many other things.

And so we had a lot of these conversations, and they really helped drive and shape the proposal.

And so we're pretty proud of what we came up with in that regard.

So in terms of what the ordinance requires, it's a pretty short little bill from the perspective of land use bills.

It adds new language to the land use code.

It defines EV ready parking as parking that includes a fully wired circuit again with a 208, 240 volt, 40 amp outlet or termination point.

So there's just a kind of a little illustration on the right of what we mean by that.

Someone could choose to put an actual little receptacle if they wanted people to be able to plug in right away or they could cover it with a kind of a a blank faceplate, if that made more sense for their development.

It would require EV readiness for a certain portion of parking spaces that are associated with new development that provide off-street parking with new buildings.

And so that is kind of dependent on the type of land use, type of development, as well as the size and design of the parking facilities as well.

And then again, because of the variety of different types of development that SDCI sort of permits every year, we wanted to make sure that we had a pathway for flexibility for residential development where just adding EV plugs to their project would be the thing that would kind of tip them over into providing much more expensive infrastructure.

And so wanting to be conscious of that as well.

So there's a table with the basic requirements, and I'll talk through a couple example scenarios that I think help illustrate this.

But at the most fundamental level, if you're building a single-family house or a townhouse that has a garage in it, that you just need to put a 40-amp power outlet in that garage, whether it's a one-car garage or a four-car garage.

making sure that every new residence with a private parking facility has that.

For multifamily development that has shared parking in a parking garage, which could be most commonly apartment buildings, then you would need to have one outlet for every five spaces.

So 20% of spaces would need to be EB-ready.

And again, that reflects opportunity for load management technology to stretch those outlets to serve the full garage.

If you have, if there's shared surface parking in multifamily, it sort of scales up from one outlet per space for smaller projects like townhouse or warehouse projects.

And then as, if you were to do a very large multifamily project with shared parking, surface parking, then you could get to that 20%.

And so trying to be mindful of development types and what makes the most sense for those uses.

For non-residential development, again, the focus of this bill really is on residential, but it seemed like a missed opportunity to not have anything in there for non-residential at all.

And so, which is pretty consistent with what other cities have done, but we put in a 20, or sorry, rather a 10% requirement for non-residential.

So essentially with the load management opportunities, you could get about half of the spaces in that garage surf.

And we'll walk through a couple examples here.

Again, this is just a house with a private garage.

It appears to have about two parking spaces in the garage, maybe.

And so there's one plug required.

And that would be just wired into the house's electrical panel and part of their monthly power bill.

And so you talked about the definition of EU ready, and you showed a couple examples.

One where it's wired and there's an outlet that you can plug into, and another option was just the wires at the panel there, but not hooked up to an actual receptacle.

So if that, is it required that at the other end that the wire is actually hooked into the panel, or at least is it just there and ready to be hooked into a new circuit breaker?

And there's room in the panel for it?

So everything would have to be built out as if the receptacle was there.

OK.

Yeah.

Great.

So the wires have all the juice that they would need.

Yeah.

Great.

And that was one of the things we heard very strong from the EV community was one of the most expensive things and one of the most variable costs is sizing the transformers from, that's a kind of a conversation with City Light.

And you can't do that appropriately, really, unless you actually wire everything all the way to the very end point.

Got it.

Yeah.

Great.

So there will be an outlet or a junction box for every stall.

Yeah.

Yep.

And it's ready to go on the other end, whether you need the receptacle or not.

But that's a 10-minute change.

And we're one of the first in the nation to do that.

That's great.

For a house like this, the cost of that infrastructure would be pretty minimal, a couple hundred dollars, we think, to install that stuff.

Another example, this is a kind of just a hypothetical four-unit row house project that, as some we've seen, have sort of shared surface parking facilities off the alley or on the corner.

And so in this scenario, each of the four parking spaces would need to have their own EV-ready outlet there.

And it'd be up to the developer to decide how to wire it all, but it would probably make the most sense in this scenario for them just to tie it into each unit's panel themselves.

And then here is an example of the 20% requirement for an apartment building that's in a parking garage.

You can see that there are sort of the two E-Ready parking spaces and the two outlets there with the possibility of there's enough kind of power juice.

I'm not an electrician, so I apologize for anyone.

There's enough power coming through those two outlets to potentially charge cars in alternative spaces.

So this would be a fully electrified garage.

So on that, like in this particular example, do we specify where the outlets need to be located?

Could I look at that layout?

I know it's just a schematic, but if there's a special hose that's got five different nozzles on the other end to hang in five cars, but the cars that are on the other side would have to drag the wires across.

I'm just wondering if there's any layout configuration we want to think about, or if we think the technology is flexible enough that it's kind of future-proof?

I think for me, at least, we kind of focused to make sure the capacity was there, because that's really the limiting factor and really what's going to kind of break the bank if you don't have it.

The nominal cost to kind of run more conduit later when that's needed is very minimal compared to...

And you can just run that on the surface and do everything.

It's not like you have to drill through concrete.

It's there.

Great.

Thank you.

And we look forward to the day when that is the challenge that building owners are facing.

Hopefully that comes soon.

And then finally, an example for non-residential development, kind of trying to make it clear that with that 10% of spaces EV ready, you can electrify potentially half the spaces in the garage.

So still ensuring that there's access in those facilities.

And is that, I realize that the world around EVs is evolving rapidly.

Are we seeing that most people that have EVs are doing most of their charging at home, so they may drive to work or the grocery store, and maybe if they're a little low, they'll top up, but if 50% of the places are covered, that feels pretty good and pretty future-proof, even in a world when there's 100% EVs out there?

Yes, because we hope people don't drive to work and they take transit.

Also, I mean, I think studies have shown that people are more likely to buy an EV if they're charging at their house.

And so being able to charge at work is great.

And if you have an employer that offers that, that's a great benefit, but jobs change.

And so, you know, we wanted to kind of meet them halfway.

A couple other small details for those of us who like to get into the weeds on this stuff.

For a type of multifamily development, it's called unit lot subdivisions you may be familiar with.

It's a way of kind of dividing land up after the permitting process typically.

For those townhouse projects that have these and they have shared parking areas that have legal agreements protecting the rights of the people who own a townhouse in that unit lot, to access those areas, we made sure that we added language that when they're drafting those legal agreements and they get recorded and everything, when they're doing their subdivision, that it's very clear that the people who have access to those parking spaces also have access to the EV infrastructure there.

Just so there's no awkward situation in the future where I buy condo A and you buy condo B.

And you don't let me park my EV in there.

Also, in terms of accessibility, it's very common in new development for there to be building code requirements for ADA parking spaces.

And so we made sure that if someone is going to be putting in ADA spaces and putting in EV-ready spaces, that at least one of those ADA spaces has a plug at it so that that space would be accessible.

more easily able to serve an EV.

And then in the off chance that someone designs a surface parking facility really far from a building, we have some design criteria for protecting that and having bollards or whatever it is to make that work.

So at the end of the day, the goal of this bill is that all new residential off-street parking is electrified, right?

The facilities can be fully served by the power coming into that project.

Half of new non-residential off-street parking is electrified.

And then we think, you know, permitting values change, the amount of parking that we build and permit in the city every year changes, but we think that this will lead to thousands of new EV-ready spaces each year.

So, excited about that.

Great, and just to kind of close this out here, so, you know, I mentioned this before, but this EV readiness ordinance really supports a broader climate, transportation, electrification framework under Drive Clean Seattle, and I personally wouldn't mind if we didn't build any more parking in the city, but I just wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the other efforts that's also under Drive Clean Seattle.

So EVCRO is the EV charging and the right-of-way permit pilot that is managed by SDOT.

We're also installing 20 public fast chargers and a home charging pilot that's headed up by Seattle City Light.

OSC is working to electrify fleets such as Uber, Lyft, Freight and Goods Movement.

And just to kind of take a step back, you know, From a climate and livability perspective, walking, biking, and transit is absolutely the number one priority for personal mobility.

Anything else that moves people, goods, and services needs to be electrified using Seattle City Light's carbon-free electricity.

This ordinance ensures that new development with parking will support the transition to an electrified transportation system that we critically need to reach our climate goals, improve air quality, foster local economic development, and cut our dependence on dirty fossil fuels.

So thank you so much.

And we'll take any questions.

So one thing I'd like to look into is, first of all, great work.

I really appreciate the thorough outreach you did.

I haven't yet heard from a lot of stakeholders, which could be a couple indications, but based on the list, I imagine that they feel like their needs have been addressed, and that's great.

I think the policy seems very thoughtful, too, so I'm really excited about that.

A world in which everyone has access to charging is great.

Acknowledge that most of the new construction tends to be higher-end construction.

Obviously, the affordable housing folks that are building new construction will, that do build parking, will have EVs after this, which is great.

But a lot of lower income folks are living in existing structures because those are typically more affordable.

And so something I'd love to think about as we learn from this and go forward is opportunities in a certain scale of remodel to require retrofits.

for folks and obviously hopefully technology will evolve too, so it'll be easier and more affordable for people to do that so we can really have true accessibility.

And I think as you highlighted under the on-street charging opportunities that we're trying to pilot in a few places, hopefully that can be helpful too.

So thanks for that.

Along those lines, I would be interested in working with you all on kind of a report back of how many are getting installed, what we're seeing.

You talked about some flexibility into the code.

If, you know, that extra one extra spot triggers a really expensive new transformer, we can adjust that to see how often that's being used.

And I don't know what the time frame makes sense.

I don't know, Yolanda, if you've thought of that.

You know, six months is probably too soon because none of the projects will have to be done.

Five years seems too long, so somewhere in between there.

We've initially talked about a couple years.

Okay.

And is that something that we can...

Yeah, we're looking into just the kind of business practices and technology changes for how we would do that, and so Yolanda and I have been having some offline conversations we can continue to.

Council Member Johnson?

You know, Council Member O'Brien, that your heart burns hotter for this topic than mine.

I think you've got it well covered.

Thank you.

That is a great compliment.

Thank you all for your work on this.

And I believe the plan is back in committee in two weeks.

And so we'll look forward to hearing from anybody else in the public.

I imagine maybe public comment will be a little bit different in two weeks.

And so if folks have some questions or concerns about this or ways to strengthen it or address things, let me know.

But I'm really pleased with the legislation, and I really thank all your hard work on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

All right.

Jasmine, you want to read the last two items into the agenda?

Council Member Johnson, you got a couple more minutes?

All right.

Agenda items three and four, appointment 01280 and appointment 01281. Reappointment of Brian Estes and Joseph Blavuk as members levied to move Seattle Oversight Committee for a term to December 31st, 2022.

Could hear from you twice today, Joe.

It's exciting.

Why don't we start with introductions?

Rachel McCaffrey, SDOT staff liaison to the Seattle Oversight Committee.

And Joseph Laubach, levy to move Seattle Oversight Committee.

Great.

Rachel, do you want to give just a quick overview of what these people do?

Yeah.

So Joe is here.

Brian couldn't be here.

On reappointments.

We don't ask you to be here, but grateful you're here, Joe.

So thank you.

Actually, both Joe and Brian have served on the Oversight Committee since the beginning back in 2016 and are being reappointed to a second term through 2022. Joe lives in West Seattle in the High Point neighborhood, is a bike commuter and a registered CPA.

Is that correct, so?

You're busy this time of year.

I'm impressed you can spend a couple hours here.

I am.

This is a half-day vacation, so.

Wow.

Important.

Yeah, well, good luck between now and April 15th.

And Brian lives in downtown Seattle and is a, I believe, retired King County auditor and worked for the Government Accountability Office and is a strong Vision Zero advocate.

Great.

Well, Joe, I really appreciated your comments today.

I've appreciated your comments at the oversight committees that I'm able to attend, and I'll see you a little bit later tonight.

But if you want to take a few minutes to talk about your vision or anything you're working on,

It's been a long meeting, so I'll keep it brief.

I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to serve again.

The levy oversight, the reset was quite an adventure, but I think we're in a better place than we were before.

I also particularly wanted to thank you, Council Member O'Brien.

You've really given us a lot of vision and input in making our committee more meaningful, more thoughtful.

And I know it's been a lot of long days for you.

So I just personally want to thank you for all the work you've done in making the committee as successful as we've been.

So thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thanks, Joe.

I had a chance to work with Brian a lot.

And Brian is amazingly detail-oriented and not afraid to speak up.

And I look at someone like Brian as a great voice to have on the committee too.

If folks saw me kind of frustrated today, when Brian's frustrated, it's great.

He's kind of a role model for me, I guess.

So anyways, thanks so much for that.

Council Member Johnson, any questions?

No, I won't note that there's still a council appointment.

For this position and you're a little light on district for representation Many district for residents in public comments today who would be worthwhile for your consideration I'm also sitting next to a district for a resident who will be Available for this in a couple days, but I don't know that I'm gonna bring you back councilmember Johnson that soon, but someday maybe Great.

Well, I will keep that in mind.

Thank you I will go ahead and move Appointments 0 1 2 8 0 and 0 1 2 8 1 second all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Great.

Thanks a ton.

Thanks, sir Thanks for taking a half day off today being here.

Hi councilmember Johnson This is the third meeting in about five days that I get to say goodbye to you so I will keep it brief, but I just it's been a pleasure working with you and I I don't know exactly how we will be interacting in the future, but I am confident that we will be interacting in the future.

Into old age.

Thank you.

The feeling is mutual, Council Member O'Brien.

Though there is the honest elections rules about contacts to the city, I'm told that though I can't make phone calls proactively to people, I can receive them.

ways in which you think I can be of service, I'm happy to receive those phone calls, though I will be, of course, following the 365-day no-contact rule that is part of the honest elections process.

I've really enjoyed getting a chance to serve with you over these last three and a quarter years on this committee, and I hope for the remainder of this year that you were able to take the energy that we saw today and really translate it into real infrastructure that will make the lives of people better in the city.

I'm grateful to you for that vision and that leadership.

It has been, I think, a lifelong passion of yours, and it's wonderful to be able to serve alongside somebody who really understands, gets, and wants to see a better city.

So I'm grateful that you're gonna still be here, you know, very ably shepherding through this vision over the next eight months.

Great.

Thanks, Rob.

With that, we are adjourned.

Did you want to take public comment from the last folks?

Yes, thank you.

We're not adjourned.

The Seattle Channel, stay with us.

Brie Geinkeld is first on the list.

Brie, thanks for sticking around.

Thanks for the reminder.

I have about 10 other folks signed up, but why don't we just let people line up behind Brie so I don't have to spend time calling the name.

And Brie, you'll have two minutes.

Oh, wow, bonus time.

Well, one of the things I wanted to say is something a lot of people already addressed, which is that greenways were never intended to be the cheaper cousin of protected bike lanes, that they're separate infrastructure types that serve different purposes and we need them both.

And that the trend has been any time things get a little politically hot to just say that it's too hard to put protected bike lanes on an arterial and, you know, bikers can just go over there somewhere.

But the thing that I didn't hear anybody else talk about is the fact that our greenways themselves are becoming less safe.

We've got apps like Waze that send drivers down residential streets and we're hearing more and more about road rage on the greenways.

Drivers playing chickens with people bicycling and harassing them on our streets.

And what I would really like to see is more maintenance of our greenways, more evaluation of our greenways, and mitigation where they are becoming hazardous and uncomfortable for people.

And a lot of times what that means is installing diverters, which SDOT has been really hesitant to do.

But if we're committed to making those safe pathways for people biking and walking, we really need to ensure that they are low traffic volume streets and that obviously people need to have local access, but they shouldn't be through ways.

We have arterials for those.

So that was the big thing, but then I also thought I'd take the opportunity to thank Rob Johnson for his work and let you know how much we're going to miss you, and obviously Mike O'Brien as well.

You're fantastic, but we're not losing you yet, so I'm not saying goodbye.

And the EV charging conversation was great, and I am thrilled about the new ordinance requiring EV-ready installations.

I did want to make a comment very briefly, since I have the opportunity, about EV charging stations in the right-of-way.

We just had a very drawn-out conversation about Broadway and Denny, which was an inappropriate place to put an EV charging station, and I don't think we need EV charging stations in the right-of-way, because when I talked with somebody from City Light about it, and I said, well, what about supermarket parking lots?

Can we move them there?

And he said, oh, they're already doing that.

Like, well, then why do we need the right-of-way if they're already starting to be installed in those public spaces?

I'll just throw that in there.

Great.

Thanks, Brie.

Thank you both for a long afternoon of being here.

And I'm sorry, I almost skipped you.

Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Ingrid.

I'm kind of atypical in that.

I guess I didn't put this on here.

I just have one little sheet.

But I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget.

But there's two things I want to make sure I say.

One, I'm a cyclist.

And the biggest thing that comes to mind when I think of riding my bike, apart from the fact that I really like to, is that I'm scared, I'm really scared.

And the other thing is, I just wanna add this, because she touched on that, was that Waze puts me on GreenWaze all the time, all the time.

And so, unfortunately.

So, whatever it was, thank you for being here, thank you for the work that you do.

I also wanna add, right now I actually live on the east side, but I've been anticipating moving over to Seattle, but since I ride and I bike, I'm kind of all over the place.

I'm a long distance runner, too.

And so this is what I wrote down I wanted to say.

A top reason why women don't ride bikes is because they don't feel safe.

Many of my friends have told me this is why they won't ride.

I am a newer cyclist.

That means I've been riding for two years.

That means I bought my first bike two years ago, and I had to learn everything, like how to clip in, how to everything slowly.

That's why I joined Team Thrive.

It's an all-women's team because I wanted a race, but I'm too scared to ride on the roads.

to get better, so that's the number one reason, well, I've been injured, my arm, but it's also because I've been too scared.

I'm a very considerate, respectful, law-abiding cyclist, but I've had drivers follow my bicycle too closely, drive right behind me, blaring their horn for miles, simply because I'm a cyclist.

I have had, and I've called the cops, but it's terrifying when that happens.

I've had drivers intentionally try to make me crash.

I'm also a long distance runner and I regularly run on neighborhood greenways.

Cars speed down these wide streets and accelerate when they see me instead of slowing down.

People blow the crosswalks on these neighborhood greenways all the time, when I have already been in the crosswalk.

I wear neon clothing when I run, because I like the colors.

So they can't say they don't, I mean, they just blow them.

I have been in the middle of a crosswalk and had a police officer who didn't have lights or sirens on, no emergency.

just not paying attention, blow the crosswalk with me in the middle of the crosswalk two feet away from him.

If I had not stopped, I would have been in the hospital.

This is why I now avoid greenways when I run if I can.

I stay on the narrow roads.

These are a few examples of my experiences.

Please do not tell me that greenways are safe because they are not.

The only way to protect cyclists from cars is to actually protect them and give them protected lanes.

I came here because I saw a social media post about this meeting by Cascade Bicycle Club asking us if we cared about this issue to come, because I do not think that greenways are a solution for protected bike lanes.

And when I read what came out last week, I was really, really upset.

Um, please do not say otherwise because protected because neighborhood greenways are not safe for cyclists I ask you to listen to my voice as a woman.

I am not an activist.

I'm not i've never been to anything like this in the past I'm an average member of your public and i'm a bad cyclist with slow reflexes on the bike Which means if a car does something I can't respond fast enough to save my life I ask you to listen to my voice as a woman that I do not feel safe on the roads without protected bike lanes.

Please help and please give me protection.

Thank you, Ingrid.

Is there anyone else who wants to provide public comment today?

Great.

Ingrid Abrey, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for the work you do.

With that, we are now adjourned.