Transportation Committee 4/1/2025

All right, good morning.

The April 1st, 2025 meeting of the Transportation Committee will come to order, no joke.

It is 9.35 a.m.

I'm Rob Saka, Chair of the Transportation Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Rink?

Council Member Strauss?

Vice Chair Hollingsworth?

Present.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are three members present.

Excellent.

Tight quorum today, but we do have quorum.

All right.

If there are no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

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

All right.

And good morning.

Welcome colleagues, members of the public to today's transportation committee.

Council member Strauss is excused from today's meeting and so is council member Rink.

Our first topic will be a brief presentation by central staff and a more followed by a more fulsome presentation from the executive department SDOT regarding the deployment of automated traffic safety cameras in our city.

Colleagues, you'll recall that funding and deployment of this technology has been a priority for me and many of you and many of our colleagues that don't sit on this committee that are part of the broader Council.

For example, during Council's 2024 budget deliberations, I led the charge for funding for $1.18 million to support the expansion of cameras outside of school zones to address the needs of communities that are clamoring for this kind of technology.

And I wanna thank Budget Chair Strauss for his partnership on this important budget item and critical investment to keep people safe on our roads.

Technology, when responsibly deployed, is a crucial tool to addressing unlawful behavior in our city.

I've been a strong proponent of Washington State authorizing municipalities, including Seattle, to deploy automated noise enforcement.

camera technology.

That's why I was proud to sponsor a statement of legislative intent for SPD to study what possible deployment could look like should the state decide to act and explicitly authorize that kind of enforcement technology.

I also testified before the state legislature earlier this year to support state authorization of this this kind of technology and then ultimately led efforts where this whole council and the mayor got on board as well and unanimously agreed to support authorizing this legislation and make it a priority at the state level for the city and all nine council members signed on that letter as did the mayor.

We've also on this council been strong supporters of other important technology tools like CCTV and real-time crime center legislation spearheaded by our esteemed public safety chair, Councilmember Kettle, to my right.

And I do want to thank Councilmember Kettle for his interest, for his leadership on that issue and his interest in partnership and collaboration on automated enforcement technology, including the items that are gonna be initially presented to us today.

So today's presentation by SDOT will highlight the state of automated enforcement cameras, including previewing city legislation that will come very quickly before this committee to help ensure the deployment of this technology in light of recent changes to state law last year.

And this is an important policy area for my office, my constituents, and for the city.

just like I know it is an important policy priority for many of my colleagues.

I will be looking for the executive to provide a clear timetable for submission of the legislation and deployment of these cameras.

So thank you in advance, presenters.

for attending today and we look forward to hearing from you.

Our second agenda item will be a hearing on resolution 32166. Colleagues, you'll recall we heard this resolution at our last transportation committee meeting on March 18th.

This resolution pertains to the construction of a skybridge that connects districts three and seven, both of which are adequately and appropriately represented on this transportation committee.

So typically constructing sky bridges are the exception, not the rule in the city, but I think this is a great project.

And as I said in our last committee meeting, so I look forward to supporting this resolution today and helping the department and the impacted residents and project managers Take the next steps to bring this to life.

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

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently, we have three in-person speakers signed up and two remote.

All right, each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, could you please read the public comment instructions?

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

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

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

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

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

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

That is Clara Cantor followed by Heather Peel.

Good morning, can you hear me?

Hi, my name is Clara Cantor.

I'm here speaking on behalf of Whose Streets, Our Streets today.

Whose Streets, Our Streets had an outreach contract with SDOT.

We spent two years collecting BIPOC community feedback and concerns about automated enforcement in Seattle.

Many of the streets in Seattle, especially in BIPOC neighborhoods and low-income neighborhoods in the south end where I live, are designed to encourage drivers to speed.

And we have several expectations for how this policy can reduce speeding while also reducing harm to our communities.

First is to quick build physical street improvements and slow speeders before resorting to punitive enforcement.

Things like speed bumps and stop signs are cheaper and faster to install, have no ongoing operating costs and slow speeding 24 seven.

Number two, set fines at a reasonable level and issue warnings for all first-time violators and new cameras.

Programs across the country have found that $50 fines or warnings discourage drivers from getting a second ticket at similar rates to our $237 fines and are significantly more likely to actually get paid.

Number three, offer an accessible payment alternative option.

We currently require 14 hours of community service per ticket for people who are unable to pay, which is prohibitive for many people.

Number four, clarify and strengthen data privacy protections.

And number five, direct all revenue towards physical street safety improvements.

I did send a letter to council members with our full recommendations, and I would encourage you to read it and also to reach out to us if you have any questions.

We've been really deep diving on automated enforcement for many years now.

This right, it's the safety and health of our community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, Heather Peel, followed by Max Baker.

Heather Peel, I'm the president of Friends of the Market, and my comments today are my own comments.

Usually we're hearing about what people want from the market, at the market.

I'm coming to you as an advocate for farmers at Pike Place Market.

Friends of the Market has been advocating for farmers to increase in numbers for several years now.

And in the past year, I've been coordinating a committee that brings that together.

And these are asks of the Transportation Committee for help that come from that research, my conversations with farmers, with former PDA farm staff, and current PDA farm staff.

Number one, ask SDOT to geofence Pike Place to prevent GPS-directed trips.

For example, SDOT installed a geofence on Third Avenue in 2018 to keep ride-hailing drivers from picking up and dropping off passengers there.

Why is it taking so long for Pike Place?

The PDA has already asked rideshare drivers to pick up and drop off on First Avenue.

That's working, so that's not why a geofence is needed.

Second of all, reestablish a traffic officer on Pike Place.

Historically, until some years ago, there was an SPD officer managing traffic and parking on Pike Place, which is not part of the market securities job.

The street functions at its best with SPD's management.

I need your advocacy to get help with this.

And lastly, the market farmers have had their surface parking diminished by the market front project that started in 2017. There needs to be farmer-only parking on Western Avenue from Pine to Virginia because the only over-height parking is off of Western behind the heritage place or heritage house.

It's not working.

It's too hard to get in there.

Thank you very much.

I'm leaving packets for all five council members.

Thank you.

Last in-person speaker, Max Baker.

Good afternoon, members of the committee.

My name is Max, and I live in North Delridge.

I'm here today frustrated and angry about what's happened, what keeps happening on the 26th Avenue Southwest Greenway.

Years ago, when SDAC canceled the planned bike lanes on Delridge Way, they promised us a compromise.

Traffic calming on 26, chicanes, diverters, and other basic safety improvements to make the Greenway work as it should.

I was on the public call when these were presented four years ago.

I shared my own stories, such as how I've been tailgated while biking with my toddler in tow, literally pulling my child behind me while impatient drivers honked and threatened us from behind.

I shared these stories in good faith, hoping they would make the case for action.

Unfortunately, on that very call, Council Member Sokka called the planes terrible, dismissing them and our concerns outright and helped stall if not kill the project.

Without those protections, I've seen the consequences firsthand.

I've witnessed a person struck by a car south of Brandon Street breaking their leg while the driver sped away.

Another hit and run took someone's life a block further south.

And just this week, after a shooting at Greg Davis Park along the Greenway, cars sped away down 26, racing past the Delridge Whitefields and through the intersection at Genesee, where a traffic diverter was once planned.

The city's fixation on traffic throughput helped them escape.

What makes this even more frustrating is that Councilmember Saka lives in our neighborhood.

He knows the street.

He knows this community.

Yet when given the chance, he chose faster cars over the safety of his neighbors.

Meanwhile, when similar problems arise in wealthier neighborhoods like Alki, the council member has no trouble pushing for speed humps in the removal of parking.

Council member Sacco, why is our neighborhood treated differently?

We need the safety measures we had promised and we need them now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we will now switch to remote.

First up, David Haynes.

Dave, remember to hit star six.

Hi, thank you, David Ains.

It's pretty pathetic that there's more effort to police poor people on public transportation than there's an effort to shut the door.

Fair enforcement is unacceptable.

Whether going to invade your personal space, spit spray in your eyes, asking you for your ticket, bothering you, whether you paid or not.

And yet those same enforcers, fair enforcers, will purposely ignore all the horrible crimes in and around the bus stops and tunnel entrances, acting like that's not their responsibility.

While Metro Sound Transit refused to improve services and dial down the decibel speakers glaring so loud it causes a mental stress as if the decibel blaring is designed to keep you awake and irritated.

It's revolting and violence will probably result in fair enforcement.

The second issue is between the port and the highway.

We need to calm the road rage at that intersection where the Mariners play and future housing is going because I have witnessed beat up toxic trucks flowing their diesel gas pedals through that intersection, honking their air horn, running the red light, acting like they're trying to get a running start to make it up the hill to the highway, violating the speed limit and endangering people who are pursuing happiness of a baseball game.

We need to calm the road rage and make the speed limit 20 or 25 miles an hour with a red light automatic ticket enforcement where people are going to get a ticket for running a red light or speeding through it.

It's not going to hamper the port operations.

It's not going to deny the flow of containers.

It's just going to be respectful and considerate of the locals.

That's not a lot to ask, but certain people will overreact and knee-jerk respond acting like you've got to leave things the way they are.

We have to calm the road rage there.

It's too much to deal with, and it's so bad sometimes that people might as well get a bunch of eggs and start chucking them at the truck as they drive past.

But we need to bring all the highway protesters down to this intersection and just block it out of principle if they're not going to be respectful at all because they're being overdramatic with their ridiculous demands that they should be allowed to speed between the port and the highway because they're running late trying to drive all the way to Boston.

It's the most ridiculous position that the port

Thank you, David.

John Wright, are you present?

Last call, John.

That's it.

Thank you.

And before we move on to the next item on the agenda, I wanna quickly acknowledge and say I appreciate some of the public comment today, all of it.

And one public commenter specifically highlighted an issue in Del Ridge on 26th.

and referenced a moment in time back four plus years ago when I was just a neighborhood advocate and before I ran for office.

And I'll never forget that day because it was the day of the vice presidential debate in 2020. And a lot of us skipped that.

that debate so we can join this call with SDOT and talk about some proposed plans.

And I appreciate the feedback.

My recollection from that phone call was that the overwhelming majority of community support explicitly rejected a proposal by, then proposal by the department to install a traffic diverter on 26th to prevent left hand turns on Genesee.

And I understand it wasn't a unanimous consensus or unanimous view, but it is a view that I certainly championed at the time, and I will continue to champion today.

It makes no sense, it's a head-scratcher, in my view, to install a traffic diverter and prevent left-hand turns in a food desert, rendering Delridge the only single point of access to any fresh foods, vegetables, whatsoever.

Either that or going up that steep snake hill, was it 29th or 30th?

It doesn't make a lot of sense from my perspective to install such a drastic draconian measure that has a...

a significant impact on neighborhoods and communities, including in a food desert.

That said, I welcome any feedback about how the department can make 26 safer, short of installing a barrier preventing left turns on a Genesee in a food desert.

And I welcome those ideas and proposals, in any event.

All right, well, That was our last registered speaker, right?

Okay, cool.

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

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Agenda item one, deployment of automated traffic safety cameras in Seattle.

Good morning, Lish Whitson, council central staff.

To tee up Estat's presentation, I'm going to provide a quick refresher on recent council actions regarding automated traffic safety cameras, or ATSC.

As described in Calvin Chow's memo attached to the agenda, the city has 20 years of history using ATSC.

but there's been a lot of activity in the last few years.

In 2020, the council authorized Block the Box, Transit Lane, and Restricted Lane cameras.

The 2023 budget included authorization to double the school zone camera program, but this was not implemented due to operational constraints.

The 2025 budget includes a number of actions related to automated enforcement.

It included funding to deploy an additional 37 school zone cameras And as Chair Sokda noted, there is also funding in the 2025 budget to expand cameras outside of school zones.

$1.18 million is under proviso and cannot be spent until authorized by council.

The 2025 budget includes a statement of legislative intent regarding automated transit or automated noise enforcement technology.

And finally, in February, the council signed a letter of support for legislation to authorize that technology.

That legislation passed the state house and a hearing was held in the state Senate yesterday.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And I'll hand it over to Ashton.

Good morning, Chair Sanka, Vice Chair Hollinsworth, and Council Member Kettle.

Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to come talk to you about automated traffic safety camera program within S-TART and the city at large.

As always, I'd like to begin my presentation with an overview of our vision, mission, values, and goals here at our start.

And I want to particularly emphasize that safety and equity are key core values that guide all our efforts as it relates to automated traffic safety cameras.

So in today's presentation, I'm going to give you a brief background on the traffic safety cameras and their use here in the city.

I'll go over what types of traffic safety cameras do we have and how they are performing.

I'll also take a moment to explain the roles and responsibilities that various city departments play in bringing together this camera program.

I touch upon or highlight the changes to the state law that came into effect in June of 2024. And finally, finish my presentation with some safety camera program activities that are anticipated here in this year.

So as you all know, safer speeds is a key element of the safe systems approach that is endorsed to achieve Vision Zero goals.

And within safer speeds, when FHWA published this new approach to safety, they have also published a corresponding list of proven safety countermeasures that enhance safety, that has a proven track record of enhancing safety across the country.

And within those, under speed management, speed safety cameras are identified as one of the proven safety countermeasures with benefits that you could see on the graphic on the right-hand side.

that influence not only the speeds, but also the crashes that we are seeing on our streets.

We have been using safety cameras in Seattle, a variety of safety cameras, since 2006. And here is a quick list of the types of safety cameras that are currently in operation today.

And I'd go over these in more detail by camera type.

So let's start with red light safety cameras, because these are the first type of safety cameras that were authorized for use here in the city.

Back in 2006, we have completed a pilot study to look at red light safety cameras and concluded that they help in reducing red light violations by 50%.

And these types of cameras were authorized for permanent use in 2008. So since that time, for the next five years, we have installed red light cameras at 23 different locations across the city.

And these locations were primarily chosen based on the collision frequency, the observed violation rate, and the geographical distribution.

I do want to take a minute to say that During this time, our thoughts and views and how we practice equity in our decision making was still evolving, and equity was not a part of the whole consideration on where these cameras were going.

They are primarily guided by the safety need that was seen at the time.

Next slide.

So how did these cameras perform beyond the initial pilot period?

Several years ago, we have looked at some performance metrics as it relates to safety, red light safety cameras, looking at five years before and five years after these cameras were installed and compared them to other locations across citywide where there were no cameras.

What we have seen is that there are much significant reduction in all types of crash severities at locations where these red light cameras were present when compared to other locations where the cameras were not present.

We have seen much higher and substantial reductions at locations with red light cameras.

So let me jump a little bit over in terms of chronological order and talk about the public transportation only lane and block the box safety cameras.

As was mentioned before, these were authorized on a pilot basis by the state legislature back in 2020, and today, We have about six locations where we operate public transportation only lane, or what we colloquially call as bus lane cameras, and six locations where we have in operation block-the-box cameras that try to keep the classwalk and the intersection box clear.

We have used one more camera type, which is called the restricted lane, where these cameras operate to prohibit people or kind of like a certain class of vehicles from accessing a certain segment of the roadway.

When, as you all know, the high bridge was closed several years ago, we had to manage the access on the low bridge, which was a key connection to our West Seattle, and we used this camera type to monitor and manage access on the low bridge.

And when the high bridge was reopened, this camera type has been since deactivated and not in operation today.

So how are these two types of cameras performing?

We are still continuing to study them and evaluate their performance.

But I can share some preliminary metrics with you guys today.

uh what we are seeing with the bus lane cameras across all six locations we are seeing about 11 000 citations being issued on average uh in a month uh per month and uh about 1700 or so for block the box across all uh all six locations now note that block the box kind of like the uh the need to push some of the signal timing indications as more during the peak periods when there is higher congestion.

So Block the Box is more geared towards benefiting operations during peak periods.

But they have helped deter people from getting into the area of the intersection that we want to keep clear for other users at other times of the day.

Now, we do track something called a restivism rate.

Residivism means what percent of people who have received a citation go on to receive another citation or more.

Now, for block the box, our preliminary data indicates that this citation, this residivism rate, is about 10%.

And it's pretty much kind of like what we have been seeing with our school zone and red light cameras too.

But the restivism rate, what we are seeing in our bus lane camera use is much higher.

It's about the mid 30s, 30% or so is what we are seeing in terms of restivism rate.

We will continue to evaluate the performance of these safety cameras and issue a more broader and help us understand this more broadly and issue a report on how these cameras are working.

So with that, let me jump back again to school zone cameras, because that is something that we are doing a lot of work on these days.

School zone cameras have been authorized for use back in 2008. And at the time, when we first got authorization to enforce our monitor speeds within school zones, we primarily started with using mobile school zone speed cameras.

We don't use them anymore.

We have discontinued the use in 2020. But we switched from a mobile operation to fixed cameras back in 2012, 2013. And we currently operate our fixed school zone cameras at 19 different locations across the city.

Now, this is when we started to get more into defining the safety need and then looking at how and when we should install these school zone safety cameras.

Our Safe Routes to School program annually monitors speeds across all school zones.

So the way we approached installing or identifying locations for the school zone speed cameras is to look at what we call the 85th percentile speed, a speed at which more than 85% of the people or fewer travel at.

And we identified those school zones that are seeing speeds about 20 miles an hour.

As you all might already know, school zones, when they are in operation, the speeds are restricted to 20 miles an hour within the school zone.

So we identified only schools that had 30 miles or more for constraints safety cameras.

And we also took kind of like an additional step in ensuring that there is an engineering element, basically, namely flashing beacons that actually grab the attention of motorists and identify them and elevate their attention to the school zone that they are in.

And we made sure that that engineering improvement is present before we move forward with considering school zone safety cameras.

And if the speeds are still higher or 30 miles or more, and that is when we had started to consider a location for installing a school zone safety camera.

So how are these cool-zone safety cameras functioning?

Here's an infographic that tells you about it.

And one thing that we are seeing is that more than 60% of people, actually people who get a citation, the number of violations that we are seeing within these cool-zone cameras continue to keep decreasing by 60% or more over the period that we have monitored.

Now, this is kind of really important because what this indicates is that fewer and fewer people are getting to violate these school zones, and it is fostering that behavioral change that we intend to see with all these safety cameras.

Another key statistic that you see in this infographic is that about 90% of the people who receive a citation do not receive another citation, which again points to that behavioral change that we really want to foster with these safety cameras in addition to the safety benefits that we are seeing.

And we are seeing those safety benefits.

We have seen that within school zones that have a safety camera, The total crashes across all times of the day have gone down by 50%, and especially during the school operating hours, the opening and closing hours, these crashes have gone down by 70% where these cameras are located.

We have seen a modest decrease in average speeds, which is a slightly different metric from the 85th percentile speed.

that has seen a reduction.

And overall, these schools on safety cameras are proving to be beneficial.

So as you all have heard, we are currently working diligently to expand the school zone safety camera program.

We have been directed to double these number of school zone safety cameras, and we are preparing to install these cameras in 19 additional school zones across the city.

We have kind of employed the same robust data-driven approach to identifying these locations, looking at the safety need, looking at the speeds within school zones, and only prioritizing those locations that have already had an engineering improvement, such as flashing beacons in addition to school zone signing, only those locations were considered for potential school zone camera.

So...

Here is a quick graphic of where the existing school zone cameras are located across the city and where the planned expansion within the city is going to happen this year.

One thing that I'd like to point out is the equity priority tiers that are shown in the background of this city map.

Now, we have used the race and social equity, socioeconomic index as a tool to identify equity priority areas across the city.

And when this safety camera program kind of like got started back in the early 2010s, equity was still kind of like a concept that was being adopted into the day-to-day operations within various city departments, including start.

But for this particular experience, We have layered on top of the safety needs and equity priority to identify our locations.

The past schools on camera locations were probably skewed more towards highest or second highest equity priority areas within the city, but we have been deliberate in identifying and distributing the planned schools on camera expansion to not into the highest and second highest equity priority areas, and more equitably distribute the cameras across the city when we are done.

We are diligently working to complete this expansion this year.

Very likely you would see about half of these locations come online before the next school year, the 2025-2026 school year starts.

and finish activating all these school zone cameras by the end of the year.

So let me pivot a little bit and talk about the departmental roles and responsibilities.

Safety, automated traffic safety camera program is really a collaboration between three city departments, SDOT, SPD, and Booney Court.

We all have specific roles to play within this program, and SSTART primarily takes care of the engineering side of the house.

We help identify locations.

We make recommendations on potential expansions, relocations, or removals.

We coordinate with other city departments on the design, construction, and permitting and inspection of the new camera locations.

We also manage the investments and safety of the net revenues that we receive from the cameras.

And we also engage in public whenever we make these modifications.

So broadly, we take care of the programmatic evaluation, recommendations to expand and where to cite them, and oversee the engineering design construction permitting of these cameras.

So SPD also plays a critical role.

They are the department that administered the vendor contract.

Now, safety cameras within the city are not wholly owned by the city.

the city contracts with a third-party vendor to provide these safety cameras.

There are no upfront costs incurred by the city to install these cameras, but the vendor does charge the city on an ongoing basis a monthly fee on a per-camera basis that's out there.

This fee is roughly about $4,000 plus or minus a couple hundred dollars, depending on the camera type, and this fee is charged monthly to SPD, and SPD manages that contractual relationship with the vendor.

The vendor also provides a lot of back-end services to process the – identify the infractions and compile the violations to be reviewed by SPD.

So really kind of like the process to install any new cameras starts with SPD issuing the work authorization to the vendor for any potential new cameras.

They also play an important role in reviewing and issuing citations.

As you may know, that SPD is required to issue a citation.

observing the infraction.

So they work very closely with the vendors to look at the package that's put together for them and make a judgment on whether to issue a citation or not and issue a citation.

Now, Mooney Court also plays a critical role within the program.

They administer all the code proceedings, they collect the payments, and also manage the fine mitigation options.

So literally, kind of like it's a combined effort between SPD, SSTART, and Mooney Court in administering a holistic safety camera program.

So let me take a moment to talk about fine mitigation options that are currently available to people who are receiving public assistance.

You can ask for ticket debt reduction.

You can set up a payment plan with the money code.

You can ask for a community service or look at kind of like a more unified payment program with anything else that a person might be responsible for paying to the city.

Now, we understand that these are options that are available to people on public assistance, and we are kind of like working to see how we can reduce the barriers to access these options and make them available for people who most need them.

So with that, let me talk a little bit about a few highlights about the 2024 legislation that basically passed the state legislature last year and made some pretty significant changes to how the safety cameras or programs are administered across the city.

Now, the new state law does allow citation reviews by civilian employees within both the police department and the Department of Transportation.

Previously, we were constrained by the resource availability that is there within SPD to look at potentially expanding safety cameras.

But the new law does make it easier tap into a larger pool of potential reviewers for safety camera infractions that need to be reviewed and who can issue citations.

Now, it also, even though this has been a practice more recently with a start, it now explicitly asks for safety and equity analysis when citing or installing new or relocating an existing safety camera.

It also increases the annual reporting requirements, explicitly asked for reports to be sent to Washington Traffic Safety Commission every year.

And it authorized, it made a lot of changes to the allowable types of safety cameras within, under the state law, made the authorization for bus lane and block the car box and restrict the lane type camera types permanent.

It rescinded the authorization for a racing zone camera and expanded the types of speed cameras, full-time speed cameras that could be installed in that category.

It also It gives the flexibility for local jurisdictions to explore the ability to pay and develop an ability to pay calculator to make that potentially available for people who might need to use that and tailor the fine mitigation or the amount of fine that can be paid for a citation.

And again, it explicitly requires a penalty reduction for first violation for those receiving public assistance.

Now, this last requirement is already being implemented by our Seattle Municipal Court, and it's in operation today.

So here is a quick snapshot of all the safety camera types that are allowable under the state law.

Noticeably, you would see the missing racing zone cameras.

And the ones in gray are the camera types that we currently are using, except for the restricted lane camera that was deactivated.

And the new type of cameras, for example, ferry queuing or cameras in the roadway work zones are some of the new additions to the types of cameras that were allowed within the state law that passed last year.

So let me give you a quick preview of the forthcoming local legislation.

So we have a need to realign our Seattle Municipal Code with the provisions of the state law that were passed last year.

In addition to that, that is a primary objective.

In addition to that, we are looking at how we can how we can consolidate our financial policies surrounding the use of revenues generated by safety cameras.

We also are looking to facilitate a more holistic safety camera program.

It has been kind of like a piecemeal effort so far by .

And we are also looking to consolidate all the revenues, and there are a lot of exceptions that are currently in the Seattle Municipal Code on the uses of the revenues within the safety cameras, and then update the eligible users to reflect this consolidation.

So lastly, I'd kind of like say that we're talking about what you'll be seeing in 2025. You're definitely going to see very soon new local legislation that will be aimed to align our Seattle Municipal Code with the provisions in the state law.

To add to that, we will be also publishing an implementation guidance that would help all the city departments and the start administer and manage the safety camera program.

This particular implementation guidance will have specific provisions around siting and the criteria for siting any new cameras.

We'll have a framework for community engagement and some performance metrics that we'd like to monitor every year to ensure that we have a need to operate these cameras.

and also talk about some complementary countermeasures that we want to install.

We definitely want to view these or will be viewing these safety cameras as temporary measures and see what engineering improvements we can pair with the implementation of these safety cameras.

We will work towards deploying and activating all 19 new school zone camera expansion, school zone cameras that are currently planned.

We'll complete our evaluation of the block the box and bus lane camera types that we have been using for a few years now.

and also complete safety and equity analysis that is required by state law for an initial deployment of full-time speed cameras.

Now, full-time speed cameras are new to the city.

We haven't used this particular camera type.

The schools and cameras only operate for a couple of hours during the school opening and closing hours, but not on a full-time basis.

So we have a need to understand what administrative and operational challenges that poses.

So we are trying to see if we could do an initial deployment and better understand that camera type.

So that's basically what we'd be doing in 2025. that's currently planned.

I do want to close my presentation saying that we view these safety cameras as a temporary measure.

We absolutely want to pair engineering improvements and monitor these safety cameras on an annual basis and make decisions on when we can potentially remove or relocate a particular camera We are, after a behavioral change, we do want to see the number of citations issued go down eventually at a particular location, and those safety benefits that we see and the behavioral benefits that we want to see sustain over a longer period.

So with that, thank you so much for this time and opportunity.

I'd be happy to take any questions you might have.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Well, thank you, Chief Safety Officer Namani for the presentation.

And of course, Lish, appreciate you chiming in at the beginning to kind of set the table for and teeing up all the many wonderful investments and implementing and authorizing investments that the council has done to partner with the executive to make sure we can actually bring these important investments to life.

I note that Traffic safety cameras are one of 40 plus proven countermeasures under the federal safe systems approach to keep people safe on a road.

And so it's one of many proven countermeasures, engineering countermeasures and strategies that we can take.

And so we need a blended approach and this is an important one of those.

All right.

Thank you again.

I'll now take questions, comments from my colleagues, sort of.

If vice chair has, I can't view the hands up function.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Council member Kendall.

Thank you, Chair Saki.

Yes.

Use my screen.

Thank you, Mr. Mani for coming today.

I really appreciate the briefing.

Mr. Laborde as well, filling in for Mr. Phan and of course our own Mr. Woodson and obviously backstopping Mr. Chahu is Mr. Transportation for us here on the second floor.

It's a timely briefing because it ties into a number of things to include what's happening on public safety.

And it's also timely in the sense that you know, we're in a period of transition.

You know, as I sit here listening to the briefing, it's kind of within the backdrop of other things going on as well.

And, you know, to include us coming out of the pandemic, for example.

So we've had the combination of the pandemic where all of a sudden the pendulum swung and everybody was working from home.

But then we also had the period of And I knew this when I was on the Queen Anne Community Council because we would get briefings from SDOT.

So I was aware of these things as they're about to unfold to include throughout districts of it, not just in the Queen Anne area in terms of bus lanes, in terms of bike lanes and the like.

And so you have this dynamic of putting these pieces into play.

And then obviously the pendulum is shifting from the pandemic.

And so we're in this period of transition and there's going to be angst We heard it in the public comment, which I'll get to later, by the way.

And I think it's important for us to show that we're on top of it.

One way to enable us to do this is the use of cameras.

And this goes to the idea of public safety as well.

And to bring an idea from public safety here is that if we do nothing with respect, particularly around schools, So, it's almost like, and we know about it, but do nothing.

It's almost like we're permitting it, and we've allowed it to be permitted, which is the fundamental basis of creating that permissive environment that we're .

So, we need to do these things better.

It shouldn't just be technology.

As noted in the public comment related to Pike Place, having officers there on the beat, if you will, was so helpful because it influences what's happening in terms of not just drivers but pedestrians too.

And so we're in this new dynamic, and so it's interesting to receive this briefing as we're shifting.

We're not in a steady state yet, I don't think.

And so I think it's important to support a comprehensive camera program, and you've laid it out pretty well.

And I recognize that one year there was supposed to be laying out, actually installing the cameras, but you're showing that you're going through the due diligence process.

So in doing the due diligence process, I don't think we should be saying, hey, where's all the cameras already?

If you're doing the work in terms of the data sets, in terms of the speeding, I appreciate the equity pieces too, which is important.

Although at the end of the day, it's about safety in terms of what's happening in terms of particularly around schools.

These are the things that I'm thinking about, Chair, as I'm looking at this.

And I'm also noting, too, I talked about the Pike Place comment from public comment, but, you know, like parking enforcement, you know, having that as part of this, you know, it's got to be paired with this in a way, you know, showing that we're not allowing, like, double parking or, because that creates situations where people are frustrated and the angst then creates speeding, which then, you know, These kinds of places.

And it also shows functioning government.

The cameras, parking enforcement, having an officer on the street, this shows that city government's working and we should be striving to do this whole set.

And one last piece to this is I was writing notes to myself.

If you're wondering what we're doing up here sometimes, I've got like three screens I can look at and I've got notes I write to myself in terms of comments.

just in case the briefers at the table wondering what are those council members doing.

But one of them is like the traffic calming measures.

So as I'm listening to your briefing, obviously I sit on the citywide committee, but I'm also thinking from my D7 perspective.

And as you know from the schools, there's nothing in D7 on that list.

But I'm also at the time looking at because I know where my schools are, and I'm thinking about each one, to include the one I drop my daughter off every day.

And, you know, it's like, okay.

And I can see how the D7 schools, we don't have as many as other districts, but we don't have the situation as well where you have areas where you can really speed, because we don't have those kind of thoroughfares, and we don't have schools next to those thoroughfares within the D7 context.

But traffic calming measures do help, like in Queen Anne, like at Coe Elementary.

At 7th and McGraw, there's traffic calming.

the next block up right there at the side of the co, you know, there's a stop sign button, crosswalk button.

These kind of things help, and so this comprehensive effort needs to be in place, and I really see the traffic safety cameras being part of this place, and I do appreciate the work that you're doing related to all these pieces where it's don't block the block, which can be hard sometimes when you have streets that are kind of and you can't really see what's happening.

Next thing you know, you find yourself in a situation where you're in the block and you're angsting because you don't want to be stuck in the block, whether it was a camera or not.

And so no questions and all that, but I do have one question, and it ties into this a little bit differently, and it doesn't really show up.

It won't come up as an option because it was deactivated, but the online caller was talking about You know, the truckers.

And obviously, we just went through a very involved process for a piece of legislation.

But you just heard it today.

Oh, the truckers are the bad guys.

Well, I'll tell you what, truckers were here first.

The port was here first.

You can already see that layup, the lay of the land, how the setup, where we're moving towards.

And Mr. Laborde, you may know the answer to this question, but I understand December 23, the council passed a request for a study for basically the freight program, basically from I-95 to the port, and I don't believe that study has been completed yet.

And I like to see it because we need to bring this effort into those areas close to I-5 in terms of avoiding backups.

It's also a freight Soto thing.

And we heard it with a call in.

And we need to look at that.

We need to look at how we can move the truck safely.

Maybe it's a truck only lane.

We have bus lanes.

Why can't we have truck lanes?

Maybe I don't think a camera could be part of that based on the fact that The option was deactivated.

I'll go, I forget what slide it was on, but we need to look at that piece too and understand how we can create a situation, because it's incompatible.

Big trucks, despite the fact that we had demonstrations on how hard it is for truckers to see pedestrians or see cars, particularly when they're darting in and out, that was not really taken into account.

But we have to take into account.

moving forward despite what happened with that piece of legislation.

And I think here within the Transportation Committee, we should be looking at how to support the freight movement and do it in a safe way when we have incompatible uses of the road.

And so this is something that I'd like to ask regarding the study that I was told about, and if there is a study, and when it's gonna be complete.

I believe the study is, from the resolution, is due next year, but I could check on that just to be sure.

But I know that that's a coordinated effort with both SDOT and SDCI.

okay well i appreciate for the point that i just made if mr nanami and his team is doing the due diligence on the installation of cameras obviously it takes time to do a proper study but it's important and now it's been super highlighted by the fact of the legislation we just did and little tidbits like the cullen that we got in today so uh thank you uh chair

One other thing to mention, Councilmember Kettle, is that you mentioned truck lanes, and something that SDOT is going to be piloting, I believe it's next year, is a freight and transit lane on West Lake Avenue North.

And so that'll be so that the right lane in each direction, both buses and larger trucks, will be allowed in that lane.

It'll start with transit only for six months to get some performance measures from that, and then do another six months with freight and trucks, and then analyze the performance for both types of vehicles.

And from there, it could potentially convert it to a permanent program.

Okay, great.

Thank you for that update.

Appreciate it.

Chair?

All right, thank you, Council Member Kettle.

All right, a few comments, questions from my perspective.

So thank you again, really appreciate this presentation.

I note that communities like neighborhoods in my own district, Alki, Harbor Avenue, and other council districts, Council Member Rivera, for example, Magnuson Park, Council Member Strauss's Golden Gardens, Belltown and District 7, among others, experiencing very high number of problem street racing, and these are specific areas that could directly benefit from having these non-school speed cameras deployed there.

You know, I also do support, as my esteemed colleague just alluded to a moment ago, a thoughtful deployment of these.

That's what I was getting to earlier in my comments at my chair's remarks at the opening that we need these cameras to be responsibly deployed, and that includes making sure we have a data-based approach that ensures we thoughtfully consider the equity considerations, which is, by the way, why we're not, like on that earlier example exchange we had at the beginning, we're not going to shoehorn and prevent food access, fresh food access in a historically disadvantaged marginalized community and muck up congestion even further in a neighborhood in North Delridge by installing a traffic diverter because there's non-trivial equity concerns that we need to think through.

And among other kind of factors, we need to be thoughtful about this.

And our constituents are also, on the other hand, fed up and impatient, around some of the problem activities pertaining to racing that we're seeing in a variety of communities.

And I share that frustration and concern and I'm fed up too.

And so that's why we're doing a lot.

We've done a lot.

We'll do more as Lish noted at the beginning of this conversation, teeing up the various council enablement pieces of legislation and investments to do that.

And I'm proud that Now, I appreciate the executive for putting together this legislation that we'll hear later this month in this committee that incorporates, that does all those things that Cal teed up in his memo to me, it's on the agenda, that need to be done in order to start deploying.

that incorporates 2024 changes to state law, among other things.

So I appreciate the hard work and dedication from the executive department, in this case SDOT, the mayor's office, Deputy Mayor Farrell, been in close contact with her about this.

And then last week on Thursday, I think it was Thursday, I had a great conversation with city attorney Davidson and then later her civil chief, Mr. Tom Cuffle, who oversees the legal team responsible for reviewing any proposed legislation.

And I understand that they had finalized and completed on Thursday their legal review of the executive's draft legislation.

So we look forward to that being formally transmitted down to the second floor ASAP.

And so we can consider it later.

And just as an FYI, earlier this morning, I directed staff to, because one of the things that needs to be done is We made some significant investments, $1.18 million, I believe, during, it's on, let's just slide, to authorize and invest in non-school speed cameras.

So early this morning, I directed staff to start drafting proviso lift legislation.

So we're gonna do both of those and we're gonna consider and review both of those things in parallel.

The authorizing speed camera legislation and the, that provides a lift legislation.

So we're gonna expedite on our end and clear the backlog on our end to make sure we can be as efficient and effective as possible and get these deployed.

Regarding implementation, and I thank you again for the overview and sharing out the executive's current plans with respect to deployment, particularly around some of the school speed camera expansion.

regarding the department's plans and timeline for deploying non-school zone automated speed cameras in neighborhoods that are clamoring for them, like Alki Harbor Avenue, Madison Park, Golden Gardens, et cetera, which is a huge priority of this council, as we know.

Can you just give a quick update on when you anticipate deployment, the timeline and planning for deployment of those non-school speed cameras that have been authorized and reflect the significant priority of this council.

Thank you so much for the question, Chair Saka.

We are absolutely focused on constructing and activating the school zone safety cameras this year.

I fully understand that there are a lot more.

The budget that was allotted for the non-school zone cameras But right now, we are focusing on making sure that the construction of the school zone cameras happen and also finish the necessary safety and equity studies that are necessary before we can move forward with any potential design or construction of full-time speed cameras in non-school zones.

So we are committed to completing those studies.

we have to still kind of like develop a timeframe for when the deployment most likely next year would happen on these non-school zone cameras.

Thank you for that initial response, I'll be honest, that is a little different than what I heard in our conversation earlier with the department.

And I hate to put you on the spot, Mr. Laborde, but I heard during that conversation that you anticipate starting to deploy initially non-school speed cameras by the end of 2025. Is that no longer correct?

The intent is to do all the work and hopefully start to deploy them at the end of the year, but they wouldn't be operational until next year.

And I understand that, but yeah, okay.

That is consistent with our earlier conversation.

Start the work, start deploying.

I understand they wouldn't be online and fully operational until 26, I guess.

And I should probably clarify that there are some variables in how fast we deploy them.

I mean, the school zone cameras, we started planning for this deployment this year.

Last July was, I believe, when the work orders first went to the vendor.

Last fall, from SPD to the vendor.

And so there's several steps, including...

not just the studies that Fenu has been talking about, but also the actual determining the locations, power availability, and sometimes power needs to be hooked up to the locations, and that involves another department.

We're dependent on SPD feeling like they have the capacity to expand their their ability to review citations.

They can employ trained SDOT employees as well as trained SPD, say, parking enforcement employees, but it's how they do that is up to SPD, and so there's a lot of interdepartmental cooperation that's required, and sometimes capacities of those other departments can be an issue.

Fair enough.

Capacity of all departments, I think, could potentially be an issue.

And I totally understand there are some variables, a variety of factors at play.

And with respect to siting, good news is council already provided direction in various slides and budget investments.

I mentioned them here at the top.

So Elkai Harbor Avenue.

Magnuson Park, Golden Gardens, and probably Belltown.

So boom, there's four for you.

And as a starting point, and then we can kind of figure out.

And I think, by the way, under 2024 changes to state law, at least three of those are authorized because there's a parks, they can be deployed in parks now.

There's some parks nexus.

So, well, at least three of those, we took care of the siting for you.

But in any event, all that is to say, we look forward to partnering with you all and supporting you and making sure you have everything you need deploy these as quickly as possible, but doing it in a, in a making sure it's a thoughtful balanced approach as well and being in fulfilling, you know, our due diligence requirements, um, and minimizing unintended impact and things like that.

And that, and that is something that state law requires.

I mean, it's, it, there needs to be a, both the justification in terms of traffic and in terms of equity for sighting that camera.

Yeah.

Okay.

Awesome.

Well, colleagues, any other questions or comments from your perspective?

Good to go.

All right.

I got the thumbs up from Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, thank you again, SDOT partners.

Mr. Whitson, as always appreciate your collaboration on these and let's go, let's do these.

Looking forward to supporting this work and considering this legislation and the proviso lift legislation in parallel and tandem and supporting your pending deployment.

So awesome, all right.

Thank you again.

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

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

Agenda item two, resolution 32166, a resolution granting conceptual approval to install, maintain and operate a pedestrian sky bridge over and across 8th Avenue north of Cherry Street as proposed by FH LLC DBA Skyline in the First Hill neighborhood.

All right, thank you.

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

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

All right.

Lish Whitson, council central staff.

You received a presentation on this item at your last meeting.

I think council members are very familiar with it.

I'll just give you some highlights and can pull it up if you want to see any pictures, et cetera.

This resolution would approve an application for a sky bridge over 8th Avenue south of Columbia Street for the Skyline Retirement Community.

It would connect the two senior living towers.

owned by Skyline so that residents can safely cross 8th Avenue and access the different facilities in the two different towers.

And approval of the resolution would allow for the would direct sdot to negotiate final approval documents with the applicants they will come back with a ordinance for you to consider reflecting the conditions that are laid out in the resolution and that would grant them approval to build and install the skybridge excellent excellent thank you for the quick refresh there

and I guess at this point, I know this is a huge priority for my distinguished colleagues at the dais right now because it connects their two respective districts, both Vice Chair Hollingsworth and Council Member Kettle in District 7. So I welcome any comments or questions from either of you all.

Starting first with our vice chair, go ahead.

Mr. Chair, thank you.

And thank you and your team for getting this on the agenda as well and taking it on in committee and knowing how important it is.

And also thinking SDOT for their work in this.

I know I've already said in my comments how important, you know, this sky bridges for these two communities.

And so just wanted to thank you all.

Thank you all for putting it on the agenda and thank you to SDOT as well.

Looking forward to, I just ran into a resident a couple days ago, whose husband lives in the memory care on the north side, or excuse me, on the east side of the tower.

So in my district, the better side of Skyline.

And she lives in council, I'm just playing.

She lives in council member Kettle's district.

And so her walking back and forth to be able to visit him is incredibly important and having the sky bridge would just help with the safety of that.

And it also has great benefits for our community and the artwork and you know, safety.

So anyways, just wanted to thank everyone.

I know this has been a long, long journey.

So thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Madam vice chair, go ahead.

Council member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

And I do appreciate this proposal to have a bridge connect D3 and D7.

As fate turned out, as the districts were reformed, it's created an opportunity to do this connection.

But that's not the reason to do it, though.

And I understand the you know, the general point in terms of sky bridges.

But for me, any time, like when I've been in First Hill, any time, you know, I see the health medical piece to a sky bridge, whether it's like Swedish, you know, the different areas of First Hill, or in this case, as just given by a fantastic example by Councilmember Hollingsworth, you know, the medical, the memory care, all these kinds of aspects make this case very unique.

and worthy of our support.

And I do want to thank parks for engaging on this and doing the public benefit piece.

I was just yesterday getting a tour of Freeway Park and then a First Hill tour by the First Hill Association in addition to the Freeway Park Association, something that we can talk about later, Council Member Hollingsworth.

But it showed how important, you know, this is to the work that went into this for the neighborhood too.

This goes to the public benefits.

We were talking about the park to park loop.

We were walking in that area and it is important to have these public benefits, the enhanced improvements along eighth.

You had multiple examples of that.

That makes clear that this is an improvement for the neighborhood in addition to the residents of the two PARTS OF THE SKYLINE COMMUNITY.

SO WITH THAT SAID, MR. CHAIR, I AM IN SUPPORT OF THIS, OBVIOUSLY, BASED ON MY PAST EXPRESSIONS OF SUPPORT.

ALL RIGHT.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE.

There are no further questions or comments.

I move that the committee recommend adoption of resolution 32166. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded and third to recommend adoption of resolution 32166. Are there any further comments?

Hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to adopt resolution 32166.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Council Member Strauss.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Chair Saka.

Aye.

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

Excellent.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council adopt resolution 32166 will be sent to the April 8th, 2025 city council meeting.

Before we adjourn, just wanna share...

We have these exchanges in public openly and have these discussions in plain sight, open, transparent, that's the nature of our work here on the second floor.

And earlier at the outset, there was some conversation around and public comment requesting a specific proposed design solution on 26, which is a Seattle Neighborhood Greenway and Genesee in my district in West Seattle And I indicated and I maintain strongly that I do not support a diverter that would prevent left turns in a neighborhood that is already historically marginalized, Before me, historically underrepresented and is also a food desert, a neighborhood that is already exceptionally narrow with Del Ridge 25th and 26th essentially being the only, and 25th and 26th are neighborhoods and indeed 26th is a greenway.

So to prevent and cut off access in such a neighborhood just in my view does not make sense.

But I am again, open to hearing other solutions that are more workable for slowing traffic.

I use that same road every day with my own kids.

And I agree that there's more that the department could do to slow cars down there.

And I support their efforts to do exactly that short of putting a traffic diverter right there.

But highlighting the importance of public comment and written feedback as well.

So I appreciate Mr. Baker who took the time to show up today out of his busy schedule to share his feedback and testify on behalf or about that important issue impacting that neighborhood.

And during the course of this meeting received a constituent email, someone who's paying attention to that specific exchange and proposed their own solution in real time.

And so I want to thank Mr. Rock for the suggestion to put a four-way stop on the intersection of Genesee and 26, which seems like a mutually beneficial and workable compromise.

And it's something I would strongly support if the department chooses to implement.

So those are the kinds of ideas that I think, you know, help make us better.

And I appreciate, but I do appreciate everyone's feedback and perspective here.

These are neighborhood issues and people care deeply about them as do I.

And there it is.

All right.

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

Our next committee meeting is on April 15th at 9.30 a.m.

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

Hearing and seeing none, we are hereby adjourned.

It is 10.54 a.m.

Thank you.