Seattle City Council Committee on Transportation & Seattle Public Utilities 3/1/22

Good morning.

The March 1st, 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will come to order.

The time is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Chair Peterson?

Council Member Sawant is excused from today's committee meeting.

Approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, today's proposed agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Welcome back to the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Today we'll have our initial briefing of Council Bill 120271, which contains the various easement and lease agreements with the Washington State Department of Transportation, Sound Transit, and North Seattle College regarding the new John Lewis Bridge.

We will also have a presentation from our city auditor's office about their recent performance audit on Seattle's efforts to maintain and repair sidewalks.

At this time, we'll open the remote general public comment period for the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

I ask that everyone please be patient as we operate this online system.

We're continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process of public participation.

There remains the strong intent of the City Council to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, the City Council reserves the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we're able to conduct our necessary business.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The public comment period for this meeting will be 20 minutes, and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I'll call on two speakers at a time and in the order in which they are registered on the council's website.

If you've not registered but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at Seattle.gov slash council.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt that you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or to our committee's oversight responsibilities.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you have completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open, and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six before speaking.

I believe one or two speakers are now present, so we'll go ahead and hear first from David Haynes.

Good morning, David.

Thank you, Council.

Good morning.

I'm calling about the improvement of the metro system, public transportation.

because Seattle has become the right-to-bear-arms-excused city.

Some of the money from the transportation budget targeting bus-stop graffiti and unsanitary conditions justifies using some of the money to incarcerate the evil using the public transportation system to attempt to blend in, as if they're simply waiting for the bus while the entire time they're conducting an uncivil war on the innocent community, overwhelmed and endangered.

It's impossible to take the bus or attempt to get in the deep tunnel blocked by aggressive spit-spraying panhandling predators.

It's almost better to buy a car, walk or ride a bike than ever go near Third Ave or rely on public transportation ever again, especially when there's no trustworthy security to rely on.

It's important for you to understand that it's totally unsafe and unsanitary throughout the entire public transportation corridor.

And all of the cops in the city, county and metro are using every excuse they can lawyeristically come up with, citing politics of responsibility, budget, resources, city hall, prosecutors, They blame for why they are exempting all these evil drug pushers from jail, committing crimes against humanity, listed nonviolent misdemeanor, imploding society.

while the untrustworthy, ill-trained, unqualified police chief, who already should have been fired and never hired, enforces unconstitutional police reform, shifting the paradigm from the war on the drugs to blaming homeless for everything, instead of improving their efforts to wipe out crack, meth, and heroin, and sex trafficking, all presently exempted by city hall, police chief, prosecutor's office, and their racist, unqualified judges, the smudges on real criminal justice.

All the people that was, all the people that has been, can I get another few seconds?

I just want to point out that the little Saigon criminals and the cops have been, the cops are sweeping.

The cops are sweeping.

This is totally interrupted, like beeps.

I don't know why all this noise.

I'm trying to point out that the cops are...

And you can also email your comments to us at Seattle, excuse me, at council at Seattle.gov, council at Seattle.gov to email comments.

It looks like we've got a couple other people signed up, but they're not present.

So I'll just confirm with our IT folks, is that correct?

Nobody else is present.

There are no other public comment registrants on the line.

Thank you.

Okay, so we will go ahead and close out the public comment period because that concludes our list of present speakers.

And we can move on to the first item on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read the title of the first agenda, the short title of the first agenda item into the record.

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 120271, an ordinance relating to the John Lewis Memorial Bridge constructed under the Seattle Department of Transportation's Northgate Bridge and Cycle Track Project, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

We've got presenters from SDOT here to talk us through these agreements, as well as our City Council Central staff.

These agreements are being made with the Washington State Department of Transportation, North Seattle College, Sound Transit.

They're all related to the John Lewis Bridge in District 5. And as with anything related to the new John Lewis Bridge, I'd like to recognize the leadership of Council President Debra Torres and many others for getting The bridge funded and built.

This is the bridge for pedestrian bikes built to enhance and connect the Northgate transit hub.

I'll bring this bill back for a vote at our next committee meeting on March 15th, but we get our presentation and chance to ask questions today.

So with our City Council Central staff, Calvin Chow, is there anything you wanted to say to lead off before we turn off?

No, I think we should just turn over to the SDOT staff.

Okay, great.

Good morning.

Seattle Department of Transportation.

Hi, Gretchen.

Oh, good morning.

Eric Strassel is supposed to present this legislation with me.

It's not on yet.

We were under the impression that would be the second item to move forward?

Is there a possibility to rearrange that?

I think it's possible.

When do we expect Eric to be here?

At 10. Do you need the presentation?

I can put the presentation up if that's what's necessary.

Or do we need Eric to do the entire presentation?

Well, Eric is the project manager, so he was going to talk about this specific components of the project.

And then I was just going to talk about what the legislation is intended to approve.

Councilmember, I think I can probably cover the portion about what the project is, and we can certainly save any questions that people may have.

The project is built, and this legislation is about securing the rights for the use of the right of way through these property owners.

So I think maybe it's not the worst thing to do a very abbreviated overview and then go straight to the legislation.

That's fine.

Do we have a PowerPoint, though, that Estelle was going to present?

OK, great.

Let's go ahead and do it that way.

That's a good idea, Calvin.

Appreciate it.

Give me just a moment.

I will figure out where my.

Here we go.

I hope that presentation is up on the screen.

Yes.

Great.

So I'm Calvin Shaw.

I'm the central staff analyst who covers transportation.

And I'll just be covering just a little bit of a reminder to the council of what the John Lewis Memorial Bridge is.

It is a pedestrian and bicycle bridge that crosses I-5 and makes a connection between North Seattle Community College And the Northgate light rail station.

So it's a in addition to sort of the improving the connections for transit, it improves the pedestrian and bike connections across North Seattle in general across the I-5 causeway.

So the bridge spans almost 2000 feet.

It has a western approach that crosses North Seattle Community College, including some of their wetland areas and their parking area, potentially into their parking lot.

There's an eastern approach that crosses through the King County Northgate Transit Center and the Sound Transit light rail station.

And then there are some additional bicycle pedestrian pathways that connects on First Avenue Northeast.

And so this map has a a little overview of the routes that are affected here.

And I think, I don't know that we need to go too much more into the benefits of the project.

The project was built and opened to pedestrians and bicyclists in October of last year.

And so now I'll turn it over to talk about the legislation that's in front of you.

So SDOT seeks approval for legislation that accepts several agreements necessary to support the John Lewis Memorial Bridge.

There are three such agreements.

The North Seattle College granted the Northgate easement agreement to the city to construct, maintain, operate, and repair the bridge and related improvements, including the bike and pedestrian path on a portion of its property.

Sound Transit granted the pedestrian bridge easement agreement to the city to construct, maintain, operate, and repair the bridge and related improvements, including public access to its Northgate station on a portion of its property.

And lastly, WSDOT granted a trail lease to the city to construct, maintain, operate, and repair the bridge and pedestrian trail segment providing access to the North Seattle Park and Ride Lot and to go over I-5 on a portion of its property.

SDOT would like to take this opportunity to thank Council President Morris for initiating and facilitating the process to change the name of the bridge in honor of John Lewis and his legacy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate SDOT coordinating with different government agencies and institutions to get these easements that are necessary to have access to operate, maintain this bike and pedestrian bridge crossing I-5 and connecting North Seattle College and those neighborhoods to the west to this really important regional transit hub.

At North gate, and is it I guess this is a question for Calvin in terms of.

Since so will be operating, and they will be maintaining the bridge because it's such a new bridge.

Is it is it accurate to say that we don't anticipate substantial costs at this point?

Yeah, for in terms of maintenance costs, I've been told that we should expect very minimal expenses for the first roughly 20 years.

And then around 20 years is when you would expect to have to do some evaluation of how well the facility has maintained and sort of figure out what your next.

What status the bridge is at that time, but it's a it's a new facility and we don't expect any significant maintenance costs for the next 20 years or so.

Okay.

Colleagues, any questions about these three easements for the John Lewis Bridge?

Again, we'll be hearing this again on March 15th to give you time if you have questions in the meantime.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Thanks, Calvin, for stepping up there and doing that intro.

And thanks, Gretchen, for explaining the legislation.

And we'll have it back here on March 15 and hopefully vote it out of committee at that point.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

OK.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

I would like to call the meeting to order.

agenda item 2 performance audit of Seattle sidewalk maintenance and repair program for briefing and discussion.

can help speak to this.

I also want to thank the University of Washington graduate students from the Evans School for their June 2020 report on a similar issue.

And of course, we're honored to have not only our city auditor David Jones here, but also Assistant City Auditor Jane Dunkel, who worked on this report.

I want to congratulate her on her upcoming retirement as well.

We're really going to miss you and your hard work for the city.

And so I do have, I believe Council Member Lewis might be available if he wants to give this a little bit of an introduction, that would be welcome.

And he can always do that later in the presentation too.

But we'll go ahead and, Auditor Jones, do you have an introduction to this report before we hand it over to the author?

Thank you.

Thank you.

The person who led the work on this was Jane Dunkel.

I do want to mention that if members of the public do want to see the report, they can see it by going to our website, which is www.seattle.gov slash city auditor.

And they will be able to see the report.

So if we could go.

and other Jones other Jones I don't councilmember Lewis did you want to introduce this as well since you had requested it appreciate that oh yes thanks Alex sorry I was a or a customer Peterson chair Peterson rather there we go but at least call me out the most formally

So no, I appreciate that.

I'm sorry, I was away from my computer for just a moment in the previous presentation.

I'm a guest here at the committee and appreciate you having me.

I mean, I would just say very briefly, as someone who mostly gets around the city by walking and using public transit, The state of the city sidewalks is very personal to me beyond kind of my interest as a council member and the general maintenance of our public infrastructure, be it light rail expansion or our aging and deteriorating bridges or our sidewalk infrastructure, all something that are fundamental services we provide as a city.

And just in my kind of daily walking excursions, had noticed several sidewalks in my district and beyond that seem to indicate a systemic issue with how we are maintaining and protecting our sidewalks, which is sort of the origin of working with Council Member Peterson to reach out to SDOT and the auditor and kind of request putting this together just to take a look at I think it is important for us to look at what the current state of our sidewalks are and maybe some recommendations on how we can move forward to rectify that.

I really appreciate the auditor team and coming back with some good recommendations.

I'm looking forward to hearing more about that in this formal report back to committee.

Of course, I've reviewed the findings of the audits and really appreciate Auditor Jones taking the time to come here and break it down and maybe have a conversation about going forward about how we might incorporate some of these recommendations into the work plan to move forward at least those that fall in the legislative side of the the recommendation set.

So I appreciate the opportunity to be here to listen and participate in this hearing.

Thank you.

And as I mentioned, we're also grateful for the University of Washington Evans school students, Evans schools in my district, and Councilmember Herbold actually had requested that report originally.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

And for folks listening, we also recognize that there are many parts of the city that don't have sidewalks at all.

There's a huge gap in many portions of the city regarding sidewalks and safe access to key locations like transit stops.

However, those sidewalks that we do have, there is a responsibility for the city to maintain some of those and for private owners to maintain others.

And so we're gonna see here some recommendations, potentially some low-hanging fruit that we could pursue perhaps with the budget or policy changes.

And some of this work I think we'll hear does validate the work of the Evans School as well.

So Auditor Jones, back to you and Jane Dunkel.

Thank you, Chair Peterson and Councilmember Lewis who requested this report.

Again, I just want to note Jane Dunkel was the auditor in charge of this audit and will be leading our presentation today.

I also want to note, as you said, Chair Peterson, this is her last day.

This is her final work for our office.

This is her last day of work before beginning her well-deserved retirement.

I want to say a big thank you to my colleague.

She's worked for our office for nearly 20 years.

She's done outstanding work.

A lot of work.

I just want to say my colleagues and myself will miss her deeply.

If we can go to the next slide, please.

It's because they facilitate many good things.

Safe and accessible sidewalks play a role in ensuring equity because they enable individuals with disabilities, seniors, those without access to vehicles to get where they need to go to do things like go to work, go to doctor's appointments, go to a library, go to social events, go shopping.

maintain sidewalks, also encourage walking, which helps reduce the city's carbon footprint, and promotion of walking also leads to improved health.

So in short, sidewalks promote a lot of good things.

At this point, let me turn it over to Jane, who will take you through our report findings and recommendations.

Jane?

Good morning.

This slide, Council Member Lewis, as you know, asked us to do this audit.

So this slide just talks a little bit about specifically some of the things he asked, what the Seattle Department of Transportation spends on sidewalk repair, how they decide which sidewalks to repair, how, if at all, they solicit public input into sidewalk repair projects, to compare the cost of replacing sidewalks to shorter-term, semi-permanent fixes, and to give us update on that council requested policy report from June 2020. So that's why we did the audit.

For background, Seattle has about 2,300 miles of sidewalks.

The city of Seattle is responsible for approximately 15 to 20% of those.

We are responsible for sidewalks adjacent to city structures, affected by city utilities, or adjacent to city streets.

And private property owners are responsible for the the rest of those.

And that responsibility is under the revised code of Washington, 35.68 and 35.69.

That gives cities the authority to bill private property owners for the costs of repairing the sidewalks or require them to construct or improve them at their own expense.

And we'll have more on that later.

Now, one thing I want to point out here, though, is that even in situations where private property owners are responsible, for maintaining the sidewalk in good condition, the city is still responsible for maintaining safe passage on all city sidewalks.

So if a trip and fall occurs on a sidewalk, there can be a claim and there are against the city and the property owner.

And in fact, in 2019, the city spent 1.4 million on settlements and claims for trip and falls on city sidewalks.

We found that nearly half of cities Seattle sidewalks are in a state of disrepair that may affect mobility.

This was based on a 2017 citywide sidewalk condition assessment that was conducted by the Seattle Department of Transportation.

For this assessment, SDOT recorded observations along all known Seattle sidewalks and observations include uplifts, cross slopes, cracks and vegetation overgrowth.

So when we say nearly half, we're talking about the 46% that is in the fair, poor, and very poor categories.

And the reason we include the fair category is because sidewalks even rated as fair do have medium severity issues and discontinuous continuities that may impact mobility.

So SDOT's annual funding does not address the need for sidewalk repair.

Their average annual funding from 2010 to 2020 was $2.6 million.

In 2018 and 2019, the council approved an additional funding of $6.2 million, but that was just for a two-year period.

SDOT's conservative estimate is that it would take $500 million to bring all Seattle sidewalks, even those adjacent to private property, up to good or excellent condition.

So again, that's if the city had to repair everything.

That's the conservative estimate of what it would take.

So as a result, the city uses two main types of semi-permanent sidewalk repairs because they're more cost effective.

They don't cost as much.

And here's an example of two of them.

On the left is a bevel.

That's where two sidewalk panels are of different height, can cause a trip and fall.

They grind down to match the height.

And then on the right is a shim.

That's where asphalt is added so that that difference between the panels is made whole through asphalt.

And here's the difference between what it costs to replace a concrete sidewalk per square foot and to do an asphalt repair.

It's about $30 a square foot.

But the useful life of the repairs is quite different.

On average, asphalt repairs can last about 10 years and concrete sidewalk replacements can last up to 100 years.

However, the performance of any individual sidewalk depends on the kind of uplift or other factors occurring beneath its surface.

surface.

And indeed, street trees can and do destroy bevels, shims, and concrete sidewalk panels well before the materials have deteriorated.

Preserving street trees can and does add to the complexity and cost of sidewalk replacement projects.

And we're not saying that that's not a good goal to do.

We're just saying it's one of the reasons it can be expensive to do so.

So because of their limited dollars, SDOT allocates their replacement resources carefully.

And I want to point out here that this is how they decide which sidewalks to replace after they have determined that a damaged sidewalk needs repair.

So they look at condition first, and then they look at factors like these, such as leveraging opportunities with other capital projects.

That way they can do more projects because there's more funding.

Those adjacent to urban villages or arterials, those identified as high priorities in the pedestrian master plan, and you can see, you can read the rest of them.

I just want to do point out here that one of the factors is geographic and social justice distribution.

So, because of their limited dollars like other we talked to five other jurisdictions to ask if they solicited input into how to fix or whether to fix or replace the sidewalk because obviously most people would prefer a nice new concrete sidewalk in their neighborhood or their business district but it's much more expensive and we found that that although because of SDOT uses a very detail process for prioritizing scarce resources, they then don't turn around and ask people what they want.

This would lead to more of a complaint based system that would, or just a squeaky wheel system that might subvert some of the careful planning that has gone into what SDOT has already chosen.

So that's similar to the other five jurisdictions.

So, We found that Seattle does not enforce private property owners' responsibilities for sidewalk repair.

This slide is an example of, this slide is an example of the webpage, SDOT's current webpage.

They do make some efforts, as you can see, to educate private property owners about their responsibilities, but they do not enforce it.

And you may ask, why not?

It's because Enforcement process required by state law and currently confirmed by Seattle Municipal Code 15.72 is complex and cumbersome.

This is what you have to do for each individual property that the city would want to put a lien on in order to cover sidewalk repair costs.

They would have to identify the costs to be assessed and place them on the city's assessment role.

They would have to provide notice to the property owner and the public.

They would have to hold a city council hearing and after the hearing, have the city council by ordinance affirm the costs assessed against the abutting property owner.

So we will have, as a result of this cumbersome process, the law has never been used in Seattle and private property owners have little incentive to repair the sidewalks adjacent to their property.

So we have, and we'll talk about this more later.

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Can I ask?

Good morning, Jane.

I'm sorry I didn't see your hand.

That's okay.

I thought I heard you say that this was a city law, but the slide is titled Washington State Law, so can you clarify that?

The city law nears the state law.

So if our recommendation later on is gonna be that the city lobby for changes to state law, and there are other cities I think interested in this, so that just there's an easier process if the city were to choose to enforce private property owners responsibilities.

So the state law is RCW 568 and 3569, This is the city municipal code that then, um, that then confirms that it agrees with it.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um, so we looked at some promising practices from other jurisdictions that their other jurisdictions are using to increase the number of sidewalks that are repaired in the city.

And we found that in 2019, the city of Oakland, California, implemented a past a buy-sell-repair ordinance.

These are sometimes referred to as point of sale ordinances.

Under this ordinance, property owners must repair their sidewalks and or certify that the sidewalk is compliant when selling a property, transferring title on a property, or performing a renovation on their lot valued at more than $100,000.

The idea being here, I think that when you're buying or selling a property, that might be a time that You know, you would have some funds maybe to put into that.

They show promising results from this.

The first year results were 121 additional locations of sidewalk repair in the city of Oakland, and that was a 62% increase over the prior year.

And then this slide isn't in the report, but I got updated data from Oakland for this presentation, and this shows In fiscal year 18 and 19, this is before they had the by cell repair ordinance.

That's the number of sidewalk repair permits that were issued.

And then you see they in the first fiscal year, it was implemented.

They got 79 more and in the second 82 more so they are showing some results from this now if I'm Increased enforcement also, if the city were to go that route, can be paired with finance and financial assistance programs.

So of course, in terms of equity, you can't assume that everybody is going to have the money to make these expensive repairs.

So Denver, for example, has a sidewalk repair revolving fund.

Portland, Oregon has an efficient online permitting process.

They try to make it easy for people, and they offer loans to cover repair costs.

And Oakland has a small fund that can be used to perform sidewalk repairs at no cost to low-income property owners.

So there's a lot more detail about these programs in our report, but this is just a way to think about equity as you're thinking about enforcement as well.

Let's see.

Oh, and so then the recommendations, what I did for recommendation follow-up is I combined the recommendations in the, the 2020 policy report and ours because there's overlap in a lot of them.

We've relied heavily on that report as Council Member Peterson said, it was very well done.

And then I put them into buckets.

So I'm gonna talk about first two recommendations that relate to fixing sidewalks the city is responsible for.

So let's see, the first one is that the city implement a five-year shim bevel plan.

And SDOT started this work in 2018. And as you can see on the slide, they completed almost 15,000 shims and bevels in 20 and 21, but they tell us that they're positioned to scale up this program, but they say they would need three to 4 million in additional funding per year to complete this five-year beveling and shimming program and get all the city sidewalks citywide at least repaired with semi-permanent repairs.

So that recommendation is pending.

The second recommendation is that from the policy report is that SDET try to secure increased and stable funding sources.

And that also is pending.

SDOT officials and they're here, they can maybe speak to this more later, but they say sidewalk repairs are continue to be and the funding needed for them continue to be a priority.

They continue to talk about it internally and with the community and expect to incorporate this need into as they move toward the end of the move Seattle levy and seek other funding mechanisms.

So that is in process.

The next set of recommendations relate to private property owner responsibilities, and they're in these buckets.

I'll talk about them a couple at a time.

The first two are that SDOT should increase property owner awareness and education about sidewalk responsibilities.

It's quite possible that there are many residents out there that don't know that they're responsible for doing this.

And this is pending, although SDOT expects to, oh, Council Member Herbold, did you wanna ask a question?

Sorry, can we go back to that previous slide?

Yes.

The one about the resources.

Yeah.

Can you just talk a little bit more about what you mean by pending?

Are there proposals?

It just means they're still working on it.

It's basically another way of saying in the process, they haven't implemented it.

We basically have- They haven't proposed it.

Let's start there.

Yeah, right.

That's basically all it means, they're working on it.

It is good to point out on this slide that one of the points that SDOT made with us as part of the audit was that the stable funding source is particularly critical because they can't really gear up, create a special crew for sidewalks.

if they don't know that the funding is going to be stable.

And it looks like Calvin wants to speak as well.

So go ahead, Calvin.

Yeah, I just wanted to raise the fact that we did have a discussion about a very small increase to the commercial parking tax during the budget process in the fall.

I had a proposal to do a small increase to support the Beville-Insham program.

It would not have quite gotten to the goal that was identified in this report, but it would have been, I think, a really good down payment on it.

But I do really agree that this is a really, really high priority and would hope that we could put our heads together to think about how to move forward on this recommendation.

If I could add just one thought here.

I think behind this sort of statement is just sort of the acknowledgement that SDOT's spending commitments were largely set in place by the commitment to voters for the Move Seattle levy.

And with the financial stress that we've had in the transportation budget the last couple of years, it's been difficult to find a lot of, frankly, a lot of extra room to move things around and still meet the commitments.

So I think this is recognizing that the next major opportunity for dramatically adjusting funding levels comes when the move Seattle levy is up.

And if we seek a renewal of that levy, that would be an appropriate time to consider where we could consider much larger shifts in spending priorities that might approach 3 to 4 million a year type of investments.

I would also support what Council Member Herbold was saying in terms of having an incremental increase.

Perhaps we could target it to that $1.4 million that we're paying out in trip and fall cases, if there's a way of targeting those areas to reduce those liabilities and injuries.

But Assistant Auditor Dunkel, go ahead.

Keep going, Jane.

Thank you.

So let's see, these private property owners, there was the recommendation to increase their awareness and education.

And in fact, SDOT is developing a new public-facing interactive website called Sidewalk Storymap.

It's expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year.

And I have seen a draft of it.

It's very robust and should be a big improvement.

So that one, I think there's good news on that point.

There was also the recommendation to simplify the sidewalk repair permitting process to make it easier for people to do.

And SDOT did transition their sidewalk permits to their new Asiela permitting system in 2020. They're also updating their written guidance and they're working on a racial equity toolkit to make sure that information about sidewalk repair is accessible to the BIPOC community.

And that is expected to be done at the end of this year.

So the last big recommendation is for SDOT to explore changes to state and city laws to allow for more streamlined enforcement options so private property owners can meet their legal responsibilities.

And this is in progress.

I said that SDOT has worked with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to have these changes reflected in the city's statewide legislative agenda.

As part of this, OIR consulted with the Association of Washington Cities, And AWC recommended that there be additional outreach to legislators this year to identify champions and begin additional work leading up to next year's longer legislative session.

So during this time, SDET will continue to work with ORI to cultivate allies and draft a bill.

The other recommendations that relate to financing programs all sort of would come after these changes in state law.

They would come after you had beefed up your enforcement capabilities.

So this is kind of a precursor.

So those are still pending as well.

So I'll be happy to take any questions.

Here's where you can get our audit report.

And I did actually, I wanted to make it clear that even though SDOT does not engage the public on how to repair sidewalks, They do have extensive public engagement for capital projects, which can include new sidewalks and that information about how to get involved in that is can be found on their website.

So that is all I have.

I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

Really appreciate it.

Stop sharing.

I got it.

Yeah.

Thank you for that presentation on the sidewalk performance audit.

We also do have the Seattle, not to put them on the spot, but the Seattle Department of Transportation is here in case we have any questions for them or for Calvin Chow.

I think next steps for this since this report summed things up so well, presented good recommendations, looked at additional cities like Oakland, as well as the cities that University of Washington Evans School looked at.

the committee can consider next steps, especially as we approach the fall budget.

But yeah, Council Member Morales, please.

Thank you.

I have just a couple of quick questions and then just a lot of thoughts about this.

First, I do want to thank Council Member Lewis for requesting the audit, and I know the auditors and SDOT folks have been working hard on this.

Just to make sure I understand, the city is responsible for safety, but not for maintenance of that 80, 85% of sidewalks.

Yeah.

That's correct.

Okay.

And it costs twice as much to do concrete rather than the shim and bevel, but it also lasts up to 10 times as long.

to do those repairs.

Okay.

Oh, Calvin, did you want to?

Yeah, just I mean, a couple points about that.

A shim bevel is a really a spot improvement.

So it's a very small location, whereas a big concrete placement is a much bigger project.

So those were per square foot costs.

And the size of the project would be significantly different.

So that it's not just that it costs twice as much, it's a much bigger project.

And then, you know, the other that I think Jane made is that in the hundred years that that large project would be operating, if there are still roots, true roots there, it'll cause the upheavals over the course of that time.

So I think there's that, it's not like it's necessarily a, you can choose between the others.

There's different factors that might choose one versus the other besides just cost.

Right, well, it raises all kinds of questions about how to make decisions about projects for sure.

I think for me, You know, we will never have enough money to keep sidewalks in good condition.

I think that's clear, let alone, you know, over the whole city.

If we continue to put so much money focused on maintaining roads and expanding roads.

You know, I think we had something almost almost 4000 miles of roads in the city.

That's a lot to maintain, especially because we know roads with our weather.

are problematic.

But it just, it seems to me that sidewalks are more economical.

They're, you know, exposed to less wear and tear and are more climate friendly.

And we really need to be rethinking how we invest in that kind of infrastructure.

You know, for the last two years, we've put in a couple million dollars into the sidewalk budget.

But the reality is that there's, I think something like 24% of neighborhood streets don't even have sidewalks.

Most of them are in the south end and the north end.

So we're basically telling a quarter of our residents that they don't get sidewalks at all.

And everybody else is responsible for paying out of pocket for what is essentially a public good.

And it seems to be the way it works in other cities as well.

So I get that, but I just feel like You know, if we really want to reduce our carbon emissions, if we really want to meet that goal that we have for 2030, then it seems like it makes sense for us to start shifting the way we invest in our infrastructure and really think about how we're actively working to increase public safety, increase our access for folks who don't drive, reduce our carbon emissions, especially with the UN reporting just today that we're not doing enough to combat climate change.

I don't know.

I guess what I'm saying is I feel like there's a bigger conversation here than just go to the state and ask for state legislative changes.

I feel like we really need to have a conversation about how to do things substantially differently so that we meet many of the goals that we have as a city.

And I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

And before I turn over a couple other council members with comments and questions, I did want to recognize that we do have the city attorney's office here as well, Lorraine Phillips, since there was some questions that came up about liability.

I think Council Member Lewis and then Council Member Strauss.

Go ahead, Council Member Lewis.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to jump in to just express strong agreement with Council Member Morales' comments just now.

And I think it invites, I believe it looks like Council Member Strauss is next in the lineup here.

I mean, I don't wanna presume, that's obviously Chair's prerogative on who'll go next.

But what Council Member Morales' comments really put forward is that this is joined at the hip with our land use and planning decisions as well.

And to those points about what infrastructure we prioritize, it's also about, are we engaged in planning practices that are going to be designing our communities around pedestrian walk sheds so that people can do more of their daily things that require leaving the house on foot or on bike.

Some other kind of mode that isn't driving because we are starting to Design our communities more in a way that emphasizes and first prioritizes that sidewalk infrastructure And maybe also seeks you know plantings and environmental additions that are going to be less detrimental over time to that sidewalk infrastructure as well to prolong the lifespan.

So I definitely agree with sort of a non-siloed approach, I guess I would say, in sort of hitching these infrastructure discussions to some of our planning discussions as well to maximize that impact of delivering limited resources going forward to make sure that we are making this just a a better city to get around in, but also a city that is moving toward our climate goals and just having communities that enhance livability.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Next is Councilmember Strauss and then Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for requesting this audit.

Great work on the auditors team.

Jane I don't know if this one will win you national recognition, but I'm waiting for your national recognition too, Jane, because I know that you and your, David Jones, your entire team does great work.

So thank you for that.

In similar lines, I'm just highlighting, and this is not on the auditor's office because you were asked to focus on very specific questions about sidewalk repair.

I just have to note for the record, there are so many places in the city in District 5, in District 6, in District 2, in District 1 that don't even have sidewalks.

There was not a sidewalk outside of my high school when I was growing up here in the city, walking on the gravel on the side of the road.

It now has a sidewalk.

And if we were to take the implementation plan with the funding mechanisms that we have in place, it's going to take us 300 years to build out the sidewalks in the city that we need.

And so sidewalk repair is extremely important.

And we need more sidewalks.

And there's great, maybe that's the next conversation we can have with Council Member Peterson, is what are the alternatives to building the permanent sidewalks?

Because they are, with the drainage requirements that are needed for permanent curbs, that's where that whole cost increase comes from.

And so there are temporary ways that we can make walking around our neighborhood safer so that kids don't have to walk in the gravel outside of school.

With that, thank you for your time, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Herbold?

Thank you.

I want to say that I appreciate Councilmember Peterson recognizing the action that led to the Evans School Study, but I do want to correct the record.

It wasn't, and I think it's, um, sort of illustrative of, um, the conversation that we're having right now.

It wasn't an action I took.

It was a council resolution that led to, um, the request for this report.

Um, and it's a It's a report we received I believe we asked for it via resolution.

Several of the council members who are here now weren't with us at the time.

We received it in 2020. And I believe that really strongly that we should have begun having the conversations around how to implement its recommendations sooner rather than later.

I really appreciate the City Auditor's work on this.

I would love to know if there are new recommendations coming out of the City Auditor's work.

It seems to me that the audit is maybe a...

sort of another way to elevate that work.

But the council resolution was passed because of a lot of mobilization on the part of the mass coalition.

And I just I think that rather than putting one report that came out of community engagement and lobbying all of us and a lot of people coming out for public testimony, putting that report on the shelf and doing another audit report is, for me, I'm finding it to be a little bit frustrating example of governance.

I do have a question going back to the issue of stable funding in the, and I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here, but the presentation notes the status as pending, but I do believe that the audit itself noted, I'm going to pull it up now, noted differently and identified it as no action taken.

And so, you know, I just, I think it's important that we are clear about these things and would just love to understand a little bit more about why the audit itself, which says no action taken for that particular recommendation in today's presentation, reflects something different.

were there actually steps taken in between the time that you issued this audit and the presentation was put together or just sort of what has happened since that point that has resulted in sort of a different picture of where this particular recommendation is?

I think that is a point well taken Council Member Herbold.

I mean, I think there's, you know, I would have to let SDOT respond more to what efforts they've made.

So it may have been that we should have left that at no action taken.

It's kind of a, you know, it's kind of a debate with the department.

We go back and forth because, you know, I don't know all the efforts that are being made behind the scenes for them to try and obtain additional funding.

So I don't know, Liz, Gerard, if you want to answer that more fully.

Um, well, yeah, that's a, that's a good question.

I think one of the main impacts over the last, I think, year and a half, two years has been COVID.

Um, and that, that also has caused some revenue and some funding challenges for us.

Um, but more than that, it's just staffing and, and, you know, retaining staff and having the staff to actually perform the work.

Um, I'm sure there's other challenges that, that I'm not aware of, but that's, that's the one that I would highlight.

Yeah, and I guess my point isn't why something has happened or hasn't happened.

I'm talking about what the public record should reflect accurately.

Either this is a recommendation that there is work being done on or there's not.

And I think we just need to be, you know, clear with the public on what that is.

I totally understand the challenges.

I don't totally understand your challenges with COVID and staffing, but I understand there's lots of good reasons for why stuff hasn't happened in accordance with these recommendations.

But I just really want us to be honest and clear in our presentations to the public.

Thank you.

Council members, if I may, I mean, bring the observation that we do see some changes year to year in the funding that we do to the sidewalk program that's had to change based on the response to COVID over the last couple of years.

For instance, I'm just looking at the CIP, the Capital Improvement Program right now.

Sidewalk Safety Repair as a program last year had about $4 million assigned to it.

This year it has a little over $5 million.

and it goes to 5.2 next year in the budget.

So there are small adjustments.

I think the broader point is that, you know, in terms of reaching this big dollar amount over a long period of time, we're not really addressing, you know, we're not making movements in that scale.

So this is really a lot of sort of adjustments year to year.

So there are changes that happen.

There are changes that council pushes from year to year, but it's not at the level that really talks about sort of the longterm fully funding a five-year continual maintenance program, if you will.

Thank you, Calvin.

And so I appreciate everybody's hard work on these reports.

I'm glad that the auditor's report was able to elevate and validate the previous work.

Estan's here at the table, and hopefully the various comments from the council members will help to inform the budget that the Harrell administration would bring together for our consideration.

And then as Calvin mentioned, when we're thinking longer term, as we craft a renewal to the Move Seattle levy to balance the various priorities that we have, both for repairing existing sidewalks to prevent liability and deal with our responsibilities and create new sidewalks throughout the city, and then also to recognize the other modes, what we have to do for buses and bikes.

And so the Move Seattle levy crafting will be a way, the renewal will be a way for us to put all those priorities into play and fund them appropriately.

So thank you, everybody, for your hard work today.

Appreciate it.

And that was the last item on our agenda for today.

So if there's nothing else, we'll, yes, Jane, please.

Sorry, I'm trying to lower my hand.

If I may, I just wanted to say two things that I didn't get into the presentation.

I tried to make them short because I never know how much time we have.

But one thing is that SDOT does now have, since 2000, they've had an approved street tree list.

Street trees are really challenging for keeping sidewalks in good condition.

And yet, you know, the urban canopy is really important too, right?

So it's not an either or, it's a both and.

So I would just, if there's anybody out there in the public, I would really please advise you before you plant anything in your right of way next to your sidewalk to go on SDOT's site.

and get a list of their approved street trees, because those are trees that won't damage the sidewalks.

Once you've got those mature trees in and those roots are growing underneath the sidewalks, you're pretty much, it's just hard.

And then the second thing quickly is that, as part of this audit, I did do a tour of Lighthouse for the Blind, which is down in the South End.

It is a workplace for people who are blind, deaf, blind, and people with other disabilities.

The only way they get there is by public transit and walking on those sidewalks.

And they are not in good condition.

So I did want to make the point, and we looked up some American Community Survey, some Census Bureau data that's just in a footnote in the report.

But in 2019, in Seattle, 9.3% of the households had residents with a disability.

11.8% had people who were 65 or older, so seniors.

And 19.3% lived in households with no access to a vehicle.

So we just really wanted to make the point that we're not here to be advocates for anything, but there is some factual information about how that sidewalks are actually critical and essential and not just a choice for some people.

And I felt like I should at least mention that.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Strauss and then Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Chair.

I know you were just trying to get us towards the end.

I just had to take the extra moment to thank again the auditor's team.

Jane, the way that the depth that you look into these issues and create recommendations is just amazing, impressive, and astonishing.

So that level of detail about what trees to plant and which ones to avoid I just can't thank you enough because you've spent an incredible amount of time on this.

And this is why your team is so great and wins national awards.

So again, Jane, thank you for all your work.

Thank you, Councilman Morales.

Thank you.

Well, Jane, I just want to say thank you as well on your way out the door.

If you wouldn't mind sharing those last few stats that you mentioned, that would be really helpful as we think about what to do with this information and talk about why this is so important.

So I want to echo Council Member Strauss in thanking you for your work and wish you the best.

Thanks very much.

Thanks to all of you for your work.

I've watched a lot of council meetings, and I know it is not easy job.

So thank you for your service and also everybody working.

Thank you, Jane.

All right.

Thanks, everybody.

This concludes the March 1st 2022 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We anticipate our next meeting will be on Tuesday, March 15. We are adjourned.

Thank you.