Seattle City Council Transportation Committee 3/4/2025

That's it.

All right, good morning.

The March 4th, 2025 Transportation Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.33 a.m.

I am Rob Saka, Chair of the Transportation Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Rink.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Present.

Chair Saka.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

If there is, thank you.

If there is no objection, the agenda is adopted.

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

All right, welcome everyone.

Our first item on the agenda today is SDOT's proposed 2025 levy delivery plan.

I wanted to quickly note a few things.

First, that tomorrow in our select budget committee, the full council will take up the proviso lift that is currently on half of, or the other part of the story to SDOT's 2025 levy funding.

I also note that this is a fairly unique one-off, one-time committee workload arrangement that I made in close partnership with council member Strauss, chair of the budget committee who also happens to be a member of our transportation committee here.

You will recall this proviso was placed on the department during budget late last year because the executives proposed budget did not include a levy spending plan and council did not have adequate time to review what a city budget would have with the past levy would have looked like.

But on a going forward basis, any and all future SDOT provisos and transportation related policy proposals will go exclusively before the transportation committee.

When voters passed the levy in November, they approved of the most accountable levy in our city's history.

Today, we get to see some of that accountability in action, where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, the nuts and bolts of accountability in the local government context.

What that looks like is an annual delivery or annual levy spending delivery plan that's currently before the council and a few of our important committees.

Delivery plans like the one we're hearing today will be an essential annual component of this transportation levy that we will hear and consider again, exclusively in this committee on a going forward basis.

This proposed spending plan is somewhat of a departure from past practices.

In my view, showing a dedication to detail, upfront transparency, thoughtful collaboration and engagement.

I wanna thank SDOT and the mayor for this type of close partnership, engagement and responsiveness, not just on the delivery plan itself, but throughout the levy process end to end.

You have been terrific partners.

We now have seven elected district council members.

As elected officials in our respective districts, We are therefore more connected now more than ever to our various neighborhoods and communities.

With that tight integration and connection comes closer direct engagement with city departments, including critically important ones like SDOT.

So thank you again SDOT for your renewed commitment to collaborating with our council now and on a going forward basis.

Let's do this work together.

Now our second agenda item pertains to Vision Zero.

Last transportation committee, we focused on the critical issue of transit security, both for drivers and passengers in our region.

This remains a top priority for my office.

Today's presentation from the department will focus on another aspect of our most solemn responsibility that we have as decision makers, as policy makers, and as leaders in our city.

keeping people safe on our roads.

Specifically, the presentation will focus on what our city is doing to achieve our ambitious Vision Zero goal to end traffic deaths and serious injuries on city streets by the year 2030. And as part of this, I note that there is a non, so as part of the presentation, we'll learn many things, including what are some of the available tools that we have in our toolkit that are aligned with the federal safe systems approach.

And one of those countermeasures, I know it's an important priority of mine personally, and I know many of my colleagues on this dais and not here today as well.

is traffic enforcement cameras.

There's a non-trivial tie between cars, vehicles are going too fast and people are dying.

Pedestrians are dying.

Cyclists are dying.

Drivers are dying.

There's a strong nexus in terms of our ability to mitigate and prevent some of these tragedies with various design features and speed enforcement cameras, which is another item we're working closely with the executive department right now, who will be in a position within the next month, as I understand it, to propose legislation to allow us as a city to roll out and deploy more speed cameras throughout our city.

Thank you again to the department for their efforts on keeping our streets safe while we look forward, and we also look forward to hearing more about this important work.

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

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have 10 in-person speakers and five remote speakers.

All right.

Each speaker will have one minute.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can 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, Dan Rounds.

And clerk, just by the way, I understand that there is at least one speaker who needs some additional accessibility, some time for accessibility purposes, so that's definitely granted.

Yes, we will give Dan Rounds two minutes.

Good morning, council members.

Sir, can you speak into the mic a little bit?

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

I'm here today because I'm tired of seeing my two elderly Asian neighbors trudge up a street to get to a bus stop.

This street, South Orcas, is dangerous, fast traffic, it's narrow, and the...

lacks any kind of sidewalk.

I've tried to get this to the attention of that start in 2017. Nothing was done at that time.

I'd like to point out that the neighborhood that I'm in with South Orchison 22nd Avenue, we have about 200, no, excuse me, 165 households.

400 persons, and we're in a bottleneck.

The only way to get from our neighborhood up to a bus station is through this one real dangerous.

You go up, it's a blind, blind Hillcrest traffic either way, and people are in the center of the street.

We have a petition here from 50 plus people asking for this.

We've submitted the more detailed information.

You have a packet for it.

and I believe it meets the plan.

Section 4.1, improved bus access.

Section 4.3, focused on Beacon Avenue South as a high ridership bus route.

And 4.3, focused on equity and construction, a minimum of 17% new sidewalks in District 2. We're a very diverse area.

I was doorbell in to get the petitions.

Run across beautiful families, African-American, Asian, and thank you for the time.

Thank you, sir.

And if you happen to have written public comment, you're encouraged.

Feel free to submit that with us.

We can circulate it and make sure all the council offices have access to it.

Thank you.

Next up is Elizabeth Roberts followed by Alonzo R. Smalls.

Is it one minute or two minutes?

I'm so sorry.

It is one minute.

Good morning, City Council Transportation Committee members.

I'm presenting Agency SDOT Director, Adrian Emery, and your team.

I'm Elizabeth Roberts, and I own a home next to a shoreline street end in Madison Park.

I'm not a business or land developer, but I'm a private citizen.

I support the mayor's One Seattle initiative.

My husband and I were also active supporters of the transportation levy.

The citizens of Seattle have entrusted SDOT with substantial financial resources to restore our infrastructure, our faith in Seattle, and for a more livable and set the stage for our future.

My comment today is a request that SDOT administer the law faithfully and fairly.

Our experience, a three and a half year process trying to get a safe legal driveway permit to our home, a driveway that has existed for 72 years, approved.

Our process has been duly influenced by community groups in a seemingly apathetic department.

The process has not adhered to the laws and policies of the city, state, or federal government.

The permit process has been going on for three years and we still don't have a driveway.

We've been subject to disparate treatment by SDOT and we look forward to moving ahead and are eager to have SDOT be on track to have our city be a livable, fair city for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And again, feel free to submit those written comments if you have them.

And reminder, folks, friendly reminder that when you hear that chime, you have 10 seconds.

10 seconds.

Thank you.

Next up is Alonzo R. Smalls, followed by Brittany Brost.

Just a reminder to please speak into the microphone closely.

Oh, you ready?

I think my biggest issue with the transportation right now is safety.

Number one safety thing, I realized being out there in the streets and taking the buses and doing the things that I do is the drivers.

I believe the drivers should be safe more than the passengers because they're the ones keep us going, keep us moving.

One of the things that I hope that you council members do today is taking into consideration is making the safety with the unions, with the drivers.

The drivers need more protection from us, even though we are riding South Transit.

So I think that you should look at the work with the unions and follow policies with the unions in ways that is beneficial for all of us to work together.

And our safety is number one, period.

And common sense.

I think we don't use common sense, but that's just my thing.

Thank you, Common Sense Coalition.

Next up is Brittany Brost, followed by Aaron Schechter.

Good morning, council.

My name is Brittany Brost.

I live in District 7, and I am a permanent pedestrian.

I hate the term non-driver because that still focuses around cars.

I live in Belltown.

I work in downtown, an area of the city that is focused on getting people in and out in cars as fast as possible.

Screw pedestrians is pretty much what I have come to believe.

I use one of these because I am legally blind.

I go through these because cars tend to hit them.

They're $70 a piece.

They're not cheap.

My insurance covers one every five years.

So I pay for a lot of them.

It sucks because cars don't stop when they hit them.

They just keep going.

They could hit me and they'll keep going.

Trust me, I know that.

I've been hit by a car before and I'll be hit by a car again.

My brother jokes that I'll die by being hit by a car.

We kind of have a morbid sense of humor at this point in life.

So I would suggest that we envision zero, prioritize people that are outside of cars, because quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of having to take my life in my hands every time I leave my home.

It's tiring.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Aaron Schechter, followed by Doug McDonald.

Hello, council.

My name is Aaron Schechter, and I'm a passionate Seattleite and walker.

In 2024, I crossed from Beacon Hill to Amy Tennis Center nearly every day.

And I would cross Rainier, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally.

When I choose to cross the street legally, it would cost me about six or seven minutes.

And when I crossed the street illegally, I would almost always have a crossing buddy.

And it was not safe.

And sometimes this person would be very elderly and couldn't walk very well, but still would choose to walk directly across Rainier over four and a half lanes of traffic.

And I would like to thank Seattle Department of Transportation for installing a crossing at College Street, right where I would cross.

And I would really request that I would be wider across Rainier.

This really matters.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Doug McDonald, followed by Jack Whistler.

Good morning.

I'm Doug McDonald.

I live in District 5. I passed up a piece of paper with two graphs on it.

The second is the extraordinary run-up of e-scooter injuries that have been revealed in the recent report of the Washington Traffic Safety Department.

2020 to 2023. And the most interesting piece of this is the revelation that only five or six percent of the scooter injuries in Seattle are caused by traffic collisions.

The rest are caused by falling off the vehicles.

The second graph indicates that in 2024, there were 20 total fatality and serious injury e-scooter injuries in Seattle.

Now, why do we know that?

We know that because those collisions are all recorded in the traffic collision reports that I receive from public disclosure requests from SDOT.

So my numbers and SDOT numbers should match since they're all from the same data.

The question of e-scooter safety is coming to a crisis in Seattle with hundreds and hundreds of people injured, which we know from Harborview.

And that's something that needs to be attended.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I know if my memory serves me correctly, you are a former Washington State Secretary of Transportation.

Yeah, Doug McDonald read a lot of your recommendations in your prior reports and incorporated many of those into the levy legislation that voters ultimately approved.

But we listened to public comment and appreciate it.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

Up now is Jack Westmer followed by Leonard Harrison Jerome.

My name is Jack Wisner.

I live in District 6. I agree with Doug McDonald.

I want to speak about the North 130th Street project, which is relevant to both of your agenda items today.

to add that on this e-scooter question, one safety issue is undisciplined parking.

They're too often blocking sidewalks, bus stops, curb ramps, and we need to figure that out.

It's just terrible clutter, and that's a safety issue.

With regard to North 130th Street, when SDOT made the presentation for the levee last year, they explained that there were about 27,000 average weekday trips, and I think that if we look at that traffic volume, it cannot be well handled by a three-lane profile.

We need to that's doing the right thing and have a four-lane profile.

If a three-lane profile is used, we'll have buses sitting in traffic.

We've experienced that already on Broadway, Pike Pine, Northeast 65th Street, and Roosevelt Way.

Thank you, Jack.

Thank you, sir.

Next up is Leonard Harris and Jerome, followed by Kathleen Dunn.

Good afternoon.

My name is Leonard Harrison Drome.

It's good to see you all again.

I'm here to speak in support of deferring to SDOT's expertise and their equitable funding formula they've developed for allocating resources within the transportation levy.

I recognize that being elected officials puts you in a tough spot.

I've been to constituency town halls, and I know there are a lot of people telling you to cut certain projects and double down on others.

However, we can sadly no longer afford to act without urgency.

The current presidential administration has made it no secret that he will withdraw federal funding from all projects in cities and states he doesn't like.

We need to get these projects in the ground as soon as possible before the money is no longer available.

We need only look at Sound Transit's ST3.

That central regional transportation package became mired time and time again in repeated studies and political deliberations.

These delays pushed the timeline into a Trump administration and now We don't even know if West Seattle is going to get light rail.

Again, I understand your position, but trust me, you do not want that political headache.

We simply cannot afford to repeat the same mistake with our current transportation projects.

I urge you to do what this presidential administration refuses to do and rely on expertise.

Move forward with these amazing transportation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Leonard.

Okay, next up, Kathleen Dunn, followed by the last in-person speaker, Kurt Nucitelli.

Hi, I'm Kathleen Dunn.

I live in West Seattle.

The major routes in and out for people walking and biking, Admiral Way, Fauntleroy Way, 35th Avenue Southwest, they're all designed like freeways for no apparent reason.

And people are speeding.

They're going 20 to 40 miles an hour, not just...

private drivers, but also city cars, buses, they're all going way over the speed limit.

I'm biking along in an unprotected bike lane or on a road like that, and I just tense up and feel like everybody's out to kill me.

And when I switch to the sidewalk because I'm scared to ride on the street, the pedestrians are acting like I'm out to kill them.

It's not fair to them, it's not fair to us.

People are crashing in cars all over West Seattle on Admiral Way, on the West Seattle Freeway and the Spokane Street Bridge, which are also designed like freeways.

We need to get some road diets.

There's no reason to have four lanes on Admiral Way.

There's no traffic jams there.

Thank you, ma'am.

Last in-person speaker, Kurt.

Morning.

Morning.

Good afternoon, Chair Zaka and the entire Transportation Committee.

I'm Curt Nicutelli, owner and president of Spirit Transport Systems and residing chair of the Washington Trucking Association Intermodal Council.

I've been doing business in Seattle Waterfront for almost 25 years and have handled the logistics of hundreds of thousands of containers over the course of my career.

Washington Trucking Association, or WTA, is a not-for-profit trade association representing over 600 member companies.

many of whom are small businesses.

I'm here today to speak to Item 2 on the Transportation Committee Agenda, Vision Zero Action Plan of Reducing Trucker-Pedestrian Conflicts.

Unfortunately, the proposed changes of Vision Zero Action are in conflict with our shared goal of safety.

Many of the routes that will be impacted by this proposal are designated heavy haul corridors.

Movement through these corridors and surrounding areas is critical to freight mobility.

Efficiency is synonymous with safety.

Thousands of truck access these corridors.

With the access comes a tremendous amount of responsibility that is both mandated and inherited in driving through a semi-truck.

I'm asking that the City Council consider the bill that's coming due for a vote on full council March 18th.

I just asked the committee to maintain existing pedestrian protections that are clearly

Thank you, Kurt.

Thank you, sir.

We will now go to the remote speakers.

Reminder that when you're called to hit star six, first speaker is Carlo Alcantara, followed by Lynn Drake.

You're up, Carlo.

Hi, my name is Carlo.

I'm calling on behalf of the Aurora Reimagine Coalition.

I first wanted to thank and acknowledge the hard work that the Vision Zero team has put into making our streets safer.

Their efforts and progress do make a difference on our streets, and I see it and I feel it every day when I walk to the bus stop, I hop on my bike to commute, or even when I'm driving through the city.

Aurora Avenue North continues to be one of the most dangerous streets in our city, and it's in dire need of safety improvements for people walking, biking, rolling, and even driving.

According to U.S.

DOT data, 42,000 people were killed on U.S. roadways alone in 2023, and that number is expected to go up to be higher in 2024. To put it into perspective, we as the U.S. lost about 47,000 combatants in the Vietnam War, and we're losing about that many people per year just on our roadways.

We really need to do our part to expedite our Vision Zero projects.

My request is for the Committee to expedite these and the Vision Zero team, specifically on our most dangerous roads like Aurora.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Next up is Lynn Drake, followed by Lisa McCrummon.

Hi, good morning.

This is Lynn Drake.

I live in Alki Beach.

And I want to highlight one of the successes of a Vision Zero project, which is our Alki Point Healthy Street.

It's more popular than ever.

We recently met with Council Member Saka to review the survey results.

Last Saturday, we had almost record crowds, people enjoying the street.

It's been a huge calming effect.

We really want to thank SDOT for making all the big changes necessary so we can share the road with vehicles, scooters, bikers.

In retrospect, we've been working on this project in the neighborhood for 11 years and promoting it.

And we'd like to see these kind of things done as a successful project faster for other parts of Alkai Beach and the rest of Seattle.

Thank you so much.

Okay, next up, Lisa McCrummon and Max Baker.

Lisa, you're on, hit that star six.

Lisa, star six, we'll come back to you.

Okay.

We will do, next up, we'll do Max Baker.

Hello, my name is Max Baker and I live in West Seattle.

I'm here today because sales vision zero commitment isn't moving fast enough and the consequences are real here.

The Elridge Way was recently rebuilt for Rapid Ride, yet the city didn't install any marked crosswalks between Southwest Hudson and Southwest Oregon, nearly half a mile with no safe crossings.

The new cafe is opening at one of these unmarked intersections, yet how are people supposed to cross safely to access it?

This is dangerous.

Multiple pedestrians and cyclists have been killed in our area, most notably Rob Mason near the Westfield Bridge in 2023, Just weeks ago, a person was hospitalized crossing Del Ridge at Southwest Dakota, an unmarked crossing where curb ramps make it seem safe, but there are no signs or markings to warn drivers.

Worse, there are no marked crossings between Southwest and over at Southwest Genesee at all, nearly a full quarter mile.

Vision Zero is supposed to prevent challenges.

Improvements need to be made before lives are lost, not after.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Are you on?

Remember to hit star six.

Okay.

Okay.

We'll give it one more time.

Last speaker other than Lisa, David Haynes.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

The only way Vision Zero is going to be successful is when we have pedestrian-friendly, resident-centric neighborhoods that are walkable with fresh air.

Seattle is a modern, third-world, car-centric inner city where most everyone lives on the side of the road rage, and the only developments are based on being extremely close to transit-oriented noise pollutions and air pollutions with no real noise abatement and air abatement to offset the negative side effects.

The main problem with transportation at the moment is public safety, not fair enforcement.

Yet bus drivers see something and don't say something when they drive down third Avenue that ignore societal implosion.

Get mayor gets a pass from council when he claims if you environmentally manipulate design of neighborhood, it's going to call all the safety concerns at 12th and Jackson or elsewhere.

The mayor claims taking away bus stops instead of trespassing, jailing, criminal, junkie, thieves and Joe pushers.

is going to solve the problem, yet all it does is harm innocent law-abiding residents.

We need counsel to make a law that any contractor who gets the jobs building sidewalks has to agree to have two full shifts of properly paid workers to expedite the desperate need.

Thank you, David.

Okay, last speaker.

We'll try Lisa one more time.

Lisa, you're on.

Remember to hit star six.

That's it for public health.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

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

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

Agenda item one, proposed SDOT 2025 levy delivery plan.

All right.

Thank you.

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

Once ready, please introduce yourselves and then begin your presentations.

Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the 2025 levy delivery plan.

This detailed plan represents a critical step forward in ensuring that we deliver our commitment to the people of Seattle.

Today is a month since I transitioned from the mayor office and to Estat and your partnership has been very meaningful.

Chair, as you've stated, this levy is unique as we are injecting the district concept and it's only enriched our delivery plan and a commitment and our collaboration with you all.

So we're very excited to get it going.

Through the levy budget proviso, you asked us for review and collaboration on the delivery plan before it was final.

That put us on the path of developing a work plan with an unprecedented amount of details.

And we appreciate the time that you and your staff took to review and co-collaborate with us.

As we look ahead, one of our key objective is working collaboratively again with council to lift the 89 million lift proviso that's on the levy fund.

Doing so will empower us to get the ground to get it going and do so well to implement the projects that are exciting, impactful work that are outlined in 2025. I'm very confident that we collectively will be in partnership to get this going and look forward to your collaboration again.

So let me introduce my senior deputy director to share with you the details on the 2025 work plan.

Great.

Good morning, council chair, vice chair, and council members.

Happy to be here with you today to present this.

It is our first annual plan for the projects that SDOT plans to work on planning, designing, and constructing in the next year.

We're really grateful for the voter support for this effort.

We took it really seriously as an agency.

The trust instilled in us by the voters when they voted so overwhelmingly to support this levy, So we have been working on being ready for this day ever since we passed this off to the clerk and so that we could demonstrate in good faith that we wanted to start strong on this levy.

It's a result of also many years of good planning, thinking and community engagement.

We are able to bring this detailed plan to you because we are leaning into the community commentary, feedback, and engagement from the Seattle transportation plan, the climate plan, the transportation equity plan, and much more.

So we're really pleased to be able to call from all of those voices and working with you in order to bring this detailed plan to you.

It's founded in some very strong engagement and community voices.

As Director Emery said, this is a very detailed plan identifying over 400 projects or project locations where SDOT will be working in the coming year.

It identifies planning for large and transformative projects, as well as the local improvements that keep our city moving every single day in maintenance and operations.

The plan also describes a general prioritization approach.

We didn't just deliver a spreadsheet, we wanted to provide a little bit of context.

So the levy delivery plan provides context about how we pick projects, how we deliver projects, and some of the ways in which the normal processes play out.

So today we'll provide you a little bit of overview.

As you know, this process kicks off when we start collecting funds that started at the beginning of the year.

This time next year, we will also have the levy oversight committee.

Really excited that we are making strides towards getting that group seated in partnership with the council and the mayor's office.

And that body will be a key partner in developing the future levy delivery plans.

We are also, as I mentioned, getting going on some large projects, but I want to continually come back to the fact that also the levy plays an important role in our maintenance, and so there are some things that started on day one.

There are things like funding the Transportation Operations Center 24-7, There is regular maintenance shim and bevel work on sidewalks and pothole filling that is funded by the levee that started on day one.

But I want to also flag that there are some things going to be happening in 2032. As we know from this levee that we're working on right now, we met the commitment that SDOP made to have our major construction projects in contract in 2024. And we do have some really exciting projects in construction now, like the Rapid Ride J project, the Route 40 project, and many others.

So it is both an immediate and a long-term effort.

And so we are excited to be able to be working diligently now and also past 2032. So just highlighting some of the themes in this levy, it really does reflect the top priorities in the 2025 delivery plan.

Vision Zero is really our North Star.

We'll talk more about it later today.

It is woven of what the levy is presenting in the levee delivery plan.

We have a combination of proactive safety measures on the high injury network, as well as large transformative projects advancing through planning like the Aurora Avenue North project.

We're also scoping new sidewalks and sidewalk alternatives.

We've had two excellent walks with community in the Pinehurst and Northgate neighborhoods, working with community to prioritize the sidewalk segments that would mean the most to them in the near term.

We've also started the contracting process to jumpstart work on bridge studies and design.

We wanna have a lot of that work.

In addition to moving forward on our bridge work, we wanna also have some of our design work in hand as we lift up the transportation funding task force to provide additional insight into our bridge maintenance needs.

We're also investing funds in our downtown activation, some exciting projects that we wanna deliver pre-FIFA, but also have lasting and enduring value post-FIFA for the community.

We're also designing and launching new levy programs, co-creating safety projects with neighborhoods, working on EV charging installation, and much more.

So diving into a couple of specifics, although really there's no substitute for going through the long list and seeing all the good things that are spread throughout the city, but we're excited to get going on the 130th Street project in advance of the light rail station opening.

We were very cognizant of wanting to sync that up.

so that it's available to community when the light rail station opens.

We've got 38 safe routes to school projects in construction.

We've got cleaning and inspection work on the bridges going as part of our proactive bridge maintenance program, inspecting and cleaning so we can get a better sense of their condition and what else is needed.

as well as many transit spot improvements to improve passenger access to and comfort at bus stops in complement to some of the transit safety and security issues that we've discussed previously with you.

Others that you may not see but just know that they're underway is the design for the mechanical and electrical work on bridges as well as initiating some other major projects.

One of the things we'll talk about at the end is sort of the time it takes to do some of our huge projects on paving.

But we also have many things on paving that are going on right now, including panel replacements throughout our neighborhoods, making sure that we're addressing some of the deteriorating paving conditions throughout the city.

We are starting on design on the East Marginal Way project, Pinehurst and Roosevelt, larger AAC projects.

We are getting going on bike sweeping and improved bike lane barriers and the people, streets, and public spaces projects, including things like complementing the overhead lighting that just went in on 3rd Avenue with some additional work outside Benaroya Hall and starting construction on the Fortson Square project on 2nd Avenue Extension.

Next.

One of the things to just keep in mind in the organizing principle that you'll see in the levy delivery plan are these 11 categories.

They are the way in which we're going to organize some data going forward.

We'll propose with the LOC that we organize some of our delivery as well as our financial tracking in these categories.

Um, so this is sort of a, let's get used to them moment.

We will be seeing them a lot.

Um, but they're helpful and that they sync up nicely with the commitments made in the levy.

So the levy delivery plan is also organized according to these.

Uh, one note is that funds not spent in this year will carry forward because these are capital and that applies whether it is a maintenance budget or not, right?

Anything that 24 seven, for example, TOC funding, uh, that will still also carry over.

Next.

A moment on project selection.

So I've mentioned that we leaned heavily on community-driven planning processes, but just a little bit sort of double-clicking into some of that detail.

One of the key things that is within all of those is our core values and emphasis on multi-mobility and moving people in all modes, vehicular, non-vehicular, and with safety at our forefront.

And we also want to make sure that we're finding projects where a lot of people can benefit.

We're getting a good ROI on the projects that benefit multiple modes and multiple people with one improvement.

We want to make sure that we're looking at the whole of the city, not leaving any part of the city behind, so making sure we've got good distribution of the work, as well as being optimal and sort of opportunistic in our timing, right?

We want to make sure that when a street is being touched, for example, by our partners at SPU or SCL, we take that opportunity to do work with them as well so that the adjacent public is disturbed once and not twice.

Um, so we're also looking at the timing of the project so that we can partner with our, with our other capital agencies.

Um, we also have a focus on, uh, equity and our ability to co-create with community, um, and have incorporated some of the council member priorities and working with you over the last couple of months have incorporated some of the council member priorities in the list in the levy delivery plan.

So my second to last slide here is just sort of recapping some of the large project processes.

One of the things to keep in mind is we're getting going on some really large planning efforts right now.

A lot of our arterial asphalt and concrete projects go through a complete streets planning process.

And so what we're embarking on now, we will take through a community engagement and design process later this year and into next year.

That will then translate into final design packages and PS&E and bid packages.

We'll work with our partners in the centralized capital contracting in the city to put them out to bid.

And we will probably start to see construction on some of these larger ones in 20, later 26 into early 27. And I say that just to say that there's reasons for some of these timelines, right?

We want to make sure that we're engaging with community at the front end, getting feedback and incorporating any changes we can make in a holistic way.

and then making sure that that bid package is ready to go so that we're out working with contractors proactively and productively.

And last but not least, I just wanted to say thank you for hearing from us.

We look forward to continuing to work with you.

We are looking forward to continue to work with the LOC and working with you to get them seated and also lifting the proviso and thank you so much for hearing from us and we look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you.

I guess first off, I note that I wanna recognize and welcome our colleague, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you so much for joining.

I know these issues are very important to you in your office, so thank you for prioritizing joining us today and welcome.

And thank you again, presenters, Director Emory and team.

Colleagues, this time I'll open it up for questions, comments.

Anyone have any questions or comments?

Yes, I hear.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Rivera.

No, no, go ahead.

You're on the committee.

I'm not, Sue.

I was waiting to see if anyone else had questions.

It doesn't matter.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Director Emery and the team for being here, and Mr. Chauff from Central Staff, of course.

I really appreciate it.

I also want to thank all the public commenters.

I do have the letter that was provided by Mr. McDonald.

or fact sheet, I guess.

And I also appreciate the public comment from the Washington Trucking Association.

I think that gentleman has left.

I appreciate the points that he was making.

Just to piggyback off this, just to play off the...

Actually, I will save this one for the next presentation.

so you can't leave yet.

I wanted to thank you for the focus on bridges.

My understanding is that the warranty on the Magnolia Bridge has expired as of December 31st, 2024, and I wanted to confirm, I'm assuming it is, but I wanted to confirm Magnolia in terms of the 25 plan, the Magnolia Bridge.

Is that part of that bullet?

We have analytical work going on to support future decision-making on the Magnolia Bridge, yes.

Okay, because that's very important.

You know, it's come up not just the Magnolia Bridge, but actually the Dravis Bridges and the Emerson Bridges is really important as part of the comprehensive plan discussion because there's assumption, you know, transportation and land use need to be kind of partnering together.

It's kind of like public safety and human services.

And so that's of great concern or great interest for me, not just from a straight-stick transportation piece.

I also want to thank, since I'm on the borderlands between D7 and D6, I really appreciate the work on the Ballard Bridge, but not just Ballard Bridge, but on both sides.

I think that's really important work.

So thank you for that.

You go into Vision Zero, we'll talk about that later.

I was gonna mention a piece on that.

I also wanted to say, too, thank you.

This may not be part of what you were intending in terms of street maintenance and the like, but I really appreciate the proactive work of SDOT related to street maintenance for Pike Place.

We have a lot of great work being done there, and then separately, of course, as Chair knows, it was pulled out of Seattle Transportation Plan, but working with SDOT, Also, Pike Place PDA executive director and stakeholders.

We'll have that meeting in April.

We'll figure out the way ahead and get a comprehensive, everybody included, including Chief Scoggins, who may be out there.

You've got to make sure SFDs, the fire is out there, too, because as you noted, you can't back up rigs up the hill.

And so I just wanted to highlight that in early April that will happen and I think that's going to be important.

So the work that you're doing on the maintenance side too is really appreciated because I think it was something that once this is done, everybody will see the difference and appreciate the work that's been done related to Pike Place and pedestrian safety and safety across the board.

I also appreciate the highlight for the FIFA World Cup and downtown activation, so important.

I don't think a lot of people appreciate what FIFA World Cup is going to mean in terms of the number of people.

We've talked about this, Chair, with the PSRC Transportation Policy Board.

This is a regional piece.

This was something when I was down in Olympia last week or the week before.

They didn't realize, everybody down there thinks the FIFA World Cup is just a Seattle thing, and it's not.

you know, from hotels, as I noticed, some countries, their press corps can fill up Seattle's hotels.

So our hotels from SeaTac, maybe all the way down to Olympia and up to the north and on the other side are going to be filled, and it's going to be major pieces, fan zones across the state against the folks down in Olympia didn't really have a true appreciation of this, not to mention, you know, a match with the U.S. men's national team on Juneteenth, and then also won a match during Pride Week.

I think those are really important points for, for everybody to understand and prepare for.

And so I thank you for the work in terms of preparation for that World Cup because the eyes of the world will be on us.

And downtown activation is key for the city, obviously D7.

I'm appreciative of this.

Third Avenue needs the attention.

I do like the lighting.

I do like the idea of the symphony block.

I always say in my visits to like Ben Royal Hall or the symphony in that, wouldn't it be great on either end of Ben Royal Hall at the intersection on Third Avenue that the crosswalks look like keyboard keys?

Just a thought.

Just a thought.

Director Emmy, I like the response.

I like the response.

Thank you.

That's it, Chair.

Thank you very much.

I want to hand down the high note, so thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Rank?

Go ahead.

Well, thank you for today's presentation.

Certainly want to make sure that we, I'm looking forward to being able to lift this proviso and get projects online quickly.

I know I mentioned often in this committee that I'm car free and that's a decision by choice, but I bring this up so often because I joined the 20% of Seattle households who do not own vehicles.

And this includes people living with disabilities who are four times more likely to not drive and people who can't afford to drive.

So while I know my decision is by choice, I know it's not everybody's choice and in the cards for everyone in our city.

And that is why I'm so excited to make sure that we're getting these dollars out the door and these projects going because many of these households rely on the projects that will be funded through this levy.

And to that end, also representing citywide I'm particularly supportive of the prioritization process that SDOT has laid out, particularly to make sure that we have equitable distribution of our projects happening citywide, especially in areas of the city that have been underinvested in and continue to face safety challenges on the streets due to, again, traffic safety and other components that I'm sure we'll be hearing about in our next presentation as well.

But my question for today is a little bit if we could color some of the contracting process for some of these projects.

And I was taking a look at the transportation levy document, I believe it's R, the annual delivery plan document And I know there's a number of projects noted in there that are going to be starting construction this year.

And so I was curious, have contractors been selected, if not, particularly contractors for some of the construction projects, have they been selected?

If not, how are we going about awarding those contracts?

And how did the selection of these contracts fall under the city's PLA or CWA?

Good questions.

So most of the work in here that is listed as going into construction either had some tentacle that was pre-funded by another effort.

So it's the levy funding is just moving that into construction.

But I would say the majority of things are listed in construction will be delivered by SDOT crews.

We have an incredibly talented crews that cover a lot of trades.

and can do pretty great work within the contracting thresholds.

So a lot of it will be crew delivered.

Some of it will be done through a creative process called the unit price contracting, which is we're working with contractors.

We do a competitive bid process where they have a limited scope of work and can compete to be essentially on a bench.

of contractors that we can use up to a certain dollar value.

And it's usually sort of a known scope of work.

So let's say a particular segment of a paving, right?

That is something we can ask them to competitively bid for this dimensioning.

this type of depth, they would submit a competitive bid and then they can sit on a bench.

And then as we need that work site specific, we can say, we now have a site at this location.

Would you like to do it?

So some of the construction is done through that unit price contracting.

When it comes to the large public works projects, SDOT works closely with FAS, the central contracting.

They run all of the competitive large contracted capital for all of the city.

So we work through all of their rules and regulations as it relates to bid packaging, bid selection processes, advertising, noticing, and ultimate selection.

So they do lead us and we follow their rules and regulations.

Wonderful.

So to be clear, to get more information about perhaps some of the opportunities and like the project labor agreement process, we would need to talk to FIS about that.

Yes, correct.

They mean, yeah, they have on team staff that deal with those.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

And my final question is, what do you need from this council to be most successful in delivering this plan?

I know a lot of community engagement went into developing this plan.

There was a huge effort to really talk to our neighbors to make sure that we passed this plan.

And so what do you need from us to be successful in delivering it?

That's a wonderful question.

Thank you.

Thank you for offering.

Um, we have really enjoyed the partnership in the conversations we've been having, um, your continued awareness of the projects, um, in your districts, but also citywide and, um, productive input and engagement towards, uh, helping us get insights from community and also, um, help people be aware.

Um, some of it is also, you know, it's a challenge to compete with a world that is full of information and full of ways to reach people.

And so, So just your help and partnership to help.

We want people to be aware of the work we're doing.

We want to help them be, you know, certainly well notified.

And so your partnership there is also really helpful.

So thank you.

And the one thing I want to add, it is going to be a challenging time.

Regionally, we have mega projects that are going on.

Our levy touches on mega projects as well.

We need to be very intentional on how we phase and sequence those phases so we can minimize the impact to our community.

So mitigation, when we think about that, we need to be very strategic.

So we need to shift certain projects to be phased in a different way.

It is through that lens.

So we will continue to collaborate with you all.

as we navigate this space, look at maybe a three-year look ahead, not just exclusive to SDOT projects, but regional impact that are coming our way, and how we can sequence those projects and be very intentional about reducing the impact to our community overall.

Council members, Calvin Chow with Council Central Staff.

I just wanted to just put out there that we have this annual delivery plan.

It was a requirement that you put in the companion resolution to the levy to have one every year by January 31st.

This first year during budget, you put the proviso on because we didn't have as much detailed information for the first year for startup as we might have hoped that we, you know, we had the levy commitments, but we didn't have a spending plan that came along with the budget.

So just all wish to keep in mind that we are getting at another budget this year proposal, and the hope is that as we get more staffing, program managers and project leads established, we will have more detail for what the plans for the next year will be with budget as well.

And then hopefully we will just be able to, with the Levy Oversight Committee, be able to track more of the project delivery going forward.

So hopefully that this sort of level of scrutiny is important, but that we'll have more information to get into the future budget.

Fantastic.

Thank you for that.

Certainly looking forward to these projects coming online so we can further connect our neighborhoods across the city.

Thank you.

And thank you, chair.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And council member Rivera, go ahead, please.

Thank you, chair.

And thank you for being here.

Thank you chair for letting me sit in on your committee.

You're right.

These are issues that are really important to the folks that I represent and the D four.

I have some questions about these slides on slide five, launching new levy programs.

Can you talk about what those programs are?

Certainly can.

Let me grab the slide.

So I'll start with one of the new programs was around electric vehicle charging.

So there is an investment to work with our partner departments, parks and community centers, libraries to find ways that we can use city land to increase community access to charging stations if they can't charge at home.

So that is a big one, sort of figuring out how to lift that up, build that partnership.

Sorry, what else?

Neighborhood initiated safety partnership program is another big one.

What are some of the structures through which we can have staff and systems to have non transactional engagement with community members being present where they're showing up and having a continuous level of awareness, but also allowing their priorities to filter up through SDOT and be recorded and remembered so that as we're moving through maintenance and regular work that we can also sort of be informed by that community wisdom.

And that may sound simple, but that's like sort of wonderfully transformative and complex.

I'm particularly excited about that, that like, There are so many ways for SDOT to get input and having a system by which we can hold that and then also call it in our day-to-day work because SDOT has tons.

We talk a lot about our capital work, but a ton of what we do is operations and maintenance.

And to the extent that we can leverage our day-to-day work when we're just going out and doing regular maintenance and continuing to advance community input, that is particularly exciting, I think, as something that we're doing.

Um, and on that neighborhood initiated program.

So both these programs are, uh, you'll be working this year, I assume to stand them up and figure out what they look like.

And then I assume that neighborhood initiated piece is going to be across all the districts.

Um, great.

Thank you.

So looking forward to more is another one.

I just want to mention district fund is a new concept that we've added to this levy, which you will have great participation and shaping it together.

Great.

I look forward to hearing at a later date once these get stood up and what that will look like and how we can help plug in our constituents into these programs because as you all know there's some constituents that are more active in each of the districts on these issues and we want to make sure that they have an opportunity to engage.

because that's what they want to do.

So we want to make sure that that opportunity is there in a robust way.

On page eight, can you talk a little bit about the good governance and equitable implementation initiative, this investment?

And then I noticed the council district fund investment.

It's a eight year appropriation.

It says 4 million in the first year, 2 million is allocated.

So is it 2 million then for the remainder of the seven years or can you talk a little bit about this piece?

I will start with good governance and might need you to repeat the second question, but I'll start with good governance.

So that is a portion that is covering the work to advance the transportation funding task force is within good governance.

There's a couple of components.

So there's a couple of components to it.

It's on the page 34 of the levy delivery plan.

So we've got supporting the standing up of the transportation funding task force so that we can meet the timelines of that delivery.

We have a commitment in the work to bring back on a sort of specific timeline for future decision making.

I believe it's 2026, although I don't have memorized.

It is also funding to help provide resourcing to the Levy Oversight Committee for auditing services that they may want.

So it's essentially a sort of resource that they can avail themselves of if they need to.

That was particularly requested by members of the council and was folded into the levy delivery plan.

And also property tax relief outreach and education.

So there was also a desire to make sure that people who are able to exempt themselves from the levy are able are aware of their ability to do so if they want to.

Great, thank you, Francesca.

And can you tell me, remind us all, this Transportation Funding Task Force, how is that different from the Levy Oversight Committee?

Because those are two separate bodies.

They are absolutely right.

So Levy Oversight Committee will run the entirety of the levy.

They have a primary role to be overseeing kind of the expenditures and making sure that it's in alignment with the voter intent.

The Transportation Funding Task Force will be a purpose-built committee that will sunset then when their work is done.

They will more likely be in a two-year time frame.

and their role is to be looking at the long-term funding sources and a funding strategy for some of our bigger assets like sidewalks, paving, and bridges.

We know that we have big maintenance and asset needs there.

They're tricky problems, and this is a sort of think tank to help us figure out some strategies and make some recommendations.

Great.

Thank you, Francesca.

And then the Council District Fund was my other question.

So it looks like it's a $4 million investment over the eight years.

For 2025, it's a $2 million investment, so it's half of that.

original investment.

And so is it then, Cal, you look like you're one answer.

Yes, if I could jump in.

Sure.

So just as a reminder, the district fund was originally a proposal in the mayor's proposal for the levy, but did not make it through to the levy proposal that went to voters.

In the budget last year, with other revenues that became available, council directed $7 million each year for the next two years for a new council district fund, sort of resurrecting this concept.

It included $2 million of redirected levy dollars and $5 million of other dollars, which I can't at the moment recall what they were at this point.

But it was sort of bringing it back online.

Beyond that, it's front-loaded.

So there might be opportunity in future budgets if we can look for other opportunities to expand that.

But the proposal in the budget was for the next two years.

Thank you, Cal.

And I just wanted to make it very clear for constituents who might be watching that this is a investment that council put in, but it is a very limited investment.

It was meant to make sure that we could get district specific projects done.

I think the chair for his leadership on this, um, and I very much supported it and continue to support it.

And it is a very small investment.

So, um, want to continue the conversation about this particular fund and how we can make sure that as SDOT is delivering on this levy, we are having robust investment across the city so that constituents can see changes in their neighborhoods and in their part of the city.

and that is something that's really obviously important to me and those of us that represent districts that are district specific.

Council Member Strauss, I'm looking at you because you're nodding.

I know you're a good advocate for your district, so you know what I mean.

Okay, and then I had one last question, Chair, if that's okay.

Yeah, absolutely, go ahead.

Okay, on page nine.

um, the project selection, the community co-creation opportunity.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Um, cause again, I have, I'm very focused on making sure that our constituents get to participate in these processes.

If there is an opportunity, for co-creation and I've already identified for a bill aboard some projects that constituents would like to see in our district and I want to make sure that that there's an opportunity to get those projects as part of the conversation here and how do we make sure that folks understand because I'll be honest and it doesn't should come as no surprise folks in the districts and across the city are not always necessarily feeling like SDOT is hearing them I know you have a prioritization plan.

I understand why we have some certain number of funds.

And at the same time, we want to make sure that folks understand what it is.

The transparency piece is so critical because that's really how you get to show your work and you get to show constituents why it is that that particular project they would like to do is not going to happen in the timetable they would like, et cetera.

And I think that we can all do better work at the city in general.

The bureaucracy can do a better job on the transparency piece.

And I'm very interested in making sure that at least the constituents that I represent are engaged and understand the work that SDOT is doing.

So that's why I'm asking about this particular co-creation opportunity and how SDOT envisions this is going to play out.

Yeah.

No, very well said council member.

Um, the need is great.

And so prioritization is essential.

Um, and, and articulating that prioritization is, is really important as well because, um, yeah, and having a good foundation using data whenever we can as well as is, is crucial.

So community co-creation actually is an opportunity to talk about another one of the new programs that I didn't touch on earlier.

So people's streets and public spaces is a great example of community co-creation opportunity.

This is a fund where we have the ability to work with community to create spaces that either address an issue in the neighborhood.

If there's a desire for a community gathering space, for example, a small plaza or an amenity that would be meaningful to make a space more useful for someone, whether it's lighting a block from a bus stop or lighting in a space where otherwise people could spend a little bit of time in our darker hours of the year.

It's our ability to have non-transactional engagement with folks that does help support the ability to say, okay, we have now heard in our conversations with you, we're hearing a theme and a prioritization within this district around this lighting issue.

And that we now have the ability through People's Streets and Public Spaces to say, you know, we don't have a ton of money, but we do have enough money to put in a couple of lights here that would help make this space work better.

So it's sort of, it's intertwined with creating spaces where we can hear community through programs like People's Streets and Public Spaces, Neighborhood Initiated Safety Partnership Program.

So the neighborhood greenway program and home zones are historic examples of where SDOT has sought to create spaces to hear from community.

You know, hearing from residents, where are your non-arterial pathways through your neighborhood and how can we work with you do sort of light touch insertions to make that pathway work for you and feel safer.

Home zones, again, another sort of engagement with community where we recognizing that people are concerned about cut through traffic and or other speeding issues where we can work with community and say, okay, let's do a walk in your neighborhood and understand sort of the...

And find ways to address it in a systematic way.

So we are looking for those opportunities to be with community and find ways that our programs can support those voices.

And how will this actually play out?

I mean, I'm thinking of two projects in my district alone on Sandpoint Way that I've talked to Interim Director Emery about in terms of the speed racing and doing some traffic mitigation.

And I'm thinking of a lighting project near the light rail station at Roosevelt where it's the under the I-5, you know, that underpass and it's very dark and people don't feel safe.

And, you know, how do we get these kinds of projects to the attention of SDOT?

And I imagine when you say lighting, I think city light.

So how do you work with your partner, you know, your sister department on these type of efforts and how can we, as council members who talk to constituents across the city get this information to you all to make sure that these things are being addressed.

So this speaks, you know, I think you're identifying and maybe this is, we can tie this a little bit with a council district fund.

One of the ways that this can work is by having spaces to hear from community and look at how projects and then to touch on your, the commentary and prioritization, a community issue can be taken into SDOT.

We can look at it relative to the prioritization of different programs, right?

So, for example, Vision Zero will prioritize based on crash data and exposure data and injury data.

And we can articulate that back to community and say, you know, we looked through our prioritization criteria.

We can articulate what they were and say, you know, yes, this actually does sync up with prioritization criteria, and we can program it for installation at this time in the future.

In a case where we look at it, we go, unfortunately, this is a meritorious project, but it doesn't actually sync up with our prioritization criteria.

That is an opportunity where we can work with the council districts and say, is this something that you would like to have as part of your council district fund, right?

It is all part of this ability to lift up a process by which we do evaluate according to criteria.

And then if it doesn't rank, now there is an opportunity through the council district fund for it to potentially have another pathway.

And I just want to mention a few things.

I understand SDOT has a reputation with not being responsive.

but this is a high priority for me.

Responsiveness, transparency, being data-driven, creating a timeline, walking people through what our expectation is, how it prioritizes, That is super important to me and that you'll see a difference as we move forward.

We do have funding opportunity within the community that allows us to kind of co-create solution.

I'm a firm believer our community is a great input to, they are users to the infrastructure of what we create and build, right?

So voices from community is very important because that's a reflection of How did our investment, how does it work?

They're navigating the space, right?

So this particular thing is a high priority for the department, and we're setting the framework to create that responsiveness and transparency process.

Thank you, Interim Director Emory.

I really appreciate what you're saying.

I want to also say that they're users and they're also the taxpayers that fund these projects.

So we want to make sure that folks are feeling like the city's being responsive.

I will say, you know, I would love to be engaged with you all if, you know, where appropriate to make sure that constituents feel like they are a part of the process or that they're able to get, you know, some of these projects done.

I will say that in the past, I'm a data person, I'm a math person, and so that speaks to me.

I do think that sometimes SDOT will tell constituents they will send their engineers out and kind of count Or they'll look, this is a better example of how many accidents have occurred somewhere and say, well, not that many accidents have actually occurred there, so that's not a priority.

And the folks are living there, so they're in a better situation to say how bad something is.

And it just becomes a challenge for constituents to hear from SDOT, well, not enough accidents have occurred there, so we're not going to.

prioritize that.

There's got to be something that we can do to address the safety concerns that constituents are raising, even though perhaps there might not be the level of accidents that you would need to see to do a major project.

There's got to be some mitigation efforts because there's got to be a recognition that the constituents who live there are feeling this and are feeling unsafe and are some of the intersections almost about to get hit by a car.

So just because the accident hasn't actually happened doesn't mean it's not waiting to happen.

So some of that, I just want to make sure that SDOT is partnering better with community that way so that the response back isn't just some data point that really doesn't get to what they're experiencing every day because they live there.

And so thank you interim director for your piece about it is a priority for you to do that community engagement robustly because that is something that is very much needed across the city.

And also, I would like to ask formally, I'd love to see a list of projects for this year for the district, district-specific projects, so we're able to share the information with constituents, and then we're able to track progress on those projects.

And I'm not sure that's something we've had in the past from Estat, like a list of projects.

Maybe we have, but I didn't see one for last year, my first year on here, so would love to see that as well.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for allowing me the time to ask all my questions.

All good.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Sacca, Interim Director Emory, Bill, Francisca, and Cal.

Great to see you all.

Chair, I would move that we get the interim move from Director Emory's title.

I say that because today's conversation is one that you and Francisca and others have shepherded through this process since last June or earlier.

The two of you, Bill, both Megan's, and others have been You have been that rock, that steady rock in a stormy sea, both good and bad over the last year.

And that's why I am feeling a new level of trust with SDOT today than I've felt for the past few months.

So to the executive team, thank you.

I wish that, and I will go back and watch on Seattle Channel, to see how many times the word, the two combo words, detailed plan, were uttered this morning.

it was probably in the hundreds and it wasn't enough because you really have gone above and beyond past practice to include the amount of information both in this and what we'll get to tomorrow with Appendix A. This can be challenging at times because when we put this amount of information out there, it can sometimes feel like there are expectations.

I'll go through a couple of examples later on in my conversation here.

What I'm saying here is that we will say we'll do a project.

It may turn out that that project hits a snag.

It's not able to go forward.

We pivot and we move forward.

In the past SDOT has held more information back to be able to make those decisions and it is really healthy for this conversation to happen in public.

Just because it's an item in this list or just because an item is not in this list does not necessarily mean that it will or will not happen.

This gives us a really solid conversation starting point for this year.

And doing this year over year is going to be very helpful.

I want to also thank Councilmember Saka for his partnership in advancing accountability and working expeditiously to have this report in his committee.

As he mentioned, this briefing responds to both the accountability provision that was included in the levy that Seattleites voted on and the mega proviso that was placed on SDOT's budget in November.

I believe that this was the first time a proviso of its size was ever used on a department, and it is different because it resulted in the transmitted last September, including the current law budget, meaning that the budget was written as if the transportation levy didn't pass.

Lucky for Seattle, it passed.

And so this briefing also colleagues is serving as part of my unofficial two meeting rule for passing legislation.

It is important that we use this tool of a mega proviso to ensure the fall budget process isn't avoided by the current law budget last year that was originally proposed and that once the accountability work is complete, we move swiftly to release the proviso to ensure unintended consequences of delay are avoided.

So this is what we're doing today and tomorrow, and I really appreciate the amount of detailed work that you've provided.

As I mentioned, tomorrow we'll dig deeper into that plan, specifically Appendance A, which is also attached to this agenda item, the delivery plan for 2025. There will also be information about that continuing accountability and oversight work that both the chair and Council Member Rivera referred to.

I'd like to just jump into a couple topics of focus for the city and my district.

In my counting, I've got 18 bridges in my district.

That does not include the former Armory Street or the 21st Avenue bridge that no longer exists.

And yes, I did include the Magnolia Bridge, Dravis Bridge and Emerson overpass in my district.

I'm sorry, Bob, but I can't keep my eyes off of it.

And yes, that number of 18 does include two overpasses over interstates as well as the pedestrian overpass of the train tracks.

I'll just count them out right now.

We've got bridge number four crossing the Ship Canal We have the Ballard, also the Leary overpass.

We have Fremont Bridge, Aurora Bridge, the 61st overpass of the Aurora Bridge.

45th, 50th, and 65th overpasses and underpasses of I-5.

There is a bridge at the Woodland Park Zoo.

We've got the Fort Street Bridge.

We've got the Emerson Bridge, as well as the Howe Street Bridge.

I already mentioned the pedestrian.

bridge across the train tracks at the former Heron Rookery that has moved to the locks, as well as the 58th overpass over the train tracks.

I say this because the amount of deferred maintenance that can occur for this many structures can happen pretty quickly.

And it is essential that we keep our bridges structurally sound and that we don't cut ourselves off.

I know that we've had a lot of conversations of do we just seismically retrofit the Ballard Bridge or do we extend a pedestrian pathway on one side of that bridge?

Because right now, two pedestrians crossing can't pass each other without sliding to the side.

And if there's a fast moving truck, they could, their clothing could get whipped up by that truck.

So we're talking a lot about safety here.

And so I just want to recognize again, back to my point that just because an item is on this list doesn't mean it won't change.

And just because an item is not on this list doesn't mean we won't advocate for it.

It might not make it on this year's list, but that means it'll get to next year's list.

I have heard just an immense request across our city for safe crossings.

You'll hear, I'll get into this in a little bit more.

Understanding what and how neighborhoods want safety is really critical to me.

I know that I've had the conversations with both Megan's about 83rd Street, the ramps versus circles, the traffic circles.

There's some planned ramps for I believe 21st, or 22nd or Jones, sorry, I don't have that specificity here.

The response to me was this is neighborhood requested.

It did not also include the fact that neighborhoods have requested traffic circles on 21st or 18th, 19th and 20th.

Since not everyone has a map of what I'm talking about, between 19th and 24th, There are traffic circles at 21st, 22nd, and Jones, which is next to 24th.

That's in the flats.

That's where people used to speed.

What has occurred is that there are not roundabouts on either side of a little hill or at the top.

And so now people are speeding up and over that hill.

My worry here is that, yes, we deliver the resident requested curb ramp, while not attending to the request that they've been making to slow down speeds because in the last six months, one car was hit so hard that it was on its side.

And this is what I mean by our oversight and our engagement with you is it is true that the curb ramps are resident requested and probably greatly desired.

And what is the context for the rest of the neighborhoods This list also creates sections about planning that will not be delivered this year that I really appreciate.

As a smart man once said, proper planning prevents inefficient delivery.

Now, usually Bob doesn't say inefficient delivery at the end.

It's something a little bit more colorful and proper.

But I say that proper planning prevents inefficient delivery because I look at how are we just your conversation about how do we scale our contractors?

How do we scale our crews and how do we get them out there?

I look at, And that sometimes takes a lot of time.

Council member Rivera just mentioned that the request for engineers to go out and look and look and look.

I'll tell you, I gave up on the six way stops that were requested on 14th Avenue a couple of years back because I asked for a year over a year over a year.

And the answer always was the engineers are out there looking at it.

And then one day again, it was promised that it would be delivered.

And I just couldn't believe it.

I literally had given up and I went out there and sure enough, the paint was on the ground.

because the cruise schedule finally allowed for it to occur.

And for us up here, it feels as if nothing's happening when there's a lot of work happening in Seattle Municipal Tower and there's a lot of work happening at your crew stations to get that delivered.

I will say that we have to move faster on crosswalks, period.

Dan Rounds brought up a really good point today and I've got your letter, Dan, thank you.

Dan's experience, not in my district, is one that I see across our city.

We absolutely have to find a way to move faster because right now in this plan, thank you for including 51st and 53rd crosswalks across 8th.

This is not something that I can wait for until next year.

These are two crosswalks of a very busy street that has high speeds.

Speed's so high, cars are crashing into homes.

And Council Member Saka, you'll hear this, 49th and 8th is a location that I'm gonna request a speed camera because neighbors have requested a speed camera.

The importance of 51st and 53rd across 8th is that it connects the network.

These are missing crossings, if we're gonna use missing in infrastructure, the word missing in infrastructure.

51st and 53rd are the only missing links once the 15th Avenue have been made between 17th Avenue Greenway and the 6th Avenue Greenway.

It's a place where we're seeing that really high speed occur because we're changing from an industrial zone to a residential zone in pretty short order.

And so understanding proper planning prevents inefficient delivery as well as this plan sets us up for next year in some cases.

It's also really important to me that we get these crossings set, crosswalks being able to be delivered quickly.

Traffic circles, I won't bore you again with my story about my desire for traffic circles, only to say that there has been a resident requesting a traffic circle at 62nd and 2nd since Mike McGinn was our mayor.

If we can't do traffic circles, that's fine, what can we do?

I know, Bill, we've had this conversation so many times, I should make a record so we can just put it on and I can stop talking.

But these are the safety implements that residents are requesting.

We do have a lot to do to provide the built environment that our residents are requesting and to keep our economy moving.

I'm just gonna close out by thanking you, SDOT, for not missing a beat and doing great work so far.

Let's get this levy delivered.

Thank you chair.

All right.

Thank you.

Council member Shrouse.

Thank you colleagues.

Really appreciate the thoughtful, uh, Let's see, I guess, starting off with council member Strauss, appreciate one thing that you mentioned just now or a moment ago that really struck me was the, you mentioned quote, that these are conversation starting points and that's exactly what this is.

Folks, what we're talking about here are smaller scale neighborhood safety type projects.

that generally don't rise to the large, to the level of large scale capital improvement project.

Um, and that where there is at least $1 associated from the levy that are going to be funded to, to bring these to life.

And it's not an exhaustive exclusive list of all projects and what's possible this year.

Um, There are other non-levy ways to deliver projects and do other things, whether it's budget investments through the Vision Zero, other things that the department retains a lot of flexibility, a ton, to deliver upon any number of smaller scale neighborhood projects through various budget summary levels, BSLs and BCLs and all that fun stuff.

And we enhanced that ability of the department to do more through some of these new innovative new programs, including Neighborhood Initiated Safety Fund, the District Project Fund and others.

And ultimately, I think we all have a shared goal of keeping our neighbors and community safe, vis-a-vis these smaller scale neighborhood road safety type projects.

I think what it ultimately comes down to is who decides?

Who decides?

What projects, when, and where?

And that's the essence of democracy here.

I am personally an all of the above type person, and I make no apologies about that.

I think it makes a lot of sense when everyone gets a say.

So the department has a lot of, again, retains a lot of flexibility to make that determination based in large part, based off the framework that we've, the directional guidance and criteria that we set forth in the recently adopted Seattle transportation plan.

So they have a lot of flex, the department has a lot of flexibility based off of that.

There's also this new neighborhood initiated safety fund.

I share council member Rivera's focus on making sure we have a clear plan to figure out how that and the new district project fund or council district fund are going to be administered.

They're nascent right now.

It's not just to set expectations.

Our city is not in a position today to deliver upon that.

But we do need more parameters around what that will look like.

And I'm working with the department right now to do exactly that.

So I appreciate your partnership there.

But under the Neighborhood Initiated Safety Project, the department provided a very thoughtful uh, initial framework, but it's still need to put some meat around the bone, so to speak, uh, and do more work there along with other programs.

Um, but under that program, community should decide at a high level community decides and under our district project fund, we ultimately decide based off of The feedback that we get from our constituents and all of them are important and all of them need to work together ultimately to allow our city to do more.

Today, I don't think it's a lack of resourcing issue, and my commitment is to make sure it's not a lack of resourcing issue in terms of our underlying ability as a city to deliver upon some of these critical safety investments.

I do think it is more of a lack of capacity issue, and that's why SDOT is working hard to staff up to meet the moment.

because you need people and planners and engineers to build capacity and scale this work.

These are complex programs that we just funded.

Now we need to figure out what administration of those are going to look like.

The other point I want to make is, so under this levy, we did something that this voter approved levy, we did something very thoughtful that goes unnoticed, went unnoticed then.

And now with this new administration, I think it's more important.

So let me just call it out.

So in formulating the levy, I work closely with the mayor's office, the executive department here.

both on a pre-introduction proposed basis of the mayor's final executive proposed levy, and then, you know, throughout when we went through our deliberative process here on this floor and this council.

And one of the learnings from last, the expiring move Seattle levy was that there was a fair amount of leveraged assumptions, meaning, that funding to deliver these projects was conditioned upon receiving third-party funding from other sources, namely federal dollars.

So under the expiring levy, expired levy, I guess, there was a very ambitious set of assumptions, leveraged assumptions.

And again, that was a learning.

And I think that was one of the recommendations from the levy oversight committee, if I recall correctly, is to minimize those assumptions.

And we did exactly that.

I would rather as a city be in a position to under promise and over deliver than vice versa.

And so we made some very conservative leverage assumptions in this new levy as a result.

And I think my hope is, I think we're gonna start to see that That approach paid dividends given the current administration.

So leveraged assumptions of funding and the approach that we took a while ago, I think is gonna impact and enable our city to better deliver upon these great projects.

The other point I wanna make is, and I appreciate Council Member Rink's point of view And that, you know, that she is car free and that is excellent and we need, and I'm glad we have her voice and her perspective represented on this committee.

It is important one.

And, you know, also acknowledging that ultimately whatever your preferred mode of transportation, the end of the day, it's a choice.

It's a choice.

I'm an all the above guy, as I mentioned.

But regardless of whatever your preferred mode of transportation is, whether you choose to get around by bike, driving, transit, pedestrian, freight, we're all pedestrians at some point in our journey.

And we'll learn a little bit more about this as well in terms of the impact of Vision Zero and what that means.

But I took a trip to, a few weeks ago, I took a long weekend trip with my family to San Francisco.

And I was struck by, and San Francisco is the second most dense city in the country after New York.

Who would have thought a West Coast city would be the second most dense city in the country?

I was struck by, and I love the vibrant transit network there and took the BART and the Muni and the Caltrain and all the things, remote driverless vehicles, Waymo, it was fun.

My kids were a little weirded out by the autonomous Waymo though.

But in any event, as vibrant as their transit system is, I was struck by the fact that nearly every street, arterials and non arterials alike, on both sides of the road, there was parking, parking available on both sides of the street.

So again, highlights the importance of choice.

These modes are a choice.

And even in San Francisco, the second most dense city in our country, people still choose to drive and also, We rely on visitors to our city who choose to drive.

And we need visitors to our city to experience the wonders and joys of our beautiful city and contribute meaningfully to the economy and support our businesses.

The final point I'll make about this spending plan is just emphasizing what I mentioned earlier.

in terms of expressing my gratitude and appreciation to the department for their close partnership and collaboration in putting this together.

I, working with you all, were able to add one or two projects, I forget offhand, but one of them was 49th Avenue Southwest and Southwest Graham Street, that intersection.

And this is a small scale neighborhood safety project.

Community members were calling for better changes or improvements to this specific area in West Seattle.

They had visited me during office hours in West Seattle and had taken the time to show up at one of our transportation committee meetings, I think in September, early September.

and organized the neighborhood petition, submitted letters, just good old fashioned grassroots organizing at the neighborhood level.

And the department was already working with them to do something, if I recall correctly, daylighting that intersection was where the engineers landed on.

But I wanna thank the department for granting my requests to do more and figure out what else from an engineering perspective we could potentially do and making sure that resourcing wouldn't be an issue in terms of what else we can do.

Uh, but again, these neighborhood safety type of pro programs and projects, they matter.

They impact people's daily lives.

People care, uh, and This is really, really, really important work, some of the most important work that's done on a daily basis.

And there's a lot of people.

We have the leaders from SDOT here at the table today.

Thank you for joining us.

But there's so many people behind the scenes that are actually doing the work of planning and execution and delivery that I want to express my deep appreciation and gratitude for as well.

And yes, there's an opportunity to do better.

Make no mistake about it.

For all of us, by the way, myself included.

But that doesn't mean we are not grateful for the hard work and contributions of so many in the department.

So I wanna thank you all again.

All right, let's move on to our next item of business.

So thank you all for being here today.

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, achieving vision zero through the safe system approach.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And I think there's only one net new presenter here.

So welcome.

Please introduce yourselves.

Just introduce yourselves again for the record, everyone, if you wouldn't mind and begin your presentations when you're ready.

Okay.

NRM Director, Adyam Emery, SDOT.

Vinu Namani, Chief Transportation Safety Officer and City Traffic Engineer with SDOT.

Francisca Stephan, Deputy Director at SDOT.

Okay.

Before Vinu starts, I just want to kind of center.

Vision Zero is my why, that why I'm here.

I'm personally touched by this.

Spring of 2003 was when I lost my sister to a hit and run.

My Y drives, that's my North Star.

And Vision Zero touches, we can't afford to lose people like my sister, because I know the pain it feels.

So I just want to kind of center that.

And it's my drive and the department's priority, the highest priority for me.

So I just want to kind of pass it on to our chief safety officer, Venu, who's been helping us navigate implementation and heighten the program to be meaningful for all of us.

Thank you so much, Director Embree.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Chair Saka, Vice Chair Hollinsworth, and council members.

Again, I'm Vinan Imani.

Thank you for this opportunity to come talk to you about Safe Systems Approach and Vision Zero, achieving Vision Zero through Safe Systems Approach.

Before we get started, let me share or re-share our vision, mission, values, and goals.

Seattle is a thriving and equitable community powered by dependable transportation.

We are on a mission to deliver a transportation system that provides safe and affordable access to places and opportunities.

Our core values are equity, safety, mobility, sustainability, livability, and excellence.

I always like to start with this slide because it helps me ground of everything that we do here in Vision Zero and also kind of everything that we do in the department.

So in today's presentation, I'm going to touch upon the Safe Systems approach and how Vision Zero employs the Safe Systems approach to reach its goals.

and talk a little bit about the safe systems elements and the design hierarchy, and also go over some key Vision Zero design trends, touch upon the Vision Zero action plan, and also talk a little bit about the major 2025 actions that you're going to see in RCT.

But before I dive into the presentation, let me...

Let me take a moment to acknowledge the more than 1,800 people who have been severely injured on our streets since we adopted Vision Zero and over 250 people who have lost their lives on our streets.

Together, we hold the space for them.

Let's take a few moments of silence It's important to understand that these are people.

Somebody's lives have been completely changed.

These are our neighbors.

These are our friends.

These are our family members who have been profoundly impacted by cash crashes and collisions on our streets.

Together, let's collectively humanize our loss.

So talking about Vision Zero and approach to safety, traditionally, safety has been approached using the three E's, which were later kind of developed into the 5E model.

Basically, the E stands for Engineering Education Enforcement.

And there were kind of like some more ease added at the end, which were talking about encouragement and evaluation and emergency response.

And that has been a very traditional approach to solving safety problems on our streets.

Councilman Rivera, you were talking about how we use crashes to identify potential investment locations.

And that's kind of like part of the very traditional approach on how we have approached roadway safety.

But we are making a profound shift to the safe systems approach to broaden our focus and address safety from multiple angles.

So what is safe systems approach?

In 2022, US Department of Transportation has adopted a new paradigm to approach safety.

And this paradigm included approaching safety from multiple angles.

The whole goal is to reduce the likelihood of a crash on our streets, and when they do occur, reduce the harm a particular crash can do.

This Safe Systems approach has been successfully implemented in several countries internationally.

And I know of at least two jurisdictions that have adopted this approach and reached the Division Zero goals here in the United States.

So it is an achievable goal.

There are six guiding principles behind the safe systems approach.

The first one is death and serious injuries are unacceptable.

Humans make mistakes.

Humans are vulnerable.

Responsibility is shared among all the users of the system and the designers of the system.

safety is proactive, and redundancy is crucial.

These are the six guiding principles on which the Safe Systems approach is built upon.

And the Safe Systems approach has five elements that you see inside the circle that's represented there.

So these five elements are safer roads, safer streets, safer people, safer vehicles, and gross cash fare.

I do want to acknowledge that Washtar, in their Target Zero plan, adopted a sixth element called safer land use.

Even at the state level, they don't have a direct influence on land use, but they do want to acknowledge that land use has an integral part to play in the transportation system and its outcomes.

So let me talk a little bit about our Vision Zero action plan and how we have built our action plan on the model of the safe systems approach.

Now, this Vision Zero action plan that we have published in May of last year is basically our roadmap to reducing the number of collisions and fatalities and serious injuries on our streets going forward.

It establishes a proactive three-year strategy, which is completely based on safe systems approach, and identifies 20 broad strategies and over 80 specific actions that touches not just the Vision Zero program, but all departments, all divisions within the SDOT department and some of our interagency partners.

We have also built in kind of an annual tracking for seeing kind of like how we are doing on the action plan and the various acts identified.

So let's, in the framework of the Vision Zero Action Plan and the Safe Systems Approach, let's dive into some key elements and examine the strategies and the type of actions that we are taking.

So the first element that I want to talk about is safer streets.

Safer streets is basically the idea of designing streets that help mitigate human mistakes by designing and implementing self-enforcing streets that naturally elicit safer behaviors from all the road users, and thereby influencing the number and severity of crashes.

I want to touch upon some key strategies that we have included within the safer streets.

One is to integrate safety improvements into all capital projects in coordination with various partners within and outside of our department.

Advance responsive safety treatments at crash prone locations.

Accelerate investments in proactive prone safety investments, which I'll touch upon in just a little bit.

deliver on our Safe Streets and Roads for All project, develop an industrial-focused Vision Zero initiative that truly brings in both the safety elements and protects the viability of the industrial-focused areas within the city, and improve dedicated facilities for people walking, biking, and taking transit.

So what do various investments or projects look like under the safer streets paradigm?

So there are three examples that I'd like to point to.

The first one is leading pedestrian interval.

It's what we colloquially call a pedestrian head start at signals.

And we have been, it's probably one of the more mature strategies that we have employed here in the city.

And what we have seen is that they have some pretty significant impacts or effect on reducing crashes that we can point to on the results within our city here.

I'm happy to report that we have over 80% of our signals have this leading pedestrian interval incorporated into its timing, and we are diligently working on to expand it to almost all the signals within the city.

Another example is how we can re-envision corridors on a bigger scale.

A good example is our Northeast 65th Street corridor in the Roosevelt area that we have implemented a complete lane reconfiguration and have seen the crashes go down.

And another example kind of like within this paradigm would be implementing dedicated left-turn-facing at spot locations.

Right here kind of like outside of City Hall, not too far, 6th and James used to be one of the most crash-prone locations.

And we have implemented and predicted left-turn-facing that reduced crashes by our three-quarters at that intersection.

So all these various engineering interventions come together to make our streets safer for a variety of all road users.

Next slide.

So the next element that I want to talk about is safer speeds, and speeds have an enormous effect on crash outcomes the graph that you see on the right side of that slide shows how speeds and outcomes of a crash are correlated so strongly and as the speeds increase we have seen that the outcome of from severe outcomes of a collision injuries or death goes significantly higher.

The probability of those outcomes goes significantly higher with increase in speeds.

So what are we doing in terms of the safer speed strategy?

We are continuing to apply context and still solutions to right size the speed limits on our streets.

We are using traffic calming treatments and road reconfigurations to influence operating speeds that we see on these streets.

And we are exploring how to invest in traffic safety cameras equitably across the city.

These are some key strategies that we are following.

Next slide.

So as you all know, we have reduced speed limits on almost all of our arterials within the city to 25 miles an hour and posted and reduced non-arterial speed limits to 20 miles an hour.

We can point to our own data that shows that this change in just the speed limit, which is contrary to the well-established knowledge within the transportation industry, that changing just the speed limits would not have any impact.

But nationally, people are pointing to Seattle's example and saying that they do have an impact on the overall speeds that we see on our streets.

They do contribute to lowering crashes within the city.

Another example is how we can reconfigure the street so that it does not appear to be kind of like this large facility that is primarily geared towards auto travel and how we can bring about the various elements of the street that cater to all the road users, people walking, biking, taking transit and not just being auto-centric.

And one such example is Rainier Ave, where we have seen in the Columbia City area that not only speeds have come down, but also crashes have come down in that area.

And we are definitely taking kind of like a very broad approach on arterial traffic calming.

We know that most of our speeding concerns are on arterial streets within the city.

what can we do kind of like within the toolbox of strategies that are available to us to broadly apply RTL traffic coming across the city to influence speeds.

So these two elements of safe systems, safer streets and safer streets are two elements where we at a start have an enormous influence on creating conditions for change and influencing change.

The other three elements that I'm going to talk about are where we as a department have an indirect influence on these streets and these strategies and outcomes.

One of that, the next element is safer vehicles.

As you all know, the size of our vehicles have grown significantly over the last couple of decades.

So...

Advocating for safer vehicles and safer vehicle design becomes kind of like an integral part of the safe systems approach and the vision to the strategy.

We here kind of in the city are piloting and installing several safety features like the one that you see on our trucks with the truck side guards to improve safety for people walking and biking.

And we're also kind of like exploring what we could do with intelligent speed assist, working with our fleet team within the city.

We're also kind of looking at opportunities to see where we can influence both agencies at the state level and at the federal level to reflect on the vehicle size, weight, and safety standards, as well as the new kind of vehicle, the autonomous vehicle that we all know is coming very soon to our streets.

Next slide.

So we'll see for people, sorry for that.

Safer people is kind of like the final element in the safe system strategy.

And traditionally, safer people focused on education, surrounding safer behaviors.

But what the element safer people within Vision Zero and within Safe Systems approach is talking about is to take a much broader approach.

It's also asking people who are designing, maintaining these transportation systems to take into account the needs of all road users when we are designing our projects.

We're obviously doing more and asking to do more with education and encouragement campaigns.

And also take a look at kind of like our own safety data to see how we can work with the community to implement community co-created projects and inform prioritization within our own department.

So with that, I'm sorry, there's one more element that I want to touch upon is the post-crash care.

Now, we know that when crashes do occur, it's very critical to get the emergency vehicles to get to the site of crash so that we can administer medical aid as quickly as possible.

Emergency vehicle and emergency vehicle response plays an integral role, and that is identified in the safe systems approach as the post-crash care layer of protection.

And within this, we have several key strategies.

One is to implement signal technology for emergency vehicles to improve response times.

In a recently concluded project within the U District, we have explored something called Green Wave, where we can identify emergency vehicles within the system and prioritize traffic signal indications for those.

We are talking to our partners in the Seattle Fire Department to see how we can take their CAD system and incorporate that into the overall signal system so that it doesn't matter where the emergency vehicle response is.

We know where those vehicles are and we can always prioritize our signal, prioritization signal indications to enable that emergency vehicle to reach their destination sooner.

We're also working with SFD to basically kind of expand data collection.

Today kind of like primarily our trash data comes from the police department, but we are also looking to see what opportunities exist to get data, maybe not in as much detail as we would get from a traffic collision report that comes from a police department, but from SFD on where they are responding to what kind of incidents they are responding and trying to look at where we can get more robust data to inform some of our program prioritizations and choice of investments.

So based on this safe systems philosophy, what we have developed is a four-tier system on how we are looking at various roadway safety issues.

At the very top, we are always in tier one, always our efforts are towards removing that severe conflict that we see within our street network.

And just below that is where we are working to influence speeds and thus influence safer behaviors on our street.

And below that, in that design hierarchy, is how we are managing our conflicts on our street system, both in terms of our time and space within our roadway network.

And really kind of like the last level of protection that we are kind of like seeing is how we can work to increase attention and attentiveness of a particular kind of situation on a street.

So this is kind of like the safe system design hierarchy that we are employing to approach various safety concerns that we are seeing on our streets.

So let me start to pivot towards a little bit away from the safe systems approach and the various strategies that we are employing.

and talk to you about some key trends that we are seeing, both at the national level and at the local level.

So, road safety is a national issue today.

When compared to other developed countries, we as a country has done really poorly in terms of outcomes when it relates to traffic fatalities that we see on our roadway system.

The chart on the right side of the slide you see basically looks at the average number of fatalities between 2018 and 2022 in some of our peer cities.

If you see that Seattle is doing relatively better in terms of the number of fatalities from our peer cities, it's nothing to be really proud of.

Until that green bar goes all the way down to zero, we still have more work.

We still have important work to do to improve safety outcomes within our city.

So here's kind of like a little bit of a deeper dive into the collision trends that we are seeing.

We start these graphs in 2015 because that's the year that we have employed the Vision Zero, taken kind of like the Vision Zero goal and adopted the Vision Zero goal.

And unfortunately, the number of lives lost on our streets are still pointing upwards.

In this graph, we have included our 2024 data, which we just finished compiling.

And I want to caution you to take it with a grain of salt because that's still very preliminary and we're still trying to understand and solidify that data working with our partners from SPD.

But one thing that I want to point out is that over the last few years, beginning 2021, we have seen fewer fatalities that include people walking on the streets.

We have seen no fatalities involving people biking on our streets in 2024, while that data might still be preliminary.

The one quite disheartening trend that we saw there last year was the number of motorcycle-related fatal collisions.

We have seen an abnormally high number of motor vehicle fatal collisions last year.

I believe there were seven fatalities that we saw on the streets, and one of the passengers on a motorcycle has also lost their life.

And the number of vehicular fatalities, we had about 12 fatal collisions last year.

Seven of them were drivers and the remaining five were passengers that were involved in these collisions.

When it comes to serious injury collisions, we have seen a drop in the serious injury collisions that we saw in 2024 compared to the previous years.

we got to learn a little bit deeper into that data and see and understand where those serious injuries are, what changed, and how we can further influence or continue those trends as they relate to serious injuries.

Next slide.

So here is another look at the impact of these people who have lost their lives, both from the perspective of people who are protected within the confines of a car or really sturdy material around them, and the vulnerable people who are people who are walking, biking, or taking transit, and we also included motorcycle collisions within that.

What you can see is that people who are vulnerable are more disproportionately impacted in these fatal collisions on our streets than those who are in cars.

And those trends you could see are still concerning, unless and all these things come all the way down to zero, we still have additional work to do to improve safety outcomes and in Vision Zero program.

Slide.

Here's a quick look at where these collisions are occurring.

The graph on the left shows by council district, the fatal and serious injury collisions between 2020 and 2024. And you can see most of these crashes are concentrated in the south end of our city.

And the graph on the right shows our high injury network.

It identifies those street segments that are seeing higher than average collisions on the street segments.

And again, you can see that some of how the south end is being reflected, especially Rainier Avenue on the south end pops up on multiple places, pretty predominantly on the chart.

And this Vision Zero High Injury Network is based on the data from 2018 to 2022. We compile data.

collision history that we have over a period of five years and then try to identify these high-engineering networks.

And we are constantly updating this data every year to update and see kind of like where our highest needs are based on the collision trends that we are seeing.

So let me kind of like give you a little bit more insight into how the Vision Zero program approaches safety and is making safety investments.

Now, I want to be kind of like really clear that this is very specific to the Vision Zero program.

And even though safety is embedded into every aspect of S-TART and everything that we do here in S-TART, but in Vision Zero program, we are approaching safety in in three ways.

One is what we call the responsive approach to safety.

This is basically using the historical collision data and crash data to inform our investment locations, be it in high collision locations or identified safety corridors on that high injury network map that I just showed you and trying to develop safety countermeasures for the various crash trends that we are seeing and investing in improvements that reverse those crash trends.

Now, in addition to this is a very traditional approach of safety, that's also part of what we do kind of like within the safe systems approach paradigm.

But here is where we are truly making a transformative step, which is the proactive approach to safety, where we are looking at proven safety countermeasures that are endorsed nationally and that are informed by local knowledge to identify these countermeasures and scale them across the city.

And our third approach is looking at partnerships, meet in various capital projects or the capital programs that are occurring across the city.

and trying to leverage those opportunities to incorporate various safety improvements and trying to bake safety in right from the get-go on these projects.

And here is also kind of like where our various grant projects come in, where we are taking, we're leveraging that that are available at the national level or at the federal level or at the state level to make our local dollars go longer in terms of investing in safety.

Next slide.

So what are these proven safety countermeasures?

So here's kind of like a list of safety countermeasures that FHWA endorsed based on proven research.

And they have, when they adopted the safe systems approach, they have also published this list of safety countermeasures that they are asking various jurisdictions to pursue in their own safety efforts.

Now, everything that you see in blue are those that are endorsed by the Federal Highway Administration, and the ones that you see in red are safety countermeasures that are endorsed by our local experience here in the city.

These are the put together, all these safety countermeasures are more geared towards an urban environment, a city such as ours.

There are a few others that the Federal Highway Administration have endorsed that more speak to a larger transportation system at the state level and at the national level.

Next slide.

So within this realm of proven safety countermeasures, what we are doing as part of our proactive approach to safety is to invest in these eight safety countermeasures and try to scale them across the city.

Thanks to the funding within the Seattle Transportation Levy, now we have a dedicated source to invest in these countermeasures that we know have have a proven safety record, leading pedestrian roles, dedicated left-turn facing at intersections, more enhanced pedestrian crossings or crosswalks and paired with appropriate crossing treatments, improving corridor and intersection lighting, installing no turn and red restrictions, expanding intersection daylighting where you clear sight lines at intersections, looking at how we can reconfigure roadways and rethink some of our arterial roadways and how we can accommodate all road users.

And finally, within the umbrella of arterial traffic calming, how we can influence the operating speeds that we see on the streets.

Next slide.

So we take kind of like all of those and now trying to invest in those locations within those ideas within the Vision Zero program.

But what are you going to see here in 2025?

The one thing that I would say is that we are starting strong within the Vision Zero program on the levy deliverables.

I'll go into those details in the next slide.

We are very fortunate to obligate the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant from the federal government just before the change of administration in D.C.

last year.

So now we have access to over $25 million of federal dollars and another $6 million of our local money to primarily invest in proven safety countermeasures in underserved areas.

90% of these projects are in underserved areas.

That is an enormous safety investment right there.

We are looking at automated traffic safety camera program to how to look at safety cameras.

We know that within the proven safety countermeasures, FHWA endorse them as a proven safety countermeasure to influence and reduce speeds and thus crashes.

And we are looking at how we can promote the safety camera program both from a safety perspective and also equitably and responsibly across the city.

The one thing that you would see is that we will be expanding the schools on camera program, doubling basically the schools on camera program, installing 35 cameras at 19 different locations near schools.

And finally, you are going to see investments in all those proven safety countermeasures that we are focusing on, be it the pedestrian headwalk signals or the leading pedestrian intervals, the protected left turn facing or enhanced crossings, and investing them at scale across the city.

So going back to kind of like our levy investments, I'm happy to report that thanks to the levy commitment, we are starting construction on a lot of projects that we are envisioned in the Vision Zero program.

Safety corridors, where we are promoting and installing safety countermeasures on high injury corridors, the two that would already have started construction on 138th Street last year and will complete construction this year and will start construction on the South Henderson Street project.

Both these two corridors are the second highest priority within our high injury network.

and have established safety needs.

In addition to that, we are planning and designing safety countermeasures on six additional safety corridors.

We want to keep that our livery deliverable is to invest in at least 12 safety corridors over the next eight years.

So we want to keep this process of getting at least one or two corridors into construction every year and keep that pipeline of construction projects on safety corridors going by simultaneously starting on planning and design on other projects that can be delivered every year during this levy.

We are going to be constructing artillery traffic coming on 10 different corridors.

This would involve not just installing speed cushions across the city, but we are taking into account various other strategies that we have at our disposal, narrowing travel lanes, looking at edge lines or parking lane lines, doing intersection daylighting, installing median islands, implementing radar speed feedback signs, and improving signage and markings on these corridors, et cetera, taking a very broad approach to arterial traffic calming across the city.

And we are also in construction at over a dozen high-collision locations.

Like Clockwork, Vision Zero program, every spring reviews the past year's data and identifies high-collision locations and identifies them where they are and then tries to develop spot improvements that can be designed and delivered the year after.

So we'll be starting construction on over a dozen of these high-collision locations.

We are tasked to implement more than about 50 high-collision location improvements over the life of the levee.

So this is an important deliverable for us.

And the final deliverable, which is to continue to implement leading pedestrian intervals at all feasible signals.

We have them at over 80% of our signals.

We are trying to work on the remaining few.

and get them at almost all the signals across the city.

So there is a lot of Levy work that's going on, and these projects that you see are going to be in construction this year.

We are talking beyond planning and beyond design, and we hope to kind of keep that construction projects going on every year throughout the life of the Levy.

So that's kind of like a very quick insight into how we are approaching Vision Zero from a safe systems element and how we are approaching various elements of safe systems approach into the various programs and how those projects are translating into a reality within the Vision Zero program.

Thank you so much, and I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Chief Safety Officer Benu.

Appreciate your...

your detailed presentation here.

It's important.

It's an important one, important topic.

And I appreciate the work of you and your team in helping to ensure people are safe, safer on our roads.

Clear we have a lot more progress to make, but I know there are people hard at work in the city at all levels committed to doing that work.

So thank you.

Colleagues, so I have a few questions, comments, but...

I wanna allow my colleagues to the opportunity to speak first.

So we'll go in order here.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

I will be brief.

I have a hard stop in 11 minutes and I'm cutting almost all of my comments.

So every, the example that I shared with you, Vanu, about how I had requested a guard rail, you proposed some new interventions intervention eventually did work.

We'll see if it's still sticking but I just share that colleagues because you know I've had requests SDOT's given me different options and it has worked out.

There's another location that hasn't worked out so well where I witnessed a neighbor last summer building a concrete wall so that cars would stop hitting their house.

All that to say that Crosswalks, stop signs, I've heard so many times in the past, and I'm saying that this is in the past, they could only be implemented if the data warranted it.

I hear this less, and I really, frankly, I never wanna hear this again, because when I hear that, data means collisions, injury, or death.

We need to implement interventions that prevent this data from ever being collected, and I see that from SDOT now.

I see that in the last year or two where the answer used to be no, and now it's, well, let's see how we do it, or you might have to wait until the things that are before you in the queue get through the queue.

And so that's an important and positive change.

The lives that are lost are unrealized potential.

The people that are permanently injured represent unrealized potential.

I would really be interested to see the data from 2005 to 2015. That's the 10 years before this work started to understand how, you know, the before-after conversation.

That's all I want to say right now, that just really focusing on that lives that are lost and permanent injuries are unrealized potential that we can never get back.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, well said.

And yeah, these are people's lives at stake.

And yeah, I couldn't agree more.

Ultimately, and you are a strong advocate and champion for your district and the city too, we can be both.

And from my perspective, all these delicate conversations in our new district system, it boils down to making sure we have the right treatment, at the right time, at the right location.

For me personally, I don't care about the right treatment.

I would defer substantially to you all and your wise expert judgment.

I've worked in tech and I'm familiar with, I have some technical chops, although I don't have an engineering degree, but you all, the engineers and experts, I don't care.

I elevate ideas from my constituents to you all.

You all make the final determination.

I do care about the location and time.

And that's what I want to, as we continue to work together and build and scale these new innovative programs that we launched.

That's the, what I personally would love the opportunity to have more directional bilateral conversation on, you know, the location and the timing of that investment, but you all the experts, but well said council member Strauss, You know, if a stop sign isn't appropriate for me, it's like, okay, then what is?

What can we do?

So in any event, let's see, I wanna fold in someone who hasn't spoken yet, Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll be super, super brief, because I know, some people have a hard stop.

Thank you, Mr. Namani.

I know Bill Labore's here.

Thank you, Francesca.

And I want to give a shout out to Deputy Director Maxi, who's in the audience as well, who's been great to work with.

And Director Emery, thank you.

And also thank you for being vulnerable and telling us about your North Star and your story.

I think it's really important for people I also know that we have the right advocates here always with Seattle Greenways.

I know Miss Rita is here, Cascade Bike Club.

Also, I do follow and see a lot of the stuff that The Urbanist is always tweeting and Ryan Packer about the accidents that happen in our, you know, just around the city.

And it's, I think it's important because it just, you know, keeps it in the front mind of like, hey, these accidents are happening.

And my first introduction to transportation, and a lot of people, their first introduction to government is usually through like parks, utilities, or transportation.

And the corner I lived on had 12 to 15 accidents.

And that was my, a year for like a long time.

And it was really, it was really great to get the support from SDOT with just like minimal changes to make that corner safer.

maybe one accident a year, just a little fender bender, but beforehand it was like massive car accidents.

And the changing of like the lights, brighter intersection, clearly marked crosswalks, turning signals, and improved signals on that intersection really made a significant difference for people's experiences.

There's, you know, school a couple blocks, a park.

And just seeing how that improved intersection is like, you know, what SDOT, what I see in the presentation for Vision Zero and how we need to improve a lot of the intersections in our city and what that looks like.

And also just making it safer for people to get around.

especially as we're becoming more of a walkable city for folks.

I'm gonna continue to advocate for the safety obviously in the Capitol Hill area.

I know we put a lot of signs that are no right turn, which are great and making pedestrian safety there a priority and so forth.

I just wanted to thank you all for your work you're doing.

I know that you all are the experts.

I'll continue to advocate from our district and hear a lot of the people just continue to elevate those concerns.

I also wanna highlight the importance of the continued maintenance of those projects as well.

And so thanking our maintenance team after the design goes in, after the first implementation of that, but continuing the maintenance of those.

And so really thank our design team as well, our maintenance team as well.

So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Those are my comments.

Thank you, Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Saka.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Mr. Namani, for your briefing.

I really appreciate it.

You know, often I say it's important to be present, be mindful, and be prepared.

Being present and being mindful are two different things.

You know, the briefing does that, and in that mind, as I was thinking about, that's one of my little sayings, is on your system design hierarchy, tier four, increase the tentative and awareness.

Being present and being mindful, I think, will help that.

And it's interesting because if you're doing that, then you're probably not going to be rushing.

So I'm using these a little bit different in terms of conflicts with time.

You know, it's these kinds of things that we need to do, and the briefing, And the safe system piece does that from, obviously, a different direction.

But it's good for all of us to find our links to this and, you know, how can we do better.

I also appreciate the post-cash crash care.

It's so important.

It kind of goes to the reason why there will be an amendment submitted for the comp plan to have a public safety element.

These are the things that we should be thinking about in terms of designing to ensure that the post-crash care can be, you know, to the best that it can be.

And so I thank you for doing that.

I also want to thank, separately along those lines, for SDOT's engagement with the fire department.

Because there has been issues over time related to, you know, the different pieces as it relates to what we're doing on our roads.

And I recognize from my going to the fire garage, for example, and with fire that they've they're engaging with SDOT to ensure that we can square the circles, put measures in place, but then also do so in a way that fire is not impacted as well.

So thank you for that.

That's feedback that I've received from folks like in the fire department.

I wanted to turn to bike lanes.

I'm always careful now talking about bike lanes, because like last year there was some, miscommunication there.

I'm really happy to see increased usage of it, and I also am very happy to see the scooters, the e-mobility types, which is, I think, the umbrella term, e-scooters.

Now we have different kinds, like, you know, kind of like a bike and so forth, because that means there's deconfliction with people on sidewalks, because I've heard many times.

And so I really appreciate the pieces on that.

And I also appreciate, in terms of the input, received from public comment, Mr. McDonald, on the point about e-mobility.

And part of this is data driven.

And as he noted in his public comment, the police reports you know, they basically have two pieces.

They have like pedestrians and basically old school bikers, you know, pedal bikes.

And there's really not a block for what we are now today.

And if we're going to do data right, it seems like we need to update our forms.

And that's a form to take the input that we got today.

I think that's an important piece.

And it goes back to some of the earlier slides about the data-driven pieces.

And, you know, the old saying, garbage in, garbage out.

If we're not getting good data in or refined data, capturing the e-mobility world, the scooters, all these bikes and so forth, I think that's important to do.

So I just wanted to lateral that kind of point that Mr. McDonald's raising because I think it is important and I think it's, periodically we need to update our forms to include SPD in terms of how they report these accidents that may occur between pedestrians or bikes and cars and the like.

I want to leverage that.

And also in terms of data, is there any specific research studies?

You know, I'm also looking at a point regarding a Harborview research study that was ongoing at one point.

Do we have, does SDOT have some research studies that look at these, you know, like third party coming in, maybe some academic institution and the like?

Thank you so much for those comments, Councilmember Kettle, and especially highlighting the e-scooters.

And I really appreciate you highlighting the data challenge as it relates to e-scooters.

You're very right that the current traffic collision report that is used across the state does not have a field to clearly identify any of the new mobility devices, be it e-scooters or otherwise.

So it is a challenge.

And I'm working with the state traffic engineer and his counterparts at the state patrol, who basically control how these standard forms that are used by police departments across the state look like, and trying to see how we can identify these collisions related to e-scooters and the like a lot better so that we can have good data to base our analysis and our recommendations on.

It's been kind of like a challenging manual process, right, where we have police collision reports.

We are having to actually manually read through and try to kind of like understand this.

And it's been kind of like a painstakingly slow process because of that.

I did kind of look at the Harborview study that they have published just this past December.

And they are using data on their side.

This is not the traffic collision report that we received from the police department, from the limited data that they have on their side to look at the e-collision, e-scooter collision locations.

And one of the big change within their system that they talk about in the report is that they now have a way to code and identify these separately on their systems on their side.

So that's why you have seen more number of these cases that go into the hospitals come up and be categorized as such.

We are taking that report because that's kind of like another data set for us to look at the eScooter-related collisions.

And we are working to understand these, wherever the limited data that we have, to understand these better.

But I do want to kind of like comment on a couple of things that we are doing on our side.

We are, as a department, working with the vendors to put out more sturdier e-scooters that have bigger tires, better shock absorbers to help with the experience on that.

We are working to limit the speed on those.

For any rider, if it's their first ride, their speed limit is capped at 8 miles an hour.

And if it is a subsequent ride, it's capped at 15 miles an hour across the city.

There are several slow zones, for example, near Seattle Center or Pike Place, where the speed is capped by these vendors at 8 miles an hour.

So we are working with them.

I know the vendors on various community events have passed out a number of helmets, over 13,000 helmets that were given out since the beginning of the program.

I believe the Harvard View study says that at least only one in three people were wearing helmets, or helmet usage is very low.

So we are working with them.

I know my program buys and distributes a lot of helmets.

or bicycle otherwise in the city.

And we're also kind of collaborating with them to put out better education programs on how to ride safely and how where to ride appropriately, right?

And we're doing kind of like all of these in collaboration with the vendors to promote a more safer rider experience.

And yes, kind of like it's a fact that we are seeing more e-scooter collisions, but I also kind of like want to juxtapose the fact But also that just from the shared mobility devices, we have seen over 5 million trips last year within the city.

The e-mobility devices, the shared devices are getting enormously popular.

And I'm only talking about the shared mobility side of e-scooters.

The escrowters that I know anecdotally are also very popular with personal choice.

And unfortunately, we don't have a really good data set to see what that trips are like across the city.

So the new mobility is a new way of getting around the city.

We are all trying to, it's getting enormously popular, right?

And we're all trying to understand how we can make that rider experience better and safer working with our partners both within and across outside of the department and our vendors to enhance that experience for our city residents.

Okay, thank you.

And I do appreciate that they're using the bike lanes more, which is great.

And I'm gonna leverage to discussing As you can probably imagine, council members talk to tons of people.

And my understanding in terms of the waterfront park, the SDOT remains on the streets and the different pieces, but the landscaping went to the waterfront.

There's security and different pieces have gone over.

But SDOT still has the roads and the bike lanes that go through that area.

Because I did meet with the previously mentioned Cascade Bicycle Club, and the waterfront looks absolutely beautiful.

The bike lanes look absolutely beautiful.

The new artwork, everything is beautiful.

But it was raised to me that the bike lanes, as they go from the terminal to basically the aquarium, it's not your standard low curb.

It's the...

the steel brackets for the landscaping and stuff, trees, brushes, the varying pieces.

And some of those look like they could, because they're steel and there's corners, that that is a potential risk that's not present in other bike lanes.

And I just wanted to ask about, well, I just wanted to raise it, you don't necessarily, but to raise it as a concern and if there's any mitigation things that can be done to When you have sharp corners on steel, it's very different if an e-bike or a regular bike or a scooter or whatever, that person goes into that, and that could be a problem.

So I just wanted to raise, and it's also a reflection of the engagement of community members to include the Cascade Bike Club on that.

Is that something that you were aware of or something?

No, I'm not aware of that issue, but I can thank you so much for the comment.

I'll work with our waterfront team to see what these locations are and what we could do going forward.

And the last point, Jared, I just want for director Amy, you made a great point about like ST3D.

You didn't say ST3, but non city, the mitigation with what we're doing.

I can imagine with all the you know, like Republican Street's going to be just, you know, up in the air for eight years, whatever it is that's going through uptown.

That's going to create frustration and probably create vision zero challenges.

So the mitigation piece, I just wanted to link the two briefs by highlighting that because there is a vision zero piece to the mitigation as it relates to what's going to be happening with ST3.

And I just want to say thank you and And Estat's always welcome to come to our District 7 Neighborhood Council if you want feedback on any pieces.

So thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you.

Council Member Rink.

Well, thank you, Chair.

And thank you all for this critically important presentation today.

And I just want to go back and highlight 1,850 people seriously injured.

And that means potentially life-altering and disabling injuries.

253 people killed.

And just in this past week, our community saw an additional loss with the death of Della Chen, a local director.

She marches in Chinatown.

I know community is trying to find ways to honor her life as well.

And I know personally, I want to express again my appreciation to Director Emery for sharing your story.

This past year, I had a friend pass away after a motorcycle accident on Lake City Way.

So these are real losses in our community.

and we need to be investing to be improving road safety across the board.

And so what really struck me, I know we're not alone in this challenge as exemplified on slide 18, but what really strikes me here is looking particularly how the US is faring against other countries as it relates to this matter.

When I see something like this, us particularly faring much more poorly, having more deaths on our roadways, I just wanna ask, What is it about the U.S. and our roadway policies?

What is the common knowledge?

Why is this chart the way that it is?

What is it that sets the U.S. apart?

Is this correlated to some component, or what is common knowledge right now in the transportation policy world as to why this chart looks the way it does?

Thank you for that question, Councilmember Renek.

So if you want me to broadly comment on why U.S. has lagged behind, I would say that probably kind of like the way we have designed our roadway systems, right?

Especially in the urban areas, right?

If you look at kind of like broadly about the crash trends across, you know, really kind of like at the top of the hierarchy, the interstate system, right?

So neither the interstate system nor at the bottom end of the spectrum, which is local roads, basically kind of like the ones that are in front of our homes, right?

You have kind of like a really huge number of crashes on either of those.

You have, but not as significant.

but it's kind of like this interim roadways that we have that basically take us between these two or help us kind of like move around within our own city, right, that are the economic lifeblood of our city that are really important for our mobility and our city streets.

I think kind of like that's where our designs have kind of like started to move.

And I think kind of like that is what the FHWA has recognized with the safe systems approach in trying to bring about how we design that system that's there in between our arterials kind of like basically are key roadways that basically move people and goods within the city.

And that's where they are trying to adopt what other countries have successfully done is to bring in the needs of all road users and trying to develop a system that speaks to the needs of all road users versus being mutually more purely focused on the mobility of cars or motorized vehicles.

I think personally, right, I think that's where kind of like we have had kind of like slightly diverging paths.

Some of these developed countries have been ahead of us in that game and we are now catching up with them.

And that's probably kind of like why I would say, I'd personally say that where the disparities lie.

Thank you for that.

It seems as though our history has shown us that we've invested, our transportation investments historically have really prioritized and valued personal convenience over a personal convenience for some over the safety of many.

And so I also want to draw on one of the maps here as well, just looking district by district.

I know we've had a lot of discussions about wanting to represent districts, but I want to acknowledge it.

District two, specifically and I know Councilmember Solomon not being a part of today's discussion so I want to uplift District 2 having the highest share of fatal and serious injury crashes by Council District and I think that needs to be particularly named given the lack of investment in solid transit transportation infrastructure I know I've had the personal challenge of trying to ride my bike down Rainier Ave, and it's a scary experience.

It's a very deeply, it feels very unsafe.

We need safer bike paths going through South Seattle.

So my question is how, and I wanna also appreciate that one of the identified plans to begin in construction here is on MLK Way in Seward Park, but wanna ask you all how we are continuing to prioritize projects that promote equity across the city for safe communities.

Yeah.

All of our investment decisions, we basically approach it from, hey, where is the safety need?

And what's the equity priority?

trying to invest in locations.

And we fully recognize the needs that we have in District 2, especially on Rainier and MLK corridors.

Now, on Rainier, we have been working diligently on a number of projects.

We are right now kind of like partnering with Washtart to improve the crossings at the Judkins Park light rail station.

We want to kind of like improve those crossings at the I-19 interchange ramps before the station comes online.

We have several, I don't know who mentioned, but there's a new signal at Rainier College and another one that we're building at Rainier and Grand.

We have Rainier bus lane project that are going to be coming in the phase three that's going to be coming in soon.

We have completed several different phases to prioritize transit on the corridor.

We have, in my team, we have a grant to improve crossing amenities at several crossing locations on Rainier that we are going to go into construction later this year.

We are collaborating with communities in the Rainier Beach area.

We have two projects that we are planning to start.

One is from Seward Park to the South City line.

We have had communities who reached out to us expressing a lot of concerns with speeding and collisions on that stretch.

And we are working with them to co-create a project and install safety improvements.

We have, while we are doing that, we were investing in small things that we could complete, such as trimming vegetations, updating signs and markings.

We had done some last year.

We are going to do more in spring this year.

We have a number of projects within the Rainier Beach area, the South Henderson Street, PBL project, the safety corridor that's going to get into construction is also in D2.

So it has been a really huge focus, not only from a responsive approach to safety, but also from a proactive approach to safety.

We are trying to see what more we could do in this area that has some pretty significant safety needs.

And just to add, just at a 500 foot level, the levy is informed by three prongs, so the Seattle Transportation Plan, an equity framework, and then the climate.

Equity is a lens that we look at throughout any of our investments and how we respond.

We're going to continue to keep that lens as we think about the underserved community, which for decades that they've not had infrastructure to promote safety.

So we're going to be very intentional as we deliver our programs and our projects.

Thank you for that.

And my last question is just thinking about, you know, there's been a lot of discussion about the stability of our transportation funding, particularly as it relates to the fluctuations happening at the federal level.

Is any of this work, particularly on Vision Zero, potentially compromised by loss in federal funding?

Could there be something upcoming that we should be mindful of?

I'm happy to jump in.

We did a fair amount of thinking about our federal look ahead as part of the levy, and Vision Zero is fortunate in that it's not totally reliant on levy funds, and those funds are definitely secure, and you have a lot of influence on them.

As it relates to outside sort of leveraged funds, we have been looking, we continue, we have a very proactive approach to assessing where we can be competitive regardless of fluctuations in political climate and other things like that.

When we developed a levy, we did very intentionally do a look ahead that considered the potential for disruption.

So we have not relied on planned projects.

For example, in our 2025 work plan, we're not reliant on, on sources that we, we think will be falling out or leverage that will be falling out.

We do also work with partners quite a bit, and we're in basically constant conversation with them about their relative funding sources.

So at this point, we are cognizant of the fluctuation, but not reliant on it for things that we've disclosed and shown that we're going to be delivering.

Fabulous.

And I misspoke.

I have one more question.

I'm sorry, Chair.

And it's related to what you just raised, our work with our partners on this work.

So how are you all collaborating with King County Metro as well as Sound Transit when we're talking about creating, addressing some of the safety challenges that may be around specific transit stops?

I think we were here, when was it, two weeks ago, talking about investments, that personal safety element.

But we work very well in terms of infrastructure building, crosswalks that need to be implemented, bus stop stations that need to be implemented.

So we have a very strong partnership with King County Metro and Sound Transit.

There's investment with transit spot improvement that would continue to advance this in the levy as well.

So we look forward to any and all enhancement, both at a personal safety level from a security, but also infrastructure and in the right of way.

Fabulous.

Thank you so much.

And thank you, Chair.

No worries.

Thank you.

And I want to, so I'll close this out here.

Quick shout out to Rodney Maxey, who is in the audience as well.

Yeah, thank you.

He looks after one of the bells of the ball within the department that I care about the most, amongst other things, roads and pavement conditions and manages things that I originally learned about.

And your, and I'm looking at the former Washington State Secretary of our Department of Transportation, your reports and recommendations to the Levy Oversight Committee and Council last spring.

He helps manage asset sustainability ratio, the pavement condition index, the composite score, and helping us make better progress on those.

And so I appreciate that work.

Quickly here, can you go to slide 23, please?

Proven safety countermeasures.

And for clarity, that is, unless you say otherwise, I take that to mean the federally approved under the safe systems approach, proven countermeasures.

Can you pull up that slide, please?

23, 23. That says proven safety countermeasures.

There it is, all right.

And I note that that is not an exclusive list of countermeasures, is that correct?

No, it's not an all-encompassing list.

It is.

Yeah, yeah.

Notably excluded from this list is enforcement cameras.

And there is only 20 or so, 20 plus items on this list, the federally approved countermeasures that work, proven to work.

It's in there.

Is it?

The last icon, yeah.

below walkways on the right side.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We have not forgotten that.

Thank you.

I guess my broader point remains, there's not, so thank you.

I missed that.

It's my bad, mea culpa.

But that is not an exhaustive list of, and how many is there?

45?

There's 40 something.

How many is there?

You mean safety cameras?

Yeah, proven safety countermeasures.

Today we have, I think, about 35 or so of school zone speed location safety cameras.

Oh, no, no, no.

I wasn't referring to the number of speed cameras, but just like generally, how many proven safety countermeasures under the safety systems approach are there?

I would say probably over a dozen and a half, but not all of them are applicable in the urban context.

Some of them are variable speed limits on freeways.

In Seattle, there's five that we'll be implementing.

So correct me if I'm wrong.

School safety, red light camera, lane restriction, block the box, and then speed enforcement camera will be the new one that we'll be adding.

Yeah, no, yeah, thank you for the, wasn't referring specifically to the enforcement camera aspect, but all good, thank you.

Helpful nonetheless.

In the interest of time, can you move to slide 21, the where are crashes occurring slide?

Yes, and as, and thank you Council Member Rink for calling that out, 21%.

Council Member Solomon's district two is today the worst off, but I note that this is a brand new slide.

that reflects that's inclusive of 2024 data.

And I also note that last year, the same time before 24 data was included, my council district, district one was worse off.

The exact numbers was 22. And then the next closest was district two at 19. And so there's this year there's clearly been with the addition of 24 data included in the four year rollup, There's been some significant events that have significantly shifted the scales in the other direction.

I don't wanna, this is a dubious distinction.

This is a dubious stat, but at a high level, it's very clear the South end is bearing the brunt of, including my district, bearing the brunt of the opportunity that we have here to do more, to keep people safe on our roads.

And so just wanted to name that as well, important distinction.

And, oh, all good.

We'll continue to iterate offline, but I just wanna say thank you again, Director Emery and your team here.

Appreciate you and your partnership.

These are very important topics I also want to acknowledge and say thank you for sharing your story and your journey on why this work is so powerful and impactful for you.

And I know many of my colleagues have their own stories, Council Member Rank and Council Member Strauss, and we all are impacted by this work, our progress in this specific area as it pertains to Vision Zero or lack thereof.

And these are people, these are human beings, lives at stake.

And I also wanna take a moment to acknowledge Rita Holzman, who was in the audience.

Thank you so much for being here.

Rita is a champion and advocate and is the reason why there are so many great Vision Zero investments that were included in the voter approved levy to begin with.

because Rita's late husband, Steve, was tragically killed on her roads in West Seattle in December of 23, right before I took office.

So these are people.

People.

People's lives are at stake.

And by the way, in the levy, there's also, among the many exciting investments, there is a Memorial Honorary bike lane in West Seattle to be built in Steve's honor.

And Rita, I'll just say there's a lot going on from a citywide perspective, but I will be working with the department to make sure over the eight year life cycle of that levy, we get that planned for at least on the front end, the first four years rather than one of the last kind of gating items, it's an important project.

In any event, all right, well, thank you all.

Everyone, appreciate you everyone for being here today.

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

Our next meeting is March 18th at 9.30 a.m.

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

Hearing and seeing none, we are adjourned.

It is 12.26 p.m.

Bye.