Seattle City Council Briefing 10/7/19

Good morning.

Thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled briefing on October 7th, 2019. We are going to, let's see, do I have approval of the minutes?

We are joined by Council Members Bagshaw and Juarez, and if there's no objection, we'll approve today's agenda and we'll approve the minutes from the last meeting.

Hearing no objection, both items are approved.

I'm gonna dispense with the president's report.

I'll probably say a few things when we go around the table and talk about full council actions but why don't we jump right into our state legislative update with our team here.

So come forward and reintroduce yourselves, I should say.

Good morning, Lily Wilson-Kodega, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Karen Cargill, State Relations.

We tried to get her to come up here.

Because we have seven slides.

Split it up over three people.

All the requests.

And we are before you today with an update on our timeline as we move through the process of identifying the city's legislative priorities for the 2020 legislative session.

For just some broader context, this year we are moving into a supplemental year.

and the legislature makes changes to their biennial operating capital and transportation budgets that they passed last year.

And we will also update you on some significant leadership shifts in the House since we last briefed you that Karen will elaborate on in her presentation today.

While automated enforcement authority for bus lane violations and intersection blocking, eliminating the state's preemption of municipal authority to regulate rent and firearms, as well as eliminating the death penalty in statute will remain top priorities for the coming year.

The council did make significant headway in the areas of housing and homelessness, particularly with Representative Robinson's local option bond bill, a host of tenant protections that the mayor signed into law last Friday, as well as many achievements in the gun responsibility and criminal justice space.

Many of these gains were made with several stakeholder organizations and other municipal partners.

And I wanted to recognize, in particular, the work of Ana Zievarts from Rooted in Rights and Disability Rights Washington for her work on automated enforcement, as well as Mayor Wheeler of Bremerton, Mayor Roome, and Councilmember McAuliffe of the Bothell City Council, Councilmember Matthew Heppner, and Council Member Burke, Mum, and Beggs in Spokane for their partnership in advancing an expansion of the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship that we'll be able to take advantage of.

We appreciate the council's hard work and engagement last session and through the interim, developing those stakeholder relationships as they will be critical to advancing the city's agenda in 2020, and particularly those of you who have made multiple trips to Eastern Washington to represent us on the Association of Washington Cities Board.

and I believe for some upcoming meetings with some ranking members of the Transportation Committee.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Karen Cargill for a preview of the 2020 legislative session.

not used to having slides for you guys.

Okay, so we just wanted to sit down with you in anticipation of our agenda process starting.

As Lily mentioned earlier, we are about to head into, well, about three months away from heading into the 60-day session.

So this is a short session.

As Lily mentioned, this is going to be for a Supplemental Budget Year.

So it starts on January 13th and will go for 60 days.

There will be a new House Speaker.

The Speaker Emeritus Frank Chopp has stepped down from that role and is currently being held by John Lovick.

And in late July, the House Democrats have nominated Representative Lori Jenkins.

She still needs to go through a formal process and be voted on by the whole House, and that will happen in January.

But she is looking to be our new next speaker at the House.

The Senate and the House have also been meeting for committee assembly days.

The House had an early session in September, and then both the Senate and the House will have additional assembly days the week before Thanksgiving.

Committee has some, yeah.

A quick question.

So with Representative Jenkins, can we reach out to her now?

Is it useful to be able to say hello, congratulations?

Oh, absolutely.

And these are the things we're interested in.

I don't want to get ahead of the game if...

I think, yeah, we've been working to find some time to sit down with her, just so she can, you know, making a transition from a speaker from the Seattle area, Representative Jenkins from the 27th, which is Tacoma, making sure that there's some awareness of what our issues are.

And we've been working with a couple different council members on getting a meeting set up.

Great.

Because one of the, and I know this is going to be long term and we won't be able to touch it this short session, but it might be a good issue to raise, is the former Tacoma mayor, in Maryland, Strickland, had talked with me last year about creating a multi-county, Sound Transit-like process to be able to fund more housing rapidly across a three or four county area, if you count Kitsap as well, and it would provide regional authority, funding authority, to be able to identify people to be sitting on that.

Of course, we're working on our regional governance right now.

I think it's parallel, but I'd love to be able to identify her and introduce her to the concept.

Thank you, I'm happy to reach out to your office and we can work on finding some time.

You're not laughing at my good friend, Council Member Mosqueda, are you?

Am I?

There was some chuckling going on.

As someone who was recently in that position, I am certainly not.

Okay, so we just wanted to highlight a couple.

2019 was a really big year.

The legislature was very successful in a lot of areas and in a lot of our priorities.

Lily touched on quite a few of these and I won't go into a lot of the detail because I know that you've heard about these endlessly.

The local option bond bill, that was a really big deal and we Thank you for your quick action on the council for moving 1406 along on the city side, tenant protections, eviction reform.

The housing trust fund was also moved up from 107 million to 175. We saw a lot of wins in the safety net and civil rights area, LGBTQ commission creation, Keep Washington Working Act, I-1000, which we know has some going to the ballot, but amazing to see the legislature take action last session.

Public safety, a lot on gun responsibility happened this year.

There was the funding for rape kit testing, and we also were able to get the DNA fix that Council Member Gonzales had been working on.

Education, really big for the Washington College grant that was the BNO surcharge that was put on to be able to fund and make these programs available to a much wider group.

The city was also successful in being able to secure the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship Match for any municipal dollars that were being put forward that would fit within their targeted group.

And there was a lot of advancements on the early learning access.

Healthcare, we saw the tobacco 21 that went through.

Vaccinations, especially with the MMR and the requirements for removing the personal exemption for the MMR and affordable care protections.

So I think that the legislature now and the different caucuses are trying to figure out what they're going to be putting forward next.

There was a lot of things that have been in the pipeline, both environmental, housing, gun responsibility, and they were able to clear quite a bit of that.

So there's a lot of conversations happening right now and have happened during the summer about what the next things that they will be bringing forward are.

Good.

And the ones that we were pushing last year, the rooted in rights example, will those be at the top of the list automatically?

And we appreciate many council members and we'll be working with your office to continue to work to advance automated enforcement for bus lane violations and intersection blocking.

So that's the Curtis King request that we have into your office.

We'd appreciate your help.

Good.

The bill will move back to so since our block the box mill it moved out of the house and was in the Senate It will now revert back to the house onto third reading.

So it is automatically live.

That's one of the during a session, which are two years in a biennium.

And so the bills that were introduced in a long session will automatically.

That's good.

And our death penalty, where does that fall in the queue?

I think given some of the changes in the House of Representatives, we have some opportunities there around eliminating the death penalty and statute.

I do think that given the time frame last year and the push to move I-1000 forward, a lot of things were just lost because of timing.

And so hopefully we'll be able to advance something this coming supplemental session.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So our legislative agenda process, I know I've actually met with most of you to talk about what your priorities are and will be for the upcoming session.

In addition to meeting with council members, we also meet with the different departments and get recommendations as to what they think would be helpful for them and for the city.

So we have compiled a lot of those requests and we're now currently working on putting it into the document that we'll put forward to you later this month.

We will, it's a little bit of a longer process.

It's kind of tied into your budget.

So we'll do our initial presentation on, I think it's October 21st.

And then you guys will have that opportunity to make adjustments, give us feedback, and then we will make those adjustments.

And then we'll do another final presentation on all the feedback that we heard.

And then you will have the opportunity to pass it in early December.

And that is the document that we will work within during session.

It kind of sets our priorities.

It is a big document.

It's meant to capture quite a few things.

But it definitely sets kind of the values and the things that we're going to be focusing on during the legislative session.

Thank you.

Is anybody bringing up vaping under health care?

Yes, they are.

So it was kind of tied to the tobacco 21 legislation that went through last year.

And a lot of questions that we've been asked as you know, what is the city able to do?

What's the county able to do?

And one of the items that was included in the T21 bill is there is a preemption on local government from being able to take action.

So that's been a conversation point.

The governor has said that he's going to be putting forward legislation specifically around some of the health issues that have been coming forward from the vaping illnesses for some of the specific cartridges.

There's a recent report from King County as well.

Right.

So I think we should absolutely anticipate seeing something like that.

And I think that will certainly include that in our agenda.

So just potential city issues for 2020. Again, a lot of things clear the pipeline, so we are really talking to different people in the city to see what they would like to see elevate.

Housing, homelessness still will continue to be a priority.

While we are so grateful for all of the work that the legislature did for us and the Housing Trust Fund and for 1406, I think that we will That's certainly not the end of those conversations.

So we've been working with other cities and stakeholders to see what might be something that the legislature could get behind again for during a short session.

MFTE continues to be a topic that elevates.

That's been a topic that has stalled quite a bit over the last few years.

So we're seeing if there's any appetite to look into MFTE again this year.

Go ahead.

Question.

Is specific to additional labor standards in MFTE?

Is that part of the conversation at the state legislative level?

I have not heard that, but maybe I can connect with you and get more details.

And Sejal Parikh, our chief of staff, has been working closely with the labor community.

We'd love to see additional labor standards that we had considered at the city level for MFTE that are not actually possible without state movement on this.

So I think it's a better solution at the state level to help include some of these labor standards.

And we did some great work with the central staff here on How do you find that right balance of incentives and making sure that it pencils out?

So I think we'd be happy to work with your team as you include the labor standards in MFTE.

And we have a meeting today with some of our friends from the building and construction trades about a capital budget request we discussed with Council Member Juarez.

So happy to bring that up and talk a little bit about what they may be pursuing in the MFTE conversation.

I do understand that this is a priority that the labor community has identified for the coming session.

Thank you.

Other issues kind of in the affordable housing space, shelter location placement assistant and continuing the tenant protections conversation.

In education, early learning, childcare, I anticipate that those will continue to elevate quite a bit.

Again, they did quite a bit on the higher education front next year, so I'm not sure what we will see in that space for the short session.

if cleanup language is needed or they're trying to do any type of fix.

So when you talk about child care here, are we talking about capital investments?

What kind of help could we look to the legislature for?

I think that has been a piece of that.

I think that there were quite a few studies that are being put forward right now and what it looks like for the state to take further action on that.

I know for the locations for where they're able to actually put the child care centers, that continues to be an issue and just how that ties into making more spaces available, acknowledging that it is such an expensive and problematic I think that's a really important topic for so many families in the state.

And absolutely necessary as we know.

In addition, we have been having conversations with folks at SEAU 925. provider reimbursement.

And congratulations to California for the work that they just did to help make sure that there was more of a unionized collective bargaining voice for those who do receive subsidies.

It was a great piece of legislation at the state level in California.

So I'm not suggesting that's on their legislative agenda this year, but I know that provider reimbursement is a huge, huge problem and barrier to getting access to quality child care.

Council Member Wuerz has a comment?

Yes, thank you.

Is this on?

Yes.

Is this?

No.

Okay.

First of all, thank you for the work you guys all did on the LGBTQ Commission.

I know that we talked about expanding the issue for protection of transgender folks statewide, what other states have done.

But my new question is, what are we, and this has been in the news, what are we going to, how are we addressing psychiatric care now that we know Western State has some issues?

That's a huge topic still.

I think that there are, there was a pretty significant amount of investments put in this space during the last session.

And I think that that will be a continued conversation.

And they're working to figure out how to get more beds online, how there's been a large conversations around involuntary treatment act, what they're gonna do in that space.

I don't think that there's a strong and solid feeling about what the right action is.

So I think it's still a topic that's being explored, but it will certainly elevate this year.

We had an opportunity to meet with the University of Washington folks.

So have they, I mean, I don't know if you can share anything, but I know that they have some ideas in working with the state legislature on capital and programming for psychiatrists who are kind of getting away from the privatization, the commercial market.

of psychiatric beds in our need here in not only just King County but Tri-County.

Happy to follow up.

We've been doing some work with Ian Goodhue and they have prioritized and had a significant win around their some major capital investments from the legislature last session around psychiatric care and a psychiatric residency program to address some of the workforce needs.

So although that will take some time to get online.

I think in the meantime, the area that you're asking us to explore that we're happy to have continued discussions with you, Deb, around are how do we address that immediate need while we're standing up this state-of-the-art facility and making those investments.

So we're happy to do that and follow up with you all.

Mine's a little twofold.

There's the general issue, but we also know that University of Washington owns Northwest Hospital and a huge campus in District 5. So we're looking at density there and health care and other needs.

So that's another reason why I'm concerned, not concerned, but I'm hoping I can stay in the loop on that with the conversations as I continue my conversations with our former council member Sally Clark and their team.

Thank you.

Great.

Very good.

Thank you.

And just in support of what Councilmember Juarez was talking about, you know, we've been working very closely with Chief Scoggins, our fire department, with the labor union, and thanks to Kenny Stewart for the big help.

This is what Councilmember Juarez just brought, to have places where our firefighters, our first responders can take people.

We are adding 60 up in Beacon Hill that will be available.

And one thing I want to point out to my colleagues, I don't know if people are even focused on this yet, but Daniel Malone from DESC is working on a new facility on roughly Rainier and Plum, and that is in conjunction with Harborview, and so there will be a A medical facility with some mental health possibilities there, and then with very low income housing, supportive housing up above.

I believe that they've raised most of the money through grants for the housing, but they still need some money for the actual clinical facility below.

I'm going to be recommending we do that.

in this budget, but I know that legislative help would be welcome.

We can follow up with DESC and let you know what their specific budget asks are and work to incorporate those into your draft agenda.

That's great.

And obviously, Representative Macri is careful about trying not to put herself in a conflicted position, but she, of course, would know a lot about this.

Thank you.

On the environment side, Representative Fitzgibbon's low carbon fuel standard, I think that will be a really big topic.

I know Senator Carlisle has also put forward some cap and trade concepts.

So while 100% the clean energy bill went through, I don't think that they're pausing by any means.

And also with the passage of the city's fuel tank.

legislation last week.

We're currently looking at different concepts of what we need to explore to make plea and make sure that works for the residents in the city.

Council Member Pacheco.

Just wanted to put on your radar, because I saw a tweet over the weekend from Representative Fitzgerald, that he's going to be working on updates to both the GMA and building on 1923 this past session.

So just wanted to put that bit on your radar.

Thank you.

On the transportation side, as Lee mentioned, automated enforcement will, of course, be one of our biggest priorities this coming session.

As I mentioned earlier, that bill was able to move out of the House last year and stalled on second reading in the Senate.

So now it reverts back to the House.

So we're working with the sponsors and other stakeholders that have been involved in the process to see any adjustments that we need to see in the legislation.

And we will continue to push.

Just separate but related to this, last year I know we talked with a number of legislators about providing some assistance for ORCA cards for very low-income families.

And from our standpoint, it was a race and social justice issue.

We did, I think, wonderful work with working with Metro to get the ORCA cards for high school students.

And this is really expanding what we're doing with the utility discount program So I just would love to see if there's a coordinated opportunity for us to get more resources for the state to be able to buy those ORCA passes for families that can't afford it otherwise.

Thank you.

And then in public safety, I put gun responsibility very broadly.

I think, again, quite a few of the bills were able to, they were able to push through the pipeline last year.

I think we're having conversations about any type of the local preemption?

Is there any space for there to be a relaxing of that, knowing that the city of Seattle has several priorities in the area that they would, that they're not able to work on under current law?

And again, this is not inclusive, just a couple, few high level things, and this will evolve probably through the next few months.

And please do keep us posted if there are things that you're hearing about or other priorities that you would like to see included in the agenda as we develop

And you remember last year I was working with Senator Carlisle.

He had wanted to put forward a bill, he tried it multiple times, that would allow our city employees retirement system to join forces with the state.

After that occurred last time, I, and since I chair this committee, we did an outside independent analysis that came back and recommended that the city not join the state.

We had experts on the committee.

They took a look at it.

I invited Senator Carlisle to come and join us when the briefing happened.

I think he may at this point just say he's not moving forward with it again because Spokane was opposed and Tacoma was opposed and it only would apply to our three cities.

So since we came back with that recommendation, and this is actually Council Member Musqueda, I had you in mind when I was asking for this so that we didn't have to raise it again, but we did in May have this recommendation, as I say, from the independent board outside the CSRS that said that they weren't going to oppose it, but that neither were they going to support it.

Thank you very much for that flag.

So next steps, the legislative committees will meet through the fall.

Most of that will be focused on in November, but there have been kind of, they'll be spread out over the next few months, and then we'll actually be able to see what things are elevating, getting the updates from the different committees and work groups and work sessions that have been organized for the interim, get all that, get a lot of that information.

That's also a really helpful tool for us to know what to anticipate for 2020. We are hoping to schedule a meeting with the delegation.

We know this has been a joint thing that the mayor has done with the council, just to sit down with the delegation in advance of the session and just kind of hear what everyone's shared priorities are and then work on strategy for the 2020 session.

Legislators return to Olympia on the 13th.

This may seem far away, but it will come up on us very quickly.

So we will circulate and present our first draft of the agenda on October 21st, and we have about a month to hear feedback, to incorporate that feedback, and that's how we'll adopt our agenda in December.

So, any final questions?

For your feedback and all your hard work.

Really appreciate you.

Sounds like a plan.

Thank you.

Look forward to working with you.

Once again, Council Member Skid has one last comment.

I didn't see a section for labor on here.

So it could be that I missed the earlier part of the presentation.

But we talked about labor as it relates to housing.

Obviously, anytime we can get additional standards in for, for example, prevailing wage and dropping the threshold, I think it's going to be helpful for municipalities to show how our public dollar is being used.

There is a conversation around dropping the threshold and prevailing wage from 5 million to 1 million dollar projects, I think.

So perhaps later in your conversation that'll come up.

But very importantly, because it comes from the City Council and the Labor Committee, we are really excited that Attorney General Bob Ferguson is going to be advancing a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights at the state level.

mirrored on what we did here at the city.

So we'd love to see our support for that.

And I think it also echoes what our Congressional person, Congresswoman Jayapal is trying to do at the national level too.

So any work that we could do to try to build support for that and crosswalk it with our legislation would be great.

But there was a lot of things that we wanted to do that we couldn't do at the city level.

Unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, access to healthcare, those concepts are much more appropriate to create a pool at the state level.

And if they're successful, we'd love to see that advance.

Thank you.

Thank you for highlighting that.

All right.

Okay, thank you much.

Thank you so much.

We look forward to seeing you again.

You won't see me.

I'll see you on TV.

I'll be thinking about you.

Okay, one more briefing this morning on the State Route SR-99 tolling update.

Why don't the team come forward?

We'll dive right in.

Council Member O'Brien couldn't join us this morning.

I had chatted about this item.

And there's been a lot of interest on our floor on an update.

I'm not here to talk about that.

Sorry.

Okay, so make sure your light is green and the mic is fairly close for everyone, and why don't we start with introductions just dive right in?

Sure, Lita Shaheem, Sound Transit.

I'm Ed Barry.

I'm with the Washington State Department of Transportation, Toll Division.

Heather Marks.

I'm the Director of Downtown Mobility for your Seattle Department of Transportation.

So I think I have the pleasure of kicking it off here this morning and orienting us to where we are in the Seattle squeeze, the five-year period where we are going to be working through unprecedented levels of both private and public infrastructure construction.

So if you take a look and your desires, Council Member Juarez, are noted.

So right now we are about to embark on the process of tolling the SR 99 tunnel.

We've started Alaskan Way construction.

And the two-way Columbia transit path is going to be ready in January.

And also in January, we'll be making the connections between what I think Sound Transit is now referring to the blue line to the east side to the rails in the tunnel.

As you can see, we have several years going out.

2021 is the year where things are really going to start to get a lot better because that's when we're connecting light rail to Northgate.

All right, I'll turn it over to Ed Barry.

Nope, I won't turn it over to Ed Barry.

I'll tell you, I think all the things that I...

Not being silly, but in 2021, is it first quarter, fourth quarter, somewhere in between, do we know?

I think I'll let Sound Transit answer that.

I think the...

I believe it's later in the year.

Okay, so I'm just trying to control expectations here, put down Q4.

Yeah.

Did you guys get a chance to go down and look at the demolition of the viaduct?

Of course.

Wow.

It's great to see some of those buildings getting sun on their faces after almost 60 years.

We also have a big closure of the Fairview Bridge.

You know that that's going on.

That'll be 18 months.

And we're almost done with viaduct removal.

That which is left is over BNSF right-of-way, so it's not in our right-of-way.

So it has less of a traffic impact.

And then, of course, waterfront construction.

And the important thing to note about all of these changes is that they impact about half of the people who come into Seattle each and every day.

So these various changes impact a lot of people, people who live in Seattle and people who live in the surrounding area.

So now I'll turn it over to Ed Barry, who will talk to us more about tolling.

Thank you, Heather, and thanks for having me here today.

I just got a couple slides on what we might expect for when tolling begins on SR 99. And when we've been out talking about this in the recent weeks, Heather and I, I like to start off with this slide, which shows you what occurred when we started tolling 520 almost 10 years ago now.

We started at the tail end of 2011. but in robust in 2012. And so this represents actually what happened, and I'm also going to speak to what was actually predicted.

So you see there in the blue bars on the right, that graph shows, that is the average daily traffic that occurred on a weekday on 5-20.

And so you can see over 100,000 vehicles per day there in 2011 dropped in 2012 on average That is an important note.

I'm not going to go through all of them.

There was a drop nonetheless.

Where did people go?

What did they do?

So that's what we saw, and that's what we expected to a degree.

But in the alternative routes that they took, you can see there in the second bullet, volumes on those alternative routes did increase, 11% on I-90, 9% on 522. But an interesting note of that we also saw is those volume increases occurred oftentimes during the off-peak times when those routes had capacity to absorb them.

That's something that's interesting that we saw.

And then we saw a number of trips that chose not to cross the lake at all.

Six percent.

So different things happen.

People make different decisions as they do when tolling starts.

And then we see volumes growing up over time as people get used to tolling.

And as facility is known as a toll facility.

And in 2019, you see we are only about 17% below the pre-toll levels with the volumes increasing yearly over time.

So what might we see with SR 99 in the tunnel?

And that's what this slide depicts.

And the gray bar there that you see represents what was on the viaduct in 2015 before it came down.

And what the numbers that are expressed here are in average volumes per hour at peak times in both directions.

So that's something to note and keep in mind.

So these are peak time travel volumes.

on average for an hour.

So you see there a little over 5,000 in 2015 during when the Viaduct was in operation.

And then earlier this year when the tunnel was open, we did a similar measurement where we tried to understand how many vehicles were going through the tunnel on average at peak.

for an hour, and that shows a little under 5,000, so similar but not exactly the same as the viaduct.

And the bottom bar shows what we might see forecasted for the tunnel volumes when tolling begins.

And the sort of magenta or darker purple there, you see a little over 3,000, 3,300-ish.

And then the lighter pink was what you see similar to the bars on 520, the gradual increase over time as the ramp up continues on as people get used to the toll tunnel and the volumes that might happen.

after the ramp-up period is over.

So this is what we might see forecasted to occur when tolling begins.

But again, this is just a forecast.

As I said before, they're typically pretty conservative, and they're generated by a traffic and revenue consultant that generates these numbers for us.

And they're conservative in the aspect of they want to make sure that They forecast a revenue amount that might be achievable based on trips that might change when tolling begins.

I had a question on that.

I'm sorry, I'm back.

You had a question as well.

You don't have to go back to it.

On the preceding slide, I understand the drop in use.

But I thought I heard you say that we wanted to compare this to what we thought was going to occur.

And is this pretty much what we had predicted?

This is what actually happened.

But I thought I heard you say, This, in comparison, were we right in our predictions?

The predictions were, it was overpredicted, the amount of people that would not use 520. The predicted drop was 48%.

I see.

The first year.

What actually occurred was 34%.

I see.

Okay.

You almost expected a half, and you got a little.

Almost expected a half.

And as of this year, we're at 17% below.

Thank you.

I see.

Thank you.

I'm back on to slide five.

The numbers, I appreciate that you've got vehicles per hour, but in 2015, we were roughly 100,000 during a day.

I think it's close.

I think, yeah, between 90 and 100,000.

Yeah.

I can't remember exactly.

Right.

It just depended on the day.

But rough numbers were 100,000.

What are we anticipating in numbers post-toll forecast there?

For the day?

Yep.

Well, right now, that's a good question.

We've got right now roughly, on average, about 75,000 vehicles per hour or per day going through.

But it fluctuates depending on the day or events of what's going on.

We had a day in August that was upwards of 86,000.

Seahawks game or.

In August, I don't know that it was a Seahawks game or a preseason.

I don't know.

So when you do the magenta and the darker purple on the forecast, how many days, hours, months are you anticipating that it shakes out?

You have that adjustment period.

What do you what do you schedule?

The adjustment period represented there in the pink is roughly 30 months.

OK.

To adjust.

So closely three years.

Correct.

OK.

I also should mention, that's a good question, is that the adjustment period predicted for 520 and 405 were much, much faster than...

Than actually happened.

Yeah.

Much faster in terms of people returning to 520?

And returning to 405 especially, or using 405 especially to express toll lanes.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

And so what this shows you is, in a sense, I think it shows the collaboration that's been occurring on this program, this project, and with Toll Commencement.

And it shows the effort that these entities, the city, the county, and the port, and the state, on working together to collect data to answer a lot of questions that are going to come up and have come up.

as we've gone through this transition in the Seattle squeeze.

And so that grid there inside the blue line shows you the area in which we're studying and collecting data on how trips are behaving within that grid.

And we've been gathering this data over the three time periods you see depicted there before the tunnel opened, when the viaduct was operating.

After the tunnel opened, between February and now, we've been collecting the same data, and then we'll be collected for a year after tolling begins on November 9th.

So we'll have a lot of comparisons on what happened, what happened again, and what's happened in the configuration when tolling starts.

How much fluidity do you have?

Let's say a year into this you go, this isn't working as anticipated.

Will you adjust or are you going to stick with your two and a half year time frame?

I think we'll stick with our plan data collection process to make sure we're collecting enough data to answer the questions we think we're going to get.

But I think we're pretty We're pretty flexible on how long we can do that or how frequently we can do that, but we've got a pretty set schedule agreed upon between the entities there.

Okay, so I'm here to talk to you about Connect 2020, which you can kind of see as a good news, bad news story.

So the good news is that in the near horizon, when the Blue Line, we are calling it the Blue Line now, opens in 2023, we will have 10 new stations connecting Redmond, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Judkins Park, into the Chinatown International District and all the way up to Northgate, opening up 14 miles of new link light rail service.

I know you've probably already seen some of that heavy construction that's going on in Bellevue and along I-90.

In early 2020, Sound Transit is going to be connecting this new line, the Blue Line, in with the current tracks at Chinatown International District.

So the bad news is that we'll be bringing that heavy construction into a tunnel environment to tie in the Blue Line.

into the existing line, which we're now calling the Red Line, all while trying to serve our existing riders.

So Connect 2020 is a 10-week period from January to mid-March of next year, where parts of the International District Chinatown Station will need to close so crews can build a new track junction that will connect the current Link Light Rail tracks with the new Blue Line tracks.

And that connection will actually allow the Blue and Red Line trains to run at four-minute headways up to Northgate so between Chinatown International District and Northgate and oh The dates when you anticipate closure to happen Oh, we are going to go over those, yeah, specific dates, yeah.

But January through mid-March is the Connect 2020 period.

And so we do serve 80,000 riders a day, and we are working hard to make sure to serve folks as best we can during the partial closure.

Next slide.

So this is an animation.

I will tell you when to hit play, and it looks like it might work, so that's great.

This, just to start and sort of orient you, what this shows you is basically our tunnel.

And it's a map of our stations from Soto to Capitol Hill.

And you'll see these gray Xs on either end between Stadium and Soto and Capitol Hill and Westlake.

And those are crossover tracks, which allow our trains to go from one set of tracks to the other.

So in order to make this connection, we're going to have to close down half of Chinatown International District Station at a time.

Both the north and southbound trains will need to share a single track.

And so during the 10-week construction period, LINC will basically operate as two lines.

One line will be going from the University District, from the University of Washington to Pioneer Square, and then the other line will be going from Engle Lake to Pioneer Square.

So here's the animation of how this will work during the first phase of work.

So you'll see, hopefully...

is our trains coming in.

So the work zone there at the International District, the red stations are the ones that will be closed.

We'll pick up the little pink people.

Trains will cross over and go and meet at the Pioneer Square station.

And passengers will get out on this temporary platform and transfer at Pioneer Square in order to continue if they're going through Pioneer Square.

So essentially, if you're coming from the south end and needing to go through to go to Capitol Hill, you will need to get off at Pioneer Square on that temporary platform and cross over to the other train.

There'll be time to meet at the same time, and then you can continue on to your destination.

If you're just getting off at Pioneer Square, you'd go out the other doors and head out.

So then, oh yeah.

Nothing is ever stopped in terms of trying to get from the airport, for example, to the UW.

It may be a little complicated.

Yes, it will be a little bit complicated.

There will be three weekend, we'll talk about this in a moment, there will be three weekends where we'll have full closures, but during this 10-week period, for most of the period, we'll be able to provide service.

The one catch is because the tracks north and southbound will be sharing the same set of tracks.

Trains will have to run less often.

So we'll be running 12-minute headways seven days a week instead of our typical six-minute headways during peak.

But to make up for that, we're having four-car trains instead of two- to three-car trains.

So you'll actually have more capacity off peak, but it will be more crowded during peak.

Let me go to the next slide.

So, in order to make for this temporary platform and this continued service and single tracking, we do need to build a temporary platform at Pioneer Square Station.

And in order to do that, we do need to close down the station.

We will have three different weekend times.

So the first one will be this coming weekend, October 11th through 13th, and then October 25th through the 27th, and November 8th through the 10th.

So we'll be closing service at 11 p.m.

on Friday night, and it'll be reopened Monday morning for everyone.

And we'll have a bus bridge that will get people from Soto to Capitol Hill and serve in between.

And those will be free bus shuttles for folks.

And then we'll also have to have three full weekend closures during that Connect 2020 period of January through mid-March.

And you see the dates up there.

We'll also have bus bridges during that time.

But between that, we'll have the single tracking and continue service.

It'll just be less frequent.

Lita, can you just tell us about the Seahawk game schedule?

These are selected in order to be the least conflicting in terms of game day schedules.

On October 13th?

Yes, these are non-Seahawk games.

And I think there are also non-UW games too.

Yes, they're selected to try to avoid.

It's a good point.

Maybe the next slide, and then we can come back.

Okay, so how are we communicating with all of our riders?

We are hosting a microsite to help riders know their options and plan ahead.

And so on the site, it'll be optimized for mobile and translated and ADA compliant as well.

And we're working through a number of different channels to sort of get folks to know about this microsite.

So our partner channels, so working with We have a lot of partners in Seattle to get communications out through their channels, through earned media, such as press releases and press events.

And then on the front line, we will also have innovative signage, so we're piloting new signage techniques to help communicate with riders.

We will have Sound Transit, sort of a really big ambassador effort of staff being out there on the center platform at Pioneer Square and around to help folks understand what they're supposed to do, where they're supposed to go.

Security, audio announcements, customer service, our digital rider alerts and Twitter, so.

Can I ask you, this is one of our favorite topics that you and I have been working on for a couple of years now.

And that's at the Pioneer Square exit on 3rd Avenue.

And you are doing some updating.

I'm working with Parks and SPU about what we're going to do about the Prefontaine Fountain and the safety concerns around that.

What's your schedule?

Because I believe that you were going to start doing the facelift and work this November on that site and the elevator.

for ADA, you know, that is a very, very difficult station for people with walking or anybody in a wheelchair.

So what's the plan?

That's a great point.

I will check with our folks that are working on that.

I don't have the latest on the schedule on me, but I will follow up.

Okay.

Really, this is, as you know, is a critically important element of what we're doing down in that area to try to make it a safer, cleaner, happier place to be.

And I believe you were going to make it happen in October, November, and I haven't heard a word.

Okay, we'll be in touch.

Thank you.

Ready?

Okay.

Oh, look now, now we're getting serious.

All right.

I think.

Glasses on.

It's so I can see my notes.

So I've spoken with you all before about the five pillars that are organizing our efforts as we move through the Seattle squeeze.

And for tolling, the summary of the impacts is we expect that there will be more vehicles traveling through downtown.

We don't, you know, we're all eagerly awaiting and we're prepared for the worst case scenario, the most diversion.

But we also are hopeful that it won't quite be that bad.

Folks can expect slower travel times for transit and freight.

And then also, We do see a lot of diversion.

We expect that may be in the off peak rather than during the peak periods.

And we also expect that there may be more TNCs circling.

The increase of headways, which is totally, they have to do it that way, but the increase from six minutes to 12 minutes may, people may feel like they need to make a different kind of choice.

So, we are going to keep doing all the things that we do so well.

We are going to respond to traffic conditions in real time, particularly with signal timing plans that have been pre-positioned to respond to scenarios that we believe may happen, and we're ready to implement those at the touch of a button.

We also are continuing to have 24-7 coverage in our transportation operations center and communicating with various technology and map providers to ensure that they know where the closures are and how long they are so they don't steer you right into a closure.

And as we always do, we're proactively managing construction project schedules to minimize the impacts to downtown to the extent that we can.

Maybe you noticed, or maybe you didn't, because it was so seamless.

On September 21st, we had a service change.

And through the good graces of the Seattle voters and the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, we added 50,000 service hours to routes that serve Seattle.

In addition, we're continuing to partner with Metro and Sound Transit on some first mile, last mile.

We're also augmenting the connectivity at some shared mobility stops.

We have them already downtown at Westlake, Coleman Dock, and sort of that Jackson hub area.

We're also creating mobility hubs in four other neighborhoods outside of downtown that can help that connectivity.

We are continuing with expanding access to ORCA cards.

We are painting red transit lanes all over downtown to help remind people to stay out of the transit lane.

One of the things that Lita didn't mention is that during Sound Transit has decided for safety purposes that bicycles won't be allowed on the trains between University Street Station and International District Station.

So don't worry.

We are completing the South End connection from the 2nd Avenue protected bike lane all the way to IDS.

And that work is happening right now.

So that will be ready for use in January.

So I think that's a big part of what we're trying to do.

Yeah, in addition, we're making great progress on a whole bunch of other center city bike network connections.

Any help, hope there?

Well, that's an interesting question and one that we have been talking about for some time.

State law means that those lanes are for transit and transit has to be something that anybody can use.

So not anybody can use the school buses.

So there are, and the number of school buses that actually traverse downtown is not all that many.

But we are continuing to work with the school district to ensure that the changes that we can make that are gonna have the most impact for school buses, that we can make those in the, you know, around the city.

Great, and she had a pretty good argument on one, one specific bus that was having a lot of difficulty being on time.

And I don't know whether that was a school bus, the driver's fault, whether the, you know, just the way that the route was designed was complicating things.

But I'm glad to know you're talking to her because she raised it.

The other question, when you're talking about connecting, I understand that the University Street Station is going to be renamed Waterfront Station or some such.

Or the Bob Donegan station, whatever.

But what we're wondering is on the waterfront shuttle that the numbers of riders that have been using that to get from downtown to Seattle Center, down to the waterfront to the International District Station.

The ridership numbers was pretty stunning when I saw them, and I'm wondering if we're supporting them to continue or what the plan is.

So I believe that that shuttle, it has been, I don't have the numbers at hand, but it has been kind of surprising the amount of ridership that they get.

WSDOT, I believe, is funding that through the end of October.

Since Mr. Judd.

I know he's back there.

I can feel it.

And there isn't funding identified, but I know that the Office of the Waterfront is working hard to see if they can make some funding available to continue that.

Great.

It's interesting, and not just coming from Bob.

I hear a lot of people.

I think it's a great way to start talking about how valuable it's been, and just helping people move around during construction.

And if it is one of the strategies that's working, I'd love for us to collectively be able to say, let's keep it going, and as our budget is coming up, I'd like WSDOT and SDOT support for a plan.

I'm happy to champion some additional resources.

We're taking it from one pot to put it in another.

And I want to know that we are having support for that.

And if we aren't, let me know that, too.

OK, great.

Thank you.

And we'll get back to you on that one.

Thank you very much.

Are we ready?

We are.

They're so cute.

You can't wait.

So we are continuing to partner with major employers to promote expanded flexible work options.

That's one of the things that worked really well during the Viaduct closure is a lot of the big employers and probably the small employers, too, got together and said, you know what, it's okay if you come in at 9 instead of 8. It's okay for you.

to work remotely a few days a week.

So we noticed an uptick in that activity, and so we're going to continue to promote that.

In addition, we have launched this campaign called Flip Your Trip that features Sal the salmon.

It's very cute.

I love it.

That encourages folks, even if you can't make a wholesale change to your commute, maybe you can flip one trip or one day.

And that's a message that seems to have worked over time.

So we're going to continue to press that.

In addition, we're maintaining Seattle.gov slash traffic.

All of our organizations have sort of collector sites where you can go and then find your way to the next question that you need to answer.

And we're all pointing to each other's.

It's an example of how we are coordinating.

We're also focusing on translation and trusted community liaisons for groups that have a little, that are maybe a little bit harder to reach.

And we had great success with that, particularly in the end of joint operations as well as the Viaduct closure.

And we have just an incredible set of team members from all the agencies, and we are working together more closely than I think we ever have.

So that is a delightful change.

Good work.

Council Member Norris, did you have a question?

Okay.

And if you want to, I bet we could arrange to have Sal the salmon come and visit.

We'll make it happen.

So I believe that's the end of our presentation.

Are there more questions?

No, I think we're pretty good.

Council Member Pacheco.

Just really quickly, one, I appreciate all the collaboration.

With working with some of the major employers, I know like Microsoft has like the shuttles that pick up Seattle residents that commute to Redmond.

But I know they also do, they partner with like called Scoop.

It's an app that gets people to carpool.

So are we kind of encouraging more companies to try to utilize either A, the app or apps like these, or B, facilitating the stewardship of just getting those vans and those shuttles.

If you're a major employer that has employees on the east side or here on the west side, but in Seattle, but you may be Amazon has offices in the east side.

And so we want to help you commute.

Are we doing more to help?

incentivize employers to do that as well?

So I think our first choice is we really want people to use transit.

So we want people to use King County Metro Transit and Sound Transit, that's the first push that we want to make.

Public transit is the engine that makes our transportation system work.

For companies that want to provide a different kind of service or more targeted service for their employees, we absolutely work with them to ensure that they put their stops in the right place.

And Ed can talk a little bit about their WSDOT's fleet plan?

Sure, sure.

So they do vanpools, transit, buses.

They're exempt from tolls.

You might recall the Transportation Commission tried to make their exemption policy for all of our facilities consistent in the last year.

But having said that, The shuttles for Microsoft and Amazon, the vanpools that they have created, are exempt from tolls.

So that's an incentive for folks, if they do want to take those vanpools or ride transit, that they wouldn't have to pay a toll, either on 520 or in the new tunnel.

Metro rideshare as well?

Yes, I believe so.

I can confirm that.

Vanpool.

I had a quick question on the good-to-go passes.

Are we very pleased with, well let me back up, there will be quite an increase in rates if you don't have a good-to-go pass, like double or so.

So are we pretty happy with the uptick on people getting them as a result, or do we need to put more money into the marketing of getting a good-to-go pass, or what do we learn from 520 people just, got the ticket in the mail and said, oh, I'm going to get one of these passes.

No, I didn't get a ticket.

But I'm sort of curious as to, for this one, if there's lessons learned on making sure we are making sure as many people as possible do get the Get2Go pass, because it's so much more expensive if you don't get one.

And so hopefully we've learned something.

But what does it look like out there?

Are people getting pretty educated and getting them quickly, or is it just I go through their pain first?

Well, we have learned a few lessons from previous launches, and we do have a robust marketing and education program that started last week across many of the medias, television, digital, radio, et cetera.

So we are putting a lot of resources toward that and have had some good success.

We have an incentive program out there right now that we've been running for the past month or so, maybe six weeks, where we're giving away free sticker passes.

And that's to do just, as you say, just to get as many people as we can in some of the areas that this tunnel serves that perhaps don't use 520 or 405 or the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to get people into those passes so they can pay the lowest toll rate.

You are right.

If you don't have a pass and you don't have an account, you pay an extra $2 to get the bill in the mail.

So we want to make sure as many people as we can do get into transponders.

And that's what some of this marketing education outreach is for, is to learn that lesson with 405. Particularly, a lot of people procrastinated in getting their transponder and, you know, in the weeks, days before tolling our call center and walk-in centers were very busy.

So we want people to get into those transponders now to get set up, to get ready.

in the month before, so tolling doesn't take anybody by surprise.

Have you worked with the rental car companies at the airport?

We work with rental car companies on their fleets for all of our facilities, that's correct.

I know in San Francisco they were doing that, and you could have a rental car, but the additional costs that the rental car companies assessed the driver was pretty shocking.

So you were almost better off just to pay the toll directly.

And I would just like to make sure that we're not getting gouged for this and encouraging people to use the passes at a reasonable rate if possible.

Absolutely.

And I'm going to put you on the spot.

I got online because I got an email that I could get my thingy for free.

Your sticker pass, yes.

So I went on there to do it like, oh, I'm going to get a sticker for free for one month.

It's really not free because once you do the whole thing, then it tells you to put $30 on the card.

So is that kind of a switch and bait thing going on?

Well, actually, I don't think so.

Or did I just mess it up?

No, you're right.

The system does require and has required people to put down $30 to prepay their tolls.

So then it's really not free.

It's not.

The actual amount, the sticker pass would normally be $5.

Okay.

So that's for free.

But the actual tolls that you would pay are not.

That's true.

Didn't your mother tell you nothing's for free?

I know, I was all excited.

I was getting all the sound in and now I find out I gotta pay anyway.

Well, you'll pay your tolls, that's true.

Okay, thanks.

Well, thanks for trying to get in front of the problem or the issue, the opportunity here.

So thanks.

And it's nice to have lessons learned from 520. So thank you very much.

Thanks for coming here, Lita.

Appreciate that.

Okay.

All right.

Labor, right?

I'm so sorry.

Actually, yes.

I had a conversation with Labor last week.

Some folks mentioned that they were concerned about the new lane changes entering into the tunnel coming northbound especially.

I am the first one to support dedicated bus lines.

I absolutely believe that we need more of them through our downtown core.

The question that they had raised for us is, especially with the high number of trucks that are still commuting through the city in 99, are we going to do an analysis of where that dedicated bus lane should actually start?

Their belief was that maybe the dedicated bus lane was starting too soon.

before the traffic actually started, and so it was squeezing all the traffic over.

How do we do an assessment on those?

So that's a really good question.

That's something that Metro and Sound, or, and WSDOT and SDOT collaborated on.

We did do a traffic analysis before we installed it, and what it found is that it, you know, it wasn't, the analysis showed that it was sort of a toss-up.

And so the executives from all those agencies made a decision together to go with the policy direction that we want to prefer transit.

What has happened was not what was predicted.

And so we are right now, I think we've actually sent a sketch over So we're going to design the change, and we'll all work together.

Yeah, we noticed that right away.

And so we have to make sure that the change that we make is going to be effective.

Well, I think what we're going to do, and your friends are so smart, because I think what we're going to do is just lengthen the merge opportunity so that you'll get the drivers and buses will have a little bit more space to sort themselves out.

And will you guys be working with some of the Teamster drivers, folks who are doing some of the hauling into the city to sort of vet some of the policy ideas as you roll them out?

Because I think they'll be pleased to hear about the longer merge, but that might help avoid unintended consequences.

That's a really good idea.

We do tend to rely on the expertise of the traffic engineers, but we also know that folks are going to tell us right away.

if what we thought was going to work isn't working.

I'm happy to give you some context, if you like.

I'm glad that that work's already underway.

And you saw the same thing I see.

I come up from that same direction.

We all want dedicated bus lanes, that's for sure.

And we also want to reduce idling.

So I think those two can go hand in hand if you find this compromise in the middle.

Appreciate it.

Absolutely.

I live in West Seattle, so I experience it.

Thank you very much, Heather.

Thank you, Molly.

Thanks for being on.

Thanks for getting back to me on time.

Okay, we do not have an executive session, so let's go around the table very quickly and do a full...

A report on our full council actions this afternoon.

Nothing from the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee.

I do want to mention, I know we have a resolution this afternoon for 976, I think, under Councilmember Mosqueda, if I'm not...

No, Councilmember Juarez, I'm sorry.

And just to sort of give you the heads up that I'm coordinating now at the clerk on how we handle public comment, that the general rule is working with law department is we have to have a balanced time for both pro and con.

So I'm working through the logistics on how we do that.

There was some precedent at the, I think the, another city council, I think it was, I have the notes somewhere on how it was done in another city council, so we'll figure it out.

I have several options presented to you, about five options, but the bottom line is I have to achieve parity on public comment, so I'll figure out how I'm gonna do that.

Okay, Council Member Bankshaw?

Great, thank you.

First, thanks to all of you who came to the public hearing last week, October 3rd.

We had, as you all know, who were here.

We had a pretty full chamber, but it went well.

Thank you for your Just patience for sticking with us.

And the next one is Tuesday, October 22nd.

So that is two weeks from tomorrow.

Thanks.

And really, it matters so much that we're there.

We're on time.

We've got really good support from central staff as well as our individual offices.

So I just want to really acknowledge.

I appreciate you being there.

So we have no finance and neighborhood items on today's agenda.

And we actually have no budget meetings this week.

So enjoy.

I want to thank you all for being here.

I know it is not the time that you have got because things are going to accelerate again.

I know that council central staff is beginning their work in earnest.

Remember the deadline, Thursday, 1010 at 10 a.m., that is the time for our first form A's.

Those are issues that you are You've got to have them in by 10 o'clock this Thursday, 1010 at 10 a.m.

And that doesn't mean necessarily that you're going to move forward with every one of those items, but if there's something that you want to have discussed, that's your time to bring it up.

Also, I want to acknowledge the cross-cutting day where we covered homelessness, LEAD, TNCs, and Muni Court judges.

I'm trying to get a whole continuum of responses very clearly laid out.

I understand the law enforcement assisted diversion that is Lisa Dugard's and Dan Satterberg's real focus, but our judges are also talking about having some additional alternative services that we fund so that Theoretically, the judges don't see the lead folks, but they do see people that, and they have options to either send them to jail or to have some other options funded.

So I'm going to be meeting with Judge Shadid, and saw Judge Gregory last week, and I'm also inviting Lisa Dugard to come and meet with Judge Shadid because I'm going to need to have a continuum here that works if we're going to actually have an effective diversion program.

I'm not going to be able to do that.

I'm not going to be able to do that.

Anyway, central staff and Allison McLean in my office said please, if you want to get your form A's in early, feel free to do so because we can get working on them right away.

You don't have to wait until Thursday.

Good morning, everybody.

Well, I have a new format.

I'm going to start with, well, I have nothing except for the resolution, which I'll get down to in a minute, Council President.

We have the new format is I'll report on my committee and board updates and then D5 updates.

So as far as committee and board, as you know, I'm a member of the Sound Transit Board.

I sit on the Ridership Experience and Operations Committee.

And last Thursday, the Sound Transit Ridership Committee had a presentation on fare enforcement.

Sound Transit has identified disparities in how it has handled riders who evade fares.

The agency is reviewing its process and is looking for ways to boost equity in the system.

I plan to report back when we learn more and when we do more.

I have a question on that.

Is Sound Transit looking at providing more subsidized passes for Sound Transit?

Because the equity issue really is, and I read the article in the paper this morning and I thought, oftentimes the reason people aren't paying, I mean, it's kind of a big duh, they don't have money to do it.

So are we able to help subsidize their passes just like we're doing with our utility discount program to be able to make sure that more people are fairly able to use the system.

Yes, they do that.

Are we expanding it?

I do not know, but I will report back.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So the second part is, let's see, I have today, I'm bringing forward a resolution to this afternoon's city council meeting that opposes initiative 976 to what President Harrell just mentioned about how we have, both sides have an opportunity during public comment to discuss the pro and the con.

So it's scheduled for a public vote on this year's November ballot.

So if this initiative passes, the regional transportation system that Sound Transit has built over decades will face significant financial loss and will put further strain on our already densely populated and fast-growing metropolitan region.

The purpose of this resolution is to alert the public on what those impacts would be And this afternoon, I'm hoping Council President will give me an opportunity to read, I think there are 11 whereases, and I want to just focus on four that I hope to read into the record this afternoon.

Okay, thank you.

Let me get to the D5 updates briefly.

First of all, last Tuesday, October 1st, the NHL and Simon hosted an open house at Northgate Mall for the community to view their latest plans and hear about the collective vision for the future of the area.

And as we heard today, you know light rail is coming to Northgate.

And we're looking at ridership between 40 and 50,000 people.

NHL and Simon highlighted the exciting opportunity for growth and how they are serving the community and how that will evolve as their plans develop.

I want to thank the NHL and Simon for putting this together and the mayor for attending and their team as well as former Councilmember Rob Johnson.

It was good to see Councilmember Johnson there.

State Representative Javier Valdez was there.

And of course, Dr. Warren Brown from North Seattle College was there as well.

It wasn't just hockey fans.

It was a huge turnout from community and business because people just want to know.

I mean, Macy's is coming down.

People just want to know what's going on.

Second of all, our pedestrian bike bridge, the groundbreaking is October 15th.

That's a Tuesday at 3 at North Seattle College.

More details to follow.

When we had Live in D5 on the 28th of September, we had a contest to what we should name the bridge.

I want to name it the Thornton Creek Community Bridge, but there's always somebody who wants it to be called Bridgy McBridgeface.

So yes, that was it.

See, we have a sense of humor up in D-5.

I thought that was pretty funny.

Okay, so let's see.

Lastly, end of the season, everybody.

Farmers' Market.

This past Thursday was the last Lake City Farmers' Market.

D-5 staff has been out there every week since June, essentially adding five hours of district office time each week so that we can hear from our constituents, and we have.

Thank you to Molly Burke for running our farmer's market and helping us build community in D5.

Our hope someday is that we can enjoy a year-round market like other neighborhoods.

So that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Pacheco.

Good morning, there are seven items on the seven plus related items on introduction or for today Council bill which is companion ordinance to a contract rezone of the 256 rainier Avenue South that was passed out of the plus committee.

and a contract rezone application for 4544 Union Bay Place, which is now pending for the purposes of the council's quasi-judicial rules.

And lastly, an application to SPU to prepare a new major institution master plan.

The development of a new master plan is now pending for the purposes of the council's quasi-judicial rules, and if council members have questions of the master plan update, please contact Liz Wishton on central staff.

Later today, at full council, we'll be voting on council bill 119600, which updates our SEPA policies to align our code with changes to state law and make improvements to SEPA appeals.

This legislation has the support of groups like Sierra Club, FutureWise, 350 Seattle.

I am happily co-sponsoring two amendments at full council.

The first amendment is co-sponsored with Council Member Herbold, which asks The hearing examiner to convene a stakeholder group to identify opportunities or resources that could improve the equity and length of the hearing process.

And amendment number two, which is co-sponsored with Councilmember Mosqueda, protects industrial lands by restricting when exemptions to SEPA appeals apply to these areas of the city.

Please feel free to reach out to my office if you have any questions, colleagues.

And events for the week.

We have the Capitol Hill.

Yes.

Before you move on, on that last amendment, and for either you or Council Member Mosqueda, one thing we had talked about over the years on the SEPA process is in the industrial lands, convening groups together so we can talk about maker space on the, you know, like with a warehouse on the first floor, but allow affordable housing for workers up above.

Is there space in your amendment to allow exploration for that?

Because I'm really interested both in terms of protecting the industrial lands, but providing possibilities for workers to be able to live where they work.

And that's going to require real thoughtful analysis in this industrial lands area.

So the amendment asks, waits for the convening and the recommendations that will come out of the mayor's.

Thank you.

For the mayor's industrial maritime.

I'm sorry, what's the work group?

There you go.

To conclude, so therefore that we do take in consideration spaces like this and so when that broader conversation or while that broader conversation is had, we then have the opportunity to take that analysis into how we do the SEBA process for those places.

And if I can just put a star in this, because I will not be here and I'm going to ask you to carry forward this conversation next year, is to make sure we recognize that, yes, we want industrial lands to be used for industrial purposes and to the extent that we can provide space for worker housing up above.

And, you know, nobody knows what this looks like yet.

I just think that it's important for us to use our land as wisely as possible.

both for industry, manufacturing, and for workers to have the housing that they could actually use in that area.

So just thank you for carrying forward that flag.

It's hard.

Okay.

I think, thank you, Chair Baxhaw.

You and I are on the same page.

And I think that as, you know, as the mayor's work group moves forward, part of the language that we included in the last bill dealing with industrial lands was to make sure that there was a recognition that housing and mixed-use structures and industrial lands don't have to be at odds if constructed correctly.

And that's precisely why we wanted this strategy table to be able to have their full recommendations come forward so we weren't sort of piecemealing how this came together.

But the creation of housing, if done right in mixed-use areas, I think can absolutely serve the purpose of housing folks who want to live and work here and also respecting and promoting industrial lands.

Yes.

And I'll share a copy with you.

And really briefly, I've been encouraged by the fact that the mayor's office has started the industrial land study, so I appreciate that as well.

So with that, I'm going to go with the events of the week.

We have the Capitol Hill Eco-District walking tour tomorrow.

I believe a couple of my colleagues might be joining me as well.

Well, it's about the creation of an eco district in Capitol Hill.

It's like a super block.

Yes.

With more green space.

It's more green space.

It's, I mean, the super block champion, Council Member Musqueda, if you want to talk about.

Sure.

So I'm really excited about this broader term ecodistrict.

As you'll see in the budget, there'll be a future conversation around how do we create an ecodistrict potentially analysis, I would just say a study, on parcel of property in District 3. You've heard me talk about creating super blocks like they have in Barcelona and Copenhagen and many other cities.

I was inspired by conversations with many urbanists in 2017 and 2018. I think Council Member Gonzalez was inspired by the conversation she had in Copenhagen.

It sounds like you've been studying this concept as well.

And the real question is, how do you slow traffic, still allow for deliveries, still allow for pickups, especially for people needing access and have mobility issues, or potentially helping to avoid individuals feeling like they need to drive if they have been out at night, so wanting to make sure that there's still mobility access issues, but restricting traffic through neighborhoods.

What they've done in Barcelona and many areas of the city is they've looked at nine-block radiuses so that they've slowed traffic to just delivery and just drop-offs instead of having traffic go through, and they've put in in some places temporary and in some places permanent structures to narrow the lane so it's just pedestrian or just drop off for delivery.

And what they saw importantly is an increase in foot traffic and overall sales in small businesses.

So it's good for pedestrians, it's good for our environment, and it turns out it's good for businesses too.

So part of, I think, the question that we're interested in through looking at various district ecodistricts is where can we create greater mobility options, bicycling, walking, folks who have strollers and wheelchairs to feel safe in the streets and slow down traffic and maybe create more trees and temporary park-like avenues.

that could potentially be permanent.

So it doesn't have to cost a lot of money.

You can do these narrowing of the street with relatively small dollar amounts, and it's really exciting.

You're looking at that for District 4.

All what you said is good and fantastic, and recognizing from an ADA standpoint, and you just mentioned this, that some cities have begun an idea.

I don't know that any has piloted it yet.

But actually have powered wheelchairs available to people who you want to get into the middle of whatever your super block is.

But walking four blocks or nine blocks would be just outside that individual's ability.

We are looking at all ages and abilities and status prior to giving birth.

I would really love us to include that as well.

We are looking at how people get around but also recognizing that some people are going to need a little bit more.

And then we have Friday at Burke Museum ribbon-cutting ceremony, and on Saturday, the Seattle Works Swank Event.

I encourage more young people to get engaged, and I'm a huge proponent of civic engagement, and so I hope it's a good, I'm sure it's gonna be a good event.

I've been there before, and so that's all that I have for the week.

Thanks, Councilmember Pacheco.

Councilmember Esqueda, take us home.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I have a question about labor.

No, just kidding.

Yes, yes, exactly.

So I just want to reiterate, there are no more committee meetings for the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

I'm really excited about the conversation and potential vote today on the SEPA legislation that Councilmember Pacheco just mentioned, and I think it mirrors much of our conversation that we've had around Green New Deal, wanting to promote density, and the conversation we had at the state level about wanting to make sure that these tools that were really well-intended aren't being unintentionally used to reduce our options for housing and dense urban living.

So very excited to work with you on that and appreciate the amendment that we have.

I will note that I don't have any items Remaining on my agenda this week.

This will be my last week.

I here with you all for 2019 and I know councilmember Juarez is questioning the due date here But if there's anything else on my list to do this week, it is to have this baby And I really appreciate the conversations I've had with many of you up here on the dais about budget priorities and I know that all our shared values will be well represented.

And Chair Baxter, I thank you for all of your early work to help illuminate some of these ideas so that we are in good hands, that I think the public knows well where we're headed.

I've been vocal in those discussions intentionally to make sure that folks know where some of our priorities are.

And if I can, I will be joining you for the public, the votes on the 19th and the 25th, no guarantees though.

And we'll see what happens, but thank you very much for all of your support as we got through these last 39 weeks.

And I really, really appreciate working with you and for the folks who aren't gonna be here in 2020. I've talked to you all individually and will continue to reiterate what a privilege it was to serve with you.

So thank you for mentoring me when I was new last year.

And I've learned a lot from you and I'm really, really excited that we got Council Member Pacheco here to help carry out the end of the year.

But it's been a true honor to work with all of you and I'll be seeing you next year.

It's been wonderful taking this journey with you, so we're really excited about your important week, so thank you for sharing that, Councilmember Esqueda.

Okay, with that, we'll stand adjourned.

We'll see everyone at 2 o'clock today.