Welcome to a rainy celebration.
We're here to celebrate the start of the Northgate Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge construction.
This bridge will create a safe and convenient way to move from the North Seattle College campus and the Licton Springs community to the future Northgate light rail station.
A major Levy to Move Seattle commitment, the bridge also links recent transportation investments like the North Seattle Neighborhood Greenway and will connect two communities that have been divided by I-5 for 65 years.
I'm Sam Zimbabwe.
I'm the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.
I want to thank everyone who has advocated and worked tirelessly to make this possible.
It takes a lot of people to build a bridge.
State legislators, Representative Pollitt and Valdez, Senator Frockt, unfortunately couldn't be here today.
They're doing busy work, doing a lot of work for the community, this community in Olympia right now.
Really couldn't be here, but we're really sorry to have, not to have them.
They've been tireless advocates and supporters of this project.
City council members, Council Member Juarez has been just a tireless supporter.
Sound Transit and WSDOT great partners in building this.
North Seattle College, I can't say enough about their willingness to partner in this project as well.
Community organizations like Feet First, Cascade Bicycle Club, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, communities who have joined us throughout the planning and design for this project, and the staff who have participated in the planning, design, and now will oversee the construction.
It's taken a lot of people to get us this far.
It will take us a lot of people to get us even farther.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Mayor Jenny Durkan.
Thank you so much, Sam, and good afternoon, everyone.
It's another great, beautiful, sunny day in Seattle.
And unlike other projects that we see in other parts of the country at different times in history, today we are starting work on the bridge to everywhere, not the bridge to nowhere.
I really want to thank everybody for being here, for getting us to this milestone.
We know that our city is quite literally under construction.
And it is so exciting to see some of these projects start that are going to decide what the future looks like, not just in this neighborhood and community, but throughout our region.
We really have the opportunity to build the city of the future that is safer, more accessible, and provides more opportunity for more people.
This bridge is really going to be an important part of that.
As Sam said, this community has been divided far too long.
And I see the future where somebody can be a Seattle Promise Scholar, getting their two-year free college at Northgate, right here at North College.
Thank you, Dr. Brown.
And they're going to get on light rail, and they're going to head down to their internship at one of the great labor unions or jobs.
They're going to come back on light rail, hop on their bike, and use the greenway to get home.
The more mobility we have, the more opportunity there is in our region.
We know we need to do more to get people to and from.
Yesterday, actually it was Monday, I was really honored to stand with Sam and a number of advocates as we finished the first part of our interconnected bike network downtown.
And we will continue on that route to make sure that people can walk, bike, roll, use transit to get throughout our great city and our great region.
We know that this pedestrian bridge will connect so much of what is the future.
You know, Northgate stood when I was growing up as one of the first malls in the world, indoor malls in the country.
It's going to go under this new renovation and we're going to have great housing, great restaurants, NHL facility.
People can come here to watch, to skate, go across the bridge.
It really is going to become a new neighborhood and community that is the bedrock for the North End and the jumping off place.
I, too, have to thank all the people who got us here and all the people that will get us as we continue.
I also want to thank Representatives Valdez and Paulette and Senator Frock who couldn't be here, but without their help and their help in Olympia, we wouldn't have gotten this far.
I also want to thank Seattle voters.
because their belief in transportation projects and the Transportation Benefit District and the Move Seattle Levy shows that we care about that future.
Seattle continues to tax itself for the things it cares about.
Because of that, we have free college, we have good pre-K, we have mobility options.
I was with many mayors from across America just recently, and they all are trying to figure out how do they get more people to use transit?
We just wanna know, how do we get more transit?
Because more and more people are voting with their feet.
So lastly, I really have to thank another person standing up here who is a champion for the future of our city, not just here in, What district?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Rule five.
Like, that was like T-ball.
Here, I'm gonna do that again.
Now we're standing in what district?
Yeah.
Deborah Juarez has been a champion at City Council for so long and so many issues.
She has worked in other positions in public service and is just really a champion of equity, but recently has been one of those peoples who understands that for the next generation, These big civic infrastructure projects, we do matter.
They're going to build the legacy and the backbone of the future.
And with that, I give you our representative from District 5, Deborah Juarez.
It's not that I wasn't paying attention to our great mayor, I actually was.
I was just telling Mr. Rogoff about my second stop at 130th, so he was pretending not to hear me.
I actually have some prepared remarks, but before I go there, I do want to say a few words on a personal note.
I really want to thank Mayor Jenny Durkan and five mayors later, this is finally happening.
Sam Zimbabwe from SDOT, obviously, all the city staff and parks and North Seattle College and all the folks that made it happen.
But I have to say something more on a personal note.
As a constituent, since 2014, we've been fighting for this bridge.
And in fact, Mr. Rogoff will remember one of our first meetings, he was surprised that I'd actually read the Tiger Grant, asking for the money.
And he asked me, I said, no, I actually read it.
I got online, I found it, I read it.
Five mayors later, and with mayors putting more money into the budget to make this bridge more beautiful and more connected to our communities, it's finally happening.
I've lived in this neighborhood for well over 30 years and I can honestly say North Seattle is going through a renaissance.
It's a renaissance of vitality, of growth, of connectivity.
People are finally looking north.
It isn't just D5, though it is the best district, but it isn't just D5.
You know, one of the things that I learned running for office both times is what happened is when you bring community and business and groups together.
I want to thank Dr. Brown from Northdale College.
I want to thank Simon Properties, Thornton Place.
I want to thank Northwest Hospital.
All of these groups came together and met with me starting in the summer of 2015. That this would be a priority for us and for this community.
So again, it isn't just about D5.
We worked hard with great partners, as they shared and other people have too, with SDOT, WSDOT, our 45th legislative district, the mayor, to secure funding and additional funding for this bridge.
Again, I cannot say enough about North Seattle College and Dr. Brown, Northgate Mall, that's the Simon Property folks, Northwest Hospital, Thornton Place, These community pillars provide educational opportunities, healthcare, employment for D5 and North Seattle.
Not just, as you know, District 5, all of North Seattle and all of our great city.
They attract millions of people to the north end each year.
Northgate is exploding again, like I said, with the vitality, the growth, and the density that we want.
We want this growth and it's growth with grace.
And I'm glad people are finally looking north.
The North Gate of the future is coming, and this is what it looks like, folks.
Tens of thousands of new jobs, hundreds of affordable units for workers and students, and expected 5,000 new homes by 2035. A $85 million NHL headquarters with three sheets of ice and two hotels and an office building.
We have light rail coming.
We're anticipating 61,000 riders, and we're hoping for our second stop on 1-30th seven years earlier.
And of course, this bridge is just one more gem in that crown of telling all of Seattle, all of the region, and all of the state that this belongs to all of us.
When you're moving that many people, and you're getting people off of cement, and we're reducing our carbon footprint, and we're telling people to get on light rails, that you can come here, you can go to work, you can drop off your kids, you can pick up your groceries, you can come back, and you can go home.
and hopefully we'll work towards that 10-minute walk shed.
Our bridge will help thousands every day, including the 18,000 students year-wide at North Seattle College, the 700 employees and patients at Northwest Hospital, and the over 1,600 students at our new schools at Robert, Eagle Staff, and Cascade Elementary, and that's just a few.
Again, this is such an honor to be here.
This is one of the reasons why I've decided to run for office.
This is what I did in Indian country.
When you have an idea and you understand what essential governmental functions are, when you understand that brick and mortar is what attracts business and education and medical and all the good things that should be in a neighborhood, whether it's libraries, bike lanes, and you all know how I feel about off-leash dogs and pee patches.
This is what it means.
And so with that, thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Councilman Morris.
And the next person to speak, I just have to echo what a great partner, not just for North Seattle, but for everybody in Seattle and really seeing the value of opportunity for our kids and our students, Dr. Brown.
Well, as an educator, of course, I have to start a speech with a question, and maybe it's rhetorical, but how can a bridge for the future also be a bridge for the past?
So yes, today we focus on light rail in 2021 and what it means for access and connectivity for the North End, as well as how to move people from the North End all the way down to SeaTac and beyond.
And yes, this bridge will be a practical connection for the light rail station, but it also will be very symbolic for all the commuters going up and down I-5 that will see the bridge and what's happening here at the Northgate Mall as part of that revitalization process that you heard from Deborah Juarez.
But the bridge is more than that, and I'm going to get to the question in a bit so I can talk about why it's more than that.
Likewise, I want to acknowledge a lot of people that made this happen.
Of course, Mayor Durkan, SDOT, WSDOT, Mr. Zimbabwe, Representative Paulette and Valdez, and Senator Frocked.
say on transit, and I'll get to Deborah Juarez in just a second.
But for all of you, you realize that mobility is actually a social justice issue.
And for North Seattle College, with the tens of thousands of students and staff that we have every year, community college students are different than university students.
They're typically first generation students, low income students, students that are coming from the Seattle Promise, that transit means a lot for them.
So I want to thank all of you for realizing that and also that this transit project and the bridge is truly an educational lifeline for our students.
So thank you all.
But I do have to thank Deborah Juarez.
Before she was elected, there was a lot of individual conversations happening with community groups in the college and the business community.
Debra brought everything together to harness the moment.
She was really on fire to begin the conversations and continue those conversations.
I joke and I say that this project got on steroids once Debra became involved.
But again, the project's on steroids, not Debra Juarez on steroids.
I want to clarify that.
Yeah, I do want to clarify that.
OK, back to my question.
So how can a bridge for the future also be a bridge for the past?
As you heard, I-5 split Thornton Creek, as well as Licton Springs, which is on the other side.
And we had Corliss Avenue.
where I-5 would become.
So the Duwamish held this land as sacred community space.
There was community here before I-5.
And Duwamish saw the fishing and the sweat lodges because of the soil and the creeks in this area.
And Licton Springs, as you may know, is also a Seattle landmark now, which is absolutely wonderful.
And then there was community when the first Japanese-American community center outside of the International District was just right along Corliss.
And there was the strongest Japanese-American community in this area.
In fact, many Japanese-Americans would walk down 100th Street past Corliss as they headed to Olympic View Elementary, which is just a few blocks away.
And they helped integrate Olympic View Elementary.
So there was community at that point.
So diverse citizens of this area really would share rides together on the Burke-Gilman Railroad that had a station here.
hand in hand as they worked and went together to the city.
So community was here years ago before it was severed by I-5.
Here's an opportunity to rejoin community.
So once this bridge is completed, the college looks forward to see how the community will access our campus.
access the trails on our campus and the wetlands and I believe that North Seattle College land will continue to of course be an educational space but also I'm excited that the college land will be an oasis for those busy commuters that are running back and forth from light rail that could just take a moment stop and enjoy the greenery.
So this will truly be the community's bridge, and again, not just for the community in 2021, but also truly as a community restoration project for the communities of the past.
So thank you, and I'd like to introduce Patty Ripsolo from WSDOT.
Well thank you Dr. Brown.
I think what I first want to start off by congratulating the city and getting this very large project underway.
It's a huge milestone for them and I think you've heard a lot of the themes going on with the partnership and the collaboration that it takes for big projects like this to happen.
And so I want to thank everybody who's been coming to the table early on so that we can build the coalition to get this project underway.
And specifically around the funding, you can't start one of these projects without knowing how the funding is going to come together.
And you've heard there's lots of contributions happening.
And I really want to thank the state legislature for the 10 million they're contributing.
I think that signals the fact that they see this as a real regional benefit bridge for this community.
I also want to thank the traveling public in advance because a project like this, building a bridge over I-5 will have its traffic impacts, but we're committed to getting that information out early and often so people can prepare for when those disruptions actually occur.
As I mentioned, the collaboration that goes on with projects like this, it's important.
And what it does is it creates a solution that everybody can rally around.
And it's just great to see the community with the city, with the state, with our regional partners, the college, to make this come to fruition.
The final thing you've heard about the disconnect, I-5 severing these communities and this ped bridge is going to create that new connection, creating safe and reliable connections that people can use and they're not dependent on cars to get from one side of the freeway to the other.
It also brings together people's ability to get to jobs, to get to education, to get to their shopping, to get to regional places beyond just this particular neighborhood.
So thank you for inviting WSDOT to this and look forward to seeing this come out of the ground and people start using it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much and one of our last great partners Peter Rogoff of Sound Transit will come up.
Just have to say it is not just here but it is throughout the corridor that Sound Transit is contributing to equity.
Really proud that one of my first board meetings sponsored by Peter and staff was a resolution to make sure that we used our land for transit oriented development and making sure we're building density around light rail and really looking at opportunities to do so.
Peter's been a big supporter of this and other amenities that we have a light rail because he knows the importance of community.
So Peter, thanks so much.
Thank you, Mayor, and good afternoon, everybody.
I am Peter Rogoff, the CEO of Sound Transit, and we were thrilled to be a partner in this investment.
Sound Transit put in $10 million of regional transit dollars to help make this pedestrian bridge happen.
We did that because we know that whether it's in Everett or Seattle or Issaquah or Lakewood or Puyallup, there is no point in building the transit if people can't access it.
And all of our data shows that two-thirds of the folks who are going to board light rail right behind me at Northgate Station are going to come here either as pedestrians or cyclists.
Two-thirds.
We did add more parking here, but in the end, this is going to be a walkable station for a great many people.
I also really just want to celebrate the access that we're going to be providing for students to North Seattle College.
One of the things that hasn't been said that I think is important, a lot of those students who will be accessing North Seattle College via light rail have learned how to become transit users because Jenny Durkin provided them with free ORCA cards.
That's the transition.
That's how we grow transit ridership and transition people into being regular transit riders and help de-conflict our highways.
When we open light rail here next year, let me say that again, it's starting to look quite real up there.
And I will tell you, if you've been able to see the Roosevelt Station underground, it's looking even realer there.
We are just months away from starting to run trains up there in a testing mode.
And then after that, we'll be running trains up there to train our operators who will be operating those trains.
And then next year, we'll have full revenue service with what we expect to be thousands and thousands of additional riders who will be able to access wherever they want to go.
By 2024, you will be able to go from Northgate all the way up to Linwood.
all the way south to Federal Way, all the way east to Mercer Island, Bellevue, and Redmond.
In just four years, we'll actually have the network that this region has needed for a very long time.
So let me just say, toward that end, we are partnering very carefully with our bus partners at King County Metro and Community Transit on how to get people here, not just as pedestrians and transit users.
But we have found that when we work hand in glove, we provide a product that really works.
And when we don't work hand in glove, we've got problems.
We will have a great many users who are gonna access this station by bus.
whether they're coming up from down from Snohomish County or elsewhere in King County.
And we will be coordinating our scheduling, their route structure, our frequency of train service to make sure that it works for the maximum number of people in the community.
So let me just thank everyone again.
Bikes and pedestrians are part of the access challenge and this is really going to be a flagship investment for Sound Transit to provide that access for students in the community alike.
Thanks very much.
Thank you, Peter.
And just a second, we'll take some questions.
Again, I just want to thank all the community activists and mobility activists to get us to this place, and it'll carry us forward.
And the story that Peter told about ORCA, just to give you a vignette about how important that is, I was doing a roundtable with youth in Lake City Way, and there was a young man, it was right at the beginning of the school year, who was going to be a senior, incredibly bored, First in his family to end up going to college.
He's in high school thinking about dropping out because he wanted to do running start But he had no way to get to North College He got a free Orca card and he was able to enroll in Running Start.
And so those are the kinds of opportunities we can unlock for people.
And if we make sure that our transit matches up with our opportunity, matches up with our education, and our approach to climate, we can build that better city.
So I stand with all the partners here really happy.
that we're here at this day celebrating yet another milestone.
Say one thing to Dr. Brown, when he was talking about the history of Northgate, I was really glad he wasn't going back to when I worked at JCPenney in high school.
No one knows, unless they work there, that the C stands for cash.
And so it's a new era for Northgate, and thank you for everyone who had that vision.
With that, any questions for any of the partners up here?
What kind of things are you doing in the design?
Lights or cutting back trees or things like that?
What are you doing to make the bridge be inviting and feel safe for people who are using it?
Yeah, so there is lighting integrated throughout the bridge.
And some of the design of that was done through the best practice pedestrian bridge design, trying to make sure that we didn't have too many sharp corners, as you said, and people could navigate that, whether they're walking or biking.
So those features are integrated into the bridge.
Are you cutting back speeds?
Will there be patrols there, for example?
There are.
Peter reminded me that there will be emergency call boxes there as well.
There are a few trees that are being removed for the project.
We're replacing those at, I think, a five-to-one basis as part of the project as well.
So, yes, we anticipate and we'll work with our law enforcement partners to make sure that this is a safe experience for people crossing RCI 5. That is also gonna come from there being more people there based on the light rail.
The demand, as everybody has talked about, the demand for access to the light rail station will add a lot more people and provide some of that visibility for folks as well.
Yeah, it's pretty wide, so you'll be able to see as you go.
There's also some altitude change there, so you will be able to see as you go around those corners.
I have a question for either Sam or Kate Rogoff.
What's going to be finished first, the bridge or the transit line?
How do you integrate that?
Are there any disruptions to transit users?
We can both take a shot at that answer, but I'll let Peter go first.
It's going to be perfect.
That's all that needs to be said.
Rail, I do expect, will open earlier.
There will be some portion of the parking deck that will need to be off limits for parking while they're doing construction on the pedestrian bridge.
I don't think it's, like, very long, but there will be, you know, an iteration of where, once they're done with the pedestrian, that area on the parking deck is being used for construction staging for the pedestrian bridge.
So once they are able to pull away that staging, all of those parking facilities will be fully available.
We've got a friendly wager going of who's actually going to finish and open first, but I'll take that one.
And you said September, we haven't said September.
Just wanted to be clear.
We expect, well, the sign right behind you says fall 2021. It's gonna be around there late summer, early fall.
There's some opportunities where if this lets up, we might accelerate that just a little bit.
I'm not sanctioning September, I'm not sanctioning spring when we have our full safety certification and everyone trained and I get a recommendation from my chief safety officer as well as operations will announce it.
Yeah clearly whenever we're building over I-5 especially major construction work, we definitely foresee there'll be lane closures, potential closures, northbound or southbound, but those will all be very well coordinated with all the other activities.
And as I mentioned, we like to get that information out as early as possible so people know what they need to do when that happens.
And it's typically late at night, so a low impact, it's not during the commute period.
here here
And some of that we can take off, Mike.
I can get my construction experts.
We can really go into depth about that.
But the impacts to I-5 will primarily be when we're lifting sections into place.
There won't be
regular repeated closures of I-5.
They're going to be very limited in duration and they'll be when we're making major moves that we really need to close it for safety purposes.
All the other work will be either in the shoulders or won't have traffic impacts in those ways.
any final questions then we'll turn some dirt and we'll let everybody get dry.
It's real.