It's Decision Day for the Seattle Transportation Levy
The council makes the final tweaks before sending
By Erica C. Barnett
The city council's transportation levy committee, which includes all nine council members, will approve the final version of the 2024 levy proposal on Tuesday—one of the last steps, including a vote by the full council, before it heads to the November ballot.
The proposal currently on the table is a $1.55 billion levy that would cost the median Seattle homeowner $499 a year, up from about $275 a year under the levy passed in 2015, which expires this year. So far, the council has added $100 million to the plan Mayor Bruce Harrell sent down in May.
Councilmember Tammy Morales has proposed boosting that number to $1.7 billion, a level polling has suggested voters would support, to restore funding for equitable, community-created projects and add funding for sidewalks, bike lanes, and road maintenance, among other projects.
Last week, transportation committee chair Rob Saka (D1, West Seattle) released a version of the plan that includes both changes he announced two weeks ago as well as amendments that the council will discuss publicly for the first time on Tuesday. They include:
• A proposal from Dan Strauss (District 6, Northwest Seattle) to reduce bike safety funding by $500,000 to fund a feasibility study for using private funds to build a lid over I-5 through the Roosevelt neighborhood and near the North 130th Street light rail station;
• An amendment from Saka to create a new $7 million fund for "neighborhood scale traffic safety programs." This new category would be separate and distinct from both the new "district funds" council members could direct to projects in their district and the new, grassroots "neighborhood-initiated safety partnership" program proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell and slashed under Saka's plan.
Councilmember Cathy Moore (D5, North Seattle) proposed eliminating the entire program, developed by a transportation equity work group charged with recommending ways to make city transportation funds more accessible to marginalized groups. The latest version of the plan would still cut $15.5 million, or 38 percent, from Harrell's $41 million proposal.
• An amendment from Tammy Morales (District 2, Southeast Seattle) to stipulate that the city will spend the $6 million previously added for transit security "in coordination with" transit agencies, rather than unilaterally putting more officers on buses and trains.
• A formal guarantee that at least 36 percent of new sidewalks funded by the plan will be in North Seattle's District 5; 22 percent will be in West Seattle's District 1; and 17 percent will be in Southeast Seattle's District 2. Districts 3, 4, 6, and 7 would split up the remaining 25 percent.
• $20 million in new spending, proposed by Strauss (D6, Northwest Seattle and Magnolia), on improvements to freight mobility in Interbay, SoDo, and elsewhere.
• An amendment from Saka increasing the minimum number of sidewalks the levy would build from 280 to 320, on top of 30 new blocks of sidewalks onAurora Ave. N.
• Amendments from Moore that would fund "auditing and professional services" for the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee, which would also expand to include the transportation committee chair, currently Saka. The committee provides oversight and is supposed to hold the city accountable to spend levy funds according to the language of the levy; the amendment would also expand the volunteer group's responsibilities to include auditing and performance evaluations of levy programs under a new "Good Governance and Equitable Implementation Initiative."
• Another amendment from Moore adding $5 million to "investigate and propose a comprehensive strategy" to dramatically improve the state of the city's bridges and arterial streets, and consider transportation impact fees—fees on new multifamily housing, based on the idea that apartments have a negative impact that requires mitigation—as a strategy for funding sidewalks.
• Amendments to the nonbinding "recitals" section of the legislation—in theory, the place to establish whatever problem a new law attempts to solve—have swelled the number of "whereas" clauses from 15 to 41, increasing the length of the proposal by several pages; additions include new clauses supporting electric vehicles, asserting that traffic safety measures shouldn't unduly slow down emergency responders, and establishing that Seattle wants to "create and maintain a safe, efficient and reliable transportation system."
• Amendments from Strauss to spend $5 million turning Ballard Ave. into a "curbless street" by reducing funding for sidewalk spot repairs and sidewalk construction and to spend $20 million completing the Burke-Gilman trail through Ballard by cutting funds for arterial street maintenance.
The transportation levy committee meets on Tuesday at 9:30.