(Image: City of Seattle)
A Seattle City Council committee Tuesday morning will take up a handful of amendments including a proposal from District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth as it finalizes the city’s new long-term transportation plan.
CHS reported here on the proposed 20-year transportation plan for transit, street, sidewalk, and bridge projects across Seattle that will serve as the framework for the city’s planned transportation levy renewal.
Tuesday, the committee could move the plan forward to a full council vote after debate on a roster of amendments including downtown representative Bob Kettle’s push to remove funding from the so-called “Pike Place Event Street project” and amendments that seek to help better address the estimated 27% of Seattle streets that do not currently have sidewalks.
D3 rep Hollingsworth will also bring an amendment to the committee that would prioritize the route and “identify safety improvements for Lake Washington Boulevard as a Council priority for the levy renewal proposal.”
The boulevard has been a focus for the city as it has experimented with dedicating more of its streets to uses beyond automobiles. In response to the pandemic, during summer 2020, the city began periodically closing 3 miles of Lake Washington Blvd to cars and opened it for people to walk and bike.
The committee amendment does not specify what those safety improvements to be included in the levy proposal would entail.
If approved by the committee and the full council, the transportation plan resolution would adopt an updated plan that shapes plans for multiple modes of movement and travel including transit, vehicles, bicycles, freight, pedestrians, Vision Zero, and more, “and will likely inform the investments in the upcoming Seattle Transportation Levy.”
CHS reported here earlier this month on Mayor Bruce Harrell’s $1.35 billion transportation levy proposal. If passed by voters in November, the funding and spending plan will replace the $930 million previous levy approved in 2015.
The levy will increase costs for Seattle property owners. Under the expiring Levy to Move Seattle, the “median assessed value Seattle homeowner” currently pays about $24 per month,” the city says. “This levy proposal would increase the monthly cost by $14 per month for a $1 million home, by $12 per month for a $866,000 home (median Seattle assessment), and by $7 per month for a $500,000 home,” the city said in the announcement of the new plan.
Under the new transportation plan and with the power of the new levy, the 23rd Ave corridor is an example of the type of transportation investments the city will focus on in coming years with reconstruction and paving, a corridor safety analysis, additional transit investment, and crossing improvements, sidewalk repair, and neighborhood greenway upgrades.
The levy will also provide funding for Seattle to continue to purchase extra bus hours from the county to boost service in key areas of the city.
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Is this blog going to cover Hollingsworth currently supporting hardcore right winger Spencer Hawes? Not a good look Joy!!
Touch grass, my guy.
I really just want them to say they’ll use the $$ to fix potholes and our already-existing infrastructure.
Finally, something Joy is doing that I can’t get behind. Lake WA Blvd doesn’t need any more money. It’s already been turned into a glorified bike path.
It was initially designed as a bike path! And it’s technically run by the parks department. Facts are important!
Almost all of Seattle streets were originally designed as bike paths. Also, it’s owned by the parks but maintained by SDOT
This is false but repeated so often that I wonder if it is being intentionally spread as propaganda. The Lake Washington bike path was a route connecting what is now Eastlake with the Lake Washington shore, traveling up northern Capitol Hill then turning inland south toward Leschi before finally turning east toward the water. That bike path had nothing to do with the existing LWB that abuts the water and was conceived, designed and built as a driving boulevard. Indeed, facts are important.
Fact don’t matter if you’re fighting the cars. Also, the personal experience and opinions of people that drive cars don’t matter.
Even if what you’re saying is true (and it’s not), are you really arguing that the city shouldn’t change from it’s origins 100 years ago, a time when the population was about 5% of what it is now? How backwards.
There are psychotic old lawyers with Teslas who will take over safety meetings that want to turn Lake WA Blvd into a parking lot so he can walk his damned dog. Rather than move to a neighborhood not near a main thoroughfare, he wants to bend the city to his old man needs.
Interesting definition of a thoroughfare (not that I’m a fan of your “psychotic tesla lawyer” straw man, I bet that was fun to make up). It’s not a major arterial, it’s used primarily for lake access in the seward park/ mt baker area this refers to. You use another road and drive in that for as short a distance as possible to get to a parking lot or park. Again, this is how it was designed, even if you want it only for cars, it would be for cruising and access.
I’m not siding one way or another on this issue (it’s complicated and messy) but you are bandying about a bunch of misleading and apocryphal information.
If we’re talking about the section between Alder St and Colman Park, I can agree with that being a bike path. If we’re talking about north of Alder St or South of Colman, that’s more of a thoroughfare where Lakeside becomes the thoroughfare.
That bike path section of Lake Washington Blvd is hardly conducive to speeding or drag races, which is what the old Tesla dude was complaining about.
Check yourself, and please quit distorting facts. I, my neighbors, and everyone on that road from 7-9am and 5-7pm use it as a main arterial. The rest of the time it is filled with lollygaggers and people aimlessly wandering the road. Now that we’ve destroyed traffic movement on Rainier, it is even more crucial to keep this road moving.
Lake Washington Boulevard has a speed limit of 25 miles per hour, 20 in a few areas.
Most yahoos are going 40-60 miles per hour.
I wouldn’t mind a little safety. Or at least an occasional cop giving out tickets.
You’re clearly lost and have found yourself on the I-90 bridge or are just completely delusional if you actually believe this!
Nope. I live, drive, and walk along this roadway; from Mad Park to Rainier Beach. FU!