(Image: @seattledot) “Nearly one hundred years ago, on April 21, 1924, the first traffic light in Seattle was installed at 4th and Jackson…”
The Seattle City Council Tuesday approved a new 20-year transportation plan for transit, street, sidewalk, and bridge projects across Seattle that will serve as the framework for the planned $1.35 billion transportation levy renewal vote this fall.
While still massive in scale and the result of a two-year process of outreach, bureaucracy, and budgeting, Mayor Bruce Harrell and council leadership are emphasizing the plan’s focus on day to day issues like potholes, sidewalks, and costly infrastructure repairs over the ambitious new initiatives and projects it might eventually spawn.
“It’s time for us to prioritize the bold basics of local government. From filling potholes to expanding access to public transit, this 20-year vision for the future of Seattle’s roads does just that,” District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, vice chair of the council’s Transportation Committee, said in a statement. “Local government can’t solve every problem on its own, but when we put our mind to it, we can build world-class transportation infrastructure.”
The Harrell administration plan was little changed by the council and some of the few additions underlined what is being positioned as a more neighborhood-focused approach.
The council’s announcement on the plan’s approval, for example, only mentions bikes once and emphasized the plan’s framework for “improving bike lanes,” not adding new ones.
CHS reported here on amendments introduced by the transportation committee including Hollingsworth’s amendment calling for the new plan to prioritize 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.
Under the transportation resolution passed Tuesday, the city will adopt the updated plan that shapes guidelines 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.”
You can review more details about the transportation plan here.
CHS reported earlier this month on Mayor 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 levy proposal.
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 plan also calls out MLK from Madison to McClellan as an area that could be in line for major “multimodal improvements.”
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.
Harrell’s office is expected to transmit his proposal for the Transportation Levy renewal in the next few weeks. The Council’s Select Committee on the 2024 Transportation Levy is scheduled to meet for the first time on May 7th.
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