(Image: SDOT)
The Seattle City Council has reached one of its most important milestones of the year, finalizing a $1.55 billion transportation levy for the November ballot.
Mayor Bruce Harrell can now sign off on the proposed property tax levy and put the decision in the hands of Seattle’s voters.
Despite its record size, the city’s electorate seem unlikely to reject the levy and its focus on spending on streets, transit, sidewalk, and bike lanes for the next eight years.
Tuesday’s council approval came with one final element to sweeten the pot as members agreed to earmark $20 million of the levy’s future funding for work to complete the “missing link” of the Burke-Gilman Trail in Councilmember Dan Strauss’s district.
Last week, the council’s levy committee voted against amendments that would have added another $200 million in spending and rejecting calls from street safety and transit proponents to dedicate more spending to pedestrian, bike, and bus infrastructure and programs.
If passed, the final levy proposal would increase the property tax bill from the levy for the Seattle median assessed value home to $499 a year — $30 higher than the initial proposal from the mayor.
If passed in November, the funding and spending plan will replace the $930 million previous levy approved in 2015.
HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
At this point, I need a place I can rent for under $1500 and I’ll chance it riding my bike along side traffic for the next 8 years rather than raise any prices. It’s unbelievable how normal being rich is in Seattle.
Vote against this. Big Tech should pay for their growth. Bezos avoided WA taxes by moving to Florida after making his fortune here. Amazon lobbies against a head tax. Shameful. The corporate apologist city council now wants normal working people to pay to fix all the infrastructure problems Big Tech and corporate greed cause.
So growth is bad? We’d rather big tech expand in the suburbs?
I vote no, and will continue to vote no, until the city spends its money more wisely. Union Street has been ruined by its seldom-used bike lines; Madison Street soon to be by an ill-advised express bus that barely saves commuters any time.
It’s funny, every time some non-automobile-centric infrastructure goes in, a handful of people come out of the woodwork stating matter-of-factly that it’s the worst idea ever.
After the infrastructure goes in and is successful, you never seem to hear from them ever again.
Does anyone know where we can find the actual proposal we’ll be voting on? All I’ve been able to find is the city’s 35-page promotional pamphlet
I like the sidewalk part and will vote for it.