A Spotts tour this summer included this stop at a neighborhood’s ghost bike. “Safety will be my number one priority,” Spotts wrote.
While Mayor Bruce Harrell’s pick to lead the the Seattle Department of Transportation works his way through the confirmation process, nominee Greg Spotts is scheduling listening tours “where Greg can walk, bike, roll, or take transit with folks to build relationships, experience your community, and understand what Seattle’s complex transportation system means to you.”
You can request a tour here.
The nominee is calling on individuals and groups to call out for the tours as he moves forward toward taking on the 1,200-person, $700 million a year department that has struggled against safety goals and ongoing traffic and transit woes. Last year, the city hit its highest number of traffic-related deaths since 2006.
CHS reported here on Spotts and his work as chief sustainability officer in Los Angeles.
Harrell included a change at the top of SDOT as he launched his new administration earlier this year saying the department needed to take a more “balanced” approach that better recognizes “the role of cars and new electric vehicles.”
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The nominee’s quote stands in contrast to the Mayor’s pledge to take a more balanced approach recognizing the role cars and electric vehicles play here. His listening tour seems to welcome comments from many specific transportation users, but notable omits those who might drive around our city. Where is that balance the Mayor spoke so fondly of?
Maybe the balance is that 95% of all transport budget goes to cars and they get almost all of the space. Sounds like a balance would be less input from cars.
I’m looking forward to getting one car lane on rainier in each direction. Bike lanes + bus lanes will be pretty sweet.
If you need a car wouldn’t it make sense for you to wait since you are basically driving around a living room. Just sit back and watch TV.
The business owners of color on Rainier would very much prefer their customers can park rather than watching a handful of white spandex wearers roll by on their $2500 bikes on a given day.
Hope they wind up touring where the roads and sidewalks haven’t been paved or redone since the Eisenhower administration.
This.
If you drive on Madison St these days, you just wanna cry.
What a fiasco of a city we have. Completely 3rd world in maintenance. (Actually 3rd world isn’t this bad.)
I read somewhere that the Madison “Rapid Ride” project will only increase transit time along the route by about 5 minutes. If this is accurate, then it is a colossal waste of money! And at the additional cost of massive construction along the street for about two years.
Yeah, we have budget for painting crosswalks with cool colors for different interest groups but we can’t fill potholes or repave the streets outside people’s homes…