The Seattle City Council’s transportation committee Tuesday will hear a report on the city’s plan for delivering projects under the $1.55 billion levy approved by voters in November.
CHS reported here on the record-sized levy and its focus on streets, transit, sidewalk, and bike lanes for the next eight years.
The Seattle Department of Transportation has released its plan for how it will spend $177 million of the levy funds in 2025.
The plan comes as Mayor Bruce Harrell seeks a new leader for the department after the departure of Greg Spotts earlier this month. One of Harrell’s former deputy mayors Adiam Emery is serving as the interim director at SDOT.
A roster of Capitol Hill and Central District-area projects are included in the 2025 plan but don’t mistake it for a list of projects that will be completed this year.
“The Levy Delivery Plan shares projects starting planning, design, construction, or maintenance in 2025,” SDOT says about the process. “Because some projects take 3+ years from inception through construction, work in 2025 lays the foundation for next 8 years.”
There are lots of items in the plan to look forward to.
Some $16 million in safety spending will include “HIGH-COLLISION SAFETY PROJECTS” at Broadway and Pike, Broadway and Union, and Harvard and Pike among dozens of other locations across the city, according to the plan.
Officials say they will also start planning a new “12th Ave S Safety Corridor” and work will begin on “Safe Routes to School Program” improvements at 13th Ave and E Yesler Way for Bailey Gatzert Elementary and along 10th Ave E for the Bertschi School.
“Transit Corridors and Connections” projects to “connect people safely to transit hubs, including Link light rail stations and bus stops; and Start Design on spot improvements” will include implementing a 24th Ave Bus Only Lane, undetailed “Broadway Safety Improvements,” and E Jefferson St/9th to 12th re-channelization, the SDOT plan states.
There are nitty gritty details in the plan including placements of new curb ramps:
- 14th Ave E and E Thomas St
- 15th Ave E and E Denny Way
- 15th Ave E and E Mercer St (North Leg)
- 15th Ave E and E Mercer St (South Leg)
- Boren Ave and Seneca St
- Broadway E and E Roy St (West Leg)
and work on new stairways including the start of designing of improvements at 15th and Boston as well as signal re-timing for northbound traffic on Broadway.
SDOT says it will also start planning protected bike lanes at locations including 12th Ave/12th Ave S between Madison St and Jose Rizal, and 520 Bridge Connections at 10th Ave E between E Miller St and Broadway, and Roanoke between I-5 and Eastlake.
Work will also begin to “Design, implement, and co-create People Street Projects to activate business districts and community spaces, with a focus on high equity priority areas.
Improvements could include redesigned streets, seating, wayfinding, lighting, and
activation,” SDOT says, in areas across the city including what is being called the “E Union Revival Corridor.”
Finally, planning will also be funded to overhaul the city’s People Streets and re-launch the program as well as SDOT-run planning for a new I-5 lid program.
The city says the levy also includes $9 million over its 8 years “to invest in strategies that increase transit rider safety and security, including transit and public safety personnel services.” The city has also budgeted $1 million to support King County Metro’s Transit Center Ambassador Program and the county’s Behavioral Health Team deployed on transit.
The council is asking SDOT to produce a report on implementing transit security improvements and services by June 2nd.
Among large American cities, Seattle is considered relatively safe for walkers with a pedestrian fatality rate around 2.54 deaths per 100,000 people. But walking deaths here remain well above the “Vision Zero” goal with totals stubbornly remaining around 16 to 20 deaths in recent years.
Keeping count is also a struggle. The city says it must cobble together reports from sources such including the Seattle Police Department, the Washington State Department of Transportation, and the King County Medical Examiner to keep track of pedestrian and traffic deaths.
Meanwhile, even small projects like this “Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons” installation planned for E Olive Way still take years to implement.
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Oh man when you have Fent in Cal Anderson in the open, and a tent city in every small park in the neighborhood, who gives a CRAP about some sidewalk improvements.
our priorities are all wrong.
Well maybe our Republican mayor will do some pretty good repaires to the city. Something’s gotta give ya know?!
No. I don’t know. Do tell.
Try to be specific, own your ideas, and don’t rely on disparagement as a point of logic.
Waiting ……………………………,
You say that like they’re mutually exclusive….or even handled by the same departments….
May be fine for myopic you but try imagining being elderly and/or disabled with walking as your basic mode. I’m through your “fear-inducing” areas daily and I’m more legit concerned with dying from a fall.
I sure as hell care.
I know we hate cars, but could we just focus on making our streets a little smoother? Fewer potholes and uneven patches left improperly fixed by construction? It would be much safer for bikes too…I have never driven in another American city (let alone one in Europe) with worse average street conditions than Seattle.
Maybe street sweep the leaf goop too
That would require people moving their cars, which is unlikely… Also, we’ve got a lot of hands and some of the more helpful folks at the city will outfit you with supplies!
https://www.seattle.gov/utilities/volunteer/adopt-a-street
Tow them if they don’t move them. Do what other cities do. Put signs up early and remove vehicles that don’t comply, Why bother running the cleaners if they can’t clean to the curb line? It is maddening the way this city operates on so many levels.
People lose their minds when you remove street parking or do anything related to the public spaces we provide for cars, even temporarily… That’s why SDOT has prioritized car travel over others for decades leading to this state.
Every city in the world has street sweeping. Moving cars is practically the point.
Yep, it’s shocking to me too. Seattle has street sweeping, but only on arterials and certain roads. This is the only major city I’ve seen with multiple cars seemingly still registered and parked on the street with moss and plants growing on them.
I would love to see a street sweeping program, but that requires most streets have parking on one side only so that you can alternate sides of streets, which removes half the parking in many parts of Seattle. I’m all for that, but I highly doubt that’s going to happen.
When I was growing up in Seattle, SDOT would routinely clean all our streets on a fixed schedule, and car owners would have to move their vehicles out of the way for that. Those were the “good ol’ days”!
Seattle is ham-strung and can’t collect revenues like a normal city.
Are our revenues per capita really that much less than peer cities?
The numbers are right here in the article, they are spending $403M on road maintenance, plus another $266M bridges, freight, and signals.
My friend, the cars are the things destroying the roads.
Want extra lanes for more traffic, more roads to repair, less property to pay for the roads
It sure doesn’t help that cars and trucks are on average much heavier than they used to be and damage to roads goes up by the power of 4 of the weight of the car
You want smoother roads?
Have less cars on the roads
or raise taxes by billions
Finding public transit and bike infrastructure is how you get smooth roads with less traffic
With the added benefits of having a solvent city budget, reducing CO2 and micro plastic emotions, creating a more affordable city with less traffic deaths, that looks, smells and sounds way more pleasant
But most importantly you would be dealing with less bumpy roads filled with traffic in the long run, which is obviously the most pressing issue facing society
Half of Broadway’s safety problems were actually created by the initial efforts to make it safer. It is incredibly confounding to get around in a car, and I watch people struggle to figure it out all day long, lurching and swivel-necking while trying to figure it out. Defund SDOT.
Yes, SDOT is BY FAR the most dysfunctional department in City government.
They are full-filling their mandate.
Slowing Down Our Traffic.
Baby, I have a fever, and the only cure is bus lanes.
When turning on red is outlawed, only outlaws will turn on red (got to say though, the pedestrian in me feels like its a life-saver, the driver in me hates the a-hole behind me honking).
Removing the island on 12th and union/ Madison that is a high collision magnet for both bikes and cars would be a start.