The application is now available on-line, along with a timeline and a host of other resources to help you complete the application and answer any questions you might have about the process or type of projects that will be competitive. 

Completed applications must be received by December 17, 2012 to be considered.

Any transportation project is eligible if it is large ($100,000 – $750,000), is entirely on existing Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) right-of-way;  and has strong support from its local neighborhood District Council.  In the pictures, you can see how one project established a new sidewalk, curbs, and pedestrian lighting.

Timeline

After proposals are submitted on 12/17, here’s what happens:

January Each of Seattle’s 13 neighborhood District Councils will forward 3 proposals to SDOT for evaluation, including a preliminary scope and budget. If needed, SDOT will refine the proposed project in consultation with the applicant or to meet construction or design standards.  

February-May  SDOT will complete a high level scope and cost estimate of the projects selected by neighborhood District Councils (up to 39 projects in all).

June Projects will  be ranked by the District Councils and forwarded to the BTG Levy Oversight Committee. 

July The BTG Levy Oversight Committee will evaluate and prioritize projects for funding.

August Oversight committee will make funding recommendations to the Mayor and City Council.

September – November 2014 Budget adopted.

Project design work will happen in 2014, with construction taking place in 2015.

The NSF program began in 2007 and at the end of this year, 27 new projects will have been constructed thanks to BTG:

Projects Selected for Funding in 2010

• Fairview Ave E and Fairview Ave N Intersection
• Garfield Superblock 23rd Avenue East
• N 143rd St between Palatine and Aurora Ave
• Maynard Ave between S Jackson St and S Dearborn St
• Ravenna Ave NE between 85th Ave NE and Lake City Way
• 13th Avenue NW between NW 90th Street and Holman Road
• S Orcas Street between Beacon Ave S and MLK Jr Way
• 25th Avenue SW from SW Brandon St to SW Juneau St
• S Othello Street between Seward Park Ave & Chief Sealth Trail
• California Ave SW at SW Holden, SW Othello, SW Frontenac and SW Findlay Sts
• 33rd Avenue NE between NE 125th St and NE 130th St

Projects Selected for Funding in 2007

• Lander Festival Street
• Alki Sidewalk
• Delridge Sidewalk
• Sacajawea Elementary Sidewalk
• Greenwood Sidewalk
• Thorton Creek Sidewalk
• Eastlake Sidewalk
• Jackson Place Traffic Calming
• Wallingford Sidewalk Repair
• Queen Anne Pedestrian Improvements
• Ballard Sidewalk Repair
• Central District Pedestrian Improvements
• First Hill Pedestrian Improvements
• Belltown Pedestrian Improvements
• Columbia City Pedestrian Improvements

I was so proud that the Chamber established The Senator Scott White Regional Leadership Award, this year awarded to Rep. Nick Harper from Everett. Scott’s widow, Alison Carl White, presented the award, and spoke about her first year without Scott. She impressed us that she and her children were thriving, thanks to support from family and friends. Alison gave a beautiful tribute about Scott which will assure that his work, ethics and love of his community will continue on. He would have been proud of her. I know I was, and am.

Despite this loss, it was good to be back at the conference with other regional leaders to continue the work we started last year. It was a direct result of the panel last year that we created and went on the Cascade Curtain Study Mission this past summer.

The Cascade Curtain study mission, sponsored by the Chamber, took a group of about 30 leaders from both sides of the state to visit key industries and institutions in Yakima, the Tri-Cities, and Walla Walla. The goal was to help us understand the political divisions between the Puget Sound region and the rest of the state — and to remind all of us how truly interdependent we are, economically.
.

For example, I learned that 92 percent of all U.S raspberries come from Washington state, as well as 74 percent of hops, spearmint, and wrinkled seed peas, as well as 60% of apples, grapes, cherries, and pears. This past year 109 MILLION boxes of apples were picked in Washington, generating more than $7 billion of apples and apple-related products. Our state is truly feeding our nation.

Back in Suncadia Friday, Rep. Bill Hinkle and I spoke about our trip and what we learned: Yakima firing range provides a major portion of the military sector’s $3.1 billion in wages for our regional economy; 12 million CASES of wine were produced last year in Washington, at an economic value of over $8 billion.

WSU’s Tri-Cities branch offers a Viticulture and Enology major contributing to critical research and development opportunities in the wine industry. Who knew that 27,000 vehicles cross Snoqualmie Pass every day, of which roughly 7000 are trucks carrying $80 billion in goods? That’s why we need a financially sustainable transportation infrastructure. Predictions are for 41,000 vehicles making that crossing by the year 2030. Rep. Hinkle and I agreed on three very important issues affecting both East and West: immigration, education, and transportation.

We agree that our goal must be to forge our regional leadership into a team that will act effectively on behalf of our entire region and the state as a whole, to address immigration, education, and transportation. In future blogs, I will address each of these issues and action steps we can take.

Starting onto the overpass on 3rd Ave West.

The West Thomas Street Overpass is a piece of the Lake-to-Bay Loop, a cherished long-term vision first articulated in neighborhood plans from the Uptown, Belltown, South Lake Union, and Denny Triangle neighborhoods. A pedestrian route between Lake Union and Elliott Bay, the Lake-to-Bay Loop connects some of Seattle’s civic treasures that have long felt much farther apart than they actually are, including the Olympic Sculpture Park, Myrtle Edwards Park, Seattle Center, Lake Union Park, the Center for Wooden Boats, and now, the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI).

Up and over Elliott and Western, two streets traditionally daunting to pedestrians.

As the city moves to address the Mercer Mess; the state takes Highway 99 underground; more employees from places like Amazon, the Gates Foundation, and other organizations need to get in and out of South Lake Union; and more tourists visit the city on cruise ships, the Lake-to-Bay Loop becomes more and more important – and with the West Thomas Street Overpass, it is closer to becoming a reality.

I’ve written about my hopes for the Lake-to-Bay Loop before.

Over the train tracks.

As for the bridge itself: Lifting off from 3rd Avenue between Thomas and Harrison, the overpass takes bikes and pedestrians over Elliott Street and the Burlington Northern/ Santa Fe railroad tracks straight into Myrtle Edwards Park, coming out at the head of a beautiful little pocket beach with a view of West Seattle and Bainbridge Island.

View of the Port from the overpass

Tourists coming the other direction from cruise ships or Waterfront visits will find themselves walking toward the Space Needle, with glimpses of the Great Wheel, and at least for now, the P-I Globe.

The project was funded by Park Levy I and II, Puget Sound Regional Council Grant Funds, King County Grant Funds, federal grants, and private donations. It’s an example of how leveraging funds from multiple sources, in hard budget times as well as good ones, can pay off hugely for our communities.

Pocket beach at Myrtle Edwards.

I am particularly glad to note that enhancements to pedestrian and bicycle mobility are a key component of the 2013-2014 Proposed Budget.  The proposed budget funds bicycle facilities, sidewalk safety, Safe Routes to Schools, the creation of a Center City Mobility Plan, the continued good work of the Bike Master Plan, cycle tracks and greenways.

From the SDOT presentation, here’s a summary of Pedestrian and Bicycle Enhancements (Table 1, Sect. 5):

“Proposed enhancements include new Safe Routes to School projects, additional funding for sidewalk safety repair and greenways development, and creation of a Center City Mobility Plan. Also funds Shoreline Street Ends program additions, improved multimodal traffic data collection, and study of potential Burke Gilman trail extension.”

And here is Table 2, Section 18, a summary of Bike Master Plan implementation (Table 2, Section 18):

“Adds $338,000 in 2013 and $1.369 million in 2014 of federal grants for the Westlake Cycle Track project which will provide an attractive, north-south bicycle facility along the west side of Lake Union. Also adds $150,000 of General Fund to develop designs for bicycling corridors through Center City Seattle.”

It was good to get an overview from SDOT, and I look forward to more specifics, as requested by Transportation Committee Chair Tom Rasmussen, in the weeks to come.

Updating the Bicycle Master Plan

Seattle’s various modal plans are the product of many hours of professional and volunteer labor, so I also want to call attention to the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board, which reported on the state of the city’s Bicycle Master Plan to the City Council’s Transportation Committee, chaired by Tom Rasmussen, on September 11. (Watch the committee meeting.)

They talked about the process of updating the Bicycle Master Plan (pictured below), which was first released in 2007, the feedback they’ve been receiving from the community, the development of priorities, and how they are reaching out to the public.

New goals that support greenways and cycle tracks

Over the last four years, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has invested nearly $36 million in bicycle improvements guided by the Bicycle Master Plan.  We have made progress, and we know that best practices for bicycle and pedestrian safety have changed internationally. 

So I was thrilled to see that in a response to public feedback, SDOT has added three goals tailored to support the greenway and cycle track movements: connectivity, equity, and livability.

These three concepts are at the heart of the greenway vision – and I appreciate having these concepts captured in our city’s Bicycle Plan so clearly.  Here’s how the proposed updates address those goals:

• Connectivity – Create a bicycle network that connects places where people want to go and provides a safe and time-efficient travel option.
• Equity – Provide equal cycling access for all ages of riders (“8 through 80” is in the public parlance… I prefer to think “3 to 93”!)  through public engagement, program delivery, and capital investments.
• Livability – Build vibrant and healthy communities by creating a welcoming and safe environment for bicycle riding.

A recent study showed that nearly 60% of people polled WILL ride their bikes to work or school, or even a mile or two to the library or grocery store, IF safe and separated streets or cycle tracks are provided for them. 

Click here to download a side-by-side comparison of the vision, goals, and objectives for the 2007 Bicycle Master Plan and those proposed for the 2012 Bicycle Master Plan Update.

Creating prioritization frameworks

SDOT is charged with building and maintaining our roads, and that includes new cycle tracks and  Neighborhood Greenways.  Assuring adequate funding requires us to think about the city roadway as a system.  We don’t need a Greenway or cycle track on every street, nor do motorized vehicles need to have priority on every street.   

I strongly believe we need to bring the freight community into the conversation as well, so I’m glad to see funding in the 2013 Budget for a Freight Master Plan. I want to see an integrated and connected transportation system where roadway real estate is safely shared by all, and bicycles and trucks have prioritized space on different streets.

 SDOT may consider separate frameworks for the network including connections that are neighborhood-based, and those that are corridor-based.  Greenways are best-suited for non-arterial streets in residential neighborhoods. Cycle tracks, on the other hand, which physically separate bicycles from motor traffic, have proven to be safe and effective in high-volume traffic corridors.  Developing dual prioritization frameworks – and funding both – would ensure that both corridor facilities and neighborhood greenways are built and link to one another.

It is my hope that SDOT sets aggressively aspirational goals and that we make serious progress every year toward our desired network.   Of course, I recognize that goals like these have funding as well as workload and staffing implications for SDOT, and the city must make this a financial priority.

The good news is that we have determined interest city wide, and a commitment to create a world-class transportation network that accommodates pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, freight.  We also have new national standards thanks to NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) which will help us learn from other cities.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways

All this reminds me that it’s been too long since I last pointed to the great resources and volunteer opportunities on the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Web site.

This group, which now includes advocates from 19 Seattle neighborhoods, has recently refined its own goals for creating safe and healthy streets and connected neighborhoods. 

• Reduce speeds on residential streets.
• Minimize cut through traffic on designated residential or local streets.
• Ensure safe crossings of busy streets for people who walk or ride a bike.
• Provide safe convenient access to schools, parks, businesses and places people want to go.
• Improve walking and biking conditions for those of us from 3 to 103 years of age!

I want to recognize and thank the members of the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways group for their tireless efforts and strong neighborhood advocacy.  Their goals look a lot like my own personal ambitions for our city.

If you’re new to the idea of greenways, here’s a collection of previous blog entries I’ve written on the subject.

And finally, I just had to put this in here, because I find it so impressive: “Seattle’s transportation infrastructure is valued at over $13 billion. Major system assets include: 1,540 lane-miles of arterial streets, 2,412 lane-miles of non-arterial streets, 135 bridges, 494 stairways, 587 retaining walls, 22 miles of seawalls, 1,060 signalized intersections, 47 miles of bike trails, more than 200 miles of on-street bicycle facilities, 35,000 street trees, 2,150 pay stations, 40 parking meters, and 26,200 curb ramps.”

By now you’ve probably already heard that the downtown ride free area (or RFA) is ending on Saturday September 29. 

It was eliminated (after 40 years of service) by the King County Council to help the agency preserve the greatest number of routes in the face of financial crisis. (Metro ended up eliminating 10 routes and making changes to more than 50.) Metro hopes to see $2 million more per year by collecting fares downtown.

The current ride free area extends from the north at Battery St. to S. Jackson St. on the south, and east at 6th Avenue to the waterfront on the west.

This means that, unless you are on one of Metro’s RapidRide bus lines:

• You will always pay when you get on the bus.
• You will always enter at the front door.
• You’re encouraged (but not required) to exit out the back door.

The same is true for Sound Transit and Community Transit buses operating in King County.

RapidRide lines have ORCA readers at their stations, so you can pay before boarding.

If you have a stroller or mobility device, or you need to tell the driver that you’re getting your bike off the rack, you can use the front door to exit.

Hope for the best, but prepare for delays

Chances are good that despite the advertising, plenty of people will be caught unprepared for the change. So, please, in October, allow yourself a little extra time.

I know I’m going to be taking deep breaths and practicing patience at the bus stops, especially during commuter times, and especially through downtown.

ORCA cards will speed you up

If you don’t already have an ORCA card, this would be a great time to invest. It will speed up your boarding and make it easier to transfer to all the other modes of public transportation in the region.

Here’s Metro’s FAQ about the ride free zone, how to pay, how much to pay, how to ride, and how to get help with disembarking if you need it.

How will low income or no income riders get around?

Metro is working with the Seattle Department of Transportation to provide a free circulator shuttle through downtown, mostly for poor and low-income riders who rely on the bus to get to shelters, job training or medical visits. It will be operated by Solid Ground, which already contracts with Metro to provide ACCESS paratransit service.

More information on the routing and schedule of the circulator will be available closer to Sept. 29, but it will probably travel First Avenue and loop around the hospitals on First Hill. Seattle is paying for the service with the $400,000 that would have supported the Ride Free Area.

Also, Right now, Metro provides tickets to low income riders through the King County Human Services Ticket Program. The agencies that receive the tickets pay 20 percent of face value for the tickets. These tickets are distributed by agencies to their clients for travel to shelters, medical appointments, job training, and other essential services. Approximately 1 million tickets are distributed through this program annually.

RapidRide buses are high-capacity, low-emission hybrids with a red, black, and yellow color scheme.

• A question of a park or parking in Ballard (KING)
• Plan for new Ballard park stirs up battle over parking (Seattle Times)
• Seattle Times turns park discussion into battle over parking (Publicola)

I wanted to tell you a bit more about the design, background, funding, and progress of the park, and the impact it will have to parking in the neighborhood.

Here's a snip from the current schematic. There's a link to the whole thing below.

I also wanted to clarify that this discussion about 14^th Avenue NW is unrelated to the package of zoning changes now under discussion in the Council’s Land Use Committee referred to as “regulatory reform” (C.B. 117430). Our 14^th NW Park Blvd is a Parks and Green Spaces Levy Project.

The 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy provided $24 million for the acquisition of neighborhood parks in up to 20 identified areas throughout the City. The Ballard Residential Urban Village was included on that list.

What and where is this park?

The project converts two full blocks of 14th Ave. NW to a new park between NW 59th and NW 61st streets with transition lanes to the park from the north and south. A park will replace the gravel parking median and portions of the existing asphalt roadway.

The project lowers the speed limit of 14th Ave. NW from 30 to 25 mph; includes safety improvements for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles on the street; and converts existing stormwater treatment from piped conveyance into on‐site biofiltration swales.

An early conceptual sketch presented to the community.

Here’s a bird’s eye view of the schematic for the park (PDF), provided by Mithun, the design company that DPR worked with in the first phase of the project. Parks is now in the process of hiring a design consultant for the second phase of the project, and when that design has been developed, Parks will hold a public meeting.

Why here?

In 2006, DPR performed a Gap Analysis (PDF) to show which parts of the city needed more parks and green space, based on population- and location-based goals, such as providing one acre of urban village open space per 1,000 households.

As an urban village, Ballard is going to continue to attract new residents for whom transportation is a priority, as are jobs and housing. Growth is occurring and will continue to occur, which is why green and open spaces built-in now are so crucial.

How did we get here?

The driving force behind the park is the East Ballard Community Association (EBCA), working in concert with business owners in Ballard. The EBCA started work on the project six years ago, when the Vision and Action plan was funded by a grant from the Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Fund.  (Here’s a link to the group, the East Ballard Community Association, how they are thinking about the park, and how to make your voice heard at their regular meetings.)

The community then applied for the Parks and Green Spaces Levy Opportunity Fund grant, which is capped at $1.5 million dollars per project. EBCA did a great job with planning a park that would fit into those budget constraints, but when Parks looked into it and applied the lessons they’d learned from working on the Bell Street park downtown, they recreated the project budget to take into account the cost of changing a street scape.

As I’ve been learning while I investigate Greenways, changing an existing street scape is much more expensive than you might anticipate.

Parks made the following changes to the project:

• Adjusted the size of the roadway modifications around the park from half a block to 2 blocks,
• Added the cost of demolition and concrete saw cutting,
• Added the replacement of existing roadway paving,
• Added the green  storm water infrastructure required by SPU and planting materials for the bioswale,
• Added the cost of pedestrian lighting.

The final estimated budget for the park when these additions were included was $2.9 million. This was considerably more than the community had guestimated, but since Parks had Levy money earmarked for a park in East Ballard, they drafted legislation to pull that funding out of the 2008 Green Spaces Acquisitions fund and transfer it into Development, and make the park happen.

What about parking?

DPR held two public meetings in January and March of this year. You can find information about those meeting, including agendas and meeting notes, on the Parks Project Page. (The East Ballard Community Association site also has material posted on the meetings.)

Feedback gathered by Parks at these meetings has been accompanied by a fair number of emails, phone calls, and letters from Ballard residents. The main issue on people’s mind has been the park’s impact to parking in the area.

DPR performed a parking study in January, and more recently performed a second parking study as a result of constituent concerns – you can find it here: http://seattle.gov/parks/projects/ballard_hub_uv/. (Click on “Parking Impact Memo.”)

The first parking study showed that there was an average of 417 parking spaces available within a 4-block radius of the park during the study period.

The supplemental parking study showed that there was an average of 384 parking spaces available during the study period.  The reduction in parking spaces was due to construction on the southern side of NW 56th Street between 15th Ave NW and 14th Ave NW.

That means there was an average of 400 open parking spaces available in the study area. 

Of the 400 spaces available in the parking study area (14th Ave. NW from NW 58th St. to NW 54th St., one block west to 15th Ave. NW on all the side streets, and one block east to 11th Ave. NW on all the side streets), 311 will remain available after the park is built.

A total of 89 spaces will be removed.

What’s next?

The Parks and Neighborhoods Committee, which I chair, will review legislation to transfer $2.9 million of Parks and Green Spaces Levy funding from the acquisition category to the development category for the 14^th Ave NW Park this summer.

The draft of that legislation is now under review in the Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Parks and Green Spaces Levy Oversight Committee will consider it at their May 21 meeting.

After review by the City Budget Office and the Law Department, the legislation will come to the Parks and Neighborhoods committee, probably in late June or early July.  I predict this park will bring some inconveniences while it is under construction today, but it will be a much-desired and beloved community amenity tomorrow.

Rainier Beach Light Rail station

On Monday night I joined a nighttime walk-about with the Southeast Seattle Crime Prevention Council (SSCPC), a nonprofit community group committed to addressing crime and public safety issues.

Roughly 25 neighbors from the Rainier Beach, Beacon Hill, Mt. Baker, and Othello neighborhoods joined security officers from Sound Transit and Seattle Police officers from the South Precinct, including Lt. John Hayes and Officer Denise “Cookie” Bouldin.

Our purpose was to consider pedestrian safety issues between the Sound Transit Rainier Beach Station and adjoining neighborhoods along the Light Rail corridor, which have been plagued by attacks on pedestrians in recent months. These are neighborhoods where people rely heavily on public transit.

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is working to respond to residents’ concerns. Capt. Nolan of the South Precinct has launched emphasis patrols that target the areas where the thefts, robberies, and burglaries have occurred. Also, the South Precinct now deploys a two-officer special emphasis car that cruises the corridor on the lookout for transit predators. South Precinct Anti-Crime Teams, Sound Transit security and Seattle Gang Unit officers also work the problem.

As we walked around the Rainier Beach Light Rail station, I spoke with my fellow walkers and with Lt. Hayes about actions we can take to help improve neighborhood safety.

Here are some key suggestions:

Find the number of the light pole

If you see a street light that is burned out, call Seattle City Light and report it. Every light pole has a number on it. Report it online or call (206) 684-7056 with the pole number and street and ask them to repair it.  The City Light folks are trying to be very responsive.  If you don’t get a positive response in a few days, call customer service at (206) 684-CITY (2489).

Know your neighbors – join a block watch, or do what we did last night.  Invite a group of people to regularly walk around the neighborhood.  Police talk about “the power of Hello” – and how recognizing and acknowledging the people who live and belong in your neighborhood can be a powerful deterrent.   I have been told by a captain in the North Precinct that the single most important factor in cleaning up Aurora was the neighbors who united and did their own regular foot patrols.  Drug dealers and prostitutes were put on notice that they were not welcome.

SPD advises that when you see your neighbors, it’s a good idea to wave and say “Hi.” Acknowledge each other. When you see people you don’t know on your block, wave and say “Hi” as well.  Acknowledge them, too. Send the message that you are engaged in your neighborhood and that you are attentive to what is going on and who is around. People who want to commit crimes don’t want to be noticed. If they are noticed, they can be identified; that in itself is a deterrent.

Report unmaintained property. The “Broken Window Theory” suggests that one “broken window” or nuisance, if allowed to exist, will lead to others and ultimately to the decline of an entire neighborhood.

Neglected and poorly maintained properties are breeding grounds for criminal activity. Report property that’s poorly maintained—for example, if there are inoperable cars on the property, if people seem to be squatting there, if the structures are dangerous, if unsavory late night activity goes on regularly, or the owner lets shrubs or trees overgrow public sidewalks and create dark dangerous areas,  report it.

Here are some important numbers to call.  As the police tell us, “If you see it, report it.”  For example, if you see someone cutting down a tree on park property, call (206) 615-0808 to report it immediately.  If you are a tenant with a landlord who won’t keep up the property you live in, you can call DPD Code Compliance Complaint Line at (206) 615-0808 for help.

Call  911 and report crimes.  Even if the crime already occurred and you are safe, call 911.  Statistics count. If you don’t file a report with the police, the police have no way of knowing that the event happened and they can’t help.  That part is up to you.

The response part is up to the police.  Request that the police call you back when you call in a report. If they don’t, call them again. Ask for an estimate of when an officer will call back. Get the names and business cards of officers who respond in person or the name of the officer who spoke with you on the phone.  Remember to get an incident number.

If you have called the police but do not get a response, please send me an e-mail and tell me what you’ve done.  We will see what we can collectively do to make a difference.  As Lt. Hayes said, “Community safety is a community issue.”  Once again, we’re all in this together.  Thanks for being part of making our communities safe.

Many thanks to Lt. Hayes from SPD and Pat Murakami, the community member who organized and led the walk. Thanks also to Mariana Quarnstrom and others who joined me on the walkabout, because crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)  contributes mightily to neighborhood safety.

More Resources

Report graffiti and vandalism

Report nuisance properties

Start a Block Watch

Join SSCPC

See crime maps and statistics

Being in Olympia yesterday was like being inside a snow globe. Outside, that is. Inside the Capitol Building, it was abnormally calm and quiet because of the weather forecast.

We Councilmembers divided up forces. In addition to meeting our colleagues from the Seattle delegation, I met with leaders from east of the mountains including Rep. Joel Kretz and Sen. Mike Hewitt among others.

Because the challenges facing those of us living west of the Cascades and those living on the east side sometimes differ, the mountain range is sometimes referred to as The Cascade Curtain. We on this Council want to pierce that curtain and are reaching out to legislators to focus on the critical issues that impact all of us, and look for ways to fix them together.  That is what Seattle for Washington is all about.

Take transportation and immigration reform as examples.

• Getting agricultural goods and fabricated products to market across I-90 and to our Ports has financial impacts for our State. In order to get these goods “the last five miles”, Seattle and King County need a sustainable way to fix our roads and pay for more transit services.  Equitably funding a robust and safe transportation infrastructure is something we can agree on.
• Treating workers fairly so they can help harvest our crops has important implications for our economy and our food supply chain. The existing channels for seasonal farm workers to enter the country legally and live here safely are inadequate and need to be changed at the federal level. Our colleagues east of the mountains have asked for our support.
  

  Representative Mike Armstrong, 12th District

Thanks to Senator Curtis King from Yakima and Representative Mike Armstrong from Wenatchee, we’re doing our best to understand their challenges, and they are willing to understand ours, too. We’re working with the Seattle Chamber of Commerce to arrange an “exchange” this year—an idea the three of us cooked up last October.

Sen. Curtis King, 14th District

We’re going to Yakima and Wenatchee. We plan to see their excellent new Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences and to share some of what we’ve learned about combating gang violence. And we’d like to bring them here to experience our commutes at rush hour, so they understand how important it is for us to have transportation options with sustained funding.  They said they’d come.

A few more people and experiences from yesterday I want to thank:

The 36^thdistrict can be proud of their legislative troika: Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, and Rep. Reuven Carlyle, who are sponsoring some important legislation.

Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, 37th District

Senator Kohl-Welles orchestrated a press conference with bipartisan support on the subject of human sex trafficking, yesterday.  She has been instrumental these past years to provide funds to those who are trafficked with critical services including legal aid. She has passed legislation to approach prostituted youth as victims rather than criminals.  Brilliant.  And consistent with the work our police and Prosecuting Attorney are doing.

Rep. Dickerson is sponsoring several bills, one that will rely on evidenced-based practices as we provide human services, address juvenile justice, deal with abuse/neglect, and children’s mental health issues. This is a growing and important area, and I support her work.

Representative Mary Lou Dickerson, 36th District

Representative Carlyle is working on a new bill to simplify the B&O tax collection process while working with the City of Seattle and others to create a strategic phased-in approach. The B&O tax is a critical component of the Seattle’s revenue stream.

Rep. Carlyle is championing a way for Department of Revenue to reform the process, establish common definitions and classifications for business, upgrade Department of Revenue’s computer system and make it easier for taxpayers to report. I support this in principle, and am grateful to Rep. Carlyle for working with the City to find a good solution to this problem.

Representative Reuven Carlyle, 35th District

Senator David Frockt from the 46^th district is helping us frame and promote the idea of local funding options for more transit and transportation.  He is picking up where our dear friend Sen. Scott White left off.  I am very grateful to him.

Brian Fairbrother memorial ghost bike. From The Seattle Bike Blog.

Last year’s HR 1217, a state bill designed to make it easier for Washington cities to lower speed limits on non-arterial roadways, received bipartisan support in the House and passed unanimously – unanimously! – thanks to Shoreline’s Representative Cindy Ryu’s leadership. Alas, it stalled in the Senate.

This year, Rep. Ryu is again leading the charge and we are calling upon our legislators statewide to follow her lead to allow us to lower speed limits on chosen streets.

Here’s why I’ll be supporting it.

Vehicle speed is a public safety and a public health issue. Sure, we all like to get where we’re going fast. Perhaps more importantly, we all want to get where we’re going in one piece.

More than anything else, the speed of a vehicle – whether it hits a car, a pedestrian, or bicyclist – effects the outcome of a collision.

The chart below graphically shows a pedestrian’s chance of dying if hit by a motor vehicle by miles per hour. Gross, I admit. But as this graphic shows, the result will not be good – for any of us or our kids who are hit by a car going 40 miles an hour.

The just-released SDOT 2010 Traffic Report breaks out the details, but here’s a masterful summary that appeared in Crosscut, by Doug MacDonald, former secretary of transportation for Washington:

“The numbers are stark, starting with the death toll. In the three years 2008–2010, there were 62 traffic fatalities in Seattle. More than half involved pedestrians (25 deaths) and cyclists (7 deaths)… For just two years, 2009 and 2010, there were in addition serious injuries to 79 pedestrians and 32 cyclists, and hundreds of less serious injuries on top of those.”

62 traffic deaths in three years. All are tragic, and all are avoidable. As our public health leaders have stated, “Crashes happen for a reason. They are not accidents.”

 This past year has been another tough one for traffic fatalities. The deaths of Seattle cyclists Mike Wang, Brian Fairbrother and Robert Townsend focused attention on the safety on our streets – and vocal, widespread public concern was the impetus behind the Road Safety Summit that kicked off on Monday at City Hall.

Many Councilmembers joined the Mayor and Dr. David Fleming, Seattle and King County’s Director of Public Health, and an energetic roomful of citizens Monday night. We represent walkers, bicyclists, freight interests, and drivers (including a representative from AAA) who gathered to make specific recommendations about what we can do to improve conditions on our city roadways. You can join as well.  

Lowering our speed limits on our non-arterial streets , as promoted by Rep. Ryu, is one easy, inexpensive act we can take to improve safety for all of us. Slowing cars down a bit increases our chances of getting where we’re going, and it certainly makes our neighborhoods calmer, nicer places to live.

I’ve written extensively in this space on Neighborhood Greenways in the past, but the point I want to make here is that in every community I visit, people talk to me about how valuable it is to slow down cars passing through their neighborhoods.

They want to protect the residential character of their neighborhoods by making non-arterial, residential roads calmer and quieter, and make sure every one of us whether we’re seniors, juniors, joggers, or kids on bikes can safely make it across that street.

Current law requires cities in our state to undertake expensive and time-consuming speed and engineering studies before we can reduce our speed limits. HR 1217 will let us, like cities in Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia, proceed with common-sense speed limits, help us get our Neighborhood Greenways in place, and make our residential roads calmer and quieter.

Supporting our state legislature’s efforts to allow cities to lower our speed limits on non-arterial roadways is something we can do to promote our safety and public health – and it’s a low-cost way to take action that works.

I’ve posted this reminder before, but here’s a new push to remind people that the decisions the city makes now will have great implications in the future. We need your thoughts on updating Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan – the vision for how Seattle will evolve over the next two decades.

There’s a great YouTube video that explains the purpose of the Comp Plan and directs the sort of feedback that the Department of Planning & Development (DPD) are looking for. Check the video out here before moving on to the additonal information provided below.

DPD has a great overview of the Comprehensive Plan available online. Included in that overview is a public involvement plan that outlines the schedule for the public participation process, the methods and tools the department will use, and what materials and information will be produced and available for distribution as a result of that process.

There’s also a brief survey available on the site that allows users to rank and prioritize the goals driving the Comp Plan review and update. It takes about ten minutes to complete. The public’s contribution to these outreach efforts will influence the final decisions.

Help DPD  – and Seattle – plan ahead for the next twenty years. Share the links to the video, the public involvement plan, and the survey.