#robsaka — Public Fediverse posts

Instead of telling ICE to stop hiding their identity, Seattle city council is working on fining graffiti artists.

#Seattle #SeattlePol #RobSaka #BobKettle #CityCouncil #ICE

Instead of telling ICE to stop hiding their identity, Seattle city council is working on fining graffiti artists.

#Seattle #SeattlePol #RobSaka #BobKettle #CityCouncil #ICE

Instead of telling ICE to stop hiding their identity, Seattle city council is working on fining graffiti artists.

#Seattle #SeattlePol #RobSaka #BobKettle #CityCouncil #ICE

Instead of telling ICE to stop hiding their identity, Seattle city council is working on fining graffiti artists.

#Seattle #SeattlePol #RobSaka #BobKettle #CityCouncil #ICE

Instead of telling ICE to stop hiding their identity, Seattle city council is working on fining graffiti artists.

#Seattle #SeattlePol #RobSaka #BobKettle #CityCouncil #ICE

City plans to add 150 parking spaces next to too-skinny Alki Trail + An easy way to widen the trail as part of the project

SDOT recently updated its plans for changing how parking works along Alki Avenue SW with a note that they now plan to add 150 parallel parking spaces to the water side of the street adjacent to the Alki Trail by mid-June.

The city’s current plan, created at the request of Councilmember Rob Saka, is to simply add these parking spaces without making other improvements, which means parked car doors would open onto the Alki Trail. “Wheel stops are not here, as these spaces will be adjacent to the curb” on Alki Ave between the 1200 and 1700 blocks, SDOT told West Seattle Blog. Such a design would create new hazards to trail users who are already squeezed into a sub-standard 10-foot-wide space (12 to 14 feet is more appropriate for a heavily-used two-way trail). Trail users often ride in the painted buffer area, weaving around the street signs placed there, because the trail is not wide enough for comfortable passing. Under this design, riders in that space would also be at risk from car doors. Seattle Bike Blog strongly opposes adding curbside parking to the road as it is for this reason (it would also degrade views of Elliott Bay, but that’s a different concern).

SDOT is collecting feedback on the plan via a one-question online survey. West Seattle Blog first reported the new plan to add the new trailside parking in a May 29 story, giving anyone opposed to the change very little time to respond (funny how improving bike conditions requires seemingly endless public outreach but making bike conditions worse barely requires any outreach at all).

However, there could be an opportunity to improve the trail and further calm traffic on Alki Ave at the same time. This section of the Alki Trail has a painted line on the street side marking off about four or so feet of space where the city has placed signposts, mostly NO PARKING signs that would need to be removed, anyway. If the city creates a new buffer space on the street between the parked cars and the trail and removes the signs in the existing painted area, they could effectively widen the Alki Trail to a more appropriate 13–14 feet while also retaining 10.5-foot general traffic lanes and two parking lanes. Such a design could also be extended all the way to Alki Beach.

I created some diagrams using Streetmix to illustrate the idea. You can play around with ideas yourself using the existing conditions example I created:

There are also opportunities to dramatically improve the bus stops along the street:

Perhaps the biggest benefit of all would be the dramatically shorter crosswalks. People crossing the street today are exposed to traffic for at least 28 feet, but sometimes 35 feet if the parking lane is open. We can get that down to 22 feet or maybe even less, which would make the crosswalks much safer and more comfortable.

Alki Ave does need more traffic calming, and parked cars are one way to accomplish that. It’s not my favorite method because parked cars create visibility issues, but anything that reduces the extreme width of a 20-foot lane will help reduce speeding. I hope that the city does not use their rushed schedule as an excuse to ignore ideas that could make the street better.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

So my Seattle city council member is going on a costly personal vendetta against a traffic calming design that offends him on his commute to drop off his kids at school.

#Seattle #RobSaka

So my Seattle city council member is going on a costly personal vendetta against a traffic calming design that offends him on his commute to drop off his kids at school.

#Seattle #RobSaka

So my Seattle city council member is going on a costly personal vendetta against a traffic calming design that offends him on his commute to drop off his kids at school.

#Seattle #RobSaka

So my Seattle city council member is going on a costly personal vendetta against a traffic calming design that offends him on his commute to drop off his kids at school.

#Seattle #RobSaka

So my Seattle city council member is going on a costly personal vendetta against a traffic calming design that offends him on his commute to drop off his kids at school.

#Seattle #RobSaka

Seattle prepares to pass budget with huge increases for safe streets + What CM Saka should do about Delridge

Thanks to Seattle voters, in 2025 the city is poised to invest $21 million in new sidewalks, $4.2 million in sidewalk repairs, $8.6 million in Vision Zero, $1.6 million in Safe Routes to School, $9.8 million in new protected bike lanes, and $1 million to upgrade existing bike lane barriers. To deliver all this, they are also going on a hiring spree, so if you know anything about building sidewalks you should keep an eye out for job listings.

The sidewalks funding line is particularly eye-catching and is the result of a decision to front-load sidewalk construction early in the first four years of the levy. Not only will this result in more sidewalks sooner, it should also help prevent sidewalks from getting cut in future years if some unforeseen issue arises that leads to cuts in the levy spending plan.

SDOT could get an even faster start if the Council dropped their proposed proviso on about half the levy funds for 2025 ($89 million), which would prevent the department from accessing those funds until they have presented a spending plan that the council approves. The council could instead request a spending plan by a certain date without holding up the funds, and they can always take action at that point if they want to change something. SDOT has a huge amount of work to complete in just eight years, including the time-consuming process of finding, hiring and onboarding new staff. Getting a slow start on Move Seattle projects was a huge problem for the previous levy, and a mistake the city should not repeat. The Council should not get in their way unnecessarily.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has put out an action alert urging folks to contact Councilmembers with a set of asks outlined at the bottom of this post. You can find documents regarding the Council’s budget amendments via the 2025-26 budget’s Legistar page. Many are within the “proposed consent amendment package,” though the final outstanding changes are in the “amendments for individual vote.” You may also need to reference Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget, which is found on a completely different website. The Council is debating amendments this week and will make their final votes on Tuesday and Thursday next week.

As part of the consent package, City Council has proposed creating a new $7 million per year Council District Fund within the SDOT budget for “neighborhood-scale traffic safety improvements and other district transportation priorities at the direction of the City Council.” In other words, a council slush fund. This would be a rare diversion from the usual way council and mayoral duties are divided in Seattle since Council rarely ever “directs” a department. Usually, the council is limited to providing (or placing conditions on) funding and setting official policy, but the actions of the departments nearly always go through the mayor.

I know “slush funds” have a bad rep, but I’m very interested to see how this new fund works in practice. It could be nice for Councilmembers to actually be able to respond more quickly to reasonable smallish requests from constituents. It’s frustrating for everyone when, say, a group of neighbors ask for a stop sign only to run into a dead end trying to get it onto SDOT’s workplan. But I’m sure the quality of return the public gets from these investments will vary greatly depending on the Councilmember directing the funds. I am also very interested to see what happens if a councilmember directs a project that the mayor opposes. Whose “direction” will win?

There are a handful of items that are still up for debate. We reported yesterday about the Council’s proposed actions to come up with a plan to shut down the South Lake Union Streetcar and remove the Center City Streetcar from the capital improvements list, so I won’t go into that again here.

Councilmember Sara Nelson has proposed a pointless and frankly obnoxious amendment that would “Request that SDOT provide a report on the performance measures and evaluation criteria used for consideration of bus-only lanes.” Specifically, she wants the report to detail how SDOT evaluates things like the “impact on general traffic capacity and congestion” and “any measures SDOT may take to mitigate potential underperformance.” Nelson and the rest of the City Council just passed a massive policy document called the Seattle Transportation Plan, and it includes meticulous explanations for how and why the city will make various transportation improvements including bus-only lanes. Here’s the transit section (PDF), which has a whole section starting on page T-62 about “defining success” that lists all the ways SDOT will measure outcomes from transit investments. Nelson either doesn’t understand what she voted for when approving the Seattle Transportation Plan or she is trying to undermine it. For example, the city very intentionally shifted to metrics that “prioritize person-throughput rather than vehicle throughput,” (page T-66) not metrics that prioritize the “impact on general traffic capacity.” Council should vote no on this one.

The transportation amendment that has gotten the most attention (other than the streetcar) is probably Councilmember Saka’s $2 million project in the consent package to allow left turns into the Refugee and Immigrant Family Center Bilingual Preschool. This is the site of the Delridge Way SW centerline curb that Saka infamously compared to the Trump border wall in an email years before he ran for City Council, as reported by Publicola. We addressed this location and those emails with Councilmember Saka in an introductory interview at the start of the year when he was named Chair of the Transportation Committee. That little curb, which prevents left turns into and out of the preschool his kids attended, was one frustration that helped set him down the path to running for office. The inflammatory border wall comment is hanging over the conversation about this amendment, but that annoying curb is one symptom of larger and genuinely frustrating issues with the Delridge design.

If I were to advise Councilmember Saka on this, I would suggest clearing the air about the border wall comparison. Mea culpa. Then expand the scope of this amendment to address issues at the core of the Delridge design problem so that the benefits expand across the neighborhood rather than just this one preschool, which feels a bit too specific for a public investment of this scale. Folks at the preschool were not the only ones who were ignored during the creation of this Durkan-era planning monstrosity. Many of the oddities on the street design (like the center buffer areas that look like turn lanes but aren’t or the fact that there’s only one bike lane on a two-way street) are because the street has three lanes southbound (one general, one bus and one bike) and one lane northbound, which is pure nonsense. Traffic is not heaver in one direction than the other, so why on earth would the road be designed this way? It’s as though the street thinks people head south and never come back. This is the actual source of Councilmember Saka’s issue. That center line curb is only needed because people would have to turn across multiple lanes plus the bike lane, a scenario we know to be potentially dangerous. The curb itself is not the problem, it’s a symptom of the street design’s illness. With a left turn pocket instead of a second southbound lane, people would only need to turn across one lane plus the bike lane, which is easier to do safely. All the unmarked crosswalks along Delridge would also become much safer with only one lane in each direction, another benefit. The primary tradeoff would be that southbound buses would need to use in-lane stops the way northbound buses already do, and SDOT staff would need to check that this would not negatively impact transit service. It would also be amazing if this project could add the missing northbound bike lane to the street because it makes no sense to have a protected bike lane in only one direction. I’d go as far as to say the Delridge street design is downright embarrassing to the city and the RapidRide name.

Below is the text of the amendment as currently written. Hopefully Councilmember Saka will do a rewrite before final passage:

This Council Budget Action (CBA) would impose a proviso on $2 million of appropriations in the Seattle Department of Transportation’s (SDOT’s) budget to make improvements to Delridge Way SW near the SW Holly St right-of-way to allow for left-turn ingress and egress from adjoining properties, including the Refugee and Immigrant Family Center Bilingual Preschool. These improvements would resolve access conflicts with the operation of the Delridge RapidRide service. It is the Council’s expectation that SDOT shall deliver these improvements, and that SDOT will begin project development and implementation no later than August 1, 2025.

One small note is that the revised budget reverses about $8 million over two years that the mayor’s initial levy-free budget had planned to add for “protected bike lanes and transit corridor improvements,” largely work that had been delayed past the end of the Move Seattle Levy. The plan from the start was to instead use Seattle Transportation Levy funds for these projects if voters approved it, which they did. When I initially saw the reduction in bike lane spending, I was concerned. But after a lot of budget diving and searching (can Seattle please make this process easier to follow?), I finally figured out that the “cuts” were from the mayor’s proposed budget, which had to be written assuming the levy would fail. The mayor’s office had cobbled together funds to finish projects that went past the Move Seattle Levy end point so that even if voters did not approve the levy, those projects could still be completed. Once the levy passed, those cobbled together funds were removed as planned. So really this change is not a problem, but I am leaving this paragraph here just in case someone else discovers those apparent “cuts” and has the same concern I did.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways sent out an action alert calling for the following budget changes:

1. No cuts to Accessibility. There is a massive backlog to make our streets accessible for everyone. Funding from the newly passed transportation levy will make large investments in accessibility, but unfortunately the City Council is proposing to cut some of existing ADA funding in the mayor’s proposed budget. The levy is meant to be additive, not a replacement for existing funds. 
2. Don’t undo valuable safety projects. An amendment proposed by Councilmember Saka would spend $2M of taxpayers’ dollars to remove a safety barrier that prevents an illegal left turn into a parking lot on Delridge Way SW. Traffic safety barriers prevent the hitting and killing of pedestrians.
3. Do not hold Levy funding hostage. Council already approved this levy proposal in July before sending the package to voters. But now they’re proposing a proviso on half the levy, or $89M. This would delay SDOT hiring new staff and hinder their ability to advance projects quickly in 2025, and holds hostage funding that voters just approved by a landslide.
4. Automated camera revenue needs to go back into traffic safety. The 2025 budget includes an expansion of automated school zone speed cameras while diverting revenue from automated enforcement away from physical street improvements that keep kids safe on their way to school. Any automated enforcement cameras should be a temporary solution, and all revenue should go towards physical street improvements.
5. We also stand in support of the Solidarity Budget Coalition’s push against austerity budgeting. We need to shift funding from criminalization to invest in community needs and pass new progressive revenue to adequately fund our city’s needs. See here for more details.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

CM Saka budget proposal would create plan to end service on SLU Streetcar

The future has become even bleaker for the low-ridership South Lake Union (“SLU”) Streetcar line as Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka has proposed funding a plan for how to wind down and end service on the line. The budget changes would no actually end service, but they set the stage to do so as early as next year’s budget. The action could set up the city to finally make a decision about the streetcar once and for all.

As Seattle Bike Blog argued in August, Seattle decided in 2015 to make the SLU streetcar a dead end when SDOT chose RapidRide bus service on the Fairview/Eastlake/Roosevelt corridor rather than a streetcar extension. The streetcar line’s operating budget sits at $4.4 million per year to serve about 500 weekday trips on average. Ridership peaked in 2017 before SDOT added transit-only lanes to Westlake Ave to coincide with expanded King County Metro bus service along much of the streetcar’s route. In my previous post, several SLU transit riders said they just hop on whatever comes first, a bus or the streetcar. The under-construction RapidRide J line will further improve bus transit service in the SLU neighborhood when it begins operations as early as 2027. So even those 500 daily riders would likely not be stranded without the streetcar. Metro just deleted the Route 20 bus with little fanfare, for example, and that deletion (as well as other bus route changes and deletions) had a bigger negative impact on access to transit than closing the SLU Streetcar would.

Additionally, construction for the South Lake Union light rail station is expected to shut down SLU Streetcar service for eight years, so it makes sense for Seattle to decide sooner than later whether the city sees a future for the streetcar beyond that construction. If the city wants to preserve service they could build 2,000 feet of additional track to bypass the Link station closure, but that would only make sense if we are committing to this thing long-term. If not, then we may as well get the tracks out of the roadway and focus on creating efficient bus pathways. Removing or covering the tracks would also eliminate major hazards for people riding bicycles around the neighborhood, preventing injuries and improving bike circulation within the neighborhood. Removing the tracks may even lead to more new bike trips per day than the streetcar would carry if it kept operating in its current state.

The only possible future for the SLU streetcar line would be to connect to the planned Center City Connector streetcar (AKA “Culture Connector”) through downtown along 1st Avenue and Stewart Street. However, construction on that line remains stalled, and it has a huge funding gap. Seattle Bike Blog has also voiced serious concerns about bike safety along the planned route. As Councilmember Saka noted in an interview with the Seattle Times, “The only viable path I see for ever doing that one would be to create a public-private partnership at some point.” Councilmember Bob Kettle has proposed removing the Center City Connector from SDOT’s capital improvements list, an amendment Saka supports.

The Downtown Seattle Association (“DSA”) pushed back against the proposal to kill the SLU Streetcar line, arguing to the Urbanist, “We’re seeing more residents, workers and visitors in downtown and now is not the time to take existing mobility options off the table. […] With looming major transportation projects like Revive I-5 impacting our network’s capacity, we need to ensure the transit modes we already have downtown are functioning optimally, safely and a providing great experience.”

Seattle Subway has also created an online petition to save the streetcar, arguing:

While the SLU Streetcar suffers from low ridership, it is widely attributed to the lack of connectivity rather than anything inherent to streetcars. We cannot fix the design mistakes of the past, but we can certainly make improvements. SDOT ridership figures for 2022 put SLU streetcar at 500 daily riders and First Hill streetcar at 2,500 daily riders, with ridership trending upwards since the pandemic. By SDOT’s own estimate, the proposed Culture Connector extension would attract 28,000 daily riders, making it more popular than the busiest bus line in the city. This city council also called out the Culture Connector as a key improvement in their own Seattle Transportation Plan which they passed in April. Rob Saka himself said at the time, “It’s time we commit to our transportation goals and give them [SDOT] the resources they need to succeed. That’s what this plan is all about.” They are now prepared to go back on that commitment.

The SLU Streetcar was initially funded by a LID in the area as a way to encourage development of the area into the business and tech hub it is today. So from that perspective, it was a huge success. But as a transit service, not so much. I worry about transit supporters taking the L off someone else’s forehead and putting on their own. Providing effective transit service was not the primary force behind this particular streetcar, so transit folks should not feel like this is something they need to own. The SLU Streetcar is a simulacra of a good transit system, but Metro’s bus system is an actual good transit system. The most important transit priority is to make sure the city builds more bus priority improvements in the area, preserving and improving on the bus-only lanes created when the RapidRide C extended into the area. Perhaps Metro buses could even reuse of some of the streetcar infrastructure like the transit-only pathway along Valley Street. The worst case scenario would be for the streetcar to be removed without any effort to improve bus service.

While the SLU Streetcar’s future certainly hinges on the Center City Streetcar, is the inverse also true? The city’s 20-year plan for transit calls for a 1st Ave Streetcar that connects Seattle Center/Lower Queen Anne to Pioneer Square and the First Hill Streetcar on Jackson Street as well as a 1st Ave extension into SoDo. Would some or all of this line be viable without the SLU connection? Perhaps rather than removing the Center City Streetcar from the capital projects list, Council could add questions to its request for a SLU Streetcar wind down plan about what impact such an action would have on a possible Center City line. This would give the city one more year to give the Center City Streetcar the proper public debate it deserves. Let’s lay out all the facts and options, and then make a damn decision.

If businesses and developers want to foot the bill for both the Center City and South Lake Union streetcar lines, then I’m sure city leaders will shift to support them. Otherwise, well, you may want to make an effort to go out of your way to ride the thing at least once before it is shut down so you can say you did it and buy that clever t-shirt on sale at Pike Place Market.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

Rob Saka is now saying some ish about his days as a navy intelligence officer and glad handing it up with excop Bob Kettle.

They're now both having a hearty laugh about bonus structures in the Air Force and Navy.

Anyways, in addition to being a CIA liaison Rob Saka was also a Meta lawyer so you know he's really concerned about the average person.

https://www.geekwire.com/2023/meta-lawyer-wants-to-build-more-public-private-partnerships-as-he-runs-for-seattle-city-council/

#RobSaka #seattle #militaryindustrialcomplex

Rob Saka is now saying some ish about his days as a navy intelligence officer and glad handing it up with excop Bob Kettle.

They're now both having a hearty laugh about bonus structures in the Air Force and Navy.

Anyways, in addition to being a CIA liaison Rob Saka was also a Meta lawyer so you know he's really concerned about the average person.

https://www.geekwire.com/2023/meta-lawyer-wants-to-build-more-public-private-partnerships-as-he-runs-for-seattle-city-council/

#RobSaka #seattle #militaryindustrialcomplex

Rob Saka is now saying some ish about his days as a navy intelligence officer and glad handing it up with excop Bob Kettle.

They're now both having a hearty laugh about bonus structures in the Air Force and Navy.

Anyways, in addition to being a CIA liaison Rob Saka was also a Meta lawyer so you know he's really concerned about the average person.

https://www.geekwire.com/2023/meta-lawyer-wants-to-build-more-public-private-partnerships-as-he-runs-for-seattle-city-council/

#RobSaka #seattle #militaryindustrialcomplex

Rob Saka is now saying some ish about his days as a navy intelligence officer and glad handing it up with excop Bob Kettle.

They're now both having a hearty laugh about bonus structures in the Air Force and Navy.

Anyways, in addition to being a CIA liaison Rob Saka was also a Meta lawyer so you know he's really concerned about the average person.

https://www.geekwire.com/2023/meta-lawyer-wants-to-build-more-public-private-partnerships-as-he-runs-for-seattle-city-council/

#RobSaka #seattle #militaryindustrialcomplex

Rob Saka is now saying some ish about his days as a navy intelligence officer and glad handing it up with excop Bob Kettle.

They're now both having a hearty laugh about bonus structures in the Air Force and Navy.

Anyways, in addition to being a CIA liaison Rob Saka was also a Meta lawyer so you know he's really concerned about the average person.

https://www.geekwire.com/2023/meta-lawyer-wants-to-build-more-public-private-partnerships-as-he-runs-for-seattle-city-council/

#RobSaka #seattle #militaryindustrialcomplex

At memorial bike ride for her husband, Rita Hulsman asked attendees to vote yes on the transportation levy she worked to strengthen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bHFp7gSCaU

As captured on video by West Seattle Blog, Rita Hulsman chose to use her address to the crowd gathered Saturday for a memorial bike ride in honor of her late husband Steve to promote action to make sure traffic deaths like his do not continue happening to others (starts at 6:45 in the video):

“Steve would be so honored to see you here today to remember him. He was so skilled and passionate about bicycling, and I’ve heard from so many of you who used to cycle with him about how he was helpful and encouraging to others who found the very, very, very hilly routes that he rode to be maybe a little bit more than some people had bargained for. He was there to help people and encourage people along the way. Thank you for those kind words about him. It meant more than I can tell you in the months that have passed since his untimely death.

Earlier this year, I became involved in advocating for safety improvements for bicyclists, for pedestrians and for other vulnerable users of our city streets. And I did that by speaking up at City Council Transportation Committee meetings. I am pleased that the full council passed a great transportation levy proposal that will come before those of us who live in Seattle this November. If you live in Seattle, I strongly encourage you to vote yes on the 2024 transportation levy.”

Ever since news broke of that horrible day in December when a person driving a Chevy Tahoe turned in front of Steve’s path as he biked the long and fast downhill on Marine View Drive SW in West Seattle, Rita has been focused on changing city policy to promote safer streets. She and I emailed a few times back in March because she wanted advice on identifying organizations working on safe streets. “Steve’s death is just senseless to me,” she wrote, “but advocating for action to make our roads safer for cyclists will, I hope, give me some sense of consolation.” She later donated the funds raised through a memorial GoFundMe campaign to Cascade Bicycle Club and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

She didn’t stop there. As City Council Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka said in his remarks before the ride Saturday (2:30 mark in the video), Rita showed up to every committee meeting in which the 2024 Transportation Levy was being considered to testify in favor of increasing funding for safer streets.

“Rita showed up at every single transportation committee meeting where we discussed and considered the levy,” he told the crowd. “Her voice was well represented, testifying, holding me and my City Council colleagues accountable to make sure we have proper investments baked into the transportation levy to do more to protect the most vulnerable users. And my commitment is to all users. I want to thank Rita for her leadership, her passion, and making sure that the voice of your family is represented in this transportation levy.”

He added that if the levy passes, one of his amendments included building protected bike infrastructure named in Steve’s honor.

“Rita deserves better, the family of Steve deserves better, you all deserve better,” he said.

Thank you, Rita, and may Steve rest in peace.

#SEAbikes #Seattle

Seattle decided 9 years ago to kill the SLU Streetcar

The South Lake Union Streetcar broke down Friday, August 9, and nobody even noticed until King County Metro and SDOT sent out a press release about it the next Monday. Like, I searched through social media posts and could not find a single person mentioning issues riding the streetcar line the entire weekend that it was out of operation. Perhaps even more damning for the line is that Metro and SDOT are not even running any kind of replacement service while the streetcar is out of commission, noting that riders are served by existing service on Routes 40, 70 and RapidRide C.

The thing that baffles me about this line is that people keep acting like the city needs to decide what to do with it when Seattle already made this decision nine years ago. The RapidRide J project was initially proposed as an extension of the streetcar from its odd terminus in the middle of Fairview Ave N north to Roosevelt Station, but Seattle decided in 2015 to make the project a bus line instead. The ongoing Route 40 Transit-Plus project was also once vaguely envisioned as a streetcar line (complete with a new Ship Canal crossing), but is now a set of bus reliability improvements. The time to fight for the streetcar happened a decade ago, and the streetcar lost.

Around the same time, SDOT made a smart decision to add transit-only lanes to Westlake Ave so Metro could extend the RapidRide C line through South Lake Union along much of the streetcar route. It was an effective and low-cost way to dramatically improve transit service in the neighborhood, but it also made the streetcar even less necessary. Many riders using the shared bus and streetcar stops just hop on whichever comes first because level of service matters far more than what kind of wheels the transit vehicle has.

These days, the SLU Streetcar carries an average of 494 weekday trips, the Seattle Times reported. It costs $4.6 million per year to operate, though advertising helps offset some of that. That operating cost would be fine if the ridership were strong because transit shouldn’t be expected to make a profit. But 494 weekday rides does not justify that level of ongoing investment. For contrast, the First Hill Streetcar carries a healthier 3,598 trips on an average weekday, though it also has higher annual operating costs. The First Hill line seems to be filling an actual transportation need while the SLU line does not.

Keeping the SLU line alive is a classic case of Seattle indecision. It’s connected to the city’s years of indecision about the downtown streetcar project, which remains stalled due to a $93 million budget gap. Worse, indecision like this can be very damaging to a community because streetcar supporters have reason to keep fighting for it so long as it seems that there’s still a chance. I don’t blame them because the vision of a European-style network of streetcars is genuinely appealing and seems like a vision worth fighting for. But even if the city built the downtown streetcar, there are no plans whatsoever to expand the network any further. We’d still just have one oddly-shaped line for the foreseeable future. The 20-year Seattle Transportation Plan and 8-year levy proposal does not include any additional streetcars. (CORRECTION: As David commented, I missed that the STP does include streetcar extensions north and south on 1st Ave beyond the current design.) These are decisions Seattle has already made.

The streetcar needs to go big or go home, and Seattle has firmly decided not to go big.

Shutting the line down is not an easy decision. There will be costs associated with shuttering it, especially if they do so responsibly by removing or filling in the unused tracks so they do not injure bike and scooter riders. It would also be a shame if the mayor and council used the budget savings to plug the general budget gap rather than investing it in other transit improvements or plans. When the mayor decided to shut down Pronto Cycle Share, the city directed the bike share expansion budget to go to bike lanes on 4th Ave and Pike and Pine Streets downtown instead. Those investments softened the blow of losing our public bike share system, which coincidentally was also a victim of Seattle indecision. Maybe the SLU Streetcar funds could go to exciting projects to speed up the Route 8 bus or early planning for Seattle-led light rail extensions, laying the groundwork for investments the city can feature in the next Seattle Transportation Benefits District vote due in 2026. I don’t know, I’m sure transit planners and advocates have ideas here. There needs to be some kind of organized effort to create a positive exit plan for the funds because this latest shutdown has made the SLU Streetcar an even bigger target for the City Council as they head into what will likely be a very tough budget season.

“Given the low ridership numbers of the South Lake Union line, does it make sense to continue that investment?” Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka said to the Seattle Times last week. “I don’t have a strong answer yet, but I will definitively be scrutinizing that.”

Perhaps a private company would want to buy the SLU streetcar. Councilmember Saka suggested a “public-private partnership” as a possible way forward. A private company already owns and operates the Seattle Monorail, so maybe there’s a future where something similar happens with the streetcar. Amazon has invested in the streetcar line in the past. Do they like it enough to buy it? Do they want to invest in the downtown extension? Do we as a city even want this level of private transit ownership?

My support for the streetcars evaporated after Daniel Ahrendt was horribly injured and Desiree McCloud died in separate crashes on the First Hill Streetcar tracks. The city has made some bikeway improvements since to mitigate some of the dangers, but especially on Jackson Street many issues remain. The design plans for the streetcar tracks on both First Avenue and Stewart Street are also insufficient from a bike safety standpoint. I wrote extensively about what it would take to make the plans safe, and the project team did not address the issues. I won’t be sad when the city finally declares the project to be dead.

I know reading this is probably a bummer for some of you. It’s a divisive issue among folks who should otherwise be united in the fight for walking, biking and transit. If the SLU Streetcar and downtown plans die as seems likely, I hope streetcar supporters out there can find a positive way to move forward and continue their dedication to advocating for better transit in our city.

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#SEAbikes #Seattle

Seattle City Council, time to wake up: An open letter to our first-year councilmembers

Yesterday needs to be this City Council’s worst day if 8 out of 9 of them want a chance at another term. They pulled one of the most chickenshit moves I’ve ever witnessed from my years covering city politics when they decided to hold an expensive special election for the voters’ initiative 137 rather than put it on November’s high-turnout general election ballot. They did this for the sole purpose of weakening its chances because they know the more Seattleites who vote on the initiative, the more likely it will be to pass.

The Seattle City Council (minus Tammy Morales) is admitting that their opinion on the initiative is unpopular among the people they are elected to represent, and they are pulling a chickenshit procedural trick in order to circumvent the people’s will. Not only are they wrong to do this, they should stop and think for a moment about the implications for their political prospects in this city.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-WSKGco9F_/

It didn’t help that they then retreated to their offices to remotely approve a contract for more jail cells to imprison low-level offenders because the outcry of public opposition in the council chambers was too loud. It also didn’t help that they somehow didn’t anticipate last week how unpopular it would be to roll back the minimum wage law. Not sure how many more signs folks will need before realizing they are making deeply unpopular decisions.

Here’s what I think is going to happen. Councilmember Woo will be toast in November, losing her second City Council election in the span of a year. It won’t be close. One down. At the same time, the voters of Washington House District 43 (entirely within the bounds of Seattle) will elect Shaun Scott despite a majority of the City Council endorsing Republican Andrea Suarez (who pretends she’s a Democrat because she thinks her voters aren’t paying attention). Suarez may not even make it into the general election depending on how late primary ballots turn out, that’s how out of touch this City Council is with the people they represent (Full disclosure: My family recently hosted a fundraiser house party for Scott’s campaign because he’s great). Seattle will then hold a special election, and we will pass I-137. But even worse for this Council, they decided through their action yesterday to turn the I-137 vote into a referendum of the city’s support for investing in affordable housing (spoiler, we want more) as well as a symbolic referendum on this City Council. Not a smart move, y’all.

Is it too late for them to save themselves? For Tanya Woo, yeah it’s too late. I also doubt Sara Nelson can reform her image, either, since she’s the leader of it all and she’s up for election next year (she’s welcome to try). But most of the others are still in the first years of their first terms. They get to use the “I was new and didn’t know better” card one time, and this is a great time to deploy it because that card expires soon. They are clearly getting advice from the wrong people right now, but there is no law that says they must continue following them into the abyss. They were elected by the people, and the office belongs solely to them and their constituents. It doesn’t matter how much corporate PAC money was spent to get them into office, they don’t owe those funders anything.

Kick your cynical bad faith advisors to the curb and go out into your community in search of real problems to solve to make our city a better place. Untie from the sinking ship that is Council President Nelson and be your own leader. Seattle is still a big small town, and elections are still usually won based on community support.

If councilmembers don’t turn things around fast, they may not even make it to 2027. Coucilmember Tammy Morales suggested during yesterday’s meeting that by not prioritizing their consideration of I-137, they likely ran afoul of the City’s Charter and could face recall elections. I personally do not like recall elections and hope it doesn’t come to that, but that’s the path this Council is walking (running?) down. Once you start taking actions to defy the will of the people, recall is the people’s recourse.

I love Seattle, and I believe in our city’s potential to be the city the rest of the nation looks to when trying to solve big problems. That’s why I love writing Seattle Bike Blog. This is my love letter to our city. We don’t always rise to our potential, but folks here never give up. Then every once in a while, we do something extraordinary. We are due for something extraordinary.

None of what I said above will happen on its own, but I believe the people of our city will put in the organizing and volunteer work to make it happen. Seattleites are desperate to make housing more affordable, and we are beyond sick of being told by elected leaders year after year that for some reason we can’t do it. That’s the energy behind I-137. If you all won’t do it, then we will. We’re not going to continue sitting on our hands pretending like there’s nothing more we can do while more and more people get priced out of our city’s cheapest apartments and forced to sleep in the fucking rain.

As our elected leaders, you can join us in an extraordinary victory as we create social housing that people can afford, or you can fight us. But if you fight us, you will lose. You made a big mistake yesterday, now you gotta figure out how to make it right. Which side of Seattle history do you want to be on?

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