West Seattle Transportation Coalition says ‘Move Seattle’ levy needs to ‘move West Seattle first’

As the City Council gets deeper into shaping the “Move Seattle” transportation levy proposed for the November ballot, the West Seattle Transportation Coalition has just announced its official statement on what it wants to see in the levy:

West Seattle has been working to resolve its transportation challenges for 125 years. We initiated Puget Sound’s first ferry service in 1888 and we built America’s first municipally funded commuter rail system in 1906. Today, that extensive rail line is gone, replaced by inadequate bus service and single lane choke points that hamper the mobility of our 100,000 citizens.

Seattle has not supported or expanded our historically great transportation ideas. Thanks to the lags and half measures the city has offered over the years, there’s widespread perception here that West Seattle and its transportation issues are not, and never have been priorities for the City of Seattle.

It took the City five years to re-build the South Park Bridge after significant lobbying efforts of citizens, six years to rebuild Seattle’s Spokane St. bridge after a freighter rammed the old one in 1978, and decades to re-start the seasonal cross bay West Seattle Water Taxi to downtown. After significant citizens efforts and pressure, the City is finally addressing safety and speeding issues on SW Roxbury Street and 35th Ave SW.

As our Peninsula population increases, traffic increases and further chokes ingress-egress. Our two bridges are gridlocked for hours every day now — with 93,000 vehicles crossing West Seattle’s high bridge, and 13,000 crossing the low bridge. Together, these bridges are Seattle’s busiest, non-freeway traffic corridor, carrying more human and freight volume than any other city bridge. By the time Move Seattle expires, West Seattle’s population in our Alaska Junction and Triangle areas alone will grow to equal or surpass that of Ballard.

Move Seattle fails to address West Seattle’s key issue — getting into and out of the peninsula, safely and efficiently. While the WSTC appreciates and supports the proposals West Seattle pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements, we ask the Mayor and City Council to support and clearly define Council Member Tom Rasmussen’s amendment to Move Seattle. We would like the levy to:

Provide a fully funded, integrated, West Seattle Peninsula ingress-egress plan with a scope of work, timeline, and funding source. Its structure should be fully compatible with conversion to a future Sound Transit dedicated right-of-way, Light Rail or Bus Rapid Transit system.

In Sound Transit polling, more than 94% of West Seattle residents supported a dedicated solution for the people living in District 1. Currently, all of West Seattle’s transportation hopes and dreams seem to be bolted to the forthcoming Sound Transit 3 (ST3) proposal. Meaning, West Seattle’s transportation fate is now in the hands of Olympia legislators, the Sound Transit Tri-County Board, and competition from regional and local interests who also need ST3 resources.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking down for West Seattle as our population and development density increase, and the Port gears up with planned expansions on Terminal 5, where freight and industrial growth will further choke traffic flows to SR 99, I-5, I-90, Marginal and Alaskan Ways. It’s a perfect storm of adverse effects on our situation.

West Seattle and South Park need a solution today. We cannot wait for some future, theoretical ST3 or ST4 package. We expect our leaders and elected officials to do whatever it takes to move the people of District 1 now.

We wrote about Councilmember Rasmussen’s proposed amendment, mentioned above, back on Monday.

P.S. Haven’t shared your comments on the levy yet? This page on the city website explains how.

29 Replies to "West Seattle Transportation Coalition says 'Move Seattle' levy needs to 'move West Seattle first'"

  • West Seattle Transportation Coalition June 11, 2015 (1:49 pm)

    Apologies to anyone getting an error page — the web host we use appears to be having massive load errors shortly after we sent out the press release, apparently because of us! Thank you, WSB, for sharing the text here.
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    If you can’t get to our site right now (the errors are intermittent) you can reach us on Facebook here:
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    https://www.facebook.com/westseattletc/posts/592640390876236
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  • FJ June 11, 2015 (2:05 pm)

    AWESOME letter. can we please quit being the red-headed step child? good lord.

  • West Seattle since 1979 June 11, 2015 (2:25 pm)

    West Seattle Transportation Coalition, thank you for your work!

  • wakeflood June 11, 2015 (2:29 pm)

    To borrow a quote from A Few Good Men, “These are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed.”

  • sam-c June 11, 2015 (2:40 pm)

    thank you for issuing that letter. Every time i go through first hill and capitol hill, and see the street rail-cars running along areas with great bus service and eventually light rail below ground, I think .. why do they need all this over here?? Seriously? we are just stuck with lousy bus service in WS.

  • publicadministrator June 11, 2015 (2:44 pm)

    So WSTC wants the Move Seattle Levy changed to.. “provide a fully funded, integrated, West Seattle Peninsula ingress-egress plan with a scope of work, timeline, and funding source.”

    Well that could easily be interpreted as a request to toll the bridges to pay for enhancements to bus service, water taxi and future light rail transit in and out of West Seattle.

  • cblack June 11, 2015 (2:50 pm)

    King County not Seattle built the South Park Bridge. The delay was a result of lobbying for Federal funds and coordinating with several jurisdictions.

    I do agree that Seattle has not made West Seattle transportation issues a priority but the facts should be correct.

  • metrognome June 11, 2015 (2:55 pm)

    ummm … basic mistake … the Water Taxi is a county program, supported by property taxes paid by county residents, not a city program. The South Park bridge was a joint City/County project that involved securing state and federal funding; I believe the county had the lead.
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    was WS even part of the city of Seattle in 1888 and 1906? the supporting arguments seem to be hyperbole at best and distortions at worst (‘…our two bridges are gridlocked for hours every day…’)
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    so, basically, WSTC is demanding that the city build another bridge (or tunnel or ??) that would essentially be the size of the I-90 bridge (to allow adequate vehicular capacity while leaving room for rail) from an unspecified location on the mainland to an unspecified location in West Seattle. It is unclear what role federal funding would play in building this multi-billion dollar structure. It is unclear how this new structure would integrate into the existing roadway system and how much private property would be condemned to make room.
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    This structure must also be ‘light rail compatible’ with Sound Transit’s as yet undeveloped plans for bringing high capacity transit to West Seattle. When ST3 planning is finalized, it must be approved by voters in most of King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. What if ST decides a tunnel is the best option?
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    I vote ‘no’ on WSTC’s demands. While I applaud their intent, their reasoning and solution are full of holes big enough to drive a light rail train through.

  • wakeflood June 11, 2015 (3:15 pm)

    metrognome, the engineering you suggest isn’t necessary. There may be options such as cantilevering additional lanes, repurposing current lanes via reversibility or other. And if you add the capacity above ground and ST 3 passes, they would NOT choose to tunnel – as they have already indicated that they’re looking at NON-tunnel options as the preferred alternative in WS.

    And it’s unclear how ANY solution would be integrated or how much private property would be required. Nobody said it was an easy thing to do, but if you don’t start seriously engineering some options asap, you will not see a solution until at least 2030-35.

    Which leads me to ask, what’s in your wallet? ;-) What’s YOUR solution?

  • AmandaKH June 11, 2015 (3:20 pm)

    I’ll bite Metrognome… We are not planners, we are advocates. We are asking for them to spend our levy money on a plan. And that plan needs to include a solution and funding source. That is reasonable, sensible and practical. You are right, SP Bridge and Water Taxi are County. Which makes our case even stronger at the lack of City investment. They are asking us for $930m – which will do very little to alleviate the traffic issues we face. ST3 is still a pipe dream – but we were told any hope for us lies with that funding. Doesn’t make me want to vote for a $930m levy AND an ST3 package that Might help us. You don’t have to vote for us – but we will take your years of experience working with Metro to help us advocate for the Peninsula.

  • JN June 11, 2015 (3:35 pm)

    While people already have noted some errors in attributing slow service to the city, I totally agree with this letter. West Seattle seems to have been completely forgotten in all of the transportation plans the city has put forth so far. Every transportation sector seems to have been neglected here: bicycle, pedestrian, passenger car, transit, etc., all have been short-changed compared to other areas in the city that are not seeing our growth rates and potential. The city has to step up and address these needs for all modes of transportation.

  • Rick June 11, 2015 (3:45 pm)

    FJ – We’ve been the “red headed ******* stepchild” since I moved her 46 years ago. Gettin’ tired of swimmin’ upstream.

  • wsn00b June 11, 2015 (4:06 pm)

    The solution is pretty simple. Invest in trains; on dedicated tracks (don’t care whether it is over or under ground). That’s how every proper city worldwide does it. Stop trying to put bike sharrows in car lanes that have street car tracks going through them with bus lanes that are on/off. All this “shared transit” stuff is just missing the point and helps nobody.

    Dedicated right of ways for rail and buses. Dedicated. I’ll repeat. Dedicated.

  • Mickymse June 11, 2015 (4:47 pm)

    I think part of the point is that WSTC isn’t demanding a specific PROJECT with a specific price tag. The group’s objections are that there is a huge, nearly $1 BILLION, levy being proposed that dedicates almost no money to addressing what is arguably the key transportation issue for residents of our peninsula — 1/7 of the city’s population.
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    The demand is that addressing the issue and actually planning solutions for addressing it be made a key part of the levy. The details are appropriately left to the experts and the money crunchers.

  • john June 11, 2015 (4:53 pm)

    Please don’t ask for “Bus Rapid Transit” (an oxymoron if there ever was one). What we need is grade separated rail, not more bus lanes or street cars.
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    I applaud the effort to vocalize the very real needs of our region. Thank you.

  • chuck and sally's van man June 11, 2015 (5:10 pm)

    Fantastic letter. Thanks for your efforts. I hope it doesn’t fall on deaf ears, but that has been the history, no doubt.

  • quiz June 11, 2015 (5:50 pm)

    WSTC – Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

    We have strength in numbers in WS and are getting nothing out of the proposed plan, other than a higher tax bill. I’d vote “No” on the current proposal. Doesn’t sound like I’m alone.

    I’d much rather them raise the amount of $ they’re asking for to actually address the glaring transit deficiencies at hand.

  • Azimuth June 11, 2015 (6:34 pm)

    Take the ST3 survey. It’s not the city but it may help get us some new options: https://westseattleblog.com/2015/06/light-rail-for-west-seattle-or-next-step-toward-sound-transit-3-take-this-survey/

  • Trevor June 11, 2015 (7:13 pm)

    My sentiments exactly! Great job advocating for us WSTC!

  • Alki voter June 11, 2015 (7:29 pm)

    Hear hear! Fantastic letter! Everything WSTC said!

  • Dan June 11, 2015 (7:35 pm)

    Don’t see any improvement in the buses since Monday. Still standing and packed in on the C line in the morning and D line in the afternoon. All the new tax money we approved was for what?

  • LaGuardia Nick June 11, 2015 (8:10 pm)

    Wow, some of you are making it sound like this levy is asking only West Seattle for the 900 million so they can build stuff elsewhere in the city. I get that we have been historically shortchanged over here as far as transportation goes. I also understand the ingress/egress issues that need to be addressed. But this is a city wide levy for city wide projects! As someone who has to drive around the entire city for work, I’d say we have it pretty good compared to some other areas of the city. Do any of you ever get out of West Seattle?

    Is this levy perfect? Absolutely not! Is West Seattle going to get shortchanged? Possibly. Could the funding mechanism be more equitable? Definitely!

    So how about we lobby for more of a share and to spread the cost around (yay Licata), instead of just saying no every time! Because it’s that attitude that has gotten us into this mess to begin with. Stop trying to make the perfect the enemy of the good!

    I for one will be lobbying the council to include more for us and to make sure that developers and business pay their fair share.

    If that doesn’t work and we get to vote on the levy as is, I might then vote against it. But only after I’ve thought long and hard about whether it’s good for the WHOLE city or not.

  • raybro June 11, 2015 (9:13 pm)

    Wake up folks, the mayors current proposal will waste a lot of money, and ultimately make things worse. No vision here, just a lot of ‘chits’.

  • Wsgal June 11, 2015 (9:31 pm)

    Yes- TOLL the bridge. That’s what big cities do- they TOLL the bridges to help pay for such project. People somehow fee better about paying a toll then increase taxes. If they don’t want to pay the toll, they can walk or ride their bike to work or take the bus. Just end this bickering and support a solution.

  • MOVE Seattle June 11, 2015 (10:03 pm)

    I’ll be voting no and hope others will vote no too. I can’t afford all the new tax increases which leave me skimping by constantly. Less money to stimulate the economy. I gladly pay taxes but some recent tax hikes seem excessive as if we all worked in high paying tech jobs.

  • CEA June 12, 2015 (6:51 am)

    WSTC – thank you all for advocating for a West Seattle. This letter sums up the scope of the issue and the history behind various solutions that give so much context for me, a relative newcomer (10 years this December!!)

  • quiz June 12, 2015 (7:42 am)

    WSTC – Thank You!

  • Kathy June 14, 2015 (12:25 am)

    Toll cars using the bridges and eliminate free parking on the peninsula. Once you eliminate the “choice” drivers the perceived problem will disappear. Demand will warrant adequate public transportation. This would be a better solution than wasting road repair money studying the perceived problem to death.

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