All right.

Well, good morning, everyone.

The June 4th, 2026 meeting of the Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District will come to order.

It is 9:32 a.m.

I am Rob Saka, Chair of the Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lynn.

Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Chair Shaka.

Chair, there are six members present.

Thank you.

Let the record reflect that the remaining council members currently absent are excused until they arrive.

Now, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is hereby adopted.

All right, good morning again, colleagues, members of the public.

Exciting day today.

So thank you all for being here.

Uh and for those in the audience who may not have or who have tuned in expecting our one of our regular steps committee meetings, uh, welcome.

We are convening the very first select committee on the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

Over the next several weeks, this committee will undertake one of the most important transportation policy discussions facing our city this year.

Uh the decisions we make will help shape how people move throughout our city, our city, access opportunity, and connect with their communities for years to come.

Transportation affects nearly every aspect of daily life.

It affects whether someone can get to work, go to school, access health care, support a local business, or spend less time in traffic and more time with family.

It also plays a vital role in helping Seattle meet its ambitious climate goals while supporting a strong and vibrant economy.

For many Seattleites, transportation is not some abstract policy discussion, it's a daily reality.

I know that personally firsthand.

Growing up, my family relied heavily on transit because oftentimes our cars were often unreliable or simply unavailable.

We did not always have options.

Transit was how we got to where we needed to go.

At the end of the day, transportation is about opportunity.

When transportation systems work well, they connect people to jobs, schools, health care, family, and community.

When they do not, they create barriers.

As we begin this vital work, we must also recognize the reality facing many Seattle families today.

Housing costs remain high, everyday expenses continue to rise.

Many people are carefully evaluating every single dollar that they spend.

That reality must remain front of mind and center throughout our upcoming conversations and deliberations.

Public trust is not earned.

Well, public trust is earned, not assumed.

Over the next two months, six weeks really, this committee will carefully review the proposal before us, hear from stakeholders and members of the public, and engage in thoughtful discussion about the best path forward.

I also want to acknowledge that we have an ambitious timeline before us.

Six weeks, I mentioned.

This committee has been asked to review a significant proposal on a very compressed schedule.

That reality makes our responsibility even greater.

We must ensure the public has confidence that this council is conducting a thorough and thoughtful review of the issues before us.

The Seattle City Council is a coequal branch of government, and our role is an important one.

Our responsibility is not simply to receive proposals.

We're not simply here to put a round peg and a round hole, square peg and a square hole.

Our responsibility, again, duty, is to evaluate them carefully, ask questions, weigh trade-offs, and ensure that any measure ultimately sent to voters reflects the needs and values of the people we serve.

Now, as we undertake this work, I hope we remain focused on the entire transportation experience.

People deserve transportation options that are reliable.

People deserve transportation options that are accessible.

People deserve transportation options that are safe.

That means safety for transit riders, transit operators, and the people walking to, navigating to and from transit every single day, because transit trips begins and ends at the end of the day with a connection.

People must be able to reach transit safely.

Accessibility must remain central to our thinking as well.

Our transportation system should work for everyone, regardless of age, income, ability, race, gender, zip code.

That is the opportunity before us.

Again, not merely to renew or not renew a specific measure or proposal, but to thoughtfully consider how we can continue building a transportation system that is safe, accessible, reliable, and worthy of a world-class city status.

Today is the beginning of that conversation.

Our first agenda item is a briefing from the Seattle Department of Transportation and the Mayor's Office regarding the proposed renewal measure.

I want to thank our executive branch partners in the mayor's office, SDOT, for the work developing and transmitting this proposal.

Crafting legislation of this magnitude is no small task, and I appreciate that effort that has gone into bringing this forward.

This proposal will serve as a starting point for our deliberations.

And our second agenda item is a briefing from the transit advisory board.

We appreciate their service, expertise, and partnership.

Colleagues, the work ahead is significant.

Again, for some transportation is an economic issue.

For others, it is a climate issue, a safety issue, an accessibility issue.

The truth is that it's all of those things.

And that is why this moment matters.

And someone who has relied on transit for much of my life.

Good old-fashioned Joe Metro growing up in South King County.

And if you know you know about Joe Metro, I know firsthand that transportation can open doors and expand opportunity.

Let us approach this work with humility.

Let us approach it with seriousness, and let us approach it with the shared understanding that our responsibility is larger than any single proposal or policy debate.

Our responsibility again is not merely to renew a measure, our responsibility is to renew the public's trust.

And if we do that well, together, we will build something even more important than any transportation package.

We will build a transportation system that connects people safely, reliably, and affordable opportunity, providing people with that, and a city that is stronger because of it.

Thank you.

Let's get to work, roll up our sleeves.

All right, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee.

Or how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we currently have 11 in-person speakers and uh six remote speakers.

Great.

Thank you.

Each speaker will have approximately two minutes.

We will start with in-person speakers first.

Clerk, could you please read the public comment instructions?

Public comment period will be will be moderated in the following manner.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they're registered.

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list, Paul Neal.

Good morning.

My name is Paul Neal, PAUL in EIL.

I am the financial secretary for ATU 587.

ATU appreciates and supports this measure and appreciates the mayor's vision for a 10-year levy rather than six long-term and also increasing the amount for increasing our transportation services.

Transportation is a human right, as uh uh council member Saka just mentioned for people to get to work to their medical appointments to school to connect with light rail, whatever they need to go.

People need to be able to move around.

And the road system is not going to be increasing anytime soon, unless there's something else going on.

Uh so right now the population of Seattle is increasing by almost a thousand people per month.

So over the life of this levy, if that continues, that's a hundred thousand more people.

I don't know what the percentages are, but that's a lot of more people that need to move around on the same size roads that we have now.

So we need to increase the carrying capacity of those roads, and that's what this levy does.

Um, also cars are becoming less affordable for obvious reasons we've all seen at the gas pump.

Um the levy also supports uh the streetcar, which is actually very vital for the high density neighborhoods of Lake South Lake Union and First Hill.

Um, also it is providing for more safety and security, which is vitally important.

People need to feel everyone needs to feel safe and secure on the bus or the train or whatever you're doing, the streetcar, you need to feel safe going out.

Um, and also I think for the city of Seattle, it gives you a little more leverage over how services planned and implemented with King County Metro Transit.

You have your own priorities, there's a little different, and it will give you that uh extra umph on that.

So, anyways, thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Our next speaker will be Patrick Brady after Mr.

Brady will be Noah Williams.

Good morning, I'm Patrick.

I am uh driver for ATU 16 years, and I'm also a District 6 resident.

You're gonna get a lot of input today, and I'll just share two things really from the perspective of being an operator.

One is that uh I'm currently driving a 106.

I appreciate that something called pinch points are to be addressed in this, and it's really about for a driver, it's really about mirror clearances.

You know, our challenge to set up a turn, split a lane, uh, avoid getting our mirror hit or hitting others is something that's constrained by how this city was built and the ability to address that.

The second thing I see as an operator is uh with people paying their fares, and so to see uh this subsidy for SHA and others, a driver's uh anxiety and confidence uh is really helped when you see everybody tapped.

When someone taps you, know that they appreciate that it's a right, it's a privilege, that they're part of a larger system, and to put ORCA cards in the hands of more people, I think is a way to widen that circle.

Uh Chair, you mentioned three things about spending money thoughtfully, responsibly, and meaningfully.

And uh I feel like I have confidence that this is what this measure will do.

I watch Metro participate with all of you and so many others in this FIFA effort.

And I'm proud of Metro in that they are up in this challenge.

Operators see it in dozens of ways, how Metro is gearing in to participate and to serve the public and to do so with some energy and some organization.

And uh I think we're gonna do the same with this.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, sir.

And as a reminder, when uh the chime goes off, you have 10 seconds to finish.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Noah Williams, followed by David Hill.

Good morning, council members.

Uh, my name is Noah Williams.

I'm a resident of D1 and a member of the transit riders union.

The proposal before us today asks about $58 a year from the average Seattleite in taxes or about one tank of gas per person.

And in return, they get a freedom of movement all around Seattle at all times of day.

It means the shift worker can get to their job, their medical appointment, or see their partner at whatever time they happen to be able.

It means that they can take that job that would have previously required a car, saving around $12,000 a year in vehicle related costs.

When POTUS decided to launch an illegal war earlier this year, he greatly worsened the affordability crisis for millions of people.

And that is something that you have an ability to mitigate, at least for your district today.

I know there are a lot of important transportation priorities on your plate this year, and as you think about how to prioritize those, just please recognize that the money in this proposal is intended for service hours, targeted speed and reliability improvements that make efficient use of those service hours, and providing transit passes for some of our most vulnerable people in Seattle.

So please direct it to that.

I understand there will be some temptation to appropriate it for other important priorities.

This is the core of what started the transit riders union, and we feel very strongly that it should go towards that.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention taxes.

We understand the desire for progressive revenue and have the strong same desires ourselves.

Until the Washington State Legislature gives us these tools, or court case law is overturned and we are able to use more progressive sources of revenue.

We gotta drive the bus with the fuel that we have.

And while we don't like raising regressive taxes, this is the most progressive use of tax dollars you can think of.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be David Hill, followed by Katie Rickyuto.

Good morning, council members.

My name is David Hill.

I'm a car-free Seattle resident in district four, and I'm the treasurer of the transit riders union.

I'm here today to support the outcomes of the 2026 Seattle transit measure because our working and low-income neighbors desperately need safe, reliable buses and expanded free transit passes to survive in an increasingly unaffordable city.

That said, we are disappointed that this measure relies entirely on a regressive sales tax.

Squeezing working class family budgets to pay for a public good is obviously not our preference, though we understand the city's funding options are limited here.

Mayor Wilson campaigned on progressive taxation, yet our big corporations are still getting a free ride on our public infrastructure.

We urge you to pass this measure because riders need relief today.

But we call on this council to commit to progressive revenue options like an employer tax or an updated parking tax moving forward.

Let's build the world class transit system we need by taxing the corporate class, not the poor.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Katie Rickyuto, followed by Jonathan Gonzalez.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is Katie Ricudo.

Um, I'm here on behalf of Transportation Choices Coalition, and I'm a resident of District 3.

TCC supports the duration and amount of Mayor Wilson's Seattle Transit Measure proposal.

Over the past six years, Seattle has invested in a transit network that people have organized their lives around.

This measure keeps that going and expands it.

It gets us back to 2019 service levels.

This is a huge milestone for this city.

People are frustrated with the cost of living.

I get it.

I live here.

Um it's also really expensive to own a car.

Gas has skyrocketed.

If we do not invest in transit, we will be telling more people that they need to buy a car to get around.

They'll need to buy gas, insurance, and pay for parking.

We have a responsibility, as you said, Chair Saka, to invest in transit so people do not have to live that way.

Transit is one of the most direct tools we have to make the city more affordable.

Every person who can reliably get to work to the doctor or to a grocery store without a car is saving money.

Every affordable Orca pass is money that a person can spend on food or medicine or child care.

I know many of you are transit riders, whether you're coming from West Seattle, Capitol Hill, Ballard, or anywhere else in the city.

And I know you want better access for your constituents.

This transit measure is not about extras.

We are talking about your trips, your constituents' trips, and everyday lives being affected.

Please keep the dermount, the amount and the duration of the proposal before you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Jonathan Gonzalez, followed by David Haynes.

Hello, I'm Jonathan Gonzalez.

I'm a volunteer with Valley Fremont Green Streets and an organizer of Safe Bowler Rail.

I'm here to show support for the Seattle transit measure.

Given limited tools available for raising revenue, aggressive sales tax is an ideal, but without public transit, we would be forced into cars, clogging our streets and polluting our air.

With the uncertain future of the Ballard Link extension, communities like mine will need to continue to rely on bus service.

We need to keep investing in our public transit networks so we can ensure reliable frequent and irresistibly good service.

100,000 more bus trips per year helps us get to that goal.

I hope to see this measure breeze through council so we can vote on it in November.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Haynes, followed by Nick Satelli.

All right, David Aynes, we need transit signal priority technology to strategically be placed at intersections that slow up the late eight and certain rapid ride buses, whether they're going to West Seattle, Seattle Center, or Bellard.

We still need to program all the discombobulated traffic lights on Third Avenue to create all of this congestion unnecessarily.

And if you want to regulate the bus drivers, maybe give them a warning to slow down, but don't harm their insurance.

But um the supervisors of transit need to have their vehicles taken away from them for a period of time to force them into the system to realize all the unnecessary delays and problems that we're going through.

And the bus drivers still need to speak up about all the horrible crap that's going on in and around transit oriented um like bus like systems, because the city uh, excuse me, the city of Seattle, police chief, cops, and transit authority, and the king county sheriffs are arguing about who's responsible, and they keep like transferring you to the other agency saying it's not our problem because somebody just stepped out of the bus.

But the transit signal priority will expedite so much frustration with people trying to get around.

It's like when the bus comes up near the intersection, the technology turns to light green.

Granted, we still need pedestrian-centric infrastructure, but when you're going through third Ave, you can can you can like program it a little bit better.

And if the bus drivers are speeding, transit can address that.

Just give them warnings.

Don't run their driver's license like their insurance, but you gotta like improve the service.

Because you all are just saying, well, it takes too long to go on rapid ride to West Seattle, so now we're gonna spend $7 billion on a transit or excuse me, a link light rail that goes one stop to Delbridge, and then you get dropped off at Alaska Junction, the same place rapid ride does.

That's kind of ridiculous, man.

Transit signal priority.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper.

It's like five thousand dollars per intersection.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Haynes.

Our next speaker is Nick Satelli, followed by Jason Lee.

Hello.

Hello, Councilmumpers.

Uh, my name's Nick.

Um, I help co-lead fix the late in Central Seattle Streets for All.

I live in District 3, and I'm here for a more affordable Seattle.

Today, the most expensive things in the count in a Seattle Light's budget are housing and transportation.

On housing, we're forced to live in some of these few neighborhoods that are transit rich, or we're forced to buy a car to get around.

The most expensive part of our transportation budgets are the cost of driving.

Insurance rates are skyrocketing nationally.

Car payments are insane.

The cost of a new car now is $50,000.

Gas is skyrocketing on my way here is almost $7 a gallon.

And parking is more expensive than ever.

We need more transit to give people opportunities to get around in ways other than driving.

As we talked about earlier, getting back to 2019 service levels would be revolutionary for the city.

You know, being able to get 10 minute bus service in all of our neighborhoods, like the way we had, being able to have off-peak and night service means that people have opportunities to get around, not just in the middle of the day.

Luckily, there's a light at the end of the tunnel for this problem.

The mayor's proposal, well, a regressive sales tax, which uh, you know, as we talked about is not ideal.

Um, it would cost the median two-person household $29 a year for this increase.

That's the same as four hours of parking in Ballard, five gallons of gas or less than one week of total car ownership.

You know, this is a huge opportunity for an affordable Seattle to have opportunities to get around without driving.

You know, we can't force people if they want to go out to Eden Ballard to have to pay for all this parking.

We can't force people if they want to go out to a show downtown to pay for gas.

You know, having transit means that people are able to get around within our city instead of leaving to go to the suburbs where they get free parking.

You know, we need to have more opportunities for people and more freedom to get around when they want to get around, how they want to get around, um, across the entire city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jason Lee, followed by Jack Wisner.

Good morning, council.

My name is Jason Lee.

I live in district three and I co-lead the Fix the Late campaign.

According to the Seattle Times, in 2024, Seattle added four or 13,000 drivers commuting alone to work in just one year.

We are so worried about the traffic that the World Cup will bring.

But if this doesn't, if this pattern doesn't start to change, then by the end of the decade, the amount of new drivers we've added to our roads could nearly fill Lumen field to capacity.

And the FIFA World Cup traffic that we've been spending so long preparing for and doing so many things to you know make an exception to make sure that goes smoothly, that will be every single day.

We need something to change, and this measure this proposal by the mayor will do exactly that.

We need to make sure that people are switching from driving to transit as much as possible.

That will not only give people the financial freedom that the other commenters have commented on, but it'll also give people the independent freedom to go where they want if they can't drive.

Transit is the best way to ensure that people of all ages and abilities can move around the city as they please, like uh Councilmember Saka discussed.

Right now, it's too many people have to make a decision between getting home on time by leaving three, four or five hours early for the last direct bus, which I know Councilmember Strauss are very familiar with, or having to, or being able to enjoy themselves for the rest of the night, but spending several times more getting home.

Um the amounts that people are spending in traffic right now is absurd, and transit is the easy way to fix that.

And we need to make sure that people that this choice to switch to transit is obvious.

Right now, too many people feel like they're forced to drive, and because of that, our streets are more unsafe than ever.

We need the people who know that they're bad drivers to be able to take the obvious choice and switch to transit right now.

They're just driving because that's their only option, really.

Um, so yeah, if we if we didn't have a if we didn't have a system where people feel like they're forced to drive, you wouldn't have that situation on Tuesday where driver drove up onto Mount Baker Station.

Transit is very popular in Seattle.

Maybe a little too popular to the point where drivers are trying to get onto the train stations, but we can make it this yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jack Wisner, followed by Jason Weil.

Good morning, Chair Saga, members of the TBD.

Uh, my name's Jack Wisner, I live in District 6.

Yesterday I wrote you a note.

I hope you can check out your inboxes.

Uh, because I only have two minutes, I'll just make two points from that note.

I'd like you to consider two changes to the mayor's proposal.

Um, one, um, I uh Chair Saka in 2024 raised the issue of deleting the South Lake Union Streetcar.

I think you should really consider that uh carefully.

Um, it is redundant to several bus routes that already serve South Lake Union, and they do a much better job.

Uh if you look at the FTA national transit database uh on costs, the uh cost to run the streetcar is significantly more than the cost to run an electric trolley bus.

Um, second, I'd like you to consider uh asking the voters about the vehicle license fee.

It was part of the 2014 measure, not part of the 2020 measure because it was entangled in the Supreme Court case.

Um, but Iman lost that case, and you could use the VLF again.

It's very clumsy to go to the voters to ask for the TBD measure.

You might as well ask for them, the sales tax and the VLF at the same time.

You might target the VLF revenue toward pavement management.

I know you have your task force on transportation funding, but that's going to take a long time.

And here the voters are going to be asked about this.

So go ahead and ask them now, target the VLF revenue toward pavement management.

What's help which helps all modes, and when you fix the when the STOC fixes the major arterials, they can address uh vision zero, sidewalks, um, access management, and uh do several things at once.

And several of these multi-lane arterials have transit routes that need help.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Wizard.

Our final in-person speaker will be Jason Weil, and then we'll go to the remote speakers.

Hi, good morning, counsel.

My name is Jason Weill.

I am a district six resident.

I'm a volunteer with Ballard Fremont Green Streets and Save Ballard Rail.

Um, thank you so much for considering this measure.

Although it is a regressive tax, being a sales tax increase, is the tool that we have, and I urge us to use it.

Everyone in Seattle is riding transit, everyone from students to tourists to professionals working all over the city are depending on transit.

It is the ultimate affordability hack for at for three dollars or less you can ride all over the city.

Um, at a time when the World Cup is coming up, people are gonna be able to get to stadiums for um some of the cheapest fares in the country, and that's fantastic because it gets more cars off the roads, it keeps our city moving.

Um the one of the best ways to add trust to a public transportation system is to add trips.

Um the idea that you know when I was coming down here on the Rapid Ride D line, I saw a bus departing, and I wasn't even mad because the next one was coming five minutes in the future, and it did.

And adding more trips is a great way to get more people out of their cars onto transit, relying on it, recommending it to others, and so increasing the frequency and the availability of transit should be the goal of any growing and vibrant city like ours.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now switch to our remote commenters.

Our first uh remote caller will be Alberto Alvarez.

After that, we'll go to Brandon Derbladder.

Uh Alberto, please press star six.

Alberto Alvarez, can you hear us?

Hello, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay.

Uh, sorry, here we go.

One moment.

Can you hear us?

Sorry about that.

I hear you, I hear you now.

Thank you.

Yeah, as he starts, yeah.

Yeah, we can hear you, go ahead.

I regret my I regret my support for Katie Wilson.

With two options to raise revenue for transit, increase the sales tax or fees on car tabs.

The mayor choosing to hit working class families with another increase in the cost of living.

It's lazy at best.

Howard is at worst.

If you want to encourage more people to take the bus, you need to tax the vehicles they would otherwise be driving.

However, this hits families and working people the hardest because it's an increase to the cost of living.

The mayor saying a fight would be too controversial, the sign that until the state allows more progressive taxes, which is not likely to happen in the coming years.

Those of us with the least will always be paying the most.

Talk about a bait and switch.

The trade.

Regretful of supporting Katie Wilson.

Thank you all and have a good day.

Thank you.

Our next caller will be Brandon Durbladder.

Mr.

Blatter, please hit Star 6.

I just need that.

I want to voice my support from Mayor Wilson's Seattle Transit Measure proposal.

Since the announcement, I've already heard a lot about how sales taxes and presses.

But you know what else is regressive?

On average, it costs about a thousand dollars a month to own a car, which is too expensive for a significant portion of our neighbors in Seattle, myself included.

Our options are walking, biking, and riding transit.

It's vital to ensure high quality transit, including higher frequencies, so accessible and affordable transportation is available to everyone.

Mayor Wilson's proposal will increase King County Metro service hours by almost 60%.

This will allow us to not only return to but surpass pre-COVID levels of transit service.

We'll also be able to more than double the amount of free ORCA cards that we provide to our neighbors in need.

Besides, the county just proposed a similar sales tax hike.1% compared to the 0.15% increase in the new Seattle transit measure.

The county the county tax is only for county maintained roads and bridges, and no one is complaining about that.

If they're going to increase our taxes to maintain things that we'll probably hardly ever use, then surely we deserve to have a larger fund for transit infrastructure that will directly make Seattle more navigable for people of all classes and abilities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next remote caller will be Carlo Alcantera.

Please press star six.

Hi, my name is Carlo.

I'm a resident of D5.

I help lead the Aurora Reimagine Coalition.

I'm also a frequent rider of the E-line, the Route 40, the 61, the 365, the 348, the G Line, the D line, the Link Rail, and really any other bus that's going to get me where I need to go.

It's no longer the my family's preferred means of moving through the city.

Driving just isn't uh convenient anymore for most of the trips we need to make.

I live in Lincoln Springs, and it can often take the same amount of time on the bus or sometimes longer when factoring and trying to find parking to get somewhere like the Ballard farmers market on Sundays.

Um my only gripe uh really is that the buses don't arrive frequent enough.

Um, I can't really emphasize how much less stressful it is when you don't have to plan around an infrequent bus schedule.

Um, but increasing that frequency just makes it so that you can show up uh at any time and the bus will be there reliably for you.

Uh, the proposed Seattle transit measure renewal, I think is an investment in transit that will continue to make uh transit even more convenient, more accessible, and open up more of the city.

Um, my my one ask here is that we hold ourselves accountable in defining what is a minimum required outcome for how late a bus should be or how frequent it should come, um, and then prioritize those routes that don't meet that outcome or are missing the mark.

We saw this with the Route 8.

Um, it's going to be improved.

We're gonna see bus lanes uh put in on Denny Way, but I really think we should examine the entire system and find where those uh buses are failing or where our routes are failing and find the plan, but the priority, not to speak those things up.

Uh, thanks for your time and please uh support this measure.

Our next remote caller is Wes Stewart.

Please hit star six.

My name is Wes Stewart.

I live in District 2, and I'm here representing Sierra Club Washington State chapter and our 30,000 members who organize to protect wild lands, water, and air across the state.

Transportation continues to be one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the state, and owning a car is one of the biggest pressures on household budgets.

Transit can be a tool to ease climate impacts on our communities and the financial burdens of gas, parking, and insurance.

The air club supports the mayor's proposed transit measure, providing public transit passes to low-income residents, building on transit programs as Seattle voters have already supported, and expanding bus service across the city with more frequent routes, shorter ways, and better reliability.

My neighbors in D2 heavily rely on public transportation.

Working class families commute, send their kids to school, get their elders to medical care, visit siblings to provide child care, and haul groceries home all on the bus.

The mayor's proposed measure helps expand service for people who depend on transit while making it practical and affordable options for everyone.

Thank you.

Greg, please hit star six.

Hello, good morning.

My name is Greg Woodfill.

Um I'm president of ATU 587, representing about 5,000 transit workers in King County and on the peninsula.

I'm in an airport in DC, sorry for the sounds.

Good morning, Chair Saka and distinguished City Council members.

Would like you to know that our union is fully in favor of the mayor's proposal on extending the current Seattle transit measure, including her bold decision to use the full funding available.

I want to directly address our friends on the city council who have been great advocates for public transit.

We understand how difficult it is in this environment to pass new taxes.

We understand the whole issue with regressive taxes.

This is what we got.

We cannot afford to go backwards.

Seattle will not, Seattle and King County and the region will not reach its full potential without continuing continued increased in investment in public transit.

Public transit is a public utility.

It's a necessary public.

The public is demanding safe public transit, needing more to drive.

Just to finally to answer the issue of regressive taxes.

Yes, nobody's in favor of that.

We're not in favor of that either.

But in some instances, regressive taxes, at least we can say they're going more to the the people that need them.

So a lot of people don't have a choice about using the bus.

That's how they got to get to work.

Their appointments or medicine.

And please uh please support them in uh full funding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next remote caller is Lam Ho.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is Lam Ho, a resident of District 7, and the general manager of the Transit Riders Union here in support of the Mayor's proposed Seattle Transit measure.

The Transit Riders Union has always been committed to a safe, reliable, efficient transit system, especially for low-income riders, and to advancing progressive programs that make our city more equitable and affordable for all.

The proposal by the mayor aligns with the transit riders union's mission and values.

Expands bus service so people experience shorter weights, more frequent trips, and service that actually matches the schedules and routes riders depend on every day.

For so many residents, including myself, a lifelong transit rider who doesn't know how to drive, this is our primary way, if not only way of getting to work to school to get groceries.

The mayor's proposal is the way to getting us the increased frequency and the options we need to lead our lives.

While obviously increasing sales tax is not ideal, it is an affordable investment into progressive programs and results.

A central component of this measure is the 22,000 free transit passes for lower income residents, more than doubling the current number of beneficiaries under the current measure.

These passes are not a broad subsidy.

They are a targeted benefit for people who already spend a disproportionate share of their income just getting around the city.

As many have mentioned, driving is becoming more expensive, and we need real alternatives.

Gas, parking, insurance, and car ownership keeps rising.

This measure expands service so more people can choose transit and save money, especially those who feel the financial pressure most acutely.

An efficient transit system enables residents to save money by not needing to own a car.

The transit riders union strongly urge you to support Mayor Wilson's proposed measure at the level she proposed.

Thank you.

Our final caller is Harper Nally.

Please push Star Six.

Okay, hold on.

Okay.

Sorry, I am in school.

So, anyways, uh hello, I'm Harper Nally from the Seattle Transit Riders Union.

I'm here to demand the council follows the mayor's first steps and go bold on transit Sunday.

For those of us who use transit as the primary source of transportation, not as an alternative to driving and convenience, frequency and span are the are often the dividing line between us and access to jobs, opportunity, life, and affordability.

As Seattleites give up their cars, the need for improvement in transit becomes increasingly pronounced.

This tax will make my life cheaper.

I spend roughly $5,000 a year in non-rent, non-grocery expenses.

And as a result, the first time I don't have to spend five dollars for an Uber or a line bike thanks to expanded night bus service.

This tax increase will have paid for itself.

Thank you.

We have no more public commenters.

All right, thank you, everyone.

And also let the record reflect that council members rink, Hollingsworth have joined us.

Welcome, Vice Chair, Council President, and uh Council Member Strauss has joined us in person.

Welcome.

All right, we will.

Let's see.

So there are no additional registered speakers.

We'll now proceed to our items of business.

Uh will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Agenda item one, briefing and discussion.

Executives proposed 2026 Seattle Transit Measure.

All right, thank you.

And will our presenters please join us at the table as it looks like you're doing now?

Welcome.

Once you're ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentations.

Colleagues, I'll ask that you hold your your questions till the end.

Thank you.

Okay.

Are we all all ready?

Hello, everyone.

Um I'm Angela Angela Brady.

I work for the Seattle DOT.

I'm the acting director.

Do you want to go down the line and make some introductions first?

Millie Crawford, S Dot.

Uh Alex Setson, the Mayor's Office.

Francisco Stefan Stock.

So thank you so much for having us here today.

Uh, we are grateful for the opportunity uh to present the mayor's proposal for the 2026 Seattle transit measure renewal for council's consideration.

A measure like this takes careful professional work.

It requires strong data, sound financial planning, and close coordination with our partners, along with a clear understanding of how people actually move around Seattle every day.

At SDOT, our role is to help turn these investments into real service, real access and real improvements for the people who rely on transit.

That means administering these funds responsibly.

It means working with Metro on transit service priorities.

It means investing in city-owned transit service with a Seattle streetcar.

It means making sure free ORCAP passes reach the people they are intended to serve.

It means investing in practical street improvements that help buses move more safely and more reliably.

And it means tracking results so that we can continue to improve over time.

This proposal is the culmination of analysis, stakeholder engagement, and a collaboration that supports the Seattle Transportation Plan, is aligned with our city's comprehensive plan goals, and moves us closer to our vision of an irresistibly good transit network that is frequent and reliable seven days a week.

We are excited and honored to be here to share more details about the mayor's proposal today.

Yes, it is ambitious, but it is also very grounded.

It is about more trips, better service, broader access, and the day-to-day details that make transit work really well.

I'm proud of my SDOT team and our Metro partners for the professionalism and the care that went into this proposal, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to deliver a transit system that supports a more affordable, connected, and accessible Seattle.

Thank you so much for having us today.

Thank you.

The purpose of our presentation today is to really do two things.

It's to talk about the way in which the existing Seattle transit measure has been uh serving and contributing to affordable, accessible, and safe transportation for everyone here in the city of Seattle, and to share the mayor's vision for the renewal of this measure, which meets the overwhelming demand for better bus service and lowers barriers to accessing transit and meets a very important goal, which is to return Seattle to 2019 levels of transit service.

A little bit of a history before we get into the current STM.

STM was passed originally in 2014 after a countywide measure to invest in transit service failed to pass at the county level.

It uh passed with 62% of support of the voters of the city of Seattle, and at the time was a 0.1% sales tax and $60 worth of in car tabs.

In 2020, Mayor Durkin proposed a renewal of that measure, which was uh adopted as a.15% sales tax and passed with 80% vote of the approval of the city of Seattle.

Uh a little fun fact about that is that at the time was the highest that any measure on any subject had ever been approved in the history of Seattle and has set a national record for the highest any transit measure has ever been approved in the history of the United States of America.

That measure uh was passed for a six-year duration, which brings us now to 2026, an important time uh for renewing renewing these investments.

STM is a unique tool the city has to build the transit-rich city Seattle has been working toward for generations.

A city where transit connects people to opportunity, strengthens our neighborhoods, supports our economy, and makes daily life a little easier.

First and foremost, it has funded more bus service in Seattle, above the baseline level of service that King County Metro provides.

Since 2020, this measure has added more than 850,000 additional bus service hours in Seattle.

In 2025, that meant an additional 3200 weekly bus trips, with 88% of those trips in the evenings, at night, on weekends, and midday.

With every transit trip we have purchased, the city has contributed to Metro's transit safety initiatives, investing over 14 million dollars over the life of this measure.

STM has also expanded access to transit, including providing free ORCA cards to low-income residents that saved participants more than $4.5 million in 2025 alone.

It has funded low-income residents, it has funded transit education programs for youth and aging adults, transit supportive capital projects, Seattle streetcar service, and the city staffing we need to support the planning and permitting of sound transit projects in Seattle.

This is now a proven funding source with a long track record of helping people get where they need to go.

Providing more transit service has always been at the core of this measure.

SDOT uses the city's frequent transit network as the guiding framework for SDOT's transit service investments.

It's the city's vision for a well-connected, frequent and reliable transit system where traveling by bus throughout Seattle is convenient and easy to choose, no matter what time of day you need to travel.

Community feedback shaped this vision when it was most recently updated in 2024 through the Seattle Transportation Plan as adopted by you all City Council members.

Through the STP engagement process, we heard loud and clear that Seattleites want more frequent transit service at all times of day.

We reflected this feedback in an updated network vision while also factoring in anticipated population and employment growth identified in the Seattle Comprehensive Plan and our knowledge of the impact of the growing regional light rail network.

The city's new frequent transit network has targets that now apply seven days per week.

All STM transit service investments bring Seattle closer to this frequent transit network vision.

How exactly do we do this?

We start by looking at the gaps that exist between existing service and the targets outlined in that network.

This gives us our universe of potential investments.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest gaps are in the evenings, at night, on weekends, and midday.

We know the need to get around does not stop outside of peak commute times.

People are traveling to jobs, school, medical appointments, child care, grocery stores, community events, and family responsibilities at all times of day.

Ridership has rebounded the fastest at off-peak times post-pandemic.

For example, weekend ridership is now at nearly 100% of pre-pandemic levels and growing.

In addition, we prioritize frequent service to equity priority neighborhoods.

The result is that over 80% of STM bus service investments are at off-peak times and serve equity priority populations.

We know STM investments are effective because where our service investments go, ridership follows.

There are several examples on this slide.

I'll start with just the first one, the Route 60, which connects council districts one, two, and three.

We added bus service on weekends, making buses come every 15 minutes up from Metro's baseline of every 30 minutes from 6 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

After we made this investment, ridership increased 27% on Saturdays and 41% on Sundays.

Through our public engagement, folks have told us that it is important for them to feel safe traveling to, waiting for, and riding on transit.

Thankfully, every STM dollar spent on transit service contributes to Metro's safety and security investments.

As Metro has increased their investments, SDET's contribution has also increased.

Between 2023 and 2026, the amount SDOT has contributed to Metro's safety and security investments through STM has tripled.

These significant investments are in addition to the $9 million in dedicated funding for transit passenger safety that is part of the 2024 transportation levy.

These funds have been used to provide an increased transit security officer presence along Third Avenue and South Jackson Street.

STM has provided low-income access to transit with fully subsidized ORCA cards since the first version of this measure in 2014.

Our transit pass programs provide free ORCA cards to 10,000 Seattleites every year.

Our longest running program is our partnership with the Seattle Housing Authority, which serves over 6,000 people every year and saves participants more than $600 on average in transportation costs.

We also have partnerships with Seattle colleges and the Seattle preschool program, coupling early childhood education with reliable access to transportation to support low-income families.

Participants in our Orca subsidy programs tell us time and again how impactful having this resource is to their lives.

As you can see from these quotes, this is a practical affordability investment.

When people have reliable transit and a pass in their pocket, they have more freedom to get where they need to go without worrying about how to pay for it.

During a period of time when service and ridership were still recovering from the pandemic.

SDOT invested these increased capital funds in alignment with voter intent.

Over the last six years, we have supported over 100 transit capital projects across the city that have ranged in size, scope, and scale, but ultimately they have improved bus travel times, the passenger experience, and made it easier and safer to get to and from the bus.

These investments complement the city's primary funding source for transit infrastructure improvements.

Oh, there we go.

This brings us to the mayor's proposal for the second renewal of the Seattle transit measure.

This has uh brings us to the future here.

So we have 0.3% sales tax.

This uh the sales tax authorized for transportation benefit districts as many public commenters have shared here, is limited by the options that are provided by the Washington state legislature.

So I want to recognize uh where that use comes from and the full duration then of 10 years.

So this proposal is really about improving transit service at all times of day and on the weekends.

We know that what this will do is it will increase both the access to transit, as you heard many people talk about uh fares and affordability, connect people to the opportunities that meet the needs of their daily travel.

I mean, talk a little bit about uh changing travel patterns and helps us uh move forward towards Seattle's adopted goals around affordability, equity, and climate.

So this slide speaks a little bit to uh the need to invest here.

So Seattle is a growing city.

Since this measure was adopted five years ago, we've added 80,000 new residents.

And during that time, as uh Seattle, like every city in the United States and across the world is recovering uh from pandemic related impacts.

We've seen transit ridership on weekdays double.

Uh now you you see here the numbers that are, these are just uh Seattle transit numbers.

We have over two, nearly 200,000 people are choosing uh public transit every day, taking those trips.

This is not including Link, which is another 100,000 folks.

So we see uh both uh a strong growth in transit ridership.

During this same time, patterns around how people travel have fundamentally changed, and the transit system has evolved with them to meet those needs.

So we see both in ridership and uh in what people tell us that people are taking transit now more for non-work trips and at off-peak times.

We also at the same time have grown our transit network to meet this demand.

So here in Seattle, we've seen four new light rail stations open during the tenure of this measure, as well as two new rapid rides, the Rapid Ride H and the Rapid Ride G.

This has made it easier for people to choose transit as a common sense option for their trips.

At the same time as we've added new residents, we have not added uh we've added very few new cars.

In fact, we now know that 19% of Seattle households do not own a car, and another 45% of households uh have only one car.

And so we know that transit is a very important piece of creating affordability and alternatives to car ownership.

As you've heard many people say, triple A tells us that the average cost of owning a car and operating it in the city of Seattle is a thousand dollars a month, and so we know that an ORCA card costs 108 dollars, which is one-tenth of that price.

I do want to recognize that many people live car-free or car-light, and that is not necessarily an option that can work for all people, so it is important to recognize that providing a public transit system that allows people to drive some of the time or part of the way is an important part about creating options that meet people's needs, and so we believe that the STM provides mobility for Seattleites and supports our population today as we continue to grow.

STM is part of a larger regional transit system.

So STM is how we uh Seattle addresses local mobility needs in the context of a much larger regional network and increases service beyond Metro's baseline.

So King County Metro delivers Seattle's baseline transit service and provides 93% of the transit uh that people have here in our city.

However, Metro, as you heard in public comment, has uh their service priorities, which they apply across the county, and so STM allows us to really address our own local mobility needs and allows us to go beyond that.

And you've heard uh talk about how we invest in late nights, uh early mornings, and weekends as part of how we grow beyond the baseline service provided.

STM also allows us to directly invest uh in places of the highest need, and uh as we spoke about the the baseline here, you can see that this allows us to invest using our equity priority framework for access here.

And so, because of these investments, one out of every 13 trips in Seattle is uh paid for through the STM and allows us to do programmatic things like the 10,000 fully subsidized orca cards that we distribute to Seattle Housing Authority residents and others.

And if this measure is uh it is set to expire in April of 2027, and so renewal would be necessary in order to maintain uh and and grow current services.

Which brings us back to the measure here.

Uh proposal from Mayor Wilson, a.3% sales tax for 10 years, delivering on Seattle's commitment and Seattleites' expectation of creating a world-class transit network.

So at the 0.3% rate, the measure would raise about $138 million a year over the duration of the measure.

86.5% of which would be directed directly into transit service, both in fixed route transit service as well as the Seattle investments in our two streetcar lines.

This investment reflects the core purpose of the measure and what we've heard from community over and over again, which is that people want transit that comes more often and serves them to more places that they want to go.

The other elements that the proposal invests in is in the is a more than doubling an expansion of the transit access programs, ability for our city to deliver sound transit quickly through both design, planning, and other necessary work to have the city's largest infrastructure project in its history be delivered as fast and efficiently as people are looking for, and invests in addressing transit infrastructure, capital programs, which allow us to make good use of the resources that we have and ensure that transit hours are not wasted in congestion.

And this slide here speaks to uh a lot of community engagement that has gone into this.

Uh we have done a lot of outreach and engagement with dozens of stakeholders, we've conducted round tables, one-on-ones.

Uh, we've spoken with both the transportation advisory board and the transportation equity work group, uh, and collected that feedback, also informed by a very robust process for the Seattle Transportation Plan.

So, as you can see here, we've what we've heard and how we've addressed that has been a good feedback loop of community engagement.

This proposal is grounded in findings from our racial equity toolkit, which helped us carefully assess how to balance the burdens associated with the funding source against the benefits it delivers to the community.

The toolkit highlighted that the most impactful strategies for supporting transit dependent and lower income communities are expanding transit service hours and increasing access to Orca subsidy programs.

Through the development of this proposal, we engaged regularly with SDOT's transportation equity work group, who made it clear that despite the regressivity of our available funding sources, the proposal should not make cuts to the service and access investments that most directly benefit low-income people of color.

This proposal would increase the city's investment in transit service in Seattle by 50%.

We would continue to invest where the need is highest, with a focus on high equity areas and times of day when people rely on transit most, and we have the biggest service gaps to fill.

In addition, the city would continue to strengthen east-west travel, supporting improved connection to the growing light rail network.

Every bus route that receives STM funding connects to at least one light rail station.

Our service investments at the levels we are proposing today, combined with Metro's planned restoration of service in Seattle would bring service in the city back to levels we have not seen in almost a decade.

This is so important now as ridership is increasing every year, and we know that more service drives even more demand.

The Seattle Transit Measure is possible because of the strong partnership we have with King County Metro.

This map shows where Metro operates bus service today.

STM cannot add new routes to this map.

We can only add service onto routes King County Metro has planned and implemented in our city.

Their network is the baseline for this measure.

Any bus route with 65% or more of bus stops within Seattle or rapid ride lines are eligible for STM funding.

By the end of 2026, we will be investing 180,000 service hours across 32 routes in every corner of the city, providing more service to more places at more hours of the day.

This adds up to 7% of the bus service in Seattle.

This map here shows the routes and degree of investment we have citywide currently.

With this renewal, we would add 100,000 more service hours for riders above what STM currently provides.

This level of investment would allow us to improve service on 10 to 15 bus routes across the city.

The map you see here is an illustrative planning tool to help you understand what that 100,000 hours could look like on the ground.

This slide shows some more tangible examples of what this increased level of investment could look like, and I'll select one to speak about.

For example, the Route 21 connects council districts one and seven, connecting Arbor Heights and High Point in West Seattle to Soto and downtown.

I'm noticing the picture here is not quite updated.

After passing through downtown, because it's not going to show this part, it becomes the Route 5, serving council districts five and six, connecting Fremont, Greenwood, and Bitter Lake to Shoreline and to Shoreline Community College.

With this proposal, we could double weekend service on these connected routes to fill gaps and create consistent 15-minute service seven days a week, up from every 20 to 30 minutes on weekends.

We believe that these potential investments, along with improvements on many other routes, would make choosing transit easier at all times of day for thousands of Seattleites.

Ridership on our streetcar system is increasing every year.

Roughly 1.6 million trips were taken in 2025, up from 1.4 million in 24.

The First Hills Streetcar is back at 2019 ridership levels and still climbing, and the SLU line continues to see significant ridership growth year over year.

This proposal will also expand the number of low-income Seattle residents who receive fully subsidized ORCA cards to 22,000 people, bringing free transit to the majority of low-income subsidized housing residents citywide.

It would continue serving the 10,000 low-income residents, families with young children, and young adults who are served by our transit pass programs today.

We would also expand our partnership with the Seattle Housing Authority to offer fully subsidized ORCACs to all housing choice voucher participants, serving 12,000 more low-income residents.

The proposal also continues transit education programs that help young people and aging adults build confidence using public transit independently.

Funding for Sound Transit 3 staffing allows the city to proactively partner in delivering these projects and advance planning efforts for capital projects to improve access to the new station areas.

This essential investment supports a dedicated team of transportation planners, engineers, permit reviewers, and project managers.

Transit capital investments are a smaller share of the measure, but they play an important supporting role.

They help the city get more value from its transit service investments by improving reliability, access, and rider experience.

The proposed capital budget is $3.5 million each year, consistent with the plan and prior measures.

Those funds would support targeted improvements at places where delay, access, or safety issues affect transit performance.

They could also be used to leverage additional grant funding to deliver larger, more transformative capital projects.

Thank you, Council Councilmember Warz.

Oh, I forgot I'm unmuted.

Sorry.

All good.

Hey, I'm rocking with you though.

I'm rocking with you.

All good.

It ain't looking good.

So I'm just gonna put it out there.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

We'd like to speak directly to the rate of the sales tax here.

So I want to start with acknowledging that costs have risen 26% since the measure was passed in 2020.

Those uh, we all see that government and transit agencies are not immune to the larger economic factors, such as inflation, supply change disruptions, tariffs, et cetera.

And so what that means is that anything less than a 0.223% sales tax would require cuts to the investments and services and benefits that you've heard us describing here.

At the same time, uh other transportation sources have declined.

Uh, sorry, Bill, could you go back?

Thanks.

Um, have plateaued or declined, such as the commercial parking tax.

Um, as households feel this cost pressure, more people need access to the public services that provide affordable options relative to privatizing the cost burden of things like mobility.

And we know and feel that the status quo is not good enough for the city of Seattle.

Seattle deserves improvement and is asking us for more and better transit service, and we want to deliver on that.

Next slide.

We want to highlight that everyone in Seattle contributes to the sales tax.

Residents and workers, but also businesses and visitors.

According to Visit Seattle, nearly 40 million people visited Seattle in 2025 and spent over $8 billion, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to our city through sales taxes.

In Washington, most everyday essentials are exempt from sales tax, including groceries, over the counter and prescription medications, rent and mortgage payments, and with new laws passed in Olympia, this legislative session, personal care and baby products are exempt from the sales tax as well.

Through STM, everyone contributes to a fund that the city uses to move people further.

Speak here to the cost to taxpayers.

The current 0.15% sales tax costs a median income two-person household 29 a year.

At 0.3%, we estimate this measure would cost that same two-person median income household about $58 a year, or another $4.83 a month.

Um it is an allowable funding.

And then we we also talk here about uh a low-income two-person household making $38,000 a year and the impacts that this proposal would have to them.

I'd like to speak directly to uh VLF.

Though it is an allowable funding source under state law, uh, we chose not to add, the mayor chose not to add VLF to this proposal for several reasons.

First, VLF is a flat fee.

Everyone pays the same amount regardless of income or circumstance.

Flat taxes are more regressive.

Car tabs are due in full every year with no option for incremental payment.

This places an outsized burden on low-income people, individuals, and families.

By our estimation, the average median income household in Seattle would pay $58 a year in sales tax under this proposal.

Adding a $50 VLF would nearly double that amount of the annual cost for households with only one vehicle and triple or quadruple the cost to households with two or more vehicles.

At the same time, adding a $50 VLF would only bring in an additional 15% more revenue each year for doubling the cost on car-owning households.

And lastly, we heard very strong opposition to VLF from the communities that we engaged through this process.

And we see this in the results of other opportunities that Seattleites have had to consider this question.

So why renew?

This measure exists because people have organized, spoke up, showed up, and kept insisting that transit is essential to a fair and affordable city.

For many people in the city, transit is not a backup plan.

It's how they get to work, to school, to child care, to medical appointments, the grocery store, and back home again.

We know that these are really compelling folks, like nurses going to Harbor View for early shifts, servers getting home from the junction after last call, the student taking the bus to Ballard High School, the parent on Beacon Hill, headed to daycare, seniors in the international district, and on and on and on.

These are the trips that make it possible for Seattle to be a functional city.

And this proposal uses the tools available us and directs the benefits where they matter most.

More service, more access, and more support for people who depend on or would like to choose transit.

This measure makes it possible for car ownership in Seattle to be a choice, not a requirement, or for a car to not have to be the only way, the only choice for all of or the totality of your trips.

This is what a world-class transit system looks like, and this is what Seattleites deserve and expect.

We're excited to be sharing this proposal with the city council today.

I look forward to working with you all on this plan as we continue to move it forward.

And ultimately, I look forward to giving uh Seattle voters the opportunity to consider these investments and benefits as we build the transit system our city needs for the next decade.

Thank you.

That concludes our presentation.

Cool.

Well, uh, first off, thank you so much.

Really appreciate uh the presentation, right on the money there with the timing, but really appreciate the presentation, and as I mentioned earlier, more important than that, the the thoughtful attention and work that went into crafting this proposed package before us.

So colleagues, I'll I have a few questions to uh to kick us off here and frame the conversation, and then we'll we'll turn it over to you all for your terrific questions and comments.

Uh so again, thank you for the proposal, um, and thank you for kind of walking us through your approach with respect to the vehicle license fee uh component in the in the trade-offs involved there.

So, aside from the vehicle license fee, can you walk us through the major policy trade-offs the executive considered in developing this proposal and specifically which alternatives were considered, but ultimately not included?

Yeah, I'm I'm happy to discuss that.

I want to acknowledge that planning for the renewal of the Seattle transit measure was well underway when Mayor Wilson uh came came into office.

Uh we explored options which, as a baseline, did not do any reductions.

So all options that were considered included, an acknowledgement that Seattleites want the no reduction in their baseline service.

Moving from there, we considered options that uh really adjusted dials, so there's fixed costs, things like the staffing that was approved by legislation by this body last year for the positions relative to supporting sound transit, as well as the fixed costs associated with the delivery of the saddle, the Seattle streetcar lines.

Through that, then we had three dials service, capital, and uh access programs.

We know that access, uh, that the capital program is as as Jen here mentioned is a small but important part.

So we held steady on that and looked at uh options that could either increase uh uh transit access programs or increase the level of service.

We ended at right in the middle of those things, and thanks to partnership with King County Metro and helping us to be able to really meet the need for the fair access uh programs while um being extremely mindful, responsible, and efficient with our costs.

Thank you.

So fair access.

So ridership recovery and long-term transit success ultimately depend on public confidence.

Can you help us understand how the executive considered transit safety and security needs when developing this proposal, particularly with respect to operator safety, rider safety, and local implementation of recommendations from the regional transit safety task force from a local city of Seattle City of Seattle government perspective?

Sure, I can uh try to answer that, Councilmember.

Um, so as mentioned in the presentation, um we contribute to Metro all of Metro's safety and security uh investments through our service purchases.

Um, and as Metro has increased their investments, uh we have as well looking for some of my uh talking points here.

Um believe that there has been uh over 200 additional uh transit security officers added in the last um five years by King County Metro, and we've uh invested in that.

So as Metro is responding to the regional transit safety task force, um, and implementing different um components of that plan.

Uh that many of those costs will be reflected in our service contract as well.

Um there was all there was only one uh like direct uh outcome for SDOT specifically in the regional transit safety task force, and that was to um uh provide young adults with opportunities to understand uh how they can be a part of participate or get a job in the transit and transportation system, and we actually have a youth uh program through our transportation access programs funded by the Seattle Transit Measure already that address that.

We have um uh youth who come for a month in the month of August and are getting exposed to um all of the different opportunities for um employment um and careers essentially, career exploration.

Um but that's just one specific thing.

Um, but again, as Metro is increasing their or adjusting what their investments are, metro transit police, transit security officers, behavioral health specialists, transit ambassadors, as well as like training for internal staffing for operators, et cetera, we would be paying our our portion of that.

Thank you.

If I may, sir, I just wanted to also add to that this is a key priority that we've heard, especially from you know from everyone, but from two stakeholders in particular, obviously ATU 587 as well as the transportation equity work group, um, groups that we've worked with in deep consultation while bringing forward this proposal in order to ensure that those key priorities are addressed in the investments put forward.

Thank you.

So if I hear you correctly, uh no additional or dedicated funding for transit safety and security, it's it would be included in our standard purchase uh for extra service with King County Metro.

What they're gonna already cover, we're just gonna, it'll be included and baked into that into that cost, and um, so so no local dedicated funding specifically for transit safety and security beyond what we purchase.

So we do have um nine million dollars in the 2024 transportation levy devoted to transit passenger um safety, so that still remains um as a dedicated funding source.

But through the Seattle transit measure, it is specifically um our our support of the funding for the Seattle streetcar that includes safety and security as well, which is also delivered by Metro and through our purchase of service.

Um I think we uh believe strongly that Metro should lead on transit safety and security investments, and we should support them and have them be the ones making the decisions since they're the operators and owners of those of that transit system.

Yeah, and the 2024 transportation levy uh was a completely different funding vehicle today.

We are discussing the uh proposed renewal of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

Um that said, uh there's also a shared response.

One of the things that we learned from the regional King County Regional Transportation or Transit Safety and Security Task Force is that the responsibility is shared for implementing those uh various recommendations.

It's not just solely uh the, you know, we need to avoid the counterproductive finger-pointing, you know, who's on first situation and confusion around their responsibility is shared, uh, and every jurisdiction has uh has a responsibility to implement locally those, and I'm hearing there's no um dedicated funding source, you know, specifically for that.

Uh it would just be included in what the base levels of of potential safety and uh security services or or or upgrades that Metro has planned based off of our regular purchase of service.

Um but thank you for that.

Uh I would I would um I have a different I have a different view of the the infrastructure in terms of I heard the infrastructure uh levels of funding are consistent with prior levels in the Seattle transit measure.

I would disagree with that view, or at least I have a different one.

Um, especially when you look at the actuals uh and the revisions that were made over time.

Um that said, we'll learn more about that during our next meeting from our central staff analysis.

But thank you for your uh your the additional clarity here.

Colleagues, I will now turn it over to you, starting first with vice chair, vice chair rink, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Saka, and thank you to all of our panelists who came before us today to present on this proposal.

Your time is appreciated.

Thank you for presenting this in detail.

And thank you to our partners at ATU 587, our transit operators who get us where we need to go.

And huge thank you to all of the advocates who came out today to really champion transit.

Um thank you for the work that you do.

Um I've I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

You know, I'm a car I'm the car free council member up here, proudly representing the 20% of Seattle households uh who don't own a car.

And when I in much of my adult life, um, I didn't own a car not based on any type of a principled stance, but because I literally couldn't afford one.

Um now I'm able to live a life with without a car, and I I make it work for myself, but I uplift that just to state that there are so many folks in our city who quite literally rely on our transit system, whether it be light rail or our buses.

And so I want to just start my remarks by really underscoring that point that so many um residents in our city are really relying on us to deliver on reliable frequent safe transit.

Um to that point, I have a couple of questions for today.

Um, one, just bringing us to to this point about um just uh tax burden, and I I think I just want to uh start off on the note that we've you know we've heard about in public comment and um already in some of the discourse, some amount of consternation about sales tax.

I do want to note for the record that my office engaged with state legislators ahead of our most recent state legislative session in the hopes that we would see a bill um in session that would expand options to um jurisdictions on how we can fund our transportation benefit districts.

Um I did not want the city to be in this position of being so constrained and confined with the options that we have, but I was disappointed to see we were unable to get something through this session, but optimistic about future sessions.

Um I'm wondering if we can just go to slide 32, because I appreciate the information you're providing on how this sales tax would impact residents.

But really hitting on this point about how we're using these investments to really have a solid return on investment as well.

So I'm wondering if you can speak to a little expand a little bit more on the return on investment for the average bus rider for this sales tax as well as uh recipients for the uh new ORCA passes that you're intending to provide to the levy.

I'm happy to speak to that.

Uh, and thank you for the question, council member.

Uh the way that I like to think about transportation and mobility is that there really isn't a lot of alternatives.

People have to get the places that they have to go.

So when we're talking about the cost of public transportation, I think it is important to situate that with a fair comparison about the other choices that people make.

You've heard the word choice here a lot.

Um, obviously, I want to be clear that some people actually, far too many people face transit insecurity and transportation insecurity.

In fact, I read a recent report that showed that this is actually the number one hardship.

17% of Americans report that they miss important things in their lives because of a lack of transportation access to do that.

So want to be really clear that that is in fact, recent study shows a more significant hardship and a more common hardship, even than food insecurity in this country.

Um so when people have to get somewhere and they can't get there with public transportation, their options are to not go, as we discussed, to if you have access to a car to ask for a ride or to pay for the car to go there yourself.

Gas right now is uh six dollars and fifty-six cents a gallon in my neighborhood, so that's more than the annual, more than the monthly cost for a single uh gas uh gallon of gas there.

Other alternatives, of course, are owning a vehicle.

As I mentioned, triple A estimates that in the state of Washington it is $12,000 or about a thousand dollars a month to own and operate a vehicle.

A uh your other alternatives there would be, of course, a bicycle if that works for you.

That some works for some people, not for everyone.

Let's be clear about that.

Um TNC's uh Uber lift and taxi, which for many people uh uh a cross ride could be well over $40 to get across town on a suit a single Uber.

So as we start to think about what are the actual choices that people have and what do those choices cost, uh that is a that is an overview of what what options people have.

So not going somewhere, taking transit, uh asking for a ride, or paying for that ride yourself in a car if you are able to own one, or uh taking a uh a TNC, a lifter and Uber.

Did that answer your question, Councilmember?

Thank you.

Did you want to chime in?

Yeah, if you don't mind, I can chime in.

So um, you know, when you look at the cost of the free ORCA card in particular, um, so these are folks who are living at, you know, mostly living uh at the 30% of the area made in income.

So on this slide, that's $38,000 a year or less.

Um, you know, the the value of that just the ORCA card unrelated to the actual service investments, um, is that it's 60 67 times greater than the amount they pay in the actual uh cost for the tax.

Um, and I have a quote from um a message that was sent in from someone from the Seattle Housing Authority who the original email was in Spanish, but I'll just read what this person said.

Um I am Rogelio Peraza Cuesta.

I receive a retirement pension of 401 dollars a month, and as you can see, it is not much.

With that money, I have to pay for electricity, which is not cheap for anyone, and transportation, rent, senior internet, phone, and other services.

The money is not enough for me.

If it weren't for the Seattle Housing Orca card, I wouldn't be able to pay for transportation to go to the doctors and pay for some medications that my insurance doesn't cover.

I recently received information that this card will only be valid for this year.

What solution can I make?

Sincerely, Mr.

Regellio Parassa.

I really appreciate those responses.

Thank you so much.

And kind of shifting gears for a moment.

I'm sure through for many of my colleagues, I don't want to speak for anyone at all, but with in so many ways, I know I'm thinking about all the different routes I've I've taken, and perhaps my colleagues are thinking about the routes within their districts or the times that they've had to wait 30 minutes for the bus.

And I really appreciate the slide seven, which really highlights in the current STM, how those investments were able to increase frequency on specific routes.

I think this begs the question around how are we making determinations for the upcoming for this renewal effort.

Can you walk us through the steps that SDOT is uh really making in collaboration with King County Metro and identifying which routes will benefit from increased investment?

Yes, can you go to this?

I think it's the slide before this.

Yes.

So we would be using the same data-driven equity-set centered investment strategy that we use today.

So we're really looking first at we have our frequent transit network, which is our vision for being able to get across the city all at all times of day, where you don't have to look at a schedule, you just know your bus is coming.

Um so we start with that frequent transit network and we compare it to what's on the ground today.

There, that's our list of investments.

Then we're looking at um the demographics of each uh neighborhood.

Um we have an equity-based methodology that actually mirrors what King County Metro has as there for their equity investment, and we see those routes that are connecting different that are going through those neighborhoods.

If it's a higher equity priority area, that route gets uh those trips get a higher score.

So we basically go through a very mathematical process where we're ranking um different potential investments, and then we also are able to actually see the times of day when there are uh when reduced fare trips are taken, like either with a subsidized annual pass or an ORCA lift card, and those also receive a higher um score, and then uh we're able to look at all of those and we coordinate closely with King County Metro in terms of what they're able to deliver.

Um, so that that's really we're also looking at uh where density is happening in the comprehensive plan, uh, thinking about that, thinking about connecting to uh across east-west, which we all know is really challenging in our city.

Um, I think what I'm most excited about is that um uh, you know, this 100,000 hours lets us get back to those pre-19 2019 uh service levels.

Um so if you go to the slide, um, I think it's it's the one that looks like this but shows where we're going to be investing going forward.

These are not the, like, uh, keep going, sorry.

There, thank you.

These are oh, the sorry, that's okay.

These are not the exact um investments, but these are using our investment prioritization methodology, these are routes and really specific investments on the next slide that we would consider uh making because they are high on that list.

Um, King County Metro is going to be investing uh over the next two years.

There's gonna be a uh service recovery project that they can speak to better than we can, but we'll have uh public outreach and we'll uh kind of re-baseline uh the service levels in Seattle, and then we'll be able to add on top of that.

So it's a little hard today to tell you exactly where service investments will go since metro's investments are changing, but um all things being equal now.

We think this is uh this is a possible uh representation of where we may make those investments.

And the next slide really talks about um kind of what those what those might look like, which I think are are really substantial, going from every 20 or 30 to every 15 minutes on weekends, um, or even every 10 minutes on the D line, you know, to third highest ridership route in the city, and on the weekends it doesn't have um service every 10 minutes, so understood and a clarifying question just on this point.

Understanding that you know we're we're it's uh complicated formula in some ways trying to really meet this point and really provide equitable service.

I'm wondering if in the current STM there were any like shifts specifically between routes just across the course of the current STM, if there were any notable shifts in terms of where we kind of shifted that service.

Yes, so there are some investments that were carried forward from the very first measure, and then as um King County Metro uh delivers what are called mobility projects, um, so like when there's a new light rail station opening or there's some large uh change to the network, they will uh look at the service that's in a certain area and re go through a community uh process where uh they're asking how that might need to change, how that service might need to change.

And we also change our investments during that time.

Um so actually, if you go to the slide that looks like this but is current investments, I think an example would be the Linwood Link Mobility Project.

Um, so go one more.

So this um one on this example on the far right here, uh the route 75 and 77.

So as part of the Linwood Link Project, mobility project that King County Metro led, we chose to um invest here in a brand new route, the Route 77 that Metro's creating.

Um that serves Lake City Way, um, and it will be coming instead of every 30 minutes, which is Metro's baseline in the future, to every 15 minutes.

Um, we also have invested in Metro Flex.

Um specifically in District One, uh we were able to add service in the South Park and Del Ridge neighborhoods, which have really challenging um uh hills, essentially, and it's it's hard to get around uh there, and so uh MetroFlex is another way that we've invested again, chosen through uh by looking at where the highest equity needs are as well.

Thank you for that and um my last question for today.

Well, I mean, I I really want to just state again how much I appreciate uh the data that's been presented uh today, um specifically highlighting the ways that this that our investments in expanding transit services also uh directly translated into increased ridership numbers.

I think it's just really uh compelling to really lift up that point, and um there's been a lot of discussion about what has kind of gone into shaping the proposal before us today, and you've spoken to some of the engagement that has gone into this, but I want to just take a moment and zoom in um specifically on the racial equity toolkit work.

Um, and I know on slide 19 uh there's a point here on culturally relevant outreach.

I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit on what that kind of outreach looked like and kind of uh unpack some more around some of the work that went into the racial equity toolkit as provided.

Um you're asking specifically about the the outreach for the racial equity toolkit, or are you just saying generally outreach and then also specifically uh generally when you're talking about culturally relevant outreach, what did that look like, and then anything you'd like to unpack about uh the work that went into the racial equity toolkit?

So um we uh met closely, met regularly with the transportation equity work group.

Um I can't remember how many people are on that um uh in that group, but they are paid um community representatives who support who who are uh come together to provide policy recommendations to SDOT, and we walked them through over many months the thought processes that we've had, the analysis that we done in terms of the burdens and benefits of the burdens of a sales tax increase or a vehicle license fee increase and the benefits it provided.

Um we did multiple workshops to like look at specific instances of you know for this particular person or someone living in this neighborhood, what would the um uh investment uh what would the benefit be for them?

Um so that's a lot of like that that specific outreach we did.

Um, I'm just trying to think of other pieces here, thank you.

A little support coming in with our subject matter experts.

Okay, we also provided um in-language communications about STM at community hubs throughout the city as well.

Um, we've uh talked with all of our uh partners that we work with through the transportation access program.

So whether that's the residents at senior senior housing, um, where we do outreach or Seattle Housing Authority, uh Seattle Preschool Program, talking to them.

Um that's some of what I'd say.

Great, great to hear that there was in-language uh outreach done.

Thank you.

That was a really important point for me to understand.

Chair, that concludes my questions for today.

Thank you again so much.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

All right.

Colleagues, what other uh questions, comments?

Thoughts do you all have?

Let's see.

Councilmember Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair.

And thank you so much to our presenters.

I really appreciate the time and the information coming from you all.

I will, excuse me.

Okay.

I will be fairly brief with my questions.

I did want to ask just for an email follow-up.

I really appreciated the overview of the decision making process around why you chose the sales tax focus as opposed to the vehicle license fee focus, but I didn't capture everything and I really want to revisit that.

So if I can ask that you send that via follow-up email, I would that would be greatly appreciated.

And then I wanted to ask actually sort of a more uh global question just around the strategy.

And I really appreciate the um comments around these investments allowing us to return to 2019 service levels.

I know I've just heard questions around um trends in transit ridership and both how they are changing, and I think um Alex, you spoke to that.

Just we're seeing more people not use transit for work but use it for late nights or weekends or evenings.

And um, and I've heard some questions around okay.

Well, do we need to do this investment to go back to 2019?

And so I wonder if you can speak to the impact that that increased service will likely have on increased transit ridership.

Yeah, I'm I'm happy to speak to that, and I'll I'll probably turn it over to Jen.

Uh I'll start by sharing another another interesting uh example data point that illustrates this trend.

This is about um the light rail service, so not fixture up bus service, but at Westlake station, uh, as of last year, Saturdays have higher ridership than days of the week.

So we're seeing very clearly that transit and seeing by people's behavior that they think about transit as an important part of their whole lives, and that is reflected in their choices and behaviors that they're making, and showing that we even see things like higher ridership on weekends.

For for transit nerds like me, this is like a mind blowing fact.

So I hope you find that interesting as well.

It's very clear, uh, and Jen's got a lot of data we can pull up here uh where we've seen those investments that choice is an important part of, and you've heard many people talk about having schedule free access.

So routes like the G line have added, for example, tens of thousands of new riders in the Madison corridor that have not been induced from coming from other routes.

They're choosing transit because it is fast recruitment and reliable, and you can look at it without a schedule.

So when we make transit be an option that comes multiple times in an hour, uh it makes it an easier and a lower risk choice for people to have.

I like to think about sometimes again, fair equivalent.

If your garage door only opened once every 30 minutes and you had to be in your car in order to zip right out of there, that would be a crisis that we would treat like an emergency.

That is the lived experience for hundreds of thousands of transit writers every day.

And so when we make those options easier to say, you can go out there and try transit, it's gonna come every 10 minutes as opposed to every 15 minutes.

That's a lower risk option that really respects people's time more.

Uh, and and and we have uh a lot of examples here about uh where we've seen those investments.

I'd also point to changes in the overall economy.

So uh demographic changes, both in terms of people choosing sort of a uh urban and car-free or car light lifestyle are reflected in the rates at which even young people are getting their driver's licenses.

Thanks to the state of Washington for making transit free for every young person in this state uh 19 and under.

We're seeing behavior uh reflect in those in those demographics.

Again, we're seeing this very clearly, the momentum towards transit as it relates to linking key destinations with things like the line two, making more destinations, opportunities, and regions accessible has created uh a catalytic improvements in transit ridership, and as has the overall cost burden associated with some of the uh non-transit alternatives.

Did that answer your question, council member?

It did, but I also see Jen leaning into the mic, so I wanted to let her I was just gonna say that um, so if you go to slide 13, I think maybe you're you're looking at um the these are the transit trends for Seattle uh routes, um, specifically those that have 65% of stops in the city of Seattle, and you know, uh you can see that the ridership on the weekends is nearly at pre-pandemic times or amounts, um, and weekday ridership is rebounding um significantly.

So uh for people who don't have a car or are are trying to get around by transit, do have a car but are choosing to go car light.

Um, you know, traveling by transit isn't just like a weekday peak hour uh situation.

You know, they need uh service at all times of day, and so um there's something like there's a latent demand uh piece here of like if you add more service, they will come.

And I I hope that some of the data we've provided here and can provide uh to you if you're additional information if you'd like to see it about how when we've increased ridership it has or sorry, when we have increased service, it has resulted in increased ridership, and that is we believe that is gonna continue to happen as we add these additional 100,000 uh service hours through this proposal.

Um so I think it it does speak for itself.

Um this is going this these ridership patterns, you know.

Uh Alex spoke to this um on this slide originally, but you know, there have been a lot of changes um in the system itself, so um uh it you know, trans bus travel is not gonna go back exactly in the same way.

Even that 2019 service level slide, you know, those investments, it's not gonna be the exact same number of service hours on each route as it was in 2019 because travel patterns have changed, and those evenings, nights, weekends, midday service is when people are riding more.

Um, and that's actually where our biggest gaps are in the frequent trans in like our service levels that we have today.

So we really believe that it will result in more ridership and give trust in people so that they can people have more trust in the system that they don't have to think about um, you know, is it 10 minutes today or is it is it 30 minutes today when I go to the bus stop?

Thank you so much.

Sorry, Francisco.

Just to add one thought, uh, which hasn't been brought up yet, which is that um one of the issues with being able to be reliant on the transit system is to have some redundancy.

We live in a dynamic city where things happen, there are events, there are congestion points, there are unpredictable things that happen on a daily basis, and having the redundancy of a frequent bus network, regardless of uh of whether people ride light rail or other use other modes other times is a really important part of people being able to sort of drive ridership and and ride regularly.

So I think that's an important piece.

Um, staff has been calculating as part of this proposal what this proposal could bring in terms of additional ridership and are estimating about 50,000 additional weekly rides from the investments that we would make through the STM proposal.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that.

Um, I want to turn now to just a question around the length of the proposal and and the focus and some of the changes in our city.

So this is gonna be uh this is proposed at 10 years for us for this new package.

And um, and I I'm sure that there's gonna be other council members who have questions around this, but I'll I'll just do a lead-in to it, which is we obviously are at a moment where we're seeing um we've seen decisions last week from our Sound Transit Board in regard to the future of light rail service in the city and and what we know is coming and when.

And as of right now, we obviously don't have a date for Ballard light rail extension.

Um, can you speak to how the decision making about these investments is meant to sort of reflect changes in the rest of our transportation system?

So, just using Ballard as an example.

We know it's an area where we are intentionally planning for for growth, and it's a large, we're we're seeing more residents there.

Can you speak to how we're gonna make sure that these investments that we buy from King County are able to adapt and focus on our growing population centers when those population centers may be experiencing different than planned or anticipated levels of service from other agencies?

And I asked this question understanding that this transit measure is not designed to add additional fixed routes, that we can only buy service from Metro, but I do see this as something that's of growing concern to our residents.

Sure.

So I just want to make sure I understand the question, Councilmember Foster.

So you're asking how this 10-year measure, like are you asking why 10 years?

Are you asking no, you're asking specifically um how we're able to adjust how we're able to be remaining flexible through this funding source?

Yeah.

Yeah, and and also, I mean, I so you spoke to already some of the decision making processes to Councilmember Rink's question in terms of where you're gonna be focusing on the investments.

And I'm curious about um how you know population growth and access to other types of service is also going to come into play in those decisions.

Okay, great, thank you.

So yeah, I would say that the way that the proposal is set up and our relationship with Metro, it is it is flex it does allow us to have a lot of flexibility.

We can we buy on top of what Metro uh delivers, right?

Um, but we can change our investments over time to and will to reflect whatever is happening in the moment.

Um, so like as, for example, Metro is delivering their service area recovery project.

Um, they're gonna be working with community and deciding using their own service guidelines that have a countywide focus um uh where those investments are going to go, and then we would be adding on top of that.

So that allows us to um adjust over time.

If as new light rail stations open up, um like Graham Street station, for example, is is scheduled to open um during the time frame of this measure.

Um, and there is a uh new bus line that Metro is looking at that actually goes down Graham Street that will connect to the light rail station, that would be an opportunity.

I assume there will be a type of mobility project that Metro would undergo and they would restructure their service in that area, and we would use these uh resources to partner with them to figure out where we might want to invest on top, how much service we might want to add on top as an example.

Um in terms of population growth, um, you know uh the frequent transit network is you know codified in the Seattle Transportation Plan.

Um, and as the comp and it already takes into account the comprehensive uh plan growth centers, but if those those are changing and as they change, we can update that uh that vision for our Seattle um uh the frequent transit network um to reflect uh those growing population centers.

So that would result in increases in frequencies to places with um you know more uh greater amount of population, that sort of thing.

So those are in a 10-year time frame.

I would imagine that we would want to update those policy documents to reflect uh growth patterns that as they change.

Got it, that's helpful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Uh, we'll move next to Councilmember Rivera, followed by Councilmember Warez.

Uh, I think you don't have your hand up formally, but if I heard you speak a moment ago, so uh first off, Councilmember Rivera.

Okay, thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

And I just want to um say that uh I'm gonna thank you in advance.

I know we have a briefing scheduled um next week, and I have many questions about the slides.

Um, but I just want to ask here for the public.

Well, let me say something before I I ask my question, and that is uh really appreciate the members of ATU who showed up, really appreciate all our transit drivers and want to make sure we're providing a safe system for our transit drivers.

There are great partners, and I really appreciate them taking the time to come down here and talk to us and give public comment.

Um the next thing I want to say is I actually um I could not be more supportive of public transit having grown up in New York City and not having a driver's license till I was 30 years old.

Um, and I also um lived in the other Washington DC, where I also um uh used public transit.

I got a license right before I moved to Seattle.

So I lived in DC for many many years using public transportation, both buses to get to their metro system and then the metro.

So I have a lot of experience with public transit, and I am so pleased that we have now a light rail system that was not here when I got here, um, and I was uh a frequent bus driver, bus driver, excuse me, bus rider when I uh got here 25 years ago.

So all that to say I have a lot of experience with the transit system.

Um I would um, so my question is um uh what is the spending plan for this next 10 years of this uh proposal?

Um, I it would be helpful to see because there are buckets, and you kind of talked you had the one uh one nineteen million a year for service, but there are other pieces to this, um, one point almost for a billion dollar investment over 10 years.

Um, and so we'd love to see what the spending plan is in detail for each of the buckets, just as a point of transparency and what it's important to show the public what we're getting for those dollars.

Um, can we see a spending plan?

I guess is my question.

Absolutely.

I believe it's in our summary and fiscal note in detail by by year.

Um this is this pie chart is an average over 10 years, so it won't be 138 million dollars in revenue every year, and the spending won't be exactly like this every year, but the idea is that on average these are the amounts and because costs will go up over time over this 10-year period, you should expect lower revenue and lower spending in the beginning and increased that increasing over time to higher amounts of revenue in the end and higher amounts of spending in the end.

Thank you.

And I guess what I would love to see is um, you know, bus service 96 million proposed.

I mean, these are averages, I understand that, and it changes from year to year based on various things, and and I understand the flexibility based on the need.

Um, and I should have also said I really appreciate um the focus on equity because we know, you know, our low-income folks utilize the system more.

I also want um I want a transit system where everybody's using the transit system and getting out of their cars, even if they have cars and limiting the amount of need for a car, and that means that our friends at Metro are gonna have to figure out how to put bus.

There are all swaths of places across the city where there is no robust bus system.

So we're gonna have to work with our friends at Metro to make sure that happens because we keep talking about um getting people out of their cars, the climate environmental impacts, but if we don't have options for them, then they're not gonna get out of their cars.

So that means all across the city getting to those places where there isn't much uh much of a uh bus system, particularly with connections to all the light rail stations.

So putting in a plug for all across the city as well in addition to the priority, which I very much support.

Um, but I'd love to see this bus service, which bus routes, right?

Um, the the transit access programs do we pay for the um uh Seattle public school students get an ORCA car does that does SPS pay for that or do we?

So because that wasn't listed on here, so I wasn't sure.

So we actually pioneered that um through the last Seattle transit measure.

Um we started that um with 300 students at Rainier Beach High School, and we're able to show how successful that was, and it now it's actually paid for by the state completely statewide.

And so we were able to reinvest those dollars and expanding to all of our Seattle Housing Authority um residents.

That's how we re-spent those funds.

Great, thank you for that.

I did not know that.

So that's really great, and it's good for the public to hear.

Um, and then just on the um some of the infrastructure and some of these capital projects, would love to see a list of proposed projects so that people again know we get these questions all the time.

And I, you know, as you all know, I do my due diligence and trying to provide as much transparency and information to the public as we build support for the things that we do, and then of course, particularly because this particular um sales tax increase, uh I have concerns about sales tax increases because of the regressive nature of them, and I and I sometimes feel like we're taxing poor people to support poor people, and so you know, low-income people to we tax low-income people to support low income people, that doesn't feel great.

Um, because folks are really struggling to keep up, and we have one of the highest sales taxes in the city.

So I also would like to see, and I guess central staff will probably give this to us, but just what this point three, in addition to the existing sales tax, what impacts that will have for for our folks, because I'm also mindful that the last time this was passed, it was a 50% increase, but now it's a hundred percent, it's a double.

Um, so I I just you know we need to be transparent and honest about that, and what um uh uh our residents can expect that money will go specifically to I understand there are these big buckets, but it's really important to show what routes, what capital projects, etc.

So thank you.

Um I can share that some of the initial transit capital projects that we're hoping to invest in first, uh, would be um uh safety transit operational safety and access improvements along route 60 and 45.

Um King County Metro has just done a uh large study on uh potential reliability and performance improvements along the Route 60.

So we'd use that as a as a jumping off point.

Um and I just wanted to speak to the specific routes um uh I think we we intend to spend uh to increase these hundred add these hundred thousand hours to the system within the first couple of years of the measure and then carry those through for the the remainder of the time.

So the same levels of service as much or add if we are able to over time uh and partner in partnership with Metro.

So I think we'll be able to deliver this benefit to uh residents very swiftly.

Um and Metro is uh ready to deliver those service hours, and we've already been talking with them about that possibility.

Thank you.

I I still would like to see a list of so um, but we can talk about that also when we meet next week.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

I won't take up any more of your time.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Council Member Wara's uh floor is yours if you have any questions or comments.

I do, and I want to apologize, Chair.

Um I should have raised my hand on the computer.

Um and for the comment that I made when I realized I was unmuted.

Um let me just share this.

Let me just get some baseline info here.

Um obviously I had some problems with page 29 of the uh PowerPoint, but let me just I want to frame this issue so we can put it in context.

So in 1990, we had the American Disabilities Act.

In 2010, we and we enacted the American Disability Act Standards, and then Seattle, and then we passed in 2014 the transit benefit district.

2015, we put together the transit advisory board, 12 members, and then in 2018 we had a consent decree that Seattle wasn't living up to the American Disability Acts, the standards that were put forward for accessibility, and then we have um the plan that we looked at in 2020, the ADA transition plan report, and how we would respond to the consent decree for accessibility, and so my big push was equity and accessibility, and so when I was looking at your PowerPoint, I had two questions I have.

The first question is this.

Did the transit and I think there's a distinction between what you write in the um in your um in the legislation, um, it's interesting to me because in the um other language it's called citizen led, not community led in anyway.

Um did the did s dot or did it the transit advisory board work with the ADA coordinator for SDOT the SDA the S.ADA coordinator in putting together this doubling of this tax so what we have is more services that you're asking for more money double the taxes but less transit infrastructure i.e.

sidewalks so it's all nice of you to all talk about how you love buses and you don't have cars but that doesn't do anyone any good if you don't have sidewalks to get to transit so I want to know whether or not this the transit advisory board worked with you guys and the ADA coordinator to put this together and how you could only come up to three point what is that 3.5 million I mean you don't if you don't have an answer now I would like an answer in maybe in an email or a memo because I went back and looked at the consent decree I went back and looked at the 2020 ADA transition plan report and then I went back and looked at the advisory board the 12 member advisory board is citizen led not community led as is in your legislation.

And I'll tell you one thing I'm always a little bit offended when you start dragging out the words BIPOC and underserved because we're not props so in order to double this tax double the what a hundred thousand extra hours in service but you're not gonna have you have less money for transit infrastructure so I you can either say hey we'll come brief you and give you some more information if you don't have the answer right now and you know the question I think there's a lot of power in these kind of questions I'm just gonna be frank with you um I'm not happy with this legislation.

I think it needs a lot of work and I think you're not optimistic and living in the real world not everyone can you know not have a car.

Some people have to use obviously a bus.

Some people have to drive a car and um I don't think this does that not for asking to double the taxes for 10 years.

So I'll leave it at that Mr Chair thank you.

Thank you council member warez uh council member Strauss uh thank you for yourself thank you um thank you for being here today as a lifelong transit writer I have depended on the bus to get around I would like to be a daily transit writer oftentimes that's not the case because I can't rely on the buses that are on our streets today.

You've heard me say this for many for over a year now I have not been necessarily quiet about it so this is not this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone uh especially after last week's Sound Transit meeting where I was literally clocking when the last direct bus to Ballard left um when I left that sound transit board meeting at about 7 45 p.m I was talking to my Pierce County colleagues it was going to take us the same amount of time to get home they live in Tacoma I live in Ballard.

So I've got a number of questions that we'll get into today I've asked you all of these questions previously so I hope that none of these are a surprise and that you're all ready to have that conversation a couple things that I didn't expect to ask about was regarding the VLF I think Councilmember Foster and I might be asking a similar question here.

I wonder if you could just say a little bit more expand on what you said previously you mentioned that you'd spoken with a lot of people who said that sales tax was better than a VLF because a flat fee impacts people in a different way but in my basic layperson math if somebody's percentage of their income is taken up in sales tax, you know, would they not be overburdened with a larger sales tax fee as compared to being hit with a flat fee?

I will I will I can start in on that um sales tax is a proportion of what you of what a person spends, which is a reflection of what they have available to spend.

And so as a proportion of income, yes, sales tax uh can comprise, especially for low income people a higher amount, but because the VLF is a flat fee, it doesn't uh unlike the Sound Transit MVET, the vehicle license fee, which the council has already passed $50 in vehicle license fee through your councilmatic authority several years ago.

So this would be the remaining $50 that is authorized uh in the legislation would uh impact everybody regardless of whether uh what what your income is and so uh as we as we've mentioned for the average uh household, we believe that the impact of this is $58 a year, um, which if we added the additional $50 VLF would double the cost to the average household, but produce only 12% more resource that we could create benefit for.

So there's a disproportionate impact both to the cost to the individual that is uh very outsized to the benefit that it could create in terms of the investments available.

Okay.

These questions are just based off the presentation that I've seen today.

So I didn't prepare these questions previously.

I'm interested to know more because I'm concerned today, just from the presentation that I've received that we are actually overburdening people who are at the lower ends of the economic spectrum by not using a flat fee because their budgets are smaller.

So one of the things you said, the amount of money somebody is able to spend, but when somebody is cost burdened, as we saw in the presentation from this Monday at council briefing, we have many of our residents cost burdened.

And so my concern is that we are actually using the sales tax and VLF in the opposite manner, and so I'd love to learn more.

Happy to be wrong.

I hope I'm wrong, but I have great concern there today.

Can I just add a quick note just because I think it's relevant and would love for people to hear this?

Uh, just in terms of sales tax and what it applies to, I think it's worth just mentioning really quickly what is not subject to sales use tax.

Um, so people do not pay sales tax on groceries, on rent, mortgage payments, personal care products like soap, shampoo, et cetera, diapers prescriptions and over-the-counter medications.

Uh, just wanted to highlight that that uh, you know, sales tax does not apply to some really critical household essentials.

Thank you.

Can we click to slide 30?

Uh, sorry, 27.

I was going for 27.

Seattle Housing Authority, man, I love Seattle Housing Authority.

I've had the opportunity to be their neighbor multiple times in multiple different locations.

The folks that live in our Seattle Housing Authority buildings are amazing.

Some of my favorite neighbors.

Seattle Housing Authority, I think many people don't realize it's not actually a city of Seattle program that they are their own independent agency.

Can you help me understand why we chose the Seattle Housing Authority and not other programs where the City of Seattle funds housing for folks who are low income?

Yeah, the Seattle Housing Authority is um a really wonderful partner.

Um, one of the challenges with um getting delivering the benefit of ORCA cards to residents who need them is actually like getting cards into people's hands and managing and tracking, you know, who has which ORCA card, what's the serial number?

If they need a replacement, all of that.

And the Seattle Housing Authority has been a proven partner over many years.

Uh we started off with a pilot program with several uh several different properties, and then we're able to expand, as I mentioned before, to all Seattle Housing Authority properties, um, and they've just done a really amazing job of that.

Um, and so uh there has been a lot of community interest specifically in expanding to um housing choice vouchers, which is also administered by the Seattle Housing Authority.

Um, and so like going through this one uh uh quasi-governmental agency, we're able to reach um the vast majority of folks who are living in low income subsidized housing.

And so it's a way to uh easily uh and quickly actually deliver the passes to as many people as possible.

It can be very, very challenging to actually get cards in people's hands and track them, um, track them reliably.

So for the next 10 years, we are only gonna provide additional access to Seattle Housing Authority residents, not anyone who's low income or anyone who's living in one of our affordable housing units.

Yes, we would be proposing to go through this uh this carry forward with this uh plan.

If there were other opportunities to expand, uh we would look into that if there was funds available to do that.

Obviously, we'd love to provide free ORCA cards to everyone who's low income and meets these uh meets these criteria, but it is it's really challenging.

There's to do that.

And the expansion here is to go from SHA residents to SHA residents and housing choice voucher holders.

So it's uh it's a significant expansion, additional 12,000 people.

100% I love expanding low income ridership opportunities for free to you know zero to zero dollars.

I love the idea.

What I'm concerned with is the response that I just heard is if funds are available, yet this is the funding package in which we are we are going to approve of, and what I'm seeing is that we just initial reaction.

I am concerned that our focus is too narrow and that we are not providing ourselves the ability to provide free access to transit for low-income people no matter where they live.

I'm gonna keep going on because I've got a long list of questions and share where over time, but these are really important questions that I'd like to get on the record.

So I'm just gonna keep moving on, if you will.

Um, looking at slide 29, construction funding.

I might actually be in a different position than Council President Emeritus Juarez here, which is construction funding in this package.

How much construction funding was left over from the most recent Seattle Transit Benefit District measure?

You mean the first one, the 2014 one?

Sure, or the second one.

I mean, we've we've had two.

How much money do we have in the bank today, please?

Um, I know at the end of this measure we will have fully spent down all of the uh capital dollars that we have allocated.

Wonderful.

Good.

That's great.

Uh how about in the most recent transportation measure, which is the largest benefit levy that we've passed for transit transportation?

How much construction funding, how much funding do we have associated to assist transit?

Uh the eight-year levy, yeah, the eight-year levy included about 151 million dollars over eight years.

Um, the spend plan for 25 allocated 12.6 million and the spend plan for 26 allocated 14.1 million dollars.

That's a an amazing investment.

I'm very excited about that.

My question here is why are we spending money in the transit measure that, in my opinion, was designed to increase the amount of bus hours that we have available to us.

Why are we taking from the ability to expand bus hours to provide concrete and asphalt in which the transportation levy just funded?

I mean, think just I think that's a great question.

I think that's part of the trade-offs that we've been talking about throughout the conversation today.

Um, I think what you see in this proposal is a return to the sort of baseline that was in the 2020 proposal.

So I think it's in alignment with some of the thinking that this is a service first measure.

Um, and we thought there's still value in some amount of ability to put in those speed and reliability improvements that make our dollar go further.

It's really the focus here is what are the small insertions we can do so that every hour we purchase, the bus can get through faster and it's not stuck.

100%.

That's why the transportation levy in investments were so critical to me.

Although 2020 reinvestment in the STM, that was when we reduced bus hour service.

Is that not correct?

Yes.

Yep.

So we'll get into that in just a minute.

I have concern that we are paying for asphalt and concrete when we should be providing additional service hours in our city.

Uh moving on to sound Transit number 28, please.

Um what positions do these funds?

Sorry, I was taking this.

You're asking about the sound transit positions.

Yes.

Um, so these uh this funding goes toward um the planning the permitting engineers needed and necessary to review West Seattle link extension and Ballard link extension projects that will run through our city the largest infrastructure project related to transit in our city.

This funds the city's team to review uh and provide that key partnership as Sound Transit constructs their projects through the city we're gonna need to plan for construction coordination mobility impacts that part of this would fund that as well we also have a series of planning for capital projects that the city will lead to support um the light rail system and specifically around station uh locations so stationary planning stationary designs um how to get people to and from those light rail those critical new right light rail stations um from the city's perspective thank you and just for while we are here until we receive full funding for the ballard link extension I'd kindly ask us to refer to the that that extension is the downtown tunnel because it does not get to Ballard today.

Thank you that's very helpful it's my understanding though that the permitting and the engineers those are fee based positions so are we proposing to pay for those positions with tax dollars instead of the fees that are generated from pulling those permits we have a combination of income uh you that we're utilizing to pay for um sound transits projects so we do we are continuing the fee based but we also need to support the city um level of effort to to look really look at those station locations and plan and build out uh a system that works for communities to get to and from those light rail stations a good example is um uh the pinehurst station that will open up later this fall and some of the improvements that we're making and we're using levy money um for that but uh this would help support those types of projects where we're um you know building improvements to get to and from those new stations so the fee based positions that we provided in the budget either last year or the year before this funding would pay for those fee-based positions this would be on top of the the fee-based positions it's about half and half it's a yeah it's a combination we can I'm happy to we can give you more information offline um that specific question I have large concerns with us paying for fee based positions with taxpayer dollars it's a departure from the past it is one of the options that we have when we're stabilizing the core funding uh the core fund for uh our planners and our permit reviewers but this is a this is a departure that I that I have some concern with we can we can follow up in the past and I guess my question here is if the city of Seattle is putting funding into actually let me ask the other question do we have any of the station area planning funded through the transportation levy as well less on the planning side more on the building side we have once a project has been identified so you can there's a there's a period before a project goes into the design phase where there's a sort of conceptualization and actually scoping phase we have less money for that in the levy and and more for the taking it from 10% you know 10% design to construction that make sense yeah so the and that's where I I thought I had remembered the Pinehurst station improvements coming from the levy from the transportation levy there are some uh there are some funds for that in the 2024 levy yes okay what you're hearing from me is deep concern that we're asking for taxpayers to pay for things twice I'm not quite clear on the different streams and where these streams are landing I'm gonna just keep ticking on we can happy to follow up after this and I guess just last question is if we are adding money into the Ballard link extension and the West Seattle link extension.

Will the mayor be fully supportive of getting construction full construction funding to Ballard.

Last week the mayor the the mayor has been very supportive of full funding for Ballard uh throughout the entirety of this conversation and was happy to join you in taking a unanimous vote to that exact matter to put forward amendments which asked for future funding and ensures that we deliver on voter approved promises to uh and expectations to build to Ballard.

Was that it?

So what I heard is yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um let's tick into talking about service hours, the most important part of this transit measure, because that's what we were promised in 2014 when Metro had to start reducing hours for our city's delivery, and we said, Well, if King County is not going to pass a transit measure, Seattle sure, we love our transit, so we're gonna do it.

At that time, how many service hours were we providing?

We can use 2019 as a baseline pre-pandemic, 2014, 2019.

I don't have that number off the top of my head.

Um, sorry.

If I recall correctly, it was over 300,000 hours.

It was over 300,000, yes.

Thank you.

How and how many hours did we have in 2020?

It was 350,000 hours, actually.

350,000 hours in 2019.

Gosh, take me back.

Um, I don't know what they actually went down to, but we because of the pandemic, there was a reduction.

Yes, that's true.

And the reason I ask is because my entire life I've been able to walk to a bus stop until September of 2021.

And that was the first time that I've not been able to walk to a bus stop in my entire life.

And it was not because I moved, it was because this bus stop, a bus line was canceled.

And I can live with that, to be really frank, I don't need my bus stop to come back because what I my travel patterns changed.

If I drive to the bus now, um, I drive to the bus that can get me directly to where I'm going.

What and what I've found is that well, we'll get into it in just a minute.

How much service did we have in 2021 after that reduction?

Sorry, I do I don't have those numbers off the top of my head.

I am so sorry.

I thought I prepped you for all these questions because these are the same questions I asked you when we briefed previously.

So my apologies.

I am not intending to put you on the spot.

That's why I asked you all these questions when we met and independently.

Um and then how sorry, I'm just gonna rattle these off.

How many hours are we experiencing today and how many are proposed?

So at the end of this measure, we'll have 180 over 180,000 hours, and we're proposing to add a hundred thousand more to get us to two hundred and eighty thousand hours.

Um there will be additional service from Metro through their service area recovery project, which um can address some of the other uh uh service hours that were reduced during the COVID pandemic.

Thank you.

And just to note though, in the summer of 2021, we had better bus service than we had in the fall of 2021, and that was during during the height of the pandemic, right?

As we were coming out of the pandemic, it was not that we had less bus service during the pandemic.

So just want to clarify that.

What I'm hearing today is that we today are experiencing less than half of the transit hours purchased than we did in 2019.

And I just say that because we had 350,000 hours in 2019, and we have 160,000 hours today.

And what I'm hearing is a doubling of this tax to be able to provide less than 280,000 hours, which is less than what we had in 2019.

I am asking these questions because I'm a huge proponent of more buses, more reliability, more frequency.

I want more buses and I want them yesterday.

Um I representing this accurately.

Um, so costs have gone up.

Absolutely.

Which is what we were trying to describe in terms of um cost to deliver service, including metro service has gone up, and that has impact impacts how much we're able to fund in this next measure, given other priorities that are included.

And can we tick to slide?

Well, I'll just ask this question, and there are five routes that I'm gonna be asking about.

The twenty-eight and the five both had higher rates of service previously that were reduced.

The Route 20, I don't, was a bit of a redundant route for most of it, but it reduced service in uh on Linden between 65th and 55th.

Let's actually, if we could go to slide five, this might actually be descriptive of the Route 20 issue.

So I hope that I am wrong, but when you are looking at the Tangletown area of this map, there's a light blue line.

I think that you're there might be two different bus routes that you're conflating here.

I believe that the bus route that goes through Tangletown actually turns north about halfway between your north, your two north and south areas.

Because what I'm seeing is on your far right is that I believe that you're actually representing the Route 20 that's been canceled.

So just a little bit of concern there.

Um I want to take a look at this map importantly.

In 2019, Ballard had the routes 15, 18, and 17.

How many trips total were between those three routes in 2019?

I don't know that off the top of my head.

I am so sorry.

I thought I prepped you for all of these questions.

Did not mean to catch you off guard.

Um how many trips between those three routes occur today?

I also don't have that information.

I'm again so sorry, I thought we prepped for this.

So it is four trips into downtown per day and four trips out of downtown per day.

The reason that I say that this is the only direct bus service to and from Ballard to downtown is because the D line, if uptown's downtown, then the D line goes directly downtown.

But the uptown jog is not like I will take the D line to Seattle Center, but if I need to rely on it anywhere past Seattle Center, it's not reliable for me.

Route 40 is a total milk run, which I love for many different reasons, but it is an hour, it is 45 minutes to an hour to get from this destination here to downtown Ballard.

I'm not stumping just for my neighborhood.

I am trying to represent an area that the city has decided, decided to focus job and housing growth in a denser fashion than many other parts of our city.

There are many people that I grew up with in Ballard that did not like the changes that are happening in Ballard.

The family that used to be able to afford to uh the American dream is not able to.

They have been displaced from the neighborhood because the city has chosen to focus density and growth in the neighborhood, and yet on this map, what I'm seeing is that the best Ballard has is frequent 10-minute trans transit.

Am I missing sorry, am I am I mistaken there?

Um, I see I'm not trying to be contradictory, so that apologies.

Um I just see uh so the green lines are better than 10 minute, yellow is frequent 10, blue is frequent 15, and I see um both yellow and blue lines um in Ballard, and no green, correct.

Yeah, and the yellow lines that are represented are the lines that are on these milk runs that I've just discussed.

There's no well, um, maybe if we could go to slide three.

It has been my understanding that we have been able to, we have been able to collect the amount of tax revenue that Seattleites desire to have used for transit service, but yet we have not been able to use that full amount of funding, because, and I'm not trying to point fingers, I'm just trying to talk about reality.

Uh Metro has had a shortage of operators, shortage of buses, other implications.

But the whole point of the Seattle Transit measure is that Seattleites are paying for more service for Seattleites to use.

How much of the funding have we collected that we have not been able to use for transit hours?

I don't know that we can speak to an exact number of hours there, but uh or dollars, um, but we have uh worked, we've been able to add as many service hours as Metro's been able to deliver.

Um, and as mentioned in terms of the capital additional capital funds, um, that's we were able to pivot and use capital funds in that time when uh Metro was uh less able to uh deliver service additional service uh to improving um access to transit and speeding up um and making uh transit more reliable um throughout the city.

Uh and Metro is at a place um where they are able to deliver more service.

Um as I mentioned, we plan uh should this proposal move forward.

We've received uh Metro has let us know that they would be able to add those hundred thousand service hours within the first two years of the um of the measure uh so they would be able to deliver on that, and that's one of the reasons we uh want to make sure that we're uh expanding transit service as much as we possibly can.

Thank you, but today we do not know how many dollars we have not been able to use.

We will spend we will be, we are at the level where we're getting as we're spending all the dollars committed on transit service from the 2020 measure, and we are getting the service that we're requesting from Metro.

I will say yes and no to that.

One of the reasons that we're able to do that is because of my favorite new program, the Golden Gardens direct bus.

Golden Gardens is one of the only parks in our city that does not have direct bus, doesn't have any bus access at all.

And it's akin to Alki.

We'll go on in just a minute to see the maps between Golden Gardens and Alcai.

I'm so excited about the Golden Gardens direct bus service.

And the only reason that we've been able to pay for it is because we cannot pay Metro enough to have regular service, and so I'm both super excited for this program and super excited that we have a funding source that is able to create the Golden Gardens direct.

But more than getting to the Golden Gardens on a bus, I'd rather be able to rely on transit every day rather than just three three months of the year.

Um, can we go to slide 24?

So now getting into your present your and chair, I'll try to wrap up briefly here.

Um, so potential new services service here.

Uh I see that there is no new direct service to Ballard.

Is that correct?

Um we can't add new routes through this measure.

We add additional service on Metro's routes, so we have improvements in um in Ballard as well on this as a as an illustrative example.

But the 17 is currently running today.

Is that not correct?

Um I believe that's an express route.

That's correct.

And we uh STM, um, we don't currently fund express routes um uh because we're trying to make have a broader benefit to as many people as possible.

It was only made at an express route because Metro decided that they couldn't continue funding it at a full-time route.

So it used to be a full-time route and changed to an express route.

Is there any reason that we can't make it a full-time route?

Or the and like getting back to it, I don't care if you use the 15, the 17, the 18, I don't even care if you get all the way out into the ends of of those lines because candidly I think that the ends of the lines are a little bit too far.

All I'm talking about is how do you get more bus service from downtown Ballard to downtown Seattle from downtown Ballard to our link light rail?

Do we have any proposals to connect the regional center of Ballard to downtown directly or to light rail directly?

So I think uh what we're what we're saying is that we we at this moment sitting here um don't have an ability to commit to new routes because this is something we purchase we purchased hours, we don't purchase new routes.

Um certainly as uh Jen has mentioned, there is a whole in our future years there is a um service analysis that Metro No is planning on doing, and as part of that, there will probably be changes to routes.

We don't know what those are at this moment, um but STM will still move forward with a purchase on existing lines, and in collaboration with King County Metro, and through those discussions, could make final decisions on which which what gets funded.

So I'm hearing maybe to Yeah, no, that's fine.

I'm just looking I mean, but that's the answer.

That's the answer.

Like I'm not trying to be silly or like coy, I'm just trying to be direct as to what do we know today.

It's certainly it's a collaboration and conversation that's ongoing with King County Metro.

And the one bright line is that we will buy hours on routes that exist.

If over time a route comes, we we will definitely run it through our formula and buy by hours if that if it's in existence.

And do we have the policy choice of purchasing hours on express routes?

Is that why the 28 and the five also have reduced or I guess the 28 specifically has reduced service?

Um I can't speak to that that specifically, but we do provide uh we do support you know the D line service on the D line Route 40.

We did talk in our briefing about uh the significant investments we do make in the Ballard area, and I think uh what we're trying to illustrate through this uh example or potential places where we would invest um with an additional 100,000 service hours is that um we we think Ballard would be well served by that, um, and we would be able to add additional service in that area connecting folks all over the city.

And this is where I think we're we're maybe talking past each other a little bit using the D line or the Route 40 from Union Station back to Ballard takes me the same amount of time as it takes my Pierce County colleagues to get back to Tacoma.

That's the problem that I'm trying to solve.

So Route 40 and D-line are absolutely important and critical, and I'm here to support them.

But what I'm saying is how if Ballard has been asked to take on the regional density and job growth, how are we not creating a direct line there?

Um, I think uh obviously the travel time that people experience is a really important factor in their choices.

So absolutely uh we share a concern that people have effective and timely connections.

Um the rapid ride system is right now, as far as a sort of surface-running transit system goes, the best product we have out there to offer people fast, schedule-free, reliable service, which is why we have sort of stepped up to, you know, the the for example on the map it had showed uh less than 10 minute service on through Interbay up to Ballard, right?

So it doesn't get you through Ballard, but it gets you to Ballard.

15th and Leary is a stretch.

Sure, sure.

I'm sorry, like I don't I don't mean to be rude here.

Yeah, no, understood.

I I think one of the challenges we have is sort of physical is the physical reality of moving through a dense urban environment, which is different than than going distance on you know on a on a dedicated right-of-way.

We too want to get people through the city as quickly as we can.

That the rapid ride product is our best way to do it right now.

A new route would be stuck in traffic too.

Um so a new route though of 17, 18 or 15 takes.

Let's if we could go to slide 25.

The 15 the D line is the used to be the 15.

And this route here that's described uh in the third column, is actually an amalgamation of the old 15 and the old 18 routes, and so um that's how much of a transit geek I am around here.

And so this route, the 15 is literally this route, except it doesn't go to uptown.

Okay.

So you're saying that we don't have the ability to run that route.

Are we able to run the D line an express D line that doesn't go to uptown?

I I think I'm saying something slightly different, which is that the ability to move people quickly at grade with the time it takes to on off and fair pay is a reality that we're dealing with and getting people as quickly as possible there, and that right now that that product that we have in the in the rapid ride with prepayment and all the things that come with it are is the is the fastest way we can move people through, and perhaps there are more opportunities for for uh lanes and other transit signal priority that will help, but there's just a sort of physical friction challenge we're all faced with here.

You're one of my favorite people to work with because of this type of conversation.

We we are totally aligned, just like we are totally aligned on this, and that's one of the things that I love working about you without having this depth of the conversation.

You weren't in the pre-meeting, so you didn't hear any of this, and you and I are already straight aligned.

What I'm saying is that the geographical choice of going through uptown creates a reduction, it expands the amount of time it takes to get anywhere, so much so that it becomes less reliable or sometimes unreliable, and that's because we have one-lane roads on and off of up on and off of Queen Anne.

And that's and there's no room for a bus lane.

Like there's no like there's one lane total.

And so that that's what that is.

This is the problem that I'm sharing with you, um, because for in the original Seattle Transit measure, we had over 300,000 service hours.

And actually, this is where if you could go to slide 30.

My question here is we had over 300,000 service hours in the first round of STM, and I appreciate the last point here.223% sales tax is the baseline for renewal.

How much more service would we get if we used all of our service dollars today?

The 180%.

I don't understand.

I don't understand the question I'm saying.

If I didn't have last year in the budget, I had the ability to reroute Seattle Transit Measure dollars to fund the Golden Gardens Direct Bus because we were not fully utilizing all of the dollars in our budget for Metro to run service.

How much of the point two two three percent?

How much more service could we get from to as compared to today, if we were able to utilize all of the current dollars that we have earmarked for transit service?

So maybe I'm just thousand.

It's 180,000 service hours.

That's what that's what this is.

So this is the there is no change to the level of service that we would be able to buy would be 180,000 hours.

It would be the status quo, the exact the measures renewed exactly as it is.

We would be already having to increase the sales tax rate to 0.223, but but frankly, we are uh delivering as much service as as Metro is able to provide.

So we'll again be at a hundred over 180,000 hours at the end of this uh measure.

There, yeah, there's no that that issue that existed 2018, 2019, and coming out of the pandemic where Metro um was struggling to keep up with demand in terms of drivers, mechanics, base capacity, vehicles, that's not an issue anymore.

They're able to provide the service that we want to buy.

Um, can you actually go to the map about the equity distribution on this in the city?

And this is something that I want to be really clear about.

I'm not looking to take service hours from any other part of the city.

Council Member Schroels, I'll ask you to please wrap up questions and ask uh maybe some of the we're starting to dive into very detailed specific questions.

I know you received a briefing, but I'll ask that you uh as much as possible get another briefing offline and dive deeper into some of these details.

Thank you.

This will be my last set of questions here.

Um, and it's an important point that I want to make.

I'm not asking to take money from other parts of the city.

In this analysis, you see that Ballard is a low priority area on your map.

And I don't need to take money from other routes from other parts of our city.

The questions that you've heard me ask today are how do we use our dollars more efficiently to provide the take buses if you take one bus off of Route 40, one bus off of Route D, and you create a direct line, you have created 50% more direct service to Ballard than you have today.

That's one bus from each of those lines.

And so I'm not looking, but when I look to West Seattle with my friend Councilmember Saka, in Al Qae, there's more investment than in Ballard.

West Seattle is not, no offense, but you're not a regional center, but Ballard is, and so West Seattle's not being asked to focus the housing and jobs in the same way as Ballard is.

And yet West Seattle has more direct service.

I'll chair, I'll wrap up here just to say it feels through this conversation, it feels like Metro's forgotten about Ballard.

Last week, Sound Transit forgot about Ballard.

And today it feels like this proposal is forgetting about the Ballard Regional Center that is being asked to take on more housing and job growth than other parts of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Uh appreciate your zealous advocacy for uh your district, including Ballard.

I know the intent there was not to pit.

Uh Ballard against West Seattle.

They are both wonderful, unique and vibrant communities.

Uh I will say though that uh West Seattle is Seattle's largest neighborhood by both population and landmass.

Uh but again, both wonderful vibrant communities.

Uh I had planned colleagues on on going up till uh about one today.

Uh and as was noted, we are we are running long.

Um I have I have some some brief closing comments to make.

We have looks like one more question, uh, and I want to be mindful and respectful of uh of our 100% volunteer uh co-chair's time for the tab.

Who are next agenda item?

Um I think they they said they they need about five ten minutes uh then additional questions.

So we're we're still on track, we're still tracking for that.

One more uh question, hopefully it's fairly brief, Councilmember Rivera, floor is yours.

Yes, thank you, um chair.

Um I just wanted to ask for the record um page 30.

Um, as you all know, I have concerns about the sales tax increase, regressive, and also this is a doubling.

Um, so if you go to the baseline, it would be uh.22 about sales sales tax instead of point fifteen.

But then you wrote here anything less would require cuts from today's level of investment, and that didn't make sense because a baseline renewal um uh denotes that you're gonna if we continue to do what we're doing, it would be a point to two per it would be 0.22 percent.

So it sounds like what you're saying is if we don't go to the point three, we can't do the additional things that are in here, and there are additional things in here, so I just want to be really clear because this is misleading that somehow if we don't do the point three, it's gonna cut to today's.

And I and that's I don't think that's true.

It will cut additional things that we want to add in here, and I think for me, therein lies also the rub is we keep doubling everything, and on sales tax in particular, it is the most regressive, which then I want to say on page 19 when you talk about you recognize it's regressive and you're looking at the the burden versus the benefit, but it's gonna benefit um the folks who you are your who are most impacted by the regressive nature of this that doesn't um land well, I think because um uh on the one hand we're saying they're you know we don't want them to have to be burdened, but then we're saying, but we're gonna tax them and burden them so then we can give them something on the back end.

It just that doesn't make sense to me.

And so this is why I'm always very um concerned about sales tax increases and uh why I raised that earlier.

So I am concerned about this particular proposal, but I do and I do want to hear more about the particulars, including the spending plan, because of that.

Um, but I do have concerns about the price tag of this proposal and this constant doubling of everything that we seem to be doing because we're talking about affordability on one side of you know, on the one hand, and then we're like doubling everything, and and I don't think that takes into account.

Um, uh that that is creating an affordability issue for folks.

So thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to say that for the record and correct that slide, because that's important.

Thank you.

One one final comment, one one final.

Can we just address the so I just wanted to address slide 30 in the question about it?

It's kind of the footnote at the bottom of the screen there.

Um the baseline currently is.15.

And so just to be clear, the.15 is not enough to continue carrying the level of service that we have carried over the last several years.

What would be necessary um if we were going to continue with the same hours would be the point two two three.

That's what we were trying to say there, um, Councilmember Rivera.

So I hope that's more clear.

Uh, but we can we can always answer questions behind the scenes here.

Yes, thank you, because I understood that to mean the point three.

I thought the way it was written was a little confusing, so thank you for but so we could have done a point two two, but you didn't, and so that's what I also want to hear about because this is again a regressive tax, and so we could have done the point two two and kept the level of service we have today, but instead you went higher, and I didn't hear options for you know less, um, or or even continuing the 0.15, knowing that that you we might not continue today's service.

What what could go?

I mean, it's good to have options, particularly when you're talking about a regressive tax, and I just didn't hear that today, so when we meet, I'd like to hear more about why you chose not to have options that included um, you know, keeping it where it is today, or just keeping or just doing the point two two, which would have kept today's service, but it's less than the point three.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

A couple uh brief comments and additional reflections from my perspective and close this out.

We'll move on to our next item.

Uh so the proposed expansion of transit service at 50% above baseline.

I happen to uh ascribe to the council member Deborah Warez uh model that as you expand service, the surrounding experience, that's what I'll call it, the experience because it's not just infrastructure, the experience of the transit journey should also be uh see some corresponding level of investment and increase, and you know what that looks like varies uh uh on circumstances, but I've said it before, I'll say it again.

Transit service, in my view, is not like the uh the fill the dreams.

If you build it or expand it, they will come.

You need to we need to create a more robust, vibrant, safe transit experience, so people are actually delighted and excited to take transit, and um, and then and only then will we better achieve all of our stated policy goals, whether it relates to climate and the environment, you know, economy, uh, reduced congestion, density, growth housing, whatever it is, and so that whole experience, whether whether we're talking first and foremost, in my view, is is safety, the whole issue of transit safety and security.

Um the was referenced earlier, the 2024 voter approved transportation levy investment of nine million dollars.

There's some conversation there about and assumptions made about the adequacy and sufficiency of that level of investment.

Now I want to note two things.

I happen to think it's an inadequate and insufficient amount.

I want to note two things since that time.

Two significant events have happened, first and foremost, King County Metro operator Sean Yim, operator number 2021 eight eight two, was tragically murdered in the line of duty on 12 18, 2024, December 18th.

Fallen.

ATU member.

Murdered for just doing his job, trying to get people safely to their job or their connection or wherever they need it to go.

I have here in my hand a patch.

Let us never forget the service and sacrifice of Sean Yim.

That highlighted the huge need and imperative to improve the transit experience.

Yes, and including safety.

That's why I think we can't hang our hats on a previous investment before a couple significant events happen, and think that's that's enough.

The second key thing that happened as a result of Sean's tragic loss, there was enough political will created around our region to create the King County Regional Transit Safety and Security Task Force.

They released over a hundred-page plus report with some very concrete specific steps and investments and things that all jurisdictions can do to improve transit safety and security.

And also one of the key learnings from that is this notion that improving transit safety and security is a shared responsibility.

It's not one, it's not a responsibility borne by any one jurisdiction or not.

And this, because you're a your operator of the service, and we're just a customer, you you do it, and you know, we'll include whatever in our baseline, but we're not going above on top of that.

In terms of gravy, no Seattle must invest on top of that.

Um, and so this this opportunity here with this proposed renewal of the transportation benefit district gives us also a unique corresponding opportunity to revisit those levels of investment for transit safety and security, and actually implement if we have the political will, some of those bold, but admittedly to some maybe less sexy ideas, we're actually improving the transit safety and security experience, operators, riders alike.

I believe there is will.

Point number two, as was kind of surface in a few of the conversations and exchanges with my colleagues, uh, I generally agree with the principle of service first approach that I heard for funding of this measure at the at the priority at the principal level.

I think probably all of us, most of us are aligned.

It's not what it's we're not limited to that, but under authorized uses under state law, but I agree with that generally service first.

The real, you know, some of the most productive conversations happen when well, what does that mean?

And putting aside the fact that the proposal would double the sales tax rate, impact affordability, expand service by 50%, but not add additional on top of baseline investments to improve the transit safety and experience, transit safety and security experience, or add any new ADA accessibility wraps or ramps, curb ramps in light of the rent and consent decree, uh, any other ADA accessible features, new an occasional new sidewalk or two to connect people safely to transit.

Um, and again, we'll we'll talk more about this at the next meeting when we have our central staff analysis, but uh the authorized the legislative authorized amount based off of material changes in scope that were duly authorized and approved by the council of of capital is 12.7 million dollars annually and this proposal with significant uh doesn't even not only does it not adjust that baseline level for inflation.

What it the the net result is a significant reduction in that.

So those are some of the important policy conversations we're gonna have here in this body in open in plain sight, uh in a transparent manner for everyone to see.

But I appreciate the comments, appreciate the the presentation, appreciate our partners at the mayor's office, the executive, uh the department for bringing forth this proposal.

Now, we will now move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Agenda item two, briefing and discussion, Seattle Transit Advisory Board consultation on the proposed 2026 Seattle Transit Measure.

All right.

Will our presenters please join us at the table?

Welcome.

When you're ready, please introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

This is how this works.

Great.

Uh, thank you, Council and uh Chair Saka for having us here today.

We know it's been a long meeting with a lot of information, so we do not want to take up too much more of your time.

What we've passed out to you is a letter that the Transit Advisory Board passed yesterday, uh, which we'll kind of draw off of for our conversation today.

Um, detailing our reaction to the mayor's proposal.

Um, to introduce ourselves, my name is Ashwin Pumbla.

I'm one of the co-chairs of the transit advisory board.

Hi, my name is Zach Burton.

I'm also a co-chair on the transit advisory board.

And just to give some context, the transit advisory board is the public oversight committee of the STM and its funds.

We have been on the board for a handful of years now, so we have been briefed on the current STM many times, and the current STM has been very successful.

We approve of all the successes of the current STM.

And, you know, just to give some context, like I um I just work in the coffee industry and I'm a car-free resident of Capitol Hill.

I love public transit, I use it every day.

I come from a suburb in Missouri where we had like no public transit.

So to me, public transit is extremely important.

I rely on it, and I can I have lived experience with that.

And with all of that in mind, the TAB as a whole is thrilled with the mayor's proposal.

We wholeheartedly endorse this proposal, which has a great deal of alignment with our priorities.

We laud its focus on improving transit service, meeting frequent transit network goals, expanding transit access through the TAP programs, and keeping essential transit services and connections like the streetcar.

And with this proposal, we see every dollar being collected, being spent as optimally as possible with the vast majority going towards immediate, visible, and effective changes in transit service.

We believe this proposal is exactly what Seattle needs, and that it will pass out the ballot.

Um the great thing about transit service is that we can implement it immediately.

So the STM will make these meaningful changes immediately, and we don't have to wait four or five, six years to see improvements.

Um, I'm gonna let Ashwane go into more some of the details of why we support this, but um we do support the mayor's proposal as a board.

Yeah, and you know, you've heard over the course of the last couple weeks and a couple hours the details of this proposal.

We don't need to tell it to you all again, but just to kind of go over what's in our letter and and what Zach uh spoke to, uh, we agree that uh our maybe before that I'll take a step back and say like every year the tab gets numerous presentations on how STM dollars are spent in that year.

Every year we formulate a letter, we send it out to council, and I bring this up to say that we have seen how these funds have been used, and I we more than anybody agree as the public oversight board that it's our responsibility as a board and collectively to ensure these funds are used responsibly, and I really want to stress that in our estimation it has.

Uh, the the best predictor of the future is the past.

We are very, very happy with the reports that we've gotten from SDOT over the years, how we've seen this money be spent.

Um, and so going forward for the new measure.

Sorry, one second.

We know that there's been a lot of talk and and rightful concern over any increase in taxation.

And we just kind of want to bring up the idea again that it is not only all of Seattle, but especially those most cost pressed who are going to benefit from the investments that this makes.

Two years ago, the council, and I know it was a different council then.

I do believe that still a majority of the members are the same.

Two years ago, council unanimously passed the Seattle Transportation Plan, which included many different items for a 20-year plan for the city, right?

In this was the frequent transit network.

In this as well, was the climate change response framework, which uh laid out the city's plan to address climate change by tackling an aggressive mode shift away from single occupancy vehicles towards transit.

Um this measure was passed unanimously by council because I believe that council then understood that these were changes that we needed that that weren't optional over the next 20 years.

They were needed from an affordability angle.

They were needed from a safety angle, from a climate angle, and also a geometry angle.

Uh, I believe some public speakers brought this up earlier that Seattle's a growing city, and there is legitimately geometrically, physically, not enough space for us to keep using single occupancy vehicles in the same way we are now.

So here we have a chance to take these plans and move them off of just aspirations.

Uh we have a chance so that in 2044, we're not looking back at the last 20 years, looking back at the grand designs we had and asking where did we go wrong?

Uh, what steps didn't we take?

We believe this measure is a step in that direction.

Um, and we highly encourage council to uh keep that in mind over the amendment process.

Um, as part of amendment process, we will the tab will you know stay in tune and we'll send out letters to all of you as we um understand more of what your amendments are, you know, offering our perspective.

And I also wanted to thank uh, you know, we reached out to council members over the last couple months, and thank you so much to those who we were able to meet with um and you know understand the priorities of your district, and we really want to work together with all of you to make sure that this legislation is uh the landmark piece of legislation that it can be going forward.

That's all we have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I hear something.

Oh, I said thank you as well.

Oh, cool, cool.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Burton, Mr.

Uh Boomblah.

How do you pronounce your last name, Ashman?

That was pretty good, Boombla.

It's it's a tricky one.

Alright, all right, super cool one though.

Um, well, thank you, gentlemen both for uh for your presentation, your overview, and it's like uh the letter was just presented here.

Uh skimmed it, but I'll review it more closely in detail um data today uh later.

So thank you.

Colleagues, uh welcome any questions or comments you may have.

And remember, we're our own worst enemy from potentially getting out of here.

Uh well, I'll start with you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

Respectfully request to extend this meeting another 45 minutes.

I am totally joking.

I'm so sorry.

Um, thank you for being here.

Thank you for this letter.

Very timely.

You align with me in so many ways.

That first bullet point of we an even larger percentage I am reading from their letter, the bolded section.

Or I guess the whole sentence is to this end, we also believe an even larger percentage of funds, at least 60%, should be spent directly on transit service.

100% agree.

I guess when we're stuck in these plans these moments, we're limited to either increase the total amount of revenue or to create trade-offs within the within the package as described.

That's why you saw me ask a whole lot of questions about the other parts of this program because I'm already looking.

How do we increase the amount of tra transit service that we purchase?

I get I'll ask the three questions, and this is like the end point, right?

But were you was the transit transit advisory board?

Were you asked to give your input during the development of this?

We were okay, great.

And then when you were asked to sign off on this, were you provided any different options that you that could be taken into account, whether it was like VLF or if you wanted to move things around within this levy, how would you were you provided that opportunity?

Yeah, um it was less that we signed off, I should say, on on the proposal, but we were briefed through over the last year at many different times with how the proposal was going.

We gave our feedback, we did see kind of um uh over the last couple months different options.

And and in that moment, you know, we have a specific subcommittee dedicated to STM.

That subcommittee gave its opinions on which of those options uh we we preferred the most the most, yeah.

Fantastic.

And was your feedback put into the plan or was it just listened to?

Um we see uh it's hard to tell how much came from us and what was incorporated as a direct part of our feedback and how much was coming from SDOT and the mayor's office in general, but as our letter kind of points out, we see a great deal of alignment.

Um kind of the letter that we sent on March to all of council goes over kind of the main points that we were looking at, which was yes, increasing to from 0.15 to 0.3% sales tax.

Yes, having a 60% minimum spent on transit service, and we were delighted to see that the mayor's proposal included the same.

And so if you had a magic one, how would we get to at least 60% transit service?

Last question, and I don't need to speak again, Chair.

I I might I may be misrepresenting things with which for which I'll ask uh the folks at SDOT to maybe correct me after the fact.

But we had our tab meeting yesterday.

We talked, we got a presentation on STM, and I believe that uh that 60% minimum is in this mayor in the mayor's proposal already.

Yeah, right.

Awesome, all right.

Well, thank thank you.

Uh any other final questions, comments, colleagues.

Oh, and I just wanted to say uh we'll be sending out this letter in e in email form as well.

So sorry, I know Councilmember Juarez, uh will be able to send that to you too as well.

Yeah, it'd be nice.

Thanks.

We'll do.

Um excuse me.

Terrific.

Well, thank you.

Uh, really appreciate you gentlemen again.

Uh appreciate your partnership as well offline.

I feel so speaking of adequacy and sufficiency.

Every time I engage with you guys, I feel so totally inadequate and insufficient in terms of level of coolness, your vibes, your coolness vibes and look, like I just love it.

And thank you for dressing up for this occasion.

Uh, but you're still very cool.

Uh thank thank you, everyone.

One final comment to close us out, and and I'm gonna say this because I know uh some of our partners at the from the executive are still here.

I really do love the uh the support and expansion of the transit access in terms of equity um that that is included in this proposal in terms of uh preserving the existing level of people serving, but not only that, expanding that.

Um and some valid questions were asked, some terrific questions from some of my colleagues around you know the appropriate partners to to leverage for that, uh, but at the again, let's start with the principal level and then priority level at the principal and priority level.

I think it's a terrific investment.

Um, and as someone, you know, my my sort of journey and personal experiences are sort of well known and documented at this point, someone who's overcome the foster care system, experienced free and reduced lunch, uh, you know, Section A housing, all those things.

Um, and but uh but more importantly, a very regular robust transit writer over the course of my my life.

Had my first job at age 15.

Uh living in the valley in Kent, took the took the 150 from Kent to South Center Mall to my job at the mall.

And um, you know, it w at the time it was 75 cents for kids or under 18.

Now it's free because of a variety of levels of investment.

And uh I remember vividly, you know, those transfer passes that Metro provides.

I remember collecting all of them, all the colors.

Uh there's you know, it's not just green that they have, they have teal and and uh turquoise and like 14 offshoots of green and then red and same thing.

I had all of well, almost all of them, but they're really they're they're all different, they all include different numbers on them or uh excuse me, uh letters.

And I would I would try and pass those off.

I would I would go to work and and try and save 75 cents in the in the uh afternoon and pass and show the driver.

And the drivers all knew.

They're not they're they're smart people.

They knew the the the letters didn't match up, and they gave me a pass anyway.

So shout out to the operators uh and for all they do to the earlier point.

You know, part of this is about providing opportunity.

There's a certain sense of pride when you touch when you when everyone taps to get in.

I heard one of the operators, ATU members say exactly that.

And I to like to close this out.

This that's what this program, supporting and expanding transit access from an equity perspective, helps all of us do and be dignified when we when we show up and use our vibrant transit network as well.

So thank you all.

Uh we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

The next meeting of the select committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District will be held on June 18, 2026 at 9 30 a.m.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Hearing and seeing none, we are adjourned.

It is 12 47 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you.